The view from the cheap seats

Another ping into an uncaring void

Thu, 19 Nov 2009 23:09:22 GMT

Well, there was a new episode of Doctor Who last Sunday.

I really enjoyed it. Base under siege that became something a little more, a little different, as the Doctor underwent some startling character development that we'll see culminating in an undoubtedly gaudy, though still shamelessly enjoyable, Christmas Special. Apparently, John Simm's Master will be returning, as well as Donna and Bernard Cribbins. No complaints there- they were all superb. RTD being RTD, we'll probably also see Davros, the Daleks, the Cybermen, Rose Tyler, Jackie Tyler, Pete Tyler, Sam Tyler for all I bloody know, the Sontarans, Captain Jack, the fucking Slitheen, Harriet Jones, Mr Finch, the Gelth, Martha Jones, Madam de Pompadour, Sarah-Jane Smith, Simon Pegg's character from The Long Game, Mickey Smith, that woman Jessica Hynes played in Human Nature, the Face of Boe, the Carrionites, the Dalek Emperor, that woman from Silence in the Library, Sid, the Empress of the Racnoss, the Hath, Ood Sigma, the oracles from The Fires of Pompeii, a giant wasp, that bloke with the face of a pig, Professor Lazarus, the Wire, the Chula, the Jagrafess, the Abzorbaloff, the Adipose and Adam from the Long Game revealing that it was him all along. Then they'll all form a chorus line and sing "Happy Days Are Here Again" while the Doctor regenerates. Afterward, the fanbase will complain that Sally Sparrow wasn't in it, and that it wasn't dark and gritty like The Twin Dilemma.

I get the feeling, though, that the Christmas Special may end up being a Fantastic Aesop in action. I bet the moral will be "if you have the power of time travel, don't go back in time to change history, because it is (for unspecified but definite reasons) Wrong". This is because There Are Some Things People Should Not Be Allowed To Do, specifically saving peoples' lives some of the time (as distinct from saving peoples' lives most of the time, which is perfectly all right. It's in the format, after all). Similarly, the Aesop in Torchwood was that If Aliens Threaten The Human race With Extinction Unless You Do Something Horrible, It's Best To Strike A Dramatic Pose, Say No And Hope They Make An Elementary Tactical Error Like, Say, Giving You A Free Death Ray. Which, to be honest, strikes me as moral cowardice.

Still I shall look forward to Doctor Who and, I have no doubt, enjoy it immensely. All the same, I'm looking forward to seeing what Mr Moffat will make of it.

Dollhouse

Sun, 08 Nov 2009 18:38:41 GMT

I've been watching series one of Dollhouse recently, by the way, and with the end of my exams, I've managed to get the series finished.

I'd heard somewhat mixed reports, that the first few episodes weren't very good, but that it rewarded perseverance. Sure enough, the opening four or five episodes delivered an intriguing premise, but not much else- mainly a series of run-arounds with a (literal) reset button pressed at the end of each episode.

A few episodes in, however, it takes flight, and my, what a wonderful beast it is. Intriguing metaplots start coiling together, the characters develop and the various backstory enigmas get filled in. The penultimate episode was great, and the unbearably weird "epitaph" ep left me wondering what the hell Whedon has planned for the rest of the story.

It's not perfect, of course- I really have no idea why it feels the need to inhabit a formula so strongly for the first half of the season. The change in format, when it comes, isn't really triggered by anything within the story- it feels almost as if Whedon finished the season a couple of episodes short, so filmed a few interchangeable eps to pad it out. However, it reminded me of just how great a writer Joss Whedon can be when he gets the chance.

Let's just hope Fox don't decide to pull another Firefly on us.

First post for an age and a half

Thu, 15 Oct 2009 20:45:00 GMT

Hm. Seems like I'm never going to tell you all about Berlin, am I? Oh well- you can make up something scandalous and tell it to each other in progressively shriller and more outraged voices.

Life has been quiet and busy at the same time. Since coming back from possibly my best summer holidays ever, I've spent four weeks at college, then two weeks at work, then a week "revising" at home and the past week back at college again. The current lot of exams for which I am revising (the Advanced stage) are ridiculous- the last load were probably "harder", in the sense of having to learn reams and reams of complicated concepts, but these are just... weird. Sitting them is like nailing down fog- the challenge is in trying to work out what the examiner is getting at, and wondering whether you've missed any complicated deferred tax implications (or whatever). A lot of the questions seem to be angled more toward testing my judgement in making reasonable estimates and assumptions rather than my knowledge of anything in particular. Not what I'm used to!

Time between college has been spent avoiding work. The week that I booked as leave to stay at home and revise was an absolutely monstrous waste of time. I made bolognese- that's about it, and whilst it has been very helpful to have dinner in the freezer for the past week and a half (and it's still not finished), it's not exactly the head start I was hoping for. I've been to a pub quiz in Hampstead regularly as well, and we've managed to get a decent grab-bag of London and former G&S friends along. Andy was there (plus one) last week, and Pete before that. It's been nice- we came second last week as well.

I went to see Up last weekend. Really, really, really good. Whimsical to the point of completely defying not only rudimentary physics and biology but also common sense, and yet somehow disbelief was kept suspended throughout, as if on a thousand helium balloons. I'm not really sure where it fits into the Pixar pantheon- I haven't rethought the difficult "What's your favourite Pixar?" question since going to see The Incredibles, so I suppose Up is squeezed in with that, Ratatouille and Wall-E in the overcrowded Number One spot.

Hm, what else? I've been reading the latest Pratchett, Unseen Academicals, and it's not great, I'm sad to say. Haven't finished it yet, but I'm about 80% of the way through and I couldn't really tell you what the plot is. The characters are all good, there are still a lot of funny jokes and interesting takes on fantasy tropes, but there's just no narrative drive to the thing.

And speaking of narrative drive, my Dollhouse season 1 DVD arrived today. Nice. I've seen the first two episodes, borrowed from someone who torrented them, and enjoyed them enough to purchase the real thing shock-horror-legitimately. I'm sure Al Qaeda will survive without my funding them. Haven't got around to watching the thing yet, but I'm sure it'll complement the Firefly episodes I've been re-watching latterly on a kind of Joss Whedon kick.

Toodle pip for now, anyway. I'm off to spend what remains of the evening relaxing with the Guardian crossword before getting a moderately early night before going to college tomorrow.

The obligatory Edinburgh post

Mon, 24 Aug 2009 18:53:34 GMT

As most of you are probably aware, I went to the Edinburgh festival a couple of weeks ago. A wonderful time was had by all, and I went to see a record-breaking 36 shows, as well as doing a lot of fat-chewing, beer-drinking andcurry-eating (the Mosque Kitchen curries from the Pleasance Dome are really fantastic).

