#oneaday, Day 260: In Between

I don't watch much TV, unless you count DVD box sets of favourite series like Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel. British TV has three main types: utterly terrible (Last of the Summer Wine, Dad's Army, anything involving Eamon Holmes), moderately inoffensive (usually involving people wandering around houses going "hmm, it's got character") and bloody brilliant (Spaced, Black Books, The IT Crowd, QI). One of the latter category I will always make an effort to watch is The Inbetweeners from Channel 4.

For the uninitiated, The Inbetweeners is a show about a group of four sixth formers (college-age 16-18 year olds, to the Americans among you). And it doesn't pull any punches whatsoever. Rather than being the sanitised view of school/college life that you see in most shows, this show is how it is. At least if you grew up in the late 90s or beyond. Possibly before; I couldn't say, since I only went through my late teens once and did so in the late 90s.

By "realistic", I mean "foul-mouthed, disgusting and sex-obsessed". And yet the characters involved are somehow likeable despite being, in many cases, terrible human beings. It's the contrasts that work well; there's Will the "specky twat", Simon, who is relatively normal despite stropping at his parents every five seconds, Jay the sex-obsessed, lying arsehole and Neil who is so very, painfully stupid. They're the perfect comic foils to each other, and the best thing about the show is that I know (or have at least met) all four of them at some points in my life. And no, I shan't be sharing who each one of them reminds me of!

The other thing that works so well is the variety of scrapes that they all get into. They're all situations that will be familiar to anyone who remembers being a sixth former. Getting your first car and it being crap. Panicking over sexual encounters. Taking advice from your friends even when you know they're a bunch of complete fucking idiots. And finding your place in the world.

I'm probably making this sound deeper than it actually is; mostly it's a comedy show with a wide variety of gross-out humour and a foul mouth. But despite its extremeness at times, it remains consistently entertaining, hilarious and, at times, horrifically uncomfortable.

If I didn't know so many people who loved watching it, I'd say it was perfect viewing for an exclusive audience of teenage boys… or at least those who remember being teenage boys. But judging from my Twitter feed there are a wide variety of people who love the show and feel much like I do; they'll make a specific effort to watch it and will happily quote it at every opportunity.

Channel 4, despite being the home of Big Brother for so long, has long been the home of awesome shows like this. Let's hope there are many more like it in the future; and that audiences around the world get to enjoy them too. With the content as it is, I couldn't say if it would ever make it onto American TV (tonight's episode featured Simon punching himself in the dick whilst shouting "GET BIG, YOU CUNT!" for example) but for those of you across the pond who like the idea of "kids talking like kids" and doing things that kids do, be sure to check it out.

#oneaday, Day 241: The Gogglebox

Television is generally a good indication of what to expect from a country's culture. Of course, it's not the be-all and end-all of their cultural output. Thank God. But it does give some indication of the values of that country, the things they find entertaining and their general outlook on life.

Tonight I happened to catch a little bit of possibly the most uninspiring quiz show I've ever seen. It takes the very essence of England and Englishness—grey boringness; small talk about grey, boring things; reluctance to show any sort of enthusiasm whatsoever—and turns it into a spectacular example of how to get what is a pretty well-established format amazingly wrong.

The show is Eggheads. It appears to pit a team of clever people against a team of "Ha! They're from the public! They must smell awful!" people. Presumably it's intended to be some sort of triumphant David and Goliath situation, with, at some point, the team of great unwashed defeating the people with two brain cells to rub together.

There's one very simple thing this programme gets wrong. Tension. Quiz shows are made by their tension. It can be created in many ways, and for many, Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? is perhaps the best example, as it uses all of them. Music. Audience reactions. A host who milks the situation for all it's worth. None of these are things that require lots of money and flashy effects to produce. They simply require a bit of personality. And, crucially, an audience.

