JmeWhyte

I swore I wouldn’t return to the wreck that is ITV’s Titanic, but after a ses­sion on Dice’s bro­ken Bat­tle­field 3 and being late to Home­land, I thought why not. So this week, we’re with the shady man from the pre­vi­ous episode who we learn is a wanted crim­i­nal plus Annie and the Ital­ian waiter are back.

This episode was a lot bet­ter than the pre­vi­ous episodes and pehaps the series could have worked if it wasn’t so hasty in try­ing to tell so many sto­ries. But alas it wasn’t, and despite the criminal’s sto­ry­line play­ing out well, noth­ing much else did. Very pallid.

There was also a stu­pid con­ti­nu­ity error when an Ital­ian was forced into a cabin con­tain­ing a lot of other Ital­ians. The cabin was locked and they were left to drown, but at no point when the door was open did any of the trapped Ital­ians try to escape. So while poignant and ter­ri­ble that they were left to die, it made no sense.

break­ing — writ­ing this up while watch­ing a Van Damme film and a bad guy just cut out a henchman’s liver —

Any­way dur­ing an ad break, Marks & Spencer decided to air an advert of such pure Aryan pro­pa­ganda, the 3^rd Reich would have been jeal­ous. They are run­ning with the title Sum­mer to Remem­ber, but it’s obvi­ously rejigged from Rally to Remem­ber. Next time you see it, just replace the British flags with Swastikas.

In chrono­log­i­cal order we see:

White blonde girl smil­ing
White boy and grandad mow­ing the lawn
White blonde girl jump­ing
Three blonde white kids walk­ing
White peo­ple in a pic­nic scene
Three white peo­ple in a boat (off to build a Dam no doubt)
White peo­ple in back­ground
White man on a BBQ, in back­ground two white men ‘lib­er­ate’ a tv
White blonde girl fol­lows, looks at white boy (with gin­ger hair)
ALERT!! pos­si­ble Chi­nese sight­ing, but it’s touch and go
Buf­fet pic­nic feast, i think there is a black woman in there
White blonde mum smil­ing, blonde white women in back­ground
White blonde woman eats ersatz pic­nic food
Dog — white, black spots, brown ears
ALERT!! Black man in back­ground
Pic­nic scene con­tin­ues white blonde girls run with cake
White grandad has got the TV work­ing, bunting every­where
White girl smil­ing
White boy with Union Jack on face
White fam­ily smil­ing
ALERT!! A black boy lit­er­ally plays foot­ball with Jamie Red­knapp
He runs off like a pied piper, white kids and black boy fol­lows
ALERT!! mid­dle east­ern boy run­ning
White woman eat­ing a straw­berry
White blonde girl is a ball girl
Another white blonde girl is a ball girl
Jamie Red­knapp (white) lit­er­ally hits a ten­nis ball
ALERT!! Mixed race woman returns it
White women watch on
ALERT!! Black man ques­tions whether the ball was in or out
Dan­ni­i­i­iii Minogue (white) runs in an egg and spoon race with white women and Myleene Klass (white/filipina)
Lots of white kids watch
White blonde girl picks flower
White blonde mum holds a piece of string
White man holds veg­eta­bles
White cou­ple watch
And who else to fin­ish off the advert than Hitler Youth Aryan picture-boy Gary Bar­low to sing “Sun sun, sun, here it comes,” at a camp fire, but it might have just been, “Reich, Reich, Reich.”

I’m not say­ing any­thing except that it’s cer­tainly a very spe­cific take on what an idyl­lic British sum­mer should be.

Right, it’s week two of ITV Titanic and coin­ci­den­tally, the 148^th con­sec­u­tive week in which has ITV failed to enter­tain the nation. Last week was pretty poor start, but as with so much in life, the first time can be writ­ten off as the show sim­ply find­ing its feet try­ing to live up to the hype. So with an open mind here is the minute by minute of episode two of the Tele­vi­sion Event of 2012.

Hmmm, seems like that open mind might not last that long as I’ve just seen the syn­op­sis from IMDB for this episode:

Jim Mal­oney is in charge of com­plet­ing the electrics on the Titanic. He’s actu­ally an engi­neer but being a Catholic in West Belfast, work­ing as an installer is the best job he can get — #did­dums. The work is falling behind sched­ule — #Clas­sicBri­tain — and he’s offered free pas­sage on the ship’s maiden voy­age, in steer­age, for him­self and his fam­ily if he can get the work com­pleted on time. He accepts but finds a way to get a cabin in sec­ond class. John and Muriel Bat­ley row after their tea with Lord and Lady Man­ton – Is that really wor­thy of men­tion? — After strik­ing the ice­berg, they rec­on­cile and decide that their lives are worth fight­ing for.