Anyway, here's what I saw and what I thought of it:

Pappy's Fun Club Incredibly endearing group of gangly, jug-eared comedians with an exquisite sense of comic absurdity. An hour of pure, good-natured enjoyment- their trademark is the way they come across as being a bunch of idiots, thus winning the audience's hearts, whilst actually performing a very sharp and well-rehearsed set. An excellent example of the Josie Long style of comedy, positioned at the opposite end of the spectrum from Jimmy Carr-esque sneering.

4 stars

Luke Toulson: Too Many Last Cigarettes Fairly middle-of-the-road stand-up comedy, in which Luke Toulson used a series of anecdotes to describe to the audience just how unpleasant a person his stage persona is. My opinion is probably affected by the fact that I'd seen a significant chunk of his act before, when he compered a show we went to see at Pete's stag weekend, but it has to be said that he works far better as a compere than in a one-man show. Without other acts to break it up, his "I'm a bastard" routine soon became stale. There were a few genuine laiughs to be had, sure, but coming after Pappy's Fun Club (at whose expense he had a bit of a sneer), he seemed sadly unoriginal.

2 stars

Coffee A very funny little play about three advertising writers stuck in a room trying to pitch an advert for a brand of coffee. In the best tradition of sealed-room comedies, their personalities spark off against each other in a range of entertaining and unpredictable directions, and it all culminates in a series of revelations that highlight just how unhappy and mutually dependent they all are. Nothing amazingly original, but very well done.

4 stars

Kiosk of Champions Wonderfully likeable sketch comedy from Stuart Goldsmith and Richard Sandling. The two have a similar comic partnership to Simon Pegg and Nick Frost in the way Sandling's blank fat-bloke grin complements Goldsmith's manic energy, and their material was all very funny and original.

4 stars

Adams & Rea A pair of guitar wielding probable lesbians sing a series of very funny songs about middle class mothers, picking up litter and other such peculairities of modern life. Likable and very entertaining.

3 and a half stars

Merrily We Roll Along A Sondheim show, almost painfully well-performed by a group from Durham University. The show told the story of the life of an unconventional composer, starting with him as a cynical, bitter success and ending with him as a wide-eyed young hopeful. The music was unusual, in that it started off rather forgettable but, as the themes gradually emerged, we were left with some truly memorable and numbers. Of course, the fact that we knew how this story was going to end up prevented the whole thing from being too sentimental- what would otherwise have been a rather saccharine closing number was nicely balanced by the fact that we'd seem how the characters' optimism had gradually tarnished. Great show, and a nice piece of early Sondheim.

4 stars

Comedy at the Canon's Gait We arrived too late for the first half of this free comedy show, but got there in time for Rob Heeney and Yianni Agisilaou. Heeney's set was a series of very funny observations on the theme of Differences Between Men And Women- whilst this is hardly new ground for comedy, he came across as likeable rather than boorish. Yianni was also likeable, albeit in a complete different (and very nerdy) way. His comic observations were sharp, but marred by an over-reliance on mp3 clips- I think this was his big gimmick but was actually the least funny part of his show.

3 stars

Celtic Caledonia Slightly twee, but very enjoyable, dance show, telling the story of the encounters of the magical Gaels (portrayed as clog-dancing green-clad Irish girls) and the warlike Picts (ballet) in ancient Scotland. I don't know much about dance, but was immensely impressed by the skills on display here; my only serious reservation is that the narration was pretty uninspired.

3 and a half stars

Rich Hall's Campfire Stories Boot-faced comedian Rich Hall in a weird little play about strange events on a camping holiday. Hall is no actor, but his impeccable comic credentials more than made up for that, and the other actors in this show more than made up for what he lacked; the conspiracy-theorist fly shop owner was a particular highlight. The plot was bizarre, to say the least, involving a man who was seduced by a giant mayfly, but managed to be entertaining all the same, and the characters' various ruminations about the clutter that fills modern life were well-meant. An odd show, the kind of thing you'd only see at the Fringe, but a good one.

3 stars

Hou Hou Sharou's Chorus of Descent A group of drama students dressed up as washerwomen tell a story of original sin and the fragility of happiness in rhyming couplets, involving imaginative staging using ironing boards and washing lines. Sounds weird, right? Right. However, it was also compelling; a vicious fight scene in particular created an amazingly vivid effect. It would have been nice if the play had had a philosophical depth to match its grand ambitions, though; Ged & I discussed it afterward and concluded that the message could be summed up as "life is difficult for poor people". However, it was still an arresting and highly memorable piece of theatre.

4 stars

Ginger & Black A duo of deadpan "musical storytellers", Ginger & Black are old Fringe favourites. This year, they told the story of a boy named Harold who lived during the war. It was very, very funny indeed; their mastery of their comic personas is very impressive. The only downside is that Ginger (the main musician of the two) had broken her wrist so the show involved far less music than usual. It was also unexpectedly short (probably because they'd had to make a lot of cuts). Still great though.

4 stars

Paul Foot: By the Yard Truly bizarre stand up comedy. His set began as a series of ill-at-ease, almost Aspergers-ish observations about the difficulties of finding stools where one least expects them, and the correct reaction to seeing a van. It took an unexpected swerve into bleaker territory about halfway through, when Foot started ranting about loneliness, and finished by leaping into the audience and hugging me whilst weeping and shrieking. He then launched into a series if bizarre revenge fantasties perpetrated on bed and breakfast landladies. All of this was funny (to me at least), but the cumulative effect was, frankly, pretty disturbing, and the atmosphere in the room was very uneasy for a while. It was worth the price of admission for the genuinely funny material at the beginning, but the darker stuff would have worked a lot better if the show had been shorter.

3 stars

Micaela Leon: Kabarett Berliner A German singer tells the story of several strong women of the Weimar Republic in a series of monologues interspersed with cabaret singing. Fascinating subject matter and impeccably sung and acted, this was a totally unexpected gem.

5 stars

Shakespeare for Breakfast These early morning Shakespeare mash-ups are an Edinburgh tradition, and tend to be fast, funny and with free croissants. This thoroughly silly retelling of A Midsummer Night's Dream was no execption; in fact, it was probably the best yet. An impeccably talented cast, lots of silly jokes and audience interaction made for a morning that was engaging, accessible and fun. I can well imagine a lot of the children in the audience discovering Shakespeare for the first time due to this.

4 stars

The Shade Ain't Right Short play set in a jazz bar in 1920s New Orleans, exploring black-on-black racism. This had a promising premise, but an unsubtle script and some very dodgy acting made it a disappointment. The play set up an interesting situation (dealing with the jealousy of a black singer who is replaced by a mixed race singer due to the Jim Crow laws in place at the time), but unfortunately didn't take the time to properly explore the issues it raised, seeming content simply to state "racism is bad".