Eggheads doesn't have an audience. This means that even the most spectacular victory scored by the hoi-polloi is greeted by absolute, complete and utter stony silence. And this means the participants have no energy whatsoever. If they won, they'd probably just nod their head sagely and go "oh, thank you." It's the televisual equivalent of when you find yourself sitting outside the headmaster's office and all you can hear is the ticking of a grandfather clock. Assuming you went to the kind of school that had grandfather clocks in it.

Contrast this with even the most cheap and nasty of American game shows and you'll see a very different side of things. You'll see participants whooping, hollering, cheering, jumping around and generally acting like they're happy to be there. Of course, you have to be in the right mood to find this entertaining, as overzealous enthusiasm can be just as grating as stark boringness if you're in the wrong frame of mind. But it somehow seems rather more appropriate for the game show format than what I witnessed tonight.

As for Japanese game shows? They do stuff like this. Kind of like The Generation Game. But, you know, good.

#oneaday, Day 216: I Wish The X Was Ex

So I believe the new series of The X-Factor kicked off tonight. I'm saying this purely based on a few comments on Twitter that I happened to witness earlier on, and not by having watched it at all. The reason I don't watch it? The X-Factor incites the kind of burning rage and despair at society that is matched only by how I feel during major football tournaments. It's one of the main reasons I don't watch TV at all. Not The X-Factor specifically. But shows like it. And by God there are a lot of them.

And they're always the same. It's all very well saying that it's Just Entertainment, and that other forms of entertainment are just as guilty of the offences that The X-Factor commits.

But no. The X-Factor is pretty much identical every year, bar a couple of minor alterations to the format and the inevitable fake "controversy" over who is going to be a judge.

We start with the auditions. Everyone who watches the show uses the auditions section as the main reason to convince people who don't watch the show to watch the show. "It's funny!" they'll say. "There are really shit people sometimes!"

If I want to watch shit people singing, I'll go direct a school choir. I don't need it on my television. And it's not funny. It's just embarrassing. Yes, these people did it to themselves by signing up for the show. But there's no need for the "clever editing" (hah!) that goes into the show to focus on them quite so much. And what are we supposed to think? The show inevitably builds them up with one of its famous sob stories, then knocks them down flat when the judges decide to brand them "awful". What are we, as viewers, supposed to take away from that? "Hah! Look! This person's had an awful life! But they're shit at singing and quite ugly, so let's laugh at them and their misfortune! They're going to die alone!"

Then, as I recall, there are "Boot Camp" sections, where the judges get to show us all how obnoxiously rich they are out as a result of the clone armies they've built over the years. This is ostensibly the "training" section, where the performers get to learn how to, well, perform better. Funny how we rarely see much in the way of training. Instead, we see when they fuck it up, because that's Better Television.

After that we're into the interminable, never-ending live shows. Every week, the remaining grinning idiots, who have had all semblance of personality sandblasted out of them by this point, come on stage, sing an incredibly twee and wet version of an existing song, listen to some "criticism" from the judges (which inevitably involves one or more of the key phrases "I liked it", "I think you could be the next big thing", "You've got the X-Factor", "You… could win this show" or equivalents towards the negative end of the spectrum) which doesn't actually offer any constructive advice at all, and then bugger off the stage either crying or going "YES!"

During the live shows, the black woman with the incredibly powerful voice will inevitably almost get to the final and then not quite make it. The "novelty act" which everyone thinks is Really Funny will be kept in for an inexplicably long time, despite being a one-joke act who don't actually have any talent whatsoever. During the final, the performer who is the better singer will be kicked out in favour of the performer who is more generic and boring. And during the final, the "Winner's Single" will be revealed to be a dirge-like ballad that makes everyone who listens to it want to kill themselves.

After the show has finished, the Winner's Single will be released, it will sell like the proverbial hot cakes for a few weeks then disappear without trace for at least six months, after which time the winner will then release their "Stunning Debut Album!" by which time the whole world has forgotten who they are, at least it would have had they not been in the tabloids and on Sky News every five minutes every time they pick their bum or scratch their nose. As a result of this, the obsessive fans become like the people I talked about yesterday, and the people who don't watch the show and have no time for manufactured pop nonsense are about ready to commit an act of terrorism.

