So David Duchovny has just been admitted to a clinic for sexual addiction, joining a list of other male Hollywood celebrities who have admitted to a similar condition, including Michael Douglas and Russell Brand.
But at least these people could presumably get sex from wherever they wanted. I mean, Duchovny's married to the gorgeous Tea Leoni, Douglas to the beautiful Catherine Zeta Jones.
What happens if you're ugly, poor *and* have sexual addiction? Or is it something that only rich handsome men (poor them!) seem to get?
In 2008, as America faces an economic downturn and recession with military forces overseas, America seems to have two choices. To stick with the current administration that's now governing over the recession, or go for an unusual candidate promising radical change, including a withdrawal of military forces.
In 1983, as Britain faced an economic downturn and recession with military forces overseas, Britain had two choices. To stick with the then-administration (Margaret Thatcher) that was governing over the recession, or go for an unusual candidate promising radical change, including a withdrawal of nuclear military forces. Britain voted overwhelmingly for the then-current administration.
There are - obviously - huge differences between the two situations, not least of which that Michael Foot was as old as John McCain at the time, and Margaret Thatcher was as significant as Barack Obama in terms of unusual background for a political leader.
Or there's this comparison:
In 2008, in an environment where there was a perceptive need for change, Barack Obama, the leading opposition candidate for the forthcoming election took to the stage in a huge sports arena, preceded by a rally with performances from key celebrities and music artists. The speech had huge media coverage.
In 1992 Britain, in an environment where there was a perceptive need for change, Neil Kinnock, the leading opposition candidate for the forthcoming election took to the stage in a huge sports arena, preceded by a rally with performances from key celebrities and music artists. The speech had huge media coverage. Labour went on to lose an election many commentators had thought they would win.
I just cannot see an electorate that voted for Dubya twice in 2000 and 2004 voting for a black man, no matter how charismatic and invigorating he is. Plus, even I have to cut'n'paste his name from a news article to get the spelling right, lest I confuse him with another infamous character with a similar name (and at this point I'd link to a cartoon character from some long-forgotten US adult cartoon show of the early 1990s, but Google won't actually let me search for Barak - it assumes I want Barack instead!) Or am I underestimating the American public from 6000 miles away? Who knows...
From the hypocrisy and you-couldn't-make-it-up department: Nike have enlisted the help of the Chinese government to track down a blogger who made anti-Nike comments.
So freedom of speech? Human rights? Naaa, who needs it when companies use Communist-era government controls to stifle people's thoughts?
An email flew across UK new media types today, exhorting people to take part in a flashmob to celebrate 20 years of acid house. Or as most people would term it, acccieeeeeeeeeeeedddddddd - courtesy of D-Mob's We Call It Acieed, which was probably the closest mainstream charts got to it.
But to hear people twittering and muttering about it, apparently everyone was simply getting on down t'acid house in the second summer of lurve (1988). Except unsurprisingly, I was trapped in my parents' bedroom probably not doing much except watching TV and imagining that simply every cool kid was getting on down t'Acid House in the big cities. And they probably were.
Personally, out of D-Mob's ouevre, I preferred D-Mob & Cathy Dennis - C'mon get my love. And to think she went on to write some of Kylie's greatest hits. Ahhh, the 1980s...
So far, my most embarassing desk-work moments have involved:
- merrily miming along to a superlative Pet Shop Boys track called I'm In Love With A Married Man.
- shrieking like a girl when I played a video that unexpectedly turned into one of those scary jumpy videos.
But fortunately, I've not yet been caught looking at things I shouldn't have, quite like this:
As long-time readers of this blog may know, I (along with lots of pop-culture-obsessed UK'ers) am a huge fan of Spaced. For those not in the know, it's almost a British piss-take on Seinfeld, albeit obsessed with pop culture instead of the people around them. (In so many ways, Seinfeld would have worked better if it was British! I mean, what other nation is such an expert when it comes to examining the innards of human society, and the bizarre rituals and expectations that grow up around them?)
Anyway, skip to the end and while Simon Pegg & Edgar Wright (director) went off to do many funny things (and Pegg is the new Scotty for Star Trek), Jessica Stevenson's career seemed to take an interesting turn.
She could have continued to mill her geek comedienne persona into all sorts of interesting things - but after a BBC-helmed comedic misfire, she seemed to turn her back on all things comedy, getting married, having three children and, of course, falling in love with David Tennant in Doctor Who: Human Nature.
Fortunately, to commemorate the American release of Spaced: The Complete Series on DVD (Americans! buy it now! It's got commentaries and praise from the likes of Kevin Smith, Quentin Tarantino & Matt Stone!), the triumvirate have hit the publicity trail, complete with this video interview with Empire at Comic-Con. and I'm pleased to report that Jessica is as funny, geeky and - damn it, rude - as ever.
To recap, the Spanish basketball team pose for a pre-Olympic-Games advert making slit-eyed gestures in one of Spain's major newspapers. Freelance Madrid-based journalist Sid Lowe points this out in the Guardian, spreading the story everywhere else with predictable outrage in English-speaking media.