2 stars

School for Scandal Cringe-inducingly self-indulgent performance of Sheridan's classic comedy by a group of smug celebrity comedians. Marcus Brigstocke played it comparably straight; the others were utterly abysmal. Terrible.

1 star

Hitler Moustache Richard Herring tells the story of how he tried to reclaim the toothbrush moustache back from Hitler, reminding the audience that it was originally worn by Chaplin. Immensely clever examination of racism in the light of the BNP's recent electoral successes, and a neat demonstration that, at its best, comedy can do serious issues better than theatre (seeing as how I saw this on the same day as the disappointing The Shade Ain't Right). One of the very best things I saw at this Fringe- if only more stand-up comedy could be as thought-provoking as this.

5 stars

Ali McGregor Entertaining late-night cabaret from Ali McGregor and her comedy butler. Great hostess and great guests (including the aforementioned Ginger & Black), and topped off by a breathtaking performance from Anna the Pocket Rocket, whom I can only describe as a burlesque hula-hoop artiste. Trust me, it's better than it sounds.

4 stars

Bite-Sized Breakfast at Bedlam In a similar vein to Shakespeare for Breakfast, free croissants, coffee and strawberries are up for grabs in this selection of short comedy and theatre pieces. All of the vignettes were funny and/or effective (as appropriate); the highlight was a look intoi the lives of three urinal cakes.

4 stars

Origin of Species: The Musical I loved this to pieces. A one-man show, in which an actor playing Charles Darwin, acoustic guitar in hand, introduces the audience to his study, tells them of his biological work and life-consuming obsession with barnacles, before turning to his greatest, and most controversial, work yet. Clearly a labour of love and beautifully acted, with a real ear for period dialogue. A lot of the humour came from anachronisms, which in lesser hands could have fallen flat, but the actor's earnest delivery suspended disbelief throughout. In particular, a joke about Josiah Wedgewood (the famous pot maker) being a pot head could have fallen flat, but instead became an unfeasibly funny recurring joke. Definitely in my top three.

5 stars

Private Peaceful Well acted but rather one-dimensional play about the loss of innocence during the First World War. The play was apparently written (by Michael Morpugo, no less) as part of a campaign to posthumously pardon soldiers who were shot for cowardice during the First World War. Unfortunately, it does nothing new with the concept, so the whole effect is relentlessly mawkish. Oh well; the writing was good enough on a scene-by-scene basis to drawme in, even if I was left feeling a little non-plussed at the end.

3 stars

A Grave Situation Gloriously silly and brilliantly produced musical about the WW2 misadventures of a group of gravediggers from Huddersfield who are sent to Dunkirk due to an administrative error. They visit a French bordello, Hell, Heaven and even London before returning home to a hero's welcome. This show made almost no sense, but I didn't care- superb comic acting, a funny script and frankly breathtaking production values, complete with enormous musical humbers, kept me laughing heartily throughout. It was produced by the Young Pleasance group, who wowed me with the Pierglass (a play about a group of actors) in 2006, but whose previous two shows have been rather too po-faced. I'm overjoyed to see that they've rediscovered their sense of fun- if they can marry it to a coherent storyline, they'll really have another hit on their hands, but until then, this kind of thing cannot disappoint.

4 and a half stars

Clever Peter Rapid fire sketch comedy. Incredibly well-acted, frequently jaw-droppingly obscene and never less than hilarious, Clever Peter was one of my favourite shows at last year's Fringe and they've definitely kept up the standard. I left feeling my funny bone had been raped.

5 stars

Geraldine Quinn Tim Minchin recommended this flame-haired Australian chanteuse, so I arrived expecting great things. Unfortunately, despite a likeable stage presence, she simply wasn't all that funny. The act was saved by a very funny song about the reasons that young people are annoying (worth a star in itself), but apart from that (and a general sense of respect for anyone who rhymes "placenta" with "World Trade Centre"), she didn't raise many laughs. A pleasant enough hour, but not a very funny one.

3 stars

Spank! Late night comedy mash-up, Spank is always a mixed bag, and this was no exception. The first half had some really excellent comedians, such as Matt Green whose impeccable delivery left me very impressed and Pippa Evans, whom I fell in love with a little bit (enough to make me want to see her full act, more of which below). Unfortunately, the penultimate act was an absolute stinker. Maundering delivery, non-existent material and flat charisma combined to see him hissed off. By that point, the mood was pretty ugly- Spank can often be pretty rowdy, an attitude the comperes seem to encourage, and I started to feel sorry for the final act. I needn't have bothered- he had, without a doubt, the sharpest heckler comebacks I've ever seen. I found myself on the end of a couple of them at one point and I have to take my hat off to him- he was very quick indeed. Annoyingly, a woman in the front row took offence to some of his comedy and decided she was going to needle him for his whole act. Whilst I'm not denying the woman's right to be offended (the material was pretty near the knuckle), walking out would have made her point more eloquently. Anyway, he was entertaining, if gladitorial, and the night turned out to be, if mixed, entertaining.

4 stars

The Beta Males' Picnic Free sketch comedy performed by a group of four likable if slightly shambolic young men. It made for an enjoyable hour, if a little slack in parts. When I tell you that the undoubted highligh was a sketch portraying Shakespeare as an egomaniac cyborg, I'm sure you'll get the sense of what type of show it was.

3 stars

A Fete Worse Than Death Hmm. This was advertised as a free play about a village fete that went wrong. I thought it sounded funny, so decided to check it out. Unfortunately, it turned out that the woman organising the play had fallen ill and, as a result, the play was cancelled. Instead, a couple of comedians who were doing a different show in that venue put on an impromptu comedy performance to entertain people who had come to see the play. Despite not having any material. At all. I can see how this may have seemed like the hospitable thing to do at the time, and I can't hold it against the two comedians, who seemed like nice enough chaps, but really, it was terrible. I left after 20 minutes.

1 star

Paker-Richards More free comedy, this time from Henry Paker and Gavin Richards, who proved to be extremely likable, engaging and funny. Hooray. They finished the show by playing Audience Top Trumps, during which I was called up on stage to volunteer. Funny, though hardlyground-breaking.

3 stars

Cigarettes and Chocolate A play by Anthony Mignella about a young woman who takes a vow of silence as a protest against materialism, Mostly well-acted and with excellent dialogue; thematically a little well-worn, but it still managed to be thought-provoking. The staging was a little self-consciously arty for my liking, with the cast moving the furniture around rhythmically to oratorio, but that's a small niggle. It also featured a totally gratuitous topless scene at the end; whether that's a good thing or a bad thing depends on your personal opinion and, I suppose, how good a seat you got.