So there you go. I've saved you having to watch it at all this year. The X-Factor can fuck off and burn in a fire.

#oneaday, Day 210: Literacy

Well, tonight was the night we recorded the first episode of the all-new Squadron of Shame SquadCast. And we think you're going to like it a lot.

There's going to be a lot more community involvement in the whole thing, too. This is led by the Squawkbox, a communal blog where anyone with a WordPress account can contribute and join the discussion. But there's nothing to stop people blogging about the things we talk about, either. In fact, it'd be awesome to see some lengthy written thoughts about the things we discuss.

So I thought I'd kick that off with some material related to a discussion we had on the show. Not to spoil anything, but it's an interesting topic.

The question is that of being "literate" in a medium versus that of being "well-read". On the podcast, we particularly focused on gaming, as you might expect. You'll find the conclusions we came to on the podcast itself. See, I like to tease.

But it's true for any medium, and not just books, either. My old friend Ed "Roth Dog" Padgett (follow him on Twitter just to stop him moaning, too, if you would) is most certainly well-read in the medium of movies, for example. He knows what makes a "good" or a "bad" movie. He knows about different directors, actors, genres, stylistic approaches, all manner of things I could never even begin to understand right now because I am merely literate in the medium of movies. I know what makes a decent structure of a movie, and I know what I enjoy. But I don't watch movies that often, and as such there may be some things that I don't appreciate in the same way that others do.

Take my recent reaction to the movie Predators. I thought Predators was a festering pile of horseshit, yet many people whom I've spoken to about it since claimed to rather enjoy it. Does this mean that I'm "wrong"? No; it simply means that my reaction is different to other people. In the case of a lot of those people, misty-eyed nostalgia over the original Predator films probably played a part. And in some cases, they quite possibly genuinely liked the generic, sprawling mess that was that movie. I have only ever seen Predator once and I'm not even convinced I've ever seen Predator 2. I think I have. But I can't remember.

I'll freely admit that I'm not particularly well-read when it comes to movies. I've never seen Citizen Kane, Clockwork Orange or Rocky Horror Picture Show. I haven't seen the vast majority of Arnie's output. I can name about three directors off the top of my head. I struggle to name a "favourite movie". But I can at least appreciate a decent movie when I see one.

With books, it's the most literal kind of, well, literacy. You can read. Or you can be well-read. If you can read, there may be stuff you enjoy. Perhaps you enjoy Mills and Boon romance novels, but only for the naughty bits. Perhaps you like the cheesiest kind of epic fantasy there is. Perhaps you like a diverse range of stuff.

In every medium, everyone has the opportunity to become "literate", and to understand that medium on a level that is sufficient to make it accessible and enjoyable. But it takes a lot more work to become truly "well-read" and to understand what the "canonical" titles in that medium are. And in media as diverse as these, it's entirely likely that everyone has their own opinions on what the "canon" might include.

So, anyone interested enough to comment, then: pick a medium that you feel particularly "well-read" in, and give us some examples of what you think might be "essentials"—the "canon" for that medium. I'm intrigued to hear some responses.

#oneaday, Day 208: Keeping Buff

I started re-watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer a few weeks ago. I'm just up to the start of season four now, which means I've also started re-watching Angel, too. Both shows remain absolutely fantastic examples of how to get television right. Spoilarz ahead, naturally.

The main thing both shows get right is in having strong characters. Given that they're both named after their protagonists, this is an important factor. Buffy herself is a pretty multifaceted character with a good line in one-liners, quips as well as pouty American teen-ness. But it's the supporting cast that steal the show. Xander's deadpan-ness. Willow's meekness, often at odds with the important things she is trying to say. Oz's taciturn nature. And Giles. Dear old Giles, one of the greatest characters of any show ever.