Ummm… …. …. this is going to be a long hour.

20:55 Zomg, count­down T-5, off to make tea.

21:00 It’s go time! Come on Fel­lowes, even you can’t mess up poor peo­ple trapped and drown­ing, espe­ically if we get a child float­ing face down in the icy waters.

Pre­vi­ously on 24.…

Mon­tage.… Cast list… the ten­sion is palpable.…TITANIC

Wel­come to Belfast, home of shouty peo­ple. Very shouty. Bat­man music plays in the back­ground. Titanic is being made, the electrics are tak­ing time to sort out. This type of detail was pleas­antly lack­ing when Han Solo was try­ing to fix the Mil­le­nium Fal­con and get out of Mos Eisley

We learn about Catholics in Belfast and the prob­lems of Home Rule. Yay. Poor man wants out of Ire­land as he isn’t look­ing for­ward to ninety years of sec­tar­ian hatred and strife.

Mean­while in the cruiseliner’s offices the execs are hav­ing a chat about lifeboats. Guess what, they didn’t put enough in on pur­pose. I can­not believe they are hav­ing another chat about lifeboats.

Some­thing about riv­ets (Riv­ets!) and cut­ting cor­ners. The ship appears to be doomed.

21:05 Poor man is get­ting on that boat. He’s going to fin­ish that wiring!

21:07: Poor man is con­vinc­ing fam­ily to leave Ire­land. He’s so very earnest. Wife backs hims and it’s going to be real sad watch­ing them drown.

Ad break: Salmon Fish­ing in the Yemen… is this an April Fool’s?! I …. what? Girl­friend is try­ing to upload/edit a photo on Face­book… I think she’ll be here at 22:00. It really is indecipherable…

21:13 Mmm lovely CGI. Cap­tain is hav­ing a reshuf­fle, rich peo­ple are hav­ing some seri­ous polit­i­cal chat. Girl­friend is very dis­tract­ing, it’s a good thing Zucker­berg isn’t in earshot.

21:15 Irish fam­ily are get­ting ready (to drown). She has four kids, one of them runs away. Man with absurd hair and mous­tache finds boy.

21:16 Ser­vant girl from last week – Annie — states her role per­fectly to Cap­tain Birdseye’s colleague.

Girl­friend is now hav­ing issues with a Captcha… it’s just not her day, but least she won’t drown in 42 minutes.

21:18 Irish fam­ily is sneaked into 2^nd class

21:18 Rich are moan­ing about Ital­ians. No idea. Rich are dis­cussing sleep­ing arrange­ments. Oh, the tension.

21:19 Earnest poor man is being earnest. He’s been rum­bled, Wife ain’t happy that he stole the cabin. This is too much drama.

21:21 Annie is flirt­ing with Ital­ian waiter from last week.

21:22 Ital­ian winks at rich girl from episode one. The Maitre D’ loses his rag.

21:23 Absurd hair man and Earnest poor man have a chat. Absurd hair is intro­duced to poor wife. She’s flip­ping out over nothing.

21:24 Ital­ian waiter and Annie have a chat about their jobs. They flirt, they go upstairs with smiles on their faces. Looks like he’s going to go to town on her and she seems to want it.

21:26 Absurd hair and poor wife have a whis­per moment.

21:26 Lawyer man and wife from last week go to church. Rich lady from episode one is upset at see­ing lawyer wife. Rich dad is breach­ing all sorts of taboo’s by invit­ing lawyer and wife to tea. Rich lady is furi­ous. And that’s the ad break.

It’s now 21:27 and as you can see, noth­ing has hap­pened. It is lit­er­ally dead and devoid of any energy. It’s not that it’s bad it’s that it’s so utterly for­get­table. Noth­ing is work­ing. The ensem­ble cast are sim­ply sur­face level car­i­ca­tures. Char­ac­ters from Stack­ing have more about them.

Twit­ter is equally unfor­giv­ing:
‏@marksmith1973: #itvti­tanic 19 min­utes since last advert and 15 min­utes since [sic] the end ffs

Hang in there Mark!