4 stars

The Pirates of Penzance The Edinburgh University Savoy Opera Group can generally be relied upon to perform a thoroughly enjoyable, energetic and lively interpretation of Gilbert & Sullivan. This, however, I found rather staid and unimaginative. The singing was first-rate throughout, but there was little indication that any other aspect of the show had really been thought about. In particular, casting appeared to have been done entirely based upon voice, resulting in the lead role of Frederic being played by somebody who had neither interest nor ability in acting. Perhaps I'm being harsh- I have been in Pirates, so found it a little over-familiar, but I felt this was a missed opportunity. Had it been a purely choral production, it would probably have been enjoyable enough, but if you're going to go to the effort to stage a show you should put some thought into the non-musical aspects of the show.

2 stars

Play on Words A play that tried to be thought-provoking, but only succeeded in being confusing and dull. A non-linear plot with multiple flashbacks, time loops and interaction with audience plants could be interesting, but unfortunately neither the writing nor (fatally) the acting were strong enough to support it. Moreover, the plot was cliched (the twists were that the woman that had come into both of the male characters' lives during the flashback scenes was dead, and that she was having an affair with one of them, both of which are precisely what usually happens in plays involving two men, a woman and a non-linear plot) which made it very difficult to care. Ultimately, a play which tried to engage head and heart failed to have an impact on either.

2 stars

Bane Wonderfully funny monologue about a private detective. Incredibly well-acted (every character came to life, despite being played by the same person), with some great jokes and a nice sense of the conventions of the Chandleresque world it was parodying. The actor was a very talented mime as well; the world he was describing came to life in his actions very nicely.

5 stars

Odyssey A one man physical theatre interpretation of Homer's Odyssey. Everything I said about Bane applies to this times 100. The level of physical control and storytelling skill that that performer had was absoltely breathtaking. Another of my top 3 shows.

5 stars

Pippa Evans A very funny (and hot) musical comedian, playing a series of different characters. By far the funniest was an American country music singer; unfortunately, this was the part of her act that I'd seen before in Spank. The rest was still very good, though, and the part where she sang "I Don't Know How To Love You" imploringly to my friend Ged is an experience I'll remember for a long time to come.

4 stars

Barbershopera A capella musical about a matador from Spain who returns to Norfolk to take up his dead father's mantle as a barber. Brilliantly sung, acted and staged; an utter delight from beginning to end.

5 stars

The Late Show A late night stand up show, the Late Show is usually fairly reliable as a place to go in Edinburgh; it's occasionally unbelievably funny, and only rarely disappointing. This one was... pretty good. Likable New Yorker Jamie Kilstein opened the evening, and was, to my mind, the best of the bunch. The feeling was clearly mutual, as he came to me in the interval, gave me a flyer and said "Please come and see my show, you were the best person in the audience". Oh, and he also pointed me out, observing "This guy has a head of hair, glasses, a beard and a moustache. That's a man who has gone to every effort to stop people scribbling on his photo." Droll. The other acts were never less than funny, and it was a great way to round off my Edinburgh experience.

4 stars

So that was Edinburgh 2009, my seventh consecutive Fringe. I have to admit that I can't wait for the 8th; this is still one of the highlights of my year.

And in my next post, I'll tell you all about Berlin.

Salient points re the weekend

Mon, 25 May 2009 19:26:10 GMT

I spent the weekend away in the depths of Lancashire for Pete & Lesley's wedding. I'm pretty sure that everyone on my flist who cares about the wedding was there, so will only botch an attempt at alliteration to say that the ceremony, company, ceilidh, canapes, cheese & (a)ccomodation were all wonderful.

Of something approaching interest may be the fact that I lost my phone; left it in a Preston taxi. An attempt at recovery is underway, & chances of success are looking good, so I'm not attempting to get a new one just yet, but be aware that I'm somewhat out of touch at the moment.

Oh, and I have a woeful sore throat. Boo.

Just a quickie

Sun, 19 Apr 2009 22:04:18 GMT

In brief:

I read Self Help recently, by Edward Docx. I found it a bit slow to get into, but devoured it once I was about 30 pages in. A really wonderful novel, heartwarming, funny and thought-provoking in equal parts. Entertainingly for me, the characters (and, presumably, the author) hang around the same parts of London as I do. Off-hand discussions of the topography of the Northern Line may not be everybody's bag, but they're certainly mine. Recommended.

I've also read Gemma Bovery, a comic by Posy Simmonds (first serialised in the Guardian) and How Mumbo-Jumbo Conquered The World, by Francis Wheen. Gemma Bovery was excellent; genuinely engrossing and beautifully composed, both visually and textually. Mumbo Jumbo was... well, it had its moments- the author's rants against postmodernism were entertaining, for instance, but I couldn't help feeling that I was reading a polemic. I kept comparing it to Bad Science by Ben Goldacre, and it came up wanting. With Goldacre, I get the sense that the issues he's writing about are genuinely pervasive and worth getting angry about- with Wheen I wonder whether he's been cherry-picking the facts that fit his argument. Also, it's not especially clear what that argument is- the title promises to tell us how mumbo-jumbo conquered the world- Wheen tells us only that,in his opinion, it has conquered the world, and doesn't do an especially good job of demonstrating even that. Don't get me wrong; the forces that Wheen rails against (Thatcherism and neo-liberalism, the rise of fundamentalism, academic psedobollocks) are things that worry me, but he doesn't offer an especially illuminating analysis of them, or any reason for us to suppose that they may be new- I'd argue that, far from taking over the world, mumbo-jumbo has been with us all along.

Oh, and I watched the first disc of series 3 of Arrested Development. Unfortunately, what was, for the first two series, one of the funniest sitcoms I've ever seen, appears to have jumped the shark calamitously. There are still isolated moments of comic genius but, overall, the characters are too exaggerated, the humour too self-referential and the plot too convoluted for me to really give a shit any more.

So that's what I've been reading and watching. As work was a bit quiet last week, I decided to take advantage by booking some leave and taking a four-day weekend, following a one-day week. Next week, however, marks the start of the dreaded Busy Period, so I'm off to Portsmouth for a week. A whole week with no internet- however shall I survive?

I'll let you know.

PS- The second and final part of Whatever Happened To The Caped Crusader, Neil Gaiman's 2-part run on Batman, is out at the end of next week. Thought I'd add that.

PPS- If you get a cup, line it with microwavable cling film, break an egg or two into it, twizzle and tie up the cling film, then put the whole cling film/egg complex in boiling water for a few minutes (leaving the cup), you get one of the world's greatest poached eggs. From b3ta.

#amazonfail

Mon, 13 Apr 2009 19:43:57 GMT

So there's been an internet kafuffle.

Amazon may or may not be deliberately removing gay/lesbian/rape recovery books from their ranking system (and therefore making them more difficult to find through searches). This may or may not be the result of a third party troll, a co-ordinated attack by pressure groups, glitch in Amazon's software or an unforseen emergent memetic effect.