In fact, ironically for Angel, the weakest link in Buffy's cast is probably Angel himself. When he's broody, soul-having Angel, he's pretty, well, boring a lot of the time. When he's Angelus he's genuinely threatening. But for the majority of the time he's brooding over Buffy, he's not really that interesting. But as soon as he takes centre stage in Angel, he comes into his own. He gets much more in the way of a personality. He quips and verbally spars with the bad guys more. And he's just a much more interesting character. Presumably the reason he was written out of Buffy in the first place was the fact that he had a ton of untapped potential which was never going to be explored while the doomed romance between him and the Slayer was dragged out.

That's not to say I don't like the Buffy/Angel romance plotline. Far from it. In fact, Season Two remains one of my favourite pieces of television simply because of the utterly tragic nature of much of it. The finale to that season is magnificently emotional.

I remember when I first watched Buffy. It was derided by a lot of my friends who hadn't seen it as being a stupid show with no depth. And with a title like Buffy the Vampire Slayer and its 6pm dinnertime slot on BBC2, it's easy to see why people assumed that. In fact, even in its early seasons (arguably slightly less so in the first season), it demonstrated an emotional maturity and a sense of "telling it like it is" that few shows have managed to replicate. I think I also found some emotional resonance with at least some of the characters, too, since I was the same age as them at the time of its original broadcast. I was going through the same stages of life at the same time they did. Admittedly, with less frequent apocalypses. But I recognised myself in many of the situations they encountered.

The reason I like Buffy is the same reason I enjoy the Persona series. The juxtaposition between the fantastic and the mundane. The knowledge that even if you're a superhero with special powers who can save the world, you'll still have "life stuff" to deal with. The demonstration that we're all human, whatever our abilities. I can relate to that. Everyone has demons to fight, struggles to face, whether those things are real, physical things, or personal things locked inside.

#oneaday, Day 153: Hopeless Romantic

I watched the finale of The Office for the first time in ages tonight. That's the original UK version of The Office, for the curious, meaning that the finale was the second part of the series' Christmas special. I am totally going to spoil the shit out of that episode, so if you're one of the very few people who haven't seen it before and care, you might want to skip this post.

The chemistry between Tim and Dawn is the centrepiece of The Office's narrative. Everyone remembers David Brent and his stupid Comic Relief dance, but it's really a story about two people trying desperately to find one another and always seeming to have something in the way.

The tension between Tim and Dawn is built up throughout the course of the show's two seasons marvellously. The pair of them hang out together a lot, they joke around, they share a mutual love of making office douchebag Gareth's life a misery and it's abundantly clear that both of them are completely smitten with one another. And yet neither of them are able to say the words to make it happen. Dawn because she has a fiancé (yes, that is the correct spelling for the male partner, I checked and everything) who is woefully inappropriate for her. Tim because despite his sweet nature, he lacks in self-confidence thanks to his life situation.

In fact, that's not quite accurate. Throughout the course of the main series, Tim does ask Dawn out twice and she flat out says no. The most heartbreaking of these moments is at the end of the second season where Tim, in the middle of a "talking head" shot, speaking to the "documentary crew" who are supposedly filming the show, tears off his microphone, goes to tell Dawn how he really feels and gets knocked back. The audience don't hear this exchange, we just see it through a window, partially obscured by a blind. It's a genuinely heartbreaking moment to witness.

Throughout the series, Dawn in particular makes a point of touching Tim, whether it's a light brush on the arm, or holding his face tenderly while she gives him a kiss "for Comic Relief". Whatever she says out loud, her actions say something different, much louder.

So when she returns from Florida in the Christmas special, some years after the original two seasons, it's clear that Tim still has feelings for her and wishes things had gone differently. Yet throughout the course of the two finale episodes, it becomes clear that Tim has no idea how to go about dealing with this situation, particularly as the fiancé is still on the scene and never far away from Dawn during their time together.

In what appears to be their final moment together, I really feel for Tim. He is talking to Dawn, clearly struggling for what to say. He does a big and obviously fake cough at one point, and stares after her as she leaves, looking around the office, obviously completely crushed inside but not wanting to show it at all.