@LucieHewitson: Try­ing to make a state­ment on bygone class-divide but not actu­ally say­ing any­thing inter­est­ing at all #bored

@PiefaceParky:I don’t think much of this new Titanic pro­gramme @ITV. Its rather bor­ing com­pared to Down­town Abby, when is it going to get excit­ing? *yawn*

21:33 Lawyer wife has found out that Rich Man is a cad and has an ille­git­i­mate child. Lawyer hus­band is upset but realises that wife is upset about some­thing more. He can’t have kids, he’s torn up. Wife is sad. They have a chat about life being hard. It’s quite touching.

21:36 The sailors have a chat about ice warn­ings and how they can’t find they can’t find the binoc­u­lars. I really hope this is based on fact and that is why the ship sank. I often can’t find my glasses. Shit hap­pens when lenses that alter our per­cep­tion of the world go missing.

The ship try to make up time. Less haste and all that.

21:40 Lawyer hus­band and Cap­tain Bird­s­eye share a moment on the deck. Lawyer is very upset and weeps. He is is so very sad. He’s crum­bled… but wait, what’s that com­ing over the mountain?

ICEBRGGGGG

He stands agape.

21:42 And we’re off.

Cap­tain Bird­s­eye and his mate are watch­ing the crew try­ing to avert the dan­ger pump­ing and stoking.

Bird­s­eye is dumb­founded and the water is every­where. We learn that the all impor­tant 5^th com­part­ment has been breached and that’s that, Lvl 5 Doom.

Cap­tain Bird­s­eye: “She cant sink”

Matey: “She can’t float.”

They watch on. Resigned.

Ad break.

So those last 1.5 min­utes were worth­while. Girl­friend has resolved Face­book and Captcha prob­lems, she’s now won­der­ing how Twit­ter works.

21:48 We’re back and the water is up to F-Deck. Annie is try­ing to save Lawyer and wife. Lawyer hus­band gives Annie a life-jacket

Bird­s­eye is cata­tonic and it’s all too much for him.

21:51 Poor are held back behind grates and then the guards get women and chil­dren out. God bless their human­ity. They shut the gates, poor man and wife’s kids aren’t allowed out so Absurd Hair cre­ates a diver­sion so they can get out. We don’t know why.

Annie’s hair is disheveled.. things are going down.

Sailor man reas­sures rich peo­ple. Annie is being very saintly and selfless

Pro­to­col over­ruled as women from 2^nd class are allowed to board the boats.

21:54 Save the chil­dren for God’s sake

21:55 Rich Amer­i­can is wait­ing it out. Mr. Andrews, the ship designer looks at a mantlepiece.

Up on deck, Lay­wer hus­band helps wife up from her despair and he’s won­der­ing des­per­ately how to help. Wife con­soles a puppy. He apolo­gies for every­thing. She is apol­o­gises too for being hys­ter­i­cal. He said he failed her. They resolve to be friends and die in peace.

Lawyer hus­band is hav­ing none of it and states they should go down fight­ing. I had hoped that the wife would tear the dog apart, they would smear the blood over their bod­ies and start a huge ruckus but also, they run off to find a boat.

Luck­ily they find one and try to set it as water appears on deck. He says I love you to the wife.

End.

So it seems that once all four episodes air, the last two min­utes will resolve all sto­ries. Cer­tainly wasn’t the train wreck of week one but took about 40 min­utes to do any­thing at all. Given the sub­ject mat­ter the series has to go down as a dis­ap­point­ment. And if you made it this far, apolo­gies for the dull­ness, work­man tools blah blah.

Twit­ter was mixed:

@abbie1D__: omg! just started propa full on beef­ing in that last 5mins of the titanic series on itv! was i the only one?

‏@BethanyLWalker_: That Titanic series on ITV is shiiiiiit

@ShivvyMariexx:Okay, lit­er­ally sob­bing at ITV’s Titanic.

‏@markbennett2011: Dis­ap­pointed in this titanic series thing on itv. #ExpectedMore

@hannah_e_adams: watch­ing #titanic on itv and its get­ting pretty deep for a Sun­day night #emotional

@MrChrisAddison was all over it.

It’s been a way too long day run­ning after clients and while I was hop­ing to blog about “The Tele­vi­sion Event of 2012 — Fuck No” I’m just way too tired to take it seri­ously (or add pics atm). So in the same vein (vain, weather vane) as The Guardian’s Minute By Minute here is a tracked ver­sion of the first episode of Julian Fel­lowes’ trainwreck

Intro: Stir­ring music, mon­tage, shoe buff­ing, poor peo­ple in a ware­house sneak­ing a pic at the doomed vessel

01:34 It’s a prison, poor peo­ple talk to a mid­dle class woman. papa comes, guard goes “blah blah rich lady can leave, why not others.”

her dad shoos the guard off.