There's an article and collection of links here that sums it all up better than I could.

Twitter is brilliant for inciting outrage, panic and snap boycotts!

Sigh

Tue, 07 Apr 2009 17:35:18 GMT

Oh, well. It was good while it lasted.

More evil journalists in the world

Fri, 03 Apr 2009 22:52:00 GMT

Scottish Sun steals copyright from cancer patient.

The linked article contains a link to contact details for David Dinsdale, the editor of said "newspaper". These are reproduced below:

David Dinsmore
Editor
The Scottish Sun
124 Portman Street
Kinning Park
Glasgow G41 1EJ

E-mail: david.dinsmore@the-sun.co.uk

I've sent Mr Dinsdale a short email, expressing my disgust (signed "Dr JE McGraw" for maximum gravitas). Whilst I'm aware that this won't do much good, hopefully a lot of other people will be doing the same, which may have some kind of attrittion effect.

Feel free to do likewise.

Hmmmmmm

Wed, 01 Apr 2009 18:20:46 GMT

Neil Gaiman just twittered the first big Planet of the Dead trailer, and I am unsure whether to watch it.

On the one hand, it'll pass a pleasant couple of minutes, and give me substance for my rabid speculations.

On the other hand, I realised early on that, fun though speculation is, I enjoy Dr Who episodes much more when I don't know what to expect. I suspect this "surprise" element may be harder to preserve for the specials.

Hmmmm....

(unrelated sidenote: Andy just twittered this interesting link that y'all may like to look at, if you've ever wondered where inanimate objects go to die)

EDIT: Well, I watched it, weak-willed puttyman that I am. Looks a bit Midnight/Voyage of the Damned/Impossible Planet to me. Which is to say it could be excellent or.... not. Base-under-siege is a fairly common theme in Doctor Who, and tend to rise or fall on how good the secondary characters are. It's written by RTD and Gavin Roberts, both of whom have a track record in this department that veers from excellent (the gang in Love & Monsters and the murder suspects in The Unicorn & the Wasp) to forgettable (the cast of Voyage of the Damned and, most unforgivably, Shakespeare).

Big news

Wed, 01 Apr 2009 06:56:01 GMT

This morning, I shaved my beard off.

Time for a change, and all that.

Check the date...

Hm

Thu, 26 Mar 2009 21:07:41 GMT

If you want to know why I've started posting a lot of Angry Blogger Stuff, blame Twitter. I've started following Graham Linehan (of Father Ted and The IT Crowd fame), and he keeps posting links.

Like this one.

Now, call me n unreasonable anti-homeschooling maniac, but I don't entirely see why people are getting so angry with the NSPCC. I haven't read all the linked interviews etc, but whilst people who want to homeschool are obviously no more likely to be child abusers than others, child abusers may well use homeschooling as a cover, given that school is the point at which the state (in the shape of teachers) has the most contact with children. If an abused child is homeschooled, they may need more regular check-ups by social workers, etc, just to ensure that nothing untoward is happening. Right?

(I mean, normally I'm the first to object to people saying We Must Clamp Down On X Because Of Paedophiles, but this seems fairly reasonable, achievable, and not ignoring the fact that most child abuse happens in the home).

Hm.

Tue, 24 Mar 2009 19:00:55 GMT

More on the Daily Express story.

They've apologised.

The drum beats on

Mon, 23 Mar 2009 18:49:06 GMT

More on newspapers.

Edit to add: Daily Mail tells lies shock!

The above two articles came to my attention via Twitter. How very modern!

In which I express an opinion

Sun, 22 Mar 2009 15:20:34 GMT

battle_kitten made a post earlier this week that I never got around to replying to, what with my busy life. Now that I'm having a slack day, I thought I may as well get around to it, especially in light of Certain Recent Events.

The question:

"Do you like to read newspapers/stay updated on current events? How much do you read/how indepth? What topics? International/local? Business/Politics? etc etc"

I read that, thought "Hm, that's interesting", and went about my madcap, breakneck life. Then, I saw a couple of things that made me think of that question again.

The first of this was the Daily Express's interesting concept of what is newsworthy, with its recent front page "news" story that (and you may want to brace yourself before reading this) that teenagers who use Facebook post drunken pictures of themselves and talk about girls. The story in question is about the survivors of the Dunblane shootings about 12 or 13 years ago; these people are now 18 and, like most 18 year olds, enjoy drinking, attempted fornication and the use of social networking. Note also that, now that they're over 18, they don't have as much right to privacy under British law as minors would have (I don't know the details and am too lazy to check).

The Express therefore decided to have a look at these facebook profiles and run a story entitled "Anniversary Shame of Dunblane Survivors", in which a lady named Paula Murray affected outrage at the spectacle of these teenagers enjoying themselves instead of spending their lives in a monastery contemplating their loss, as they should have done. Graham Linehan of Father Ted fame has a bit of a rant about it here.

What annoys me most about this not the invasion of these kids' privacy; after all, the stuff was all on Facebook (fair enough, as it was all completely innocuous- the best the journalist could come up with was poor spelling and collecting chat-up lines). It's the spectacle of a presumably intelligent journalist writing something utterly nonsensical in an attempt to appeal to the people who she seems to think constitute her readership. It's a blatant attempt to cook up controversy about something completely uncontroversial, for no other reason than to generate easy copy and to keep the nation in the perpetual state of outrage that the press as a whole seem to require.

And this makes me wonder what the hell newspapers are for. Jade Goody died yesterday, as I'm sure everybody now knows, after having been the subject of tabloid front-page news for the past couple of months. All sound and fury, at best signifying nothing and at worst taking up space on newspaper pages and in the nation's spleens that could be better used in pursuit of something worthwhile, or at least entertaining. In theory, the press is a vital part of the political system; there's no point in having democracy without an informed electorate, and the flow of information needs to be separate from government.

But this idea, that newspapers are important, appears to have undergone a new mutation at some point, into the idea that anything that is published in a newspaper therefore must, by definition, be important. Also, there appears to be a widespread belief that buying a daily newspaper is a Good Thing, that it's a mark of being a full adult that can be satisfied by a Daily Mail habit. I can't see a way that this, combined with the natural competitive forces that shape the newspaper market, can be anything other than damaging. People want to read about the things that they're interested in; therefore, newspapers print stories about those subjects. Those subjects then become, by definition, News, something that everyone "ought" to know about to be a full adult. Now, in the case of Jade Goody, everyone obviously realises that this story is, at bottom, irrelevant trash. But when tabloids print trash about politics, reducing parties and policies into caricatures of themselves, the caricature becomes the story; people genuinely have arguments about "too much red tape and nanny state" even though these are just meaningless dysphemisms attached to random events to make them seem more newsworthy. "Political correctness" is probably the archetypal example of this; a label that has become an ideology.