And then a little while later, the real ending happens. Dawn, riding in the back seat of a taxi, her fiancé asleep in the front, opens her "Secret Santa" present, which it transpires is an incredibly thoughtful gift from Tim. It moves her to tears.

We cut back to Tim, who is still at the office's Christmas party, obviously trying to have a good time and not really succeeding, when Dawn reappears unexpectedly, grabs him and kisses him. It's such a beautiful moment and a wonderful feeling of "resolution" for the series. A genuinely happy ending.

In the meantime, while all this is happening, we've also seen the comically tragic figure of David Brent growing as a person more in the space of half an hour than he managed in three years thanks to a special someone. By the end of the whole thing, we have felt sympathy for someone who initially seemed to be odious and annoying; and we have felt hope for his redemption.

In short, the whole thing is a fine example of how to do a finale perfectly. Wrap up every little loose end and make it very clear that "This. Is. The. End." And that doesn't have to mean a main character dying, or the world ending, or anything like that. A simple resolution of the threads that have been running throughout the series is all that's needed for a satisfying conclusion.

I love this ending for several reasons. Firstly, I just love a happy ending. Secondly, I feel for Tim, and Dawn for that matter. I've experienced the situation they've been in and know how difficult it can be, and how wonderful those few tiny little gestures can feel. To see two people who obviously deserve to be together finally get together is utterly heartwarming and never fails to bring a smile to my face. And it ends there – we don't need to see "what happens next", whether it works out, any of that – that's the end of their story.

In case you hadn't noticed, I am a sucker for a happy ending. Particularly a romantic happy ending.

There's some games that have done this sort of thing well, too. The Persona series is particularly good at it thanks to the Social Link system that runs through the last two entries in the series. Each Social Link is a complete story in and of itself, with the player's character being someone who is there for someone else during a period of change, growth or hardship. With the games centred on teenage life in Japan, sometimes this is as simple as a character growing up and learning something about themselves. At other times, it is about a burgeoning romance. At others still, it is about someone accepting a fate which is coming for them, like a terminal illness. But by far the most satisfying thing about those games was not necessarily reaching the end (though the endings to both are awesome) but reaching the resolution of these little mini-stories throughout. Seeing other people brought to a state of happiness by the actions (or simple presence) of another is a good feeling, and Persona, like The Office, plays on that pleasant feeling beautifully.

Did I seriously just compare Persona to The Office? That's late-night writing for you. Oh well. There you have it!

#oneaday, Day 124: Evergreen Entertainment

Throughout most people's lives, there are certain things that give them comfort. Certain things that they know they can always turn to. Certain things that are evergreen and never seem to lose their appeal, regardless of how long they've been in your life. It's nice to have things like this, because it reminds you that however chaotic life in general might seem, there will always be a few constants out there that will keep you happy.

I have a few of these things. One of these, as you may have deduced by now, is Borderlands. One of last year's sleeper hits, Borderlands was a winning combination of first-person shooter and Diablo-esque loot whoring action RPG. A whole bunch of people bought it on its release, which is good. But how many of those people 1) finished it and 2) are still playing it now?

I enjoy Borderlands because it's entertainment you can "dip" into. It doesn't have a particularly demanding story. Some might say the story is something of an afterthought. But that's not important. In fact, that's what makes it so "dip-friendly", if that's even a term. Because you never feel like you've lost the plot (literally) and there's always something in the mission log to go and do, it can be months between play sessions and you can still have a good time with it regardless. I still haven't finished the game with a single character, but I do enjoy going back to it time and time again, whether it's solo, with a split-screen partner or with some companions on Xbox LIVE. In fact, I've played it far too little online, as it's great fun in multiplayer. But for me at least, it's evergreen entertainment. I can happily go back to it. If you still have a copy, hit me up. I have a level 31 Siren just waiting to show you a good time.