02:15 oh, lady is a suffragette…that means she’s got opin­ions. papa and guard face off.

02:45 EXPOSITION EXPLOSION

“But there are davits for 32 lifeboats, why haven’t we used
them.”

Fel­lowes, hon­estly, 02:45 and like Peter Grif­fin I’m done.

“The law blah blah expo­si­tion blah.…”

03:20 rich men chat, noth­ing hap­pens, it’s a slow burn…
wait!!!

03:45 EDUCATIONAL FACT

“I heard JP Mor­gan might not be fit enough to travel”

Awful writ­ing, but here’s the JP Mor­gan Jesuit con­spir­acy, which is suit­ably off the wall.

04:00 Mon­tage, piano, peo­ple prepar­ing for voy­age, wood­wind, we’re on a train… posh girl has more ideas, papa is dis­parag­ing. a lawyer rocks up, intros abound… shit is bub­bling along nicely, lawyer needs to take papers to New York and, oh…

05:05 We learn the route of the Titanic — it didn’t stop in Ireland.…

Lawyer wife upset with lawyer, papa’s wife is Irish, there is a church ser­vice on Sun­day… oh .…

“We shouldn’t linger, we don’t have 1^st class tick­ets and the guard will think we’re stowaways”

Fuck off Fel­lowes, just… fuck off.

Papa feels bad, invites them for tea. Wife says it’s not allowed, obvs cos lawyer is not gen­try, but hunch says Anglo Irish rela­tions at a low point, maybe Irish lawyer canne mix… but who cares, this show is just get­ting started, ship ship ship ahoy!

06:00 more mon­tage and star­ing at Titanic, i won­der how big it is com­pared to mod­ern day.

06:45 Right peo­ple are on the ship… poor man bumps into girl, “cru?” She gives direc­tions and then

EXPOSITION EXPLOSION

“Next time don’t use these stares”

Yak yak yak

07:15 Cru are get­ting set­tled. the poor are very dirty and angry and shouty.

08:10 We’re off, first class is nice.

08:26 More Irish chat, rich fam­ily are snooty, oh hang on a god damn minute

EXPOSITION EXPLOSION

rich girl, “I’m off to get changed”

papa and momma “It’s not the done thing to get changed on the first night”

Fel­lowes, show don’t tell you lazy fuck.

rich girl gets bol­shy, she’s not into the done thing. she’s feisty, thanks Fel­lowes, we need this light touch hur­ri­cane force 5 bull­shit shoved down our throats like foie gras geese.

09:20 Ser­vants are going through their roles, it’s turgid stuff. Some­one said valet with the t pro­nounced, that was inter­est­ing i guess.

Some shit about Eng­lish Scottish .…

Some more shit about first class ser­vants and shit. Who cares, they are all dead in about 35 minutes

11:00 We’re with the richies, intros for the first din­ner of the voyage.

11:00 ITV player stut­ters, I con­tem­plate quit­ting this inane blog post, I reload… Home­base advert, lack of expo­si­tion is refresh­ing… Col­gate advert, edu­ca­tional — unbeat­able pro­tec­tion.… Aviva have tagged their name onto this shambles.

11:45 Rich are chat­ting. strings are play­ing, peo­ple are eat­ing food. Rich boy cites Fran­cis Bacon, rich girl yaps some­thing smart back. Par­ents comment.

12:45 Cap­tain Bird­s­eye absolutely loses his shit when an Ital­ian serves him some food. the bare faced cheek, I sense another help­ing of Fel­lowes finest expo­si­tion crum­ble served with extra shit writ­ing chaser.…

13:15 Ital­ian waiter thanked by rich girl.…these two dying together? he saves her? either way, it’s gonna be bullshit.

13:45 ser­vants play piggy in the mid­dle with a diary.… call the care police. a page gets torn, there are tears, every­one feels bad. JESUS CHRIST THAT IS THE CLIFFHANGER FOR THE AD
BREAK. fuck no :@:@:@:@

Ads: Closer, Mer­cedes — no naval theme here, oppor­tu­nity missed… or mist if there were sirens and the river Styx but no… more Col­gate, she doesn’t have sen­si­tive teeth, nor he. Meatballs…

14:50 We’re back in, string quar­tet. They know all the waltzes don’t you know. rich girl gets asked to dance by an Amer­i­can He has a retarded hairdo, like a 1920’s cha cha girl.… ITV player is on its last legs… we’re back… rich girl is play­ing hard to get. the Amer­i­can is per­sis­tent and zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

16:20 rich girl likes bad boys

16:30 rich peo­ple have rich peo­ple chat

madame ovar­rrr is pissed off… me too madame, me too

17:15 music is slamming…

18:15 Rich mum shuts another rich woman down for being nou­veau riche.… Fresh Prince of Bel Air is on in the back­ground, Carl­ton and his mous­tache are mak­ing a mess of things.