I'm not even going to mention MMR.

Defenders of this kind of news often try to claim that they're making stories accessible, and try to paint their opponents as ivory tower elitists who long for a day when the Times was written for an audience in bowler hats and handlebar moustaches. I think the opposite is true, and that the tabloids are the true elitists. They're the ones claiming that their audiences are only capable of understanding cartoonish non-issues that have been manufactured by journalists. Surely a belief that important, complex issues (like what causes recessions) can be understood (at least in their basic forms) by everyone, and that this takes precedence over (for instance) demanding meaningless apologies, is the very opposite of elitist? Old-fashion and somewhat Enlightenment-esque, sure, and possibly not true, but definitely less elitist than assuming that anyone who reads a tabloid is an ape who needs to be pandered to.

So... do I read a newspaper? A bit. I don't think anyone needs to read a newspaper every day; whilst I realise that Barack Obama needs to be kept up to date with global events as and when they happen on a 24 hour basis, I don't think that's remotely true of me, and that it would fairly typical consumerist hubris to believe it. I mainly like newspapers to read on tube and train journeys when I'm not in the middle of a good book.

I think, on the whole, that I agree with Ben Goldacre, Cory Doctorow and their ilk when they claim that the newspaper as we know it may be in its death throes. I certainly hope so, and hope that this isn't just the cherishably naive belief of a technophilic liberal university graduate. Ben Goldacre talks about why blogs are better than newspapers at various points on his blog, most recently here and here.

That's all for now. Hopefully it'll teach Amy not to go asking questions on her LJ.

More from Dr Ben and the Tanktop of Truth

Wed, 18 Mar 2009 01:42:50 GMT

Life... is busy.

For now, have more Ben Goldacre videos. I've been killing time that would have been better spent asleep on Badscience.

Ben Goldacre of Bad Science talks about Sensationalised Science Reporting from Conrad on Vimeo.

Informed rationality for the win!

Sun, 15 Mar 2009 15:53:08 GMT

Ben Goldacre talks about MMR.

From the Land Of Fiction

Tue, 03 Mar 2009 22:39:09 GMT

Being Human finished on Sunday night; I watched it on the iPlayer last night. It was awesome. After the penultimate episode, I was a little concerned that it was heading in a rather narm-y direction (not that the penultimate episode wasn't great. It just laid on the emotion a bit thick). Thankfully, the final episode was, on the whole, pretty restrained and littered with excellent performances. Russell Tovey is always great as George the lovable werewolf, of course, but the show was very nearly stolen by Jason Watkins as Herrick, who managed the rare trick of being affably chilling (or chillingly affable). Set up for a sequel, of course... let's hope they keep up the high standard.

I recently read The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: The Black Dossier. Really, really, really good. Alan Moore moves the League's world forward to the 1950s, before using the titular dossier as an excuse to go ransacking literature and myth from Shakespeare to Orwell. I'm quite sure there were a load of jokes I didn't get- after all, when there are incidental allusions to The Man In The White Suit, you know you're in the hands of an author for whom obscurity holds no fear. The high point was probably the lost Shakespearean folio, with the comic gatesmen Master Pysse and Master Shytte. the low point was the PG Wodehouse-meets-HP Lovecraft pastiche, in which Moore makes the uncharacteristic error of fumbling the characterisation (Gussie Fink-Nottle raiding Aunt Agatha's drinks cabinet? I think not!), and also fails to be anywhere near funny enough. The plot is a bit thin too, compared to the full-on alien invasion of volume 2, but then that's not really the point; the point is the breadth of the world Alan Moore has created rather than any specific events. Oh, and the 3D finale (shame the green in the 3D glasses doesn't quite match the green ink, but it works well enough).

I also finished A Season With Verona this evening on the tube. This anthropological travelogue charts Tim Parks's journeys across Italy supporting Hellas Verona, and explores the soul of Italy and the nature of fannish obsession along the way. Oddly for a non-football fan, I loved it; Parks's observations are equally as applicable to a Doctor Who obsessive such as myself as to a rabid Italian football racist. Recommended.

Mon, 23 Feb 2009 21:37:05 GMT

Comment to this post and I will give you 5 subjects/things I associate you with. Then post this in your LJ and elaborate on the subjects given. I was tagged by slytherin_pixie .

1. Doctor Who
As anyone who knows me is probably aware, I like Doctor Who. This goes back to when I was a kid, and the Doctor was a short, Scottish man with a question-mark shaped umbrella and a limited acting range. I often missed parts of stories (they tended to be made up of 4 25-minute episodes in those days), but it didn't matter- I wasn't there to watch something that made sense, merely a cavalcade of surreal and vaguely terrifying images. I remember being slightly traumatised by Whizz-Kid dying under mysterious circumstances in the Greatest Show In The Galaxy, being smugly satisfied when the Doctor told his friends that, so long as they didn't run from the Cheetah People, they wouldn't be recognised as prey (I'd seen the same thing on the Really Wild Show, which made it true), and disgusted when The Happiness Patrol painted the Tardis pink (precisely the kind of thing girls would do, I thought). And then, it disappeared. I remember the 3D bananas from the 1992 Dimensions In Time special, though, and I watched the 1996 remake, and thought it a load of shite.

Many years passed, and I moved in next door to stranger_eons and edwardrussia , who had UK Gold. That was the year I got up early every weekend to watch from Peter Davison to Sylvester McCoy, back to Jon Pertwee and to Peter Davison again. It was brilliant (well, apart from the Colin Baker era, but you can't have everything). I was pleased to discover that the Sylvester McCoy episodes of my youth really did make as little sense as I remembered, and found out for myself precisely why Tom Baker is the best Doctor ever to grace the screen.

Then, we moved to a house that didn't have digital. Ed & I decided that, since we'd already seen all the Who worth watching, there was no point shelling out hard cash for digital in the new place, so I prepared to find a new obsession. A couple of months later, and a whole new series was announced, kicking off 18 months of messing around on increasingly daft message boards and getting involved in pointless arguments. It seems odd that, back then, fans were convinced that Russell T Davies was the shining savior of Proper Doctor Who, but the main worry was that Billie Piper was in it. Plus ca change. Eccleston, Tennant, Smith. A whole new era of popularity for my favouritest SF idea ever; a Whotopia, if you will.