The same is true for Geometry Wars 2. Although the Squadron of Shame's battle for high score supremacy is long over, with me claiming the top spot in everything except the Waves and Pacifism modes, it's still a game I come back to time and time again, because it's low-maintenance entertainment. And it has a kicking soundtrack. Bizarre even released an awesome megamix MP3 of it that you can pick up here.

Besides games, my other choices are TV shows, because they're short enough to sit down and watch with dinner without feeling like you're committing several hours of time to, and because they're comfortably familiar. In particular, I've lost count of the number of times that I've watched Black Books and Spaced. Spaced in particular, for me, represents possibly the very best of British television. It's clever, it's funny, it's well-written and above all, it's evergreen. It's still just as relevant today as it is now, though watching it as a slightly older person changes my perspective on it somewhat. Black Books, on the other hand, represents the other extreme of what British comedy does well – the bizarre and the uncanny. Black Books makes absolutely no sense and thus, going by past experience, it utterly confuses Americans. Admittedly I base this assumption on the fact that my brother found it really funny and my sister-in-law didn't get it at all, so it may be a somewhat hasty conclusion. But if you want to switch your brain off and enjoy some purely comic situations, there's few things that will beat it.

As you can probably imagine, in recent weeks I've been turning quite a lot to some of these pieces of evergreen entertainment to bring me some comfort. Of course, some of them have memories attached to them. But many of the memories attached to them are even older than those ones that are painful. They've been the constant presence in my life, and that brings me comfort.

What are some of your evergreens?

#oneaday, Day 88: The Leaders' Debate

Our potential leaders had their first ever American-style televised debate tonight. And, for the most part, I think it was a resounding success as a format. There was every possibility that it would become car-crash television – ITV's cheap, nasty sets that looked like they were recycled from a 1980s episode of The Krypton Factor didn't help – but it wasn't. I was only half-watching due to being over at a friend's house, but the parts I saw looked pretty interesting.

Sure, the three party leaders continually came out with their favourite soundbites (so predictable were they, in fact, that Dave Turner came up with the Official Drinking Game of the Leaders' Debate right here) but as an opportunity to see the three of them at work in a non-Parliamentary situation it was a good thing. Nick Clegg, in particular, who has been the butt of numerous comedians' jokes for being the "third place" candidate, doomed to obscurity by not being leader of one of the "big two" parties, came across rather well. And opinion polls conducted after the programme aired suggested that well over 40% of viewers felt that Clegg "won" the debate. Of course, there are two more to go yet, and some have suggested that Cameron and Brown were too concerned with getting their claws into each other to consider Clegg a threat this time. Perhaps it will all change next time and be more of a fight for the LibDem leader. But, importantly, this debate showed that he is indeed a contender in the coming fight.

Twitter was fun to watch. The #leadersdebate hashtag had an entertaining mix of jokes but also some decent discussion and commentary, too. A large number of tweets seemed to be very positive towards the LibDems, too, so could this perhaps be taken as an indication that change is a-comin'? Or is it just a sign that most people on Twitter are LibDem supporters? Who knows.

One thing's for sure: this election is actually going to be worth watching for once. Many of our politicians are stuffy, boring, corrupt arseholes and this fact normally switches me off entirely from the whole thing. But this time around, it's going to be quite a fight for the top spot, I think. (He says, from his woefully ill-informed position.) It's certainly not a foregone conclusion by any means, and many people are already talking about the possibility of a hung Parliament. I can't even begin to imagine how they'll get anything done if that happens, but I guess we'll have to wait and see how things go.

And, you know, vote.

#oneaday, Day 77: Who?

Back to after midnight again. Whoops. Oh well.

Watched the new Doctor Who today, a day late, but fortunately it was repeated on the normally-awful BBC3. It's a cracking start to the new series, and enough to make me want to watch again. Jane and I missed most of the last series as we kind of got out of the habit of watching it, but this first episode was good enough for Jane to want to watch it twice.