18:35 poor girl is try­ing to turn down the bed.

19:00 lawyer man and wife lay­ing down the back chat… more Anglo Irish bunkum mean­while poor girl is cry­ing about her book…

20:00 rich mum is fed up, rich dad is.… oh who cares… wait we’re back with the poor

20:50 poor peo­ple chat… Ital­ian broth­ers, dead in 15 mins, yap about bosses.…

22:00 rich peo­ple dance more… the will to con­tinue is seep­ing away.…

22:45 rich man is off to sec­ond class.

23:15 rich mum is upset with madame ovar­rrrrrrrrrrrrrr. she’ll prob­a­bly live

24:00 lawyer fam­ily piss off the rich mum with their pres­ence. madame ovarrrrrrrrr’s hubby is incan­des­cent with the rich man

24:45 more Anglo Irish bull­shit, the mood is tense, they make civilities.

26:00 rich girl and Amer­i­can strolling on deck, where is that ice­berg. rich mum is choos­ing jew­ellery. she’s deffo living.

AD break: Lloyds think peo­ple have 10,000 GBP for an ISA… lolz, Col­gate is back — still no one has bac­te­ria, amaz­ing pro­tec­tion. The Meerkats and some water fil­ter… i think every­one has tuned out.

27:30 There is 18 min­utes left of this shit. Rich girl and Amer­i­can are talk­ing. My GF is dry­ing her hair so I can’t tell what they are say­ing but it doesn’t mat­ter, the stolen glances, the dis­ap­prov­ing mother in the back­ground is all you need to know. They’re prob­a­bly bond­ing over young people’s thoughts.… oh they’re now kissing…

30:00 Where the fuck is the iceberg

30:15 rich mum is on the jew­ellery again, other richies are play­ing cards… say what you see, there is noth­ing deeper than sur­face level here.…

31:00 Whoop whoop ice­berg is here, Ital­ian boy watched the water seep­ing in. Lawyer has seen it. Shit is going down now. Strings are anx­ious. Cap­tain Bird­s­eye is harump­ing along. rich man is wor­ried, told about the ice­berg, told to get the women upon deck.

34:00 peo­ple are pan­ick­ing, looks like the poor are going to be sac­ri­fi­cial lambs — remem­ber Jesus and God have a divine plan and they wanted all the poor to die. lawyer wife loses it to the rich wife, she lets it be known that rich man is a cheat…

Ad break: Lloyds still think we have 10,000 to invest… Aero mint, they rock. Home­base remind­ing me to sort out my house.

35:25 Poor peo­ple are being locked down­stairs… uh oh Irish poor mum and dad in trouble.

36:00 Lifeboats are half full

37:00 They’re full.… oh, they’re not full but they are in the water

38:00 Who is stand­ing up for the white man? not that guard… he won’t let a man on the lifeboat… #brutal

The string quar­tet are still play­ing, bless their mar­tyrrrrrr souls.

Rich wife won’t get on the boat with a ‘drunken pros­ti­tute’ cos she has class… fin­gers crossed on immi­nent death.

40:00 Men are being cir­cum­spect. Amer­i­can boy and girl are part­ing.… oh sweet jesus. rich man has rum­bled the lack of lifeboats and the duck&cover escape plan

42:07 Titanic is doomed! Sur­pris­ing lack of gush­ing water. Rich old Amer­i­can wants his ser­vant to sit and have a drink. Amer­i­can boy is try­ing to get girl away. rich mum is deranged, con­fesses she knows about the affairs. rich mum is stick­ing with rich man. rich girl is on a boat. rich man tells her to live, just live.. like Franken­stein… and that’s it.…

Next time on Titanic pre­view rolls (poor peo­ple die next time)

JESUS FUCKING CHRIST FUCK. Fel­lowes I pray to god that you have signed your own death war­rant with this hope­less pile of shite. No one wants to watch this regres­sive fail­ure of a show. the reviews were ter­ri­ble, rat­ings sure to drop next week… if this was a US show they would pull it immediately.