Why do I like this shoddy little British piece of escapism so much, I hear you cry? I'm not entirely sure, but here are some attempts. I like the heart of the series, the humour and the (qualified) optimism. It's not set in a surgical, precise utopia like Star Trek; such places don't seem to exist in the universe of Who, where the best the future seems to offer is endless corridors and tinfoil sofas. I like the flexibility of the format, and the way it means that writers can play with ridiculously absurd situations, like a world stuck in a giant traffic jam, without having to worry about how it fits in the Meaningful Story Arc. I like the pick 'n' mix tone, where comedy and tragedy often sit side-by-side. I love, love that this is a kid's series; that these wonderful stories are being aimed at children, who will accept them, take them in and remember them for the rest of their lives (in the way I remember the pink Tardis, or the man-who-wanted-things-to-stop-changing). I like it for what it's done to television; the way the industry knew that it wouldn't work, that family television was dead and that nobody would want to watch a prime-time SF show, and it turned out that, sometimes, an entire industry can be talking out of its arse. I like that it's flying the flag against reality TV crap. I like the message (which is a deep and inextricable part of the show's DNA) that aliens are people too, that being different isn't a bad thing, and that being clever often beats carrying a big stick.

So, yeah. It's awesome :)

2. London
I live here. Have done for nearly two years. It's an interesting place, and I still have mixed feelings about it.

The worst thing about London is distance. I have a lot of friends here, and I hardly ever see a lot of them, because the city is fucking enormous and the tubes stop running at a very inappropriate time. Another lousy thing is that there are just Too Many People. I mean, really. How many people does one city need? London has at least double the number. Because of this, the pubs in central London tend to be packed, and going outside central London is often not an option because of, you guessed it, distance. Ugh.

Fortunately, London has a lot of good things as well. Even though it can be difficult to meet up with them, I do have a lot of friends here, and people tend to pass through a lot, for shows, job interviews, whatever. This means I get to see people. There's also a lot to do; I poured scorn on this side of London when I first came here, thinking mainly of West End shows, which are often a) cripplingly expensive and b) a bit poo. Since then, I've discovered things like the BBC Radio Theatre, the Globe, comedy nights in pubs, comic shops part-owned by Jonathan Ross and going places for free with Andy. Brill.

3. Nottingham
Ahh, Nottingham. I spent seven and a half years here, and it still feels too short. As almost everyone reading this will know, I went to the University of Nottingham to do a degree in Genetics. Things worked out a bit weird, and I ended up doing a PhD and a LOT of amateur light opera as well. Yes, Nottingham is where I discovered the University of Nottingham Gilbert and Sullivan Society, an organisation which changed my life the day I discovered it; it is unlikely I would be the person I am now without this group of people.

Apart from that, I like Nottingham for a lot of reasons; unlike London, it's about the right size for a city. It's possible to get around entirely on foot in Nottingham, for instance, which would probably kill you if you tried it in London. Despite its size, there is also a lot to do in Nottingham; theatres, pubs, restaurants, coffee shops and a comic shop every bit as good as the one part-owned by Jonathan Ross. It's cheap as well, which could never be said for London.

4. SFX/Geekery
I'm a geek, and a subscriber to SFX. I first noticed SFX when, a roving-eyed teenager, i noticed it at the newsagent and thought it was called SEX. A common mistake, apparently (though, the editor protests, not deliberate). I started picking it up in WHSmith about twice a year to see what its reviewers thought of the latest Pratchett book; I liked the way that they would actually review each book on its own merits, rather than run off the same old hack piece about how, for fantasy, it wasn't really all that childish, and how surprising that was. At some point, I decided to start buying it regularly (interestingly, I think this was about the time my New Scientist subscription lapsed. Make of that what you will).

I still subscribe to SFX (though, since I won the Pulp Idol competitoion a few months ago, my subscription has been free). I've been quite pleased with the way that, over the past ten years or so, science fiction and other "genre" stuff has started becoming more acceptable in the mainstream; beyond the usual robot-with-a-gun blockbuster fare, SF seems to be fair play to even "literary" types these days. Some of this has been helped along by the success of Doctor Who, Harry Potter and the Lord of the Rings films; however, I think you could also describe those phenomena as being caused by the incresing acceptance of genre tropes. At the same time, there's been more of an acceptance of comics as a valid art form. All to the good, I say.

5. PhD
Between 2002 and 2006, I did a PhD in evolutionary genetics. My thesis title was "Persistence of Bacterial Transposable Elements in a Fluctuating Environment". I got the doctorate, but I think that the fact that I'm now an accountant tells you how much a life in scientific research appealed to me.

I like science, I genuinely do. As a tool for determining how the world works, I think it's second to none and, as anyone who has heard me yammer on about creationism can testify, I'm pretty keen on evolution as well. It's just... well, I think ultimately the problem is that I'm too easily distracted, and that research is very hard and under-appreciated. I'm interested in science, sure; I just don't have a burning desire to sacrifice my life to it. And it seems that, if you want to work in science, that's what you have to do. Job security lies only at the end of a very long and weary path and, to me at least, it was just never worth it.

On the plus side, my PhD gave me a lot of extra time in Nottingham to continue having student-fun. I directed a show whilst in the final year of my PhD, and wrote scripts for two others. I also made a lot of extremely good friends. On the whole, it was a learning experience, albeit one I'm still a little bitter over. I'd have liked to have been someone who could have done well in science; unfortunately, I'm not.

In which James has an argument with himself

Mon, 16 Feb 2009 23:46:56 GMT

Fours weeks in, and I'm really enjoying Being Human. This week's had a bit of unsubtle crap ("EE" was a bit much, "EA" would have been better), but was, by and large, excellent and makes me very interested to see how it all pans out. This series, along with the bastard well brilliant Jekyll from last year, contrasted with the past two seasons of Heroes, has pretty well soured me on long-running arcplots in TV. The way to go, I think, is to have one short series and have it be about something (like Jekyll or Blackpool), or to have a format-driven, highly episodic series (Doctor Who all the way).

Perhaps ironically, I'm currently getting scarily engrossed in the very, very arcplotty Song of Ice and Fire series of books, the Lucifer series of graphic novels and have begun to get excited by the forthcoming League of Extraordinary Gentlemen volume 3.

The difference is, I think, one of creative control. TV is a very consensual medium; it's tough to lock down actors over the long term, there's a weird symbiotic relationship with the press and the funding of the whole thing often depends on ratings/ executive fickleness (see Firefly). Also, format is phenomenally powerful; there's the whole issue whereby the minute you get a man and a woman sharing the screen for more than a minute, it's a Will They Won't They. These forces make it very difficult to structure an arc; there's also the whole reason that shark-jumping is an issue, which is that there's only so many wacky adventures that one person can have before they start to crumble under the continuity of it all.

Do these effects work in other media? Partly; I mentioned comic books, which are notoriously prone to continuity bloat. On the other hand, the comics I have read and liked (Sandman, Lucifer, Watchmen) have all tended to be short(ish) running affairs which ended out of the creator's desire to stop, rather than because they were no longer popular enough. Books have a similarly high level of creative control; on the other hand there's the existence of books four and five of the Harry Potter franchise.