Matt Smith, despite everyone's initial misgivings, makes an excellent new Doctor with just the right amount of quirkiness to hearken back to previous iterations of the hero and still make the role his own. Early scenes see him clearly channeling Tennant, which hardcore fans will tell you is actually just how it should be, as the new incarnation of the Doctor adjusts to his new body and life. By the end of the episode, he's found his own individual style, though, a style rich with sarcastic one-liners and slightly supercilious grins. But never obnoxious. It's a fine line between "wacky" and "irritating" and Smith treads it well.

New assistant Amy Pond, too, despite driving Daily Mail readers wild with either indignation or sexual frustration – they don't seem to be able to make their mind up either way – is a fine addition to the lineup of companions. She's feisty and sassy and, yes, has lovely legs. Plus, much as everyone is brought up to believe that redheads are somehow subhuman, you can't possibly tell me that this (right) isn't a fine example of spectacularly hot womanhood?

All right. I have a mild redhead "thing". But it's under control and I can quit any time I want.

Uhh, what was I talking about again?

Oh, right, Doctor Who. Yes, this first episode was great fun, alternating between moments of comedy (with the already oft-quoted "You're Scottish – fry something" clearly the best line in the show) and ridiculously overblown "OMG THE WURLDZ IZ ENDINGZ" drama. There was a great soundtrack, too, giving this first episode a suitably epic feel despite being largely based in an idealised version of quaint English country life.

The seeds have been sown for this season's plot arc, too, with something about "Silence will fall" clearly being an omen of what is to come. Plus the trailer totally spoiled that there will be Daleks, Cybermen, vampires and Spitfires involved at some point. Oh, and the Spitfires are in space. YES!

Approval on Twitter and around the web has been almost universally positive so far. The Daily Mail article linked to above has been the only negative comment I have seen so far, citing unnamed "message boards" and "forums" as its source, so perhaps take it with a pinch of salt – or more likely a handful, this being the Mail and all.

I'll certainly be interested to see where the series goes from here. And no, not just because of the delectable Amy Pond. It looks like thoroughly silly and epic fun, which is just what Doctor Who should be. If you haven't seen it yet, the first episode is still available on BBC iPlayer at the time of writing. So what are you waiting for?

#oneaday, Day 76: Daytime. Sort of.

Yes! A pre-midnight post! How about that. Since I'm in a writing frame of mind, I thought I'd write something. I've just written 1100 words on my story. Actually, I ditched what I wrote yesterday and started again. It's flowing a bit better this time, which is good. Hopefully I'll be able to keep up some sort of momentum.

I say I'm in a writing frame of mind but in fact I'm just trying to avoid the televisual monstrosity that is whatever that ridiculous audition show for The Wizard of Oz is on television. I'm really, really sick of these shows, as I've made abundantly clear on a number of occasions. These ones where the "winners" end up with a part in a West End show make a mockery of the whole process. Andrew Lloyd Webber sitting in a gold throne with everyone calling him "The Lord"? The sycophantic nonsense spewed by Graham Norton and others on the show is enough to make one want to vomit. Yes, Lloyd Webber has created some of the most successful musicals ever, but that doesn't mean I want to see people practically sticking their nose up his arse and rimming him on television. And I certainly don't want to vote on it.

Enough ranting on that subject, otherwise it'll annoy my wife.

Anything else interesting happen today? Well, no, not really. It's been very quiet since PAX East, but people are still talking about it, which is good. A good buddy over on BitMob posted a fantastic article about the experience, which summed up exactly how I felt about it as a fellow sufferer of social anxiety. I suggest you go and read it if you haven't already – even if you're not a gamer. It's a great piece.

I've also been watching some of the PAX 09 DVD which I picked up as a keepsake. The video quality on it is great, meaning the concerts, panels and appearances by Gabe, Tycho and Wil Wheaton all look and sound great. I'm actually really impressed with how good it is – I was expecting low-quality, hand-held shakeycam, but in fact it's a completely professional job. I should know better than to doubt nerds making videos, I guess.

Anyway, that's about it for today. Not very interesting, I know. But that's the way some days go.