I don’t get this advert. Are they say­ing that SMA is the next best form of milk? I mean that’s some claim and frankly if SMA is the next best and Kate is the best then why haven’t they kid­napped Kate and made her make milk for the nation?!

So this is really a cos­tume or video game boss idea but really I’m sure it’ll work in a num­ber of envi­ron­ments includ­ing the classroom.

Essen­tially the con­cept of the Tumour Piñata is this: a per­son climbs into this papier-mâché thing that is loaded with sweets and corn syrup blood. It looks like a big potato and some hair is added onto it for effect. Optional teeth could be inserted to give it that I–used-to-be-your-twin-brother-but-you-absorbed-me-in-the-womb look, it’s up to you.

Now once you’ve got your cos­tume just right it is time to get your­selves out there. Why not see if there are any can­cer char­ity events locally? Or per­haps you can book an area in a local mall?

It is impor­tant to get per­mis­sion to use the Tumour Piñata as some peo­ple may not be as for­ward think­ing as you. Seek to meet with the organ­is­ers prior to the event with sketches of the cos­tume empha­sis­ing sweets and joy and just want­ing to help.

When the big day arrives rock up proudly as you’ve really made an effort and I salute you for that. Stand on the edge of pro­ceed­ings, lurk­ing as tumours are wont to do. Lay out the sticks the kids will use, I find fash­ion­ing them as scalpels gives the cos­tume an authen­tic­ity and cer­tain je né sais quoi.

Now it is time to shine.

Begin by flap­ping your arms about and doing a stu­pid jig. Try cack­ling. Remem­ber tumours are nobody’s friend. This should gain the atten­tion of the crowd.

Then try shout­ing some­thing like:
“I’m metas­ta­sis­ing but it’s not too late! Can you defeat me?”

When the kids come over offer them the scalpels and tell them, “You don’t have much time, you need to oper­ate stat!!”

Now the chances are the kids at a can­cer char­ity ben­e­fit won’t be your usual coun­cil estate toer­ags who are adept with the use of a blade. You’re going to have to rile them up. Why not say some­thing like, “Mummy told you you have to be strong but I only see a whelp.” If the kids ask you what you are as your cos­tume isn’t clear or they haven’t been briefed on what can­cer is, try utter­ing, “I’m the rea­son mummy has no hair” or the equally awful “I’m the rea­son mummy won’t be around soon.”

This may be seen as a step too far, so over the line of the accept­able norm that peo­ple may start to shout things like, “You’re a mon­ster!” or “What the fuck is wrong with you!” but hold the line and stay com­mit­ted, remem­ber you’re full of sug­ary just wait­ing to be enjoyed by chil­dren and adults alike.

How­ever if an onlooker starts to get all up in your grill about how inap­pro­r­i­ate you are try and soothe him with your words. If he wants to get phys­i­cal you are well within your rights to smash his face in with a dev­as­tat­ing jab, jab, for­ward, short, fierce combo. Then, once dis­patched, tower over him and utter, “I for­get to tell you I’m not benign.”

A good Tumour Piñata is gen­er­ous with his or her innards, so once your cos­tume is punc­tured reach deep inside and toss your sweets over all and sundry. It’s impor­tant to tell the chil­dren that can­cer­ous tumours are not con­ta­gious so all candy is FDA approved. If all goes well you’ll be lying in a heap and the chil­dren will be hyped-up on sugar. If any cried ear­lier, the sugar will have made every­thing bet­ter. Now it’s time to lay back and bask in the sun­shine, con­tent in the knowl­edge that you’ve done your bit in the fight against one of humanity’s cru­elest diseases.

Maaaannnnn I got noth­ing on these guys >_< they’re superstars!

Justin Tim­ber­lake
Kelly Row­land
Paris Hilton
Lley­ton Hewitt
Josh Groban
David Anders — best British accent ever
Young Buck
Kolo Toure
Jes­sica Alba
Craig David
Anna Kournikova
Natalie Port­man
Adri­ana Lima
Chris Evans — Cap’n Amer­ica
Fer­nando Alonso
Djib­ril Cissé
Rachel Bil­son
Eli­jah Wood
Roger Fed­erer
Bey­oncé Knowles
Jen­nifer Hud­son
Ser­ena Williams
Zla­tan Ibrahi­movic
Akon
Xabi Alonso
Brit­ney Spears

Hi Steven,

Can you please stop direct­ing films that have Ger­man sol­diers in them. It is a prob­lem with the baby boomer gen­er­a­tion but any­one born post 1960 just doesn’t care about them. You on the other hand, appear to have a bizarre fas­ci­na­tion, some might say a fetish with our grey uni­formed Deutsche chums.