What on earth am I saying here? Is this the same thing as jumping the shark, or sequelitis, or the law of diminishing returns?

I don't know. And am going to bed.

G'night.

EDIT: I forgot to add: Russell Tovey is a comedy genius. Every single line delivery= spot-on. Give that man a suitable object.

10 minutes to midnight

Thu, 12 Feb 2009 23:49:16 GMT

A few words from Darwin, born 200 years ago today:

"It is interesting to contemplate an entangled bank, clothed with many plants of many kinds, with birds singing on the bushes, with various insects flitting about, and with worms crawling through the damp earth, and to reflect that these elaborately constructed forms, so different from each other, and dependent on each other in so complex a manner, have all been produced by laws acting around us. These laws, taken in the largest sense, being Growth with Reproduction; Inheritance which is almost implied by reproduction; Variability from the indirect and direct action of the external conditions of life, and from use and disuse; a Ratio of Increase so high as to lead to a Struggle for Life, and as a consequence to Natural Selection, entailing Divergence of Character and the Extinction of less-improved forms. Thus, from the war of nature, from famine and death, the most exalted object which we are capable of conceiving, namely, the production of the higher animals, directly follows. There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved."

And now I'm going to bed.

...by the way

Thu, 05 Feb 2009 00:40:53 GMT

~~...if anyone has £29.50 they don't mind spending, they can come to see A Little Night Music at the Menier Chocolate Factory with me, Michael, Matt & Anna on Saturday at 8pm.~~

Mish took it!

Ooooooooooooh

Wed, 04 Feb 2009 21:41:00 GMT

Something claiming to be the pilot script for A Game of Thrones is available to download for one week only.

I've had a quick read, and am not 100% convinced that it's real. Seems rather too similar to the books, and has a lot of (what seems to be) extraneous detail in the stage directions. Also, there's a lot of people saying "fuck" and gratuitous nudity; then again, a TV adaptation of A Song Of Ice & Fire was never going to be a 7.30pm on BBC2 affair.

We'll find out in due course!

(I should add that, in case you're planning on reading the books, this contains spoilers for the first 100 pages or so. Nowt terrible).

Paradise lost

Tue, 03 Feb 2009 07:49:51 GMT

Oh well, the tube is working again. Damn those fiendishly efficient TfL devils.

This is a lovely article.

Follow-up

Mon, 02 Feb 2009 16:13:16 GMT

I've read a little bit more about that "how many people believe in evolution" poll.

A key sentence from the Telegraph article:

"The findings – to be published tomorrow in a report by Theos, a theology think-tank – follow a row over the place of creationism in education. "

The fact that these results are published by a theology think tank made me want to look at their methodology a little more closely, so I found the actual report, available here and an interesting read for anyone with time on their hands.

The discussion of the survey data begins on page 30, under "Research in the UK". I think this sentence bears repetition:

"The results were complex, bearing out the hypothesis that people’s opinions in this matter
are not necessarily well-formed or coherent. Many people simply have not thought in any
depth about Darwinian evolution, still less Intelligent Design and, accordingly, they
articulate opinions that appear to be inconsistent or ill-thought-through."

The actual data appear to confirm that Young Earth Creationists comprise about a tenth of the population and that a further 10-15% are (broadly speaking) Intelligent Design believers. The most striking finding for me, though, is this:

"Just over a third of respondents (37%) agreed that “humans evolved by a
process of evolution which removes any need for God”, and just under a third (28%) that
“humans evolved by a process of evolution which can be seen as part of
God’s plan.”"

The difference between these two viewpoints seems to me to be whether or not the questioned person believes in God; obviously, an atheist would be unlikely to claim that evolution "could be seen as part of God's plan", and a Christian would see evolution, and everything else, for that matter, as being a part of God's plan as well.

On the other side of the fence, there were some questions about whether evolution was "proven" or not. 36% of correspondents said that they thought "Darwinian theory is still waiting to be proved or disproved." That's a lot of people. It also betrays a lack of understanding of the scientific method. All scientific theories are "waiting to be disproved". There's no point at which they get stamped as "Immutable Knowledge" and get engraved on a slab; Newtonian mechanics sat around for 250 years before Einstein got the Tipp-ex out. So I think this strongly supports the opening health warning; that people, in general, have pretty incoherent ideas on the subject of "what is science".

And this incoherence is, I think, the real enemy that this report has identified. I'm not at all convinced that the UK is a secret hotbed of religious extremists; rather that the UK is full of people who don't really know what science is. I am reminded of a speech that Tony Blair gave 9 or 10 years ago, in which he repeatedly stated that "Science is about facts". That is a load of old baloney. Science is a process, not a body of knowledge. That is important, and should be taught to every schoolchild as the centrepiece of their scientific curriculum, because there is a widespread belief that science is a similar subject to, say, digital rights management, or Britain's relationship with the European Union. It really isn't.

When people are presented with what "scientists say", they react in a similar way to if they'd been told that "the Labour party say" or "Greenpeace say"; they think "here's another group with an axe to grind, pushing their own interests". That's not the way to think about it; the "scientific community" does not really have any common cause to push (on the contrary, they often have fiercely divergent interests in the area of, for instance, who should get more grant!). The only common ground that scientists share is data and (sometimes) the interpretation of that data. When scientists agree over something (as is the case when a paper goes through the peer review process and gets published), that means that the issue has been scrutinised by the rest of the community, by the best brains in the field, each one with a massive vested interest in one-upping the other and pointing out an error, and no such errors have been found.

And it's that process ("bending over backwards to prove yourself wrong" is how Richard Feynman put it) that is what makes it science. So the normal tools of scepticism that we apply to what we read in the paper (the old "there must be something more to it than that") are not particularly appropriate to apply to science.

These "normal tools of scepticism" can be seen to be very active in the participants in the Theos study; when asked "do you think that evolution alone is enough to explain the complexity of living creatures without the intervention of an intelligence", one's natural inclination is surely to say "no". It's a leading question; the key word is "alone".The question is easy to interpret as "do you believe in only A, or do you think that B is a possibility as well; faced with such a question, I'd always be open to more possibilities, but it doesn't necessarily follow that I'm a proponent of intelligent design.

I've waffled on for bloody ages here, haven't I? Err, better put the above under a cut.

My points in brief:

The data are very interesting, and far more complex than the media reporting would have you believe (no surprise there).
It seems as if rather more than half (more like two thirds) believe in evolution.
A lot of people (many of whom must have also said that they believe in evolution, just from the way the numbers pan out) are open to the idea that there may be "something more" than evolution.
The above opinion is, in my opinion, reflective of a poor level of understanding of what science is, rather than genuine opposition to evolution as a theory.