To which the Spanish tend to wonder what the fuss is about. The Spanish-language paper El Mundo debates whether the advert was racist, and accuses the British press of trying to smear Spain's good name. One Spanish basketballer apologises, saying "It's wrong to interpret it as racist.", while the head coach says "I don't think it was offensive".
Now, brilliantly, the original journalist who filed the report has filed a piece defending himself against accusations that he had a hidden agenda, pointing out that he never said it was racist. Of course, if you see someone carrying an umbrella, you don't wonder if it's raining or not.
Oh, and here's the Spanish tennis team making a similar gesture. Interestingly, a random sampling of Chinese people in Beijing suggests they aren't that bothered - but then they don't have the history of racial harassment.
Believe it or not, I used to be able to develop and program a computer (and yes, I can choose the perfect time). Admittedly, nothing more complicated than BBC Basic, HTML and adjusting a Javascript code, but I did think I'd lost those skills.
I was - and am - a huge fan of the LJ Hook Firefox extension. It basically allows me to add HTML code to a Firefox text entry window via a simple right-click - but it doesn't work out-of-the-box in Firefox 3.
Tonight, since I couldn't sleep and am still coughing/spluttering/snorting/having difficulty breathing, I ended up fiddling with the extension, having vaguely remembered reading a blogpost about tricking Firefox into installing old extensions.
And somehow, I've managed to get LJ Hook to work. Woot!
As I got on a random London bus this morning, I grabbed a copy of freebie newspaper The Metro which was lying on a bus seat. As a freebie newspaper (supported by advertising, given away across London and other major cities), it has a discernable value of, well, zero. Aside from the articles inside, which are of the same level as the international coverage of your local American paper ie it's just copy from the news wires.
However, the paper was evidently of some value to the woman behind me, who sat down with an audible harumph and tut. I offered her the paper, to which she snootily replied "Oh no, I have a much better paper!", and proceeded to loudly take out some copy of The Literary Economist (not a literal title, but something of that ilk) and concentrate on that. Even though I'd put the paper back down on the bus seat so she could read it.
The bus proceeded to where I had to get off, and as I was waiting for the bus to stop, I noticed her putting down her better paper, and grabbing the Metro as if her life depended on it. I never knew something that's available for free would be so valuable...
About a decade ago, I had my first experience of Hamlet, via Kenneth Branagh's full-length sumptious cinematic adaptation in glorious 70mm. I remember at the time, thinking the following:
- blimey, 70mm is gorgeous
- I can't follow everything that's going on, but I can follow enough to get by
- how many phrases from the English language were plucked from this ?!
- If Ophelia isn't the archetypal Doctor Who companion, I don't know who is...
- Kate Winslet. She'd make a great companion (she wasn't the all-conquering Titantic heroine she is now)
Fast-forward to this weekend, and we three (times two, making six) ended up voyaging from various corners of the UK (and one eBayer from Bermuda) to the twee country town of Stratford-upon-Avon to see a RSC production of Hamlet, with David Tennant and Patrick Stewart leading the cast.
After all the hassles of buying the tickets and getting there, getting into the play was one huge anti-climax. It was a relatively small venue in a quiet part of Stratford's riverside, and we just showed the usher our tickets and entered a stunningly stark place, with mirrors acting as a theatre backdrop. No props, no set dressing, it was a real courtyard, with the actors entering and exiting the stage through corridors amongst the audience, and I loved the idea.
Unfortuanately, as the play progressed, they brought in a prop here, a set dressing there, until by the end the small space was festooned with props and things, which somewhat spoilt it. The ananachronism of it all - helicopters, guns, notepads, condoms - didn't help either. Why use a gun to shoot someone when at the end you end up with a fencing fight?
I'm not too sure what I was expecting - probably epic acting histronics, but I didn't really get the whole experience. It's a production I think I admired more than I liked or loved - I certainly didn't come out of it gabbling or loving it. One of my party left after thirty minutes, saying it was the worst production she'd seen. The rest of my party seemed to love it, although one of them was more star-struck than anything else.
Not being a Shakespearian acolyte, it was to be fair a little hard for me to seperate the actors from the production. For the Tennant fans, there was a fair amount of TimeLord/Tennant-esque dashing around the stage like an epileptic gazelle. Oh, and he wore alternatively a tuxedo, and then a student-esque T-shirt. He's certainly a very very skinny fellow - I need his thyroids. He strangely lacked stage presence - there was one speech where I totally lost interest and had no idea what he was talking about, and he pretty much mumbled his way through To Be or Not To Be (oh baby can't you see, we're gonna make it to the toooooppppp) For the Stewart fans, despite looking a lot like Professor X, he seemed far more convincing and Shakespearian actorly than Tennant. Of course, afterwards there was a mad rush for autographs, although I elected to have a pint instead until other members of my party came back.
Since I haven't been to the theatre in eons, I also forgot that theatre tends to bring out the maudlin and confused in me, mostly because there's no filter between me and the actors, like you have in cinema and television. Then again, I love stand-up comedy, where there's no filter at all. I'm still trying to process that particular thought, but then again: "For there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so."