Here is your fil­mog­ra­phy and evi­dence of the amount of panzer based non­sense you’ve inflicted upon us all. Maybe you just like their motor­bike side­cars and the hel­mets, I don’t know, but for your remain­ing years, could you please move on.

Please also avoid aliens as well.

Duel — big truck chases a man (alle­gory for das boot vs the allied solider)
Some­thing Evil — some demon non­sense
The Sug­ar­land Express — US based thriller
Jaws — Ger­man made shark ter­rorises local com­mu­nity
Close Encoun­ters of the Third Kind — aliens with theme tune
1941 — have a guess what this refers to.. yup… Zee Ger­mans!
Raiders of the Lost Ark — Nazis abound
E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial — Elliot har­bours Ann Frank from Nazis on Hal­loween
Twi­light Zone: The Movie — sci-fi thriller
Indi­ana Jones and the Tem­ple of Doom — Nazis are back with shriv­eled faces
The Color Pur­ple — Whoopi!
Empire of the Sun — WWII with Japan­ese instead of Nazis — sub­tle
Indi­ana Jones and the Last Cru­sade - MORE NAZIS
Always — “com­edy“
Hook — more com­edy
Juras­sic Park — British / Amer­i­cans colonise island, Nazi dinos fight back
Schindler’s List — seri­ous Nazi Nazi film, with Nazis
Amis­tad — Matthew McConaughey begins annoy­ing movie goes world­wide
The Lost World: Juras­sic Park — Nazi dinos stage full scale US inva­sion
Sav­ing Pri­vate Ryan — More Nazis attack
A.I. Arti­fi­cial Intel­li­gence — swear the end­ing needed more Nazis
Catch Me If You Can — lol
Minor­ity Report — total­i­tar­ian police state, much like another Euro­pean state I once knew
The Ter­mi­nal — “com­edy“
War of the Worlds — stu­pid flu-ridden (Nazi) aliens stage inva­sion of US
Munich — WWII guer­rilla spy drama set 30 years after WWII
Indi­ana Jones and the King­dom of the Crys­tal Skull — ZEE NAZIS ARE BACK!!!
War Horse — Ger­man sol­diers abound, pre­quel to your many other Nazis films

So 10/28 films are about Nazis… it’s 2012.… it’s been 67 years… one year older than you Steven. Let’s leave it now. I beg you. War Horse was by the num­bers dri­vel, and we all know you only took the chance so you could get your Ger­man sol­dier fix. Why not join a reen­act­ment group, live the past instead of inflict­ing it upon us time and time again.

Tschüss

And lo’ ITV has decided that what the peo­ple want is more period drama bol­locks. Not con­tent with Down­ton Abbey and its incred­i­ble propen­sity for expo­si­tion [“Oh golly, I can’t be upstairs, I’m a ser­vant and I can’t be on this floor. — Yes, you bet­ter get back down before his Lord­ship finds out.”] they have com­mis­sioned an utter utter by the num­bers pile of wank in Titanic, some­thing they claim is:

Scripted by Julian Fel­lowes the ‘esteemed’ writer behind equally expo­si­tion­tas­tic Gos­ford Park, Titanic tells the story we’ve all heard 34892734 times. Many destroyed James Macaroon’s ver­sion — but Cap­tain, I’ve counted the lifeboats and there don’t seem to be enough — but at least it put to bed any need to tell it again.

The prob­lem with the trailer is that it tells the entire story and negates the need for watch­ing the tripe when it goes live to rap­tur­ous applause and inevitable Twit­ter trend­ing great­ness. NB: All pic­tures have been anno­tated as the source mate­r­ial is incred­i­bly complex.

First up, he’s the arro­gant ship pilot:

Then, the inevitable unlike­able rich:

Obvi­ously, tak­ing a leaf out of DiCappuccino’s poor char­ac­ter, here’s this show’s poor man:

Unfor­tu­nately, expo­si­tion storms back with the girl he bumps into inform­ing him not to use those stairs again. You can guaran­damn­tee that at least 80% of the Tele­vi­sion Event of 2012 will be spent explain­ing the rather fuck­ing obvi­ous class struc­ture of the time. But in case it isn’t abun­dantly clear here are some pho­tos of rich peo­ple not respect­ing the women&children clas­sic, poor trapped like cat­tle and a mil­i­tary man los­ing his shit.

Why would ITV waste the money on this toi­let? There are so many scripts out there, but ITV some­how always get it wrong. Get ready for April when every­one dies on a ship hit by an ice­berg. Tak­ing bets on the final shot being a slow pan out of the bod­ies in the water with a cow­bell inter­mit­tently ring­ing along­side a slow piano.


ITV; refus­ing to break the mold for decades on end. Catch the trailer here

Per­haps the clos­est the Tai­wanese get to a national dish is Beef Noo­dle Soup but even this isn’t eaten uni­ver­sally as many of the country’s Bud­dhists won’t eat beef. Instead the coun­try has a vast snack­ing cul­ture where you can buy all man­ner of street food for next to no money. Unlike Japan, which spe­cialises in intri­cate pre­sen­ta­tion, the Tai­wanese care lit­tle about how things look. Mak­ing sure the food tastes great is the main pri­or­ity as com­pe­ti­tion for busi­ness is so fierce owing to the fact that barely any­one cooks at home.

Case in point is the oys­ter omelet. Oys­ters, eggs, spring onions, a lit­tle spice sound great, but when it looks like this, would you order it?

Then there is the fried food. If this ever fell into the wrong hands (Amer­i­cans), the con­se­quences would be dire. Heart dis­ease would no doubt tre­ble overnight with the result­ing deaths extend­ing into the hun­dreds of thou­sands. The main threat comes from Pai Ke which is on paper just bat­tered chicken but is one of the most addic­tive foods out there. The thick bat­ter is both spicy, a lit­tle sweet and ultra crunchy and when com­bined with suc­cu­lent chicken is a heart attack in a paper bag. Approach with cau­tion.

Accom­pa­ny­ing the Pai Ke or Ji Pai are fried sweet potato, mush­room, taro (squidgy great­ness) and tem­pura. Tem­pura in Tai­wan dif­fers to the Japan­ese bat­tered prawns, by instead tak­ing the prawn and mash­ing it up with the flour. Then the result­ing splodge is cooled, chopped up and then deep fried. The end result is a airy light crispy shell that becomes slightly chewy when eaten. Tossed with light chilli, it is as moor­ish as pop­corn. Again, all of these fried foods are no good in any way but are per­fect when eaten after a long day with a beer or two.

Then there are the more tra­di­tional of Chi­nese snacks; the meat buns, the dumplings, pan­cakes and some kind of mys­tery meat and rice.

Finally these lit­tle hot cakes can be filled with cus­tard, taro or red bean but really if you’re devi­at­ing from the cus­tard ver­sion, you’re doing it wrong.

It’s easy to graze in Taiwan :)

I’m pretty sure that Orange Pixel, the mak­ers of Star­dash, watched the Youtube videos of a game called Ass­hole Mario (see here), a home­brew ver­sion of the Nin­tendo clas­sic with an insane amount of cheap tricks and nigh on impos­si­ble dif­fi­culty.

Star­dash is tough, real tough but the stages are no longer than 35 sec­onds long mean­ing the bite­sized lev­els won’t drive you insane if you die towards the end of a stage. And die you will, very very often. The chal­lenge comes in that there are no power-ups at all and if touch any bad guy you die (unless you jump on them). In this respect it’s just like Super Meat Boy in that you’re given infi­nite lives to beat a stage. In each level there are two stars to be earned. One for fin­ish­ing it in a strict time limit and one for col­lect­ing all the coins scat­tered through­out the level. In order to beat the time limit means you’re encour­aged to run full-pelt through the level like Sonic, tim­ing jumps to per­fec­tion to beat the stage. But there is no penalty if the time runs out, allow­ing you to col­lect the coins at will to earn the other star. Each world has eight stages and in each stage is also a hid­den key that opens up a tem­ple level if all keys are col­lected in a world. Find­ing these keys requires a lot of trial and error and brings even more depth to the game.

The physics are spot on so you can rarely blame the game if you die, though hit detec­tion is, on rare occa­sions, a lit­tle off. My only gripe with the game is that while the style is pur­pose­fully 8-bit/Gameboy, it would be nice to have the game in colour. Star­dash is fan­tas­tic, a true plat­form­ing gem that will make you bet­ter at games if you can grab all the stars and unlock all the lev­els. I’m cur­rently at 88% and am using all spare time to press on ahead. Inde­pen­dent games like this should be sup­ported and event though the game is free on Android, I want to buy the paid ver­sion as it is just so good.