Captain britain and MI13

I mentioned this in my “Great titles you’re not reading Damnit” post a while back. Well it’s now gone. Final issue was out a while ago and I’m now blogging about this series as a whole.

Paul Cornell did a cracking job and produced 3 great stories but sadly the comic wasn’t creating enough momentum and lacked the wolverine factor that marvel requires these days (Bitter joke, sorry, try not to let it happen again)

Anyway, it was interesting to see Cornell’s take on captain Britain, really making him up to be our premier hero, and indeed how he expanded other characters, making pete wisdom a tactical genius, working wonders with Blade and spitfire and introducing a brand new character who really worked her way into my affections. All this in a comic based more around fighting magical foes than standard superheroics.

Ok, last issue was rushed, like he was desperately trying to tie up loose ends, indeed like the rug had been pulled out, but Cornell really did a fine job wrapping up plot threads and getting everyone to a satisfactory place. He also got in a good bunch of marvel UK cameos (Surprise Appearance, Yes)

I’ll Miss Captain Britain, for all it was an American comic for an American market, it felt British, it felt like one of ours, and in the current comics market, that’s a rare thing.

Price of a Dream - Classic British Sports Car

I thought I’d muse on how much it would cost me to realise one of my dreams, to own and run a classic British sports car.

I love old British sports cars, yes they’re unreliable, badly put together and slow, but they have so much charm and character. For my 30^th my wife hired me an Austin Healey 3000 for a day, it wasn’t quick, had no power steering or servo brakes and a stiff gear change, and it leaked in the rain, but the roar of that straight 6 and the heads that turned never failed to put a smile on my face. I’m smiling now, just thinking about it.

So, I decided to find out how much it would cost, now compare the meercat was a little too searching when I just wanted a vague costing in insurance, so I’ll foolishly leave that out. I have however factored in a basic mechanics course, which run for around £200 as any sports car like this needs regular maintenance.

So, a quick search on the Austin Healey reveals that to buy one would cost £50,000, ouch. I could get an MGB, but they seem to vary between £3000 and £30,000, I’m guessing on quality and how late a model (the 1980s models aren’t nearly as nice as the older ones) Finally I looked at a Triumph TR6, surprisingly this came in with a more reasonable bracket of £12,000-20,000. That’s damned reasonable, and gods if I had 20,000 burning a hole in my pocket, you may just see me barrelling about in my own TR6

While this was mostly an exercise in pipe dreams, I’m actually surprised how affordable this is on the basic outlay, obviously repair costs are higher and all these cars are thirsty beasts. I would also need a secure place to keep them as a council estate near Johnston would see me loosing said car fairly quickly. Still, I am surprised at how cheap it is. What does surprise me is that people may have 50,000 or even 20,000 and will buy a BMW, or a big Chelsea tractor. Why? You want fun; you want what driving really is, ditch these big soft modern cars and drive a classic.

Last Years TV - Stargate Atlantis

It will probably be next year by the time I’ve finished rounding up all of last years TV, probably why the Pie Man television awards is a better format. Still, I thought I’d make some comments on some series.

Incidentally, Reilly 2040 has done his own version on his blog, I heartily recommend you check it out (Obviously not you Reilly 2040, you being my main reader and all)

Anyway, one show which completely failed to register on either my awards or Reilly’s was Stargate Atlantis, which is odd considering it was its final season. To be honest, it was because for a large part this season was a little bit meh.

Atlantis always did suffer from padding, not network mandated; just it tended to run on the formula of

1. wrap up cliff-hanger from previous season
2. Padding episodes
3. Mid season arc
4. Padding
5. Final arc leading to season cliff-hanger

It worked, provided the previous, next and mid season arcs were good enough, it’s just that this season wasn’t particularly memorable. The wrap-up and conclusion to the season opener wasn’t bad, and the slowly developing arc with Todd the wraith was fun, but in general I struggle to remember any of it. One thing I will say is that Robert Picardo was a breath of fresh air to Atlantis, finally having a leader who could genuinely cause a little friction compared to Weir’s “No Col Sheppard, don’t do that or I’ll cry”

And that’s really it, in the end I’ll miss Ronin being hard, I’ll miss Sheppard and I’ll miss Rodney McCay and his rather charming romance with Dr Keller.

On the other hand we have Universe starting this year, which looked iffy, like Stargate Voyager, but then the announcement that it featured none other than Robert Carlyle has sparked some pretty serious interest. With an Atlantis TV movie as well I’ll still be following the Stargate crews for at least another year.

War Machine in Iron man 2 Teaser

The CDCC footage of Iron Man 2 has been leaked, War Machine is confirmed. I have my reservations, but can't help being excited that I get to see War Machine on the big screen. It shows teh faith I have in Favereau to do the character justice.

I hope my faith is not misplaced, roll on Iron Man 2

Race to Mars

I caught this series thanks to my daughter. Yes, it’s amazing how much discovery channel you can watch while feeding a 9 month old baby her breakfast.

Race to mars is a drama about an international joint manned mission to mars, while based on mostly existing technology, and so erring away from science fiction, it isn’t quite the drama/documentary that the BBC’s series regarding a tour of the solar system was (I forget its name but it was good too). This is definitely a drama.

While it was clearly not shot on the biggest budget, no household names in the cast, CG is a few generations old; it made for remarkably compelling viewing.

As a slight interlude, the film Sunshine disappointed me. Why? Because Sunshine was so close to being a really good film regarding people doing a perilous thing in space. It should have been about people getting narky living in cramped claustrophobic close quarters and of genuine danger inherent in low tech space travel. Instead they gave us a monster man half way through. Fortunately Race to mars gets just about all its drama from the dangers inherent in flying a tin can to a distant planet, and its all the better for it.

SPOILER WARNING

There is actually a nice fake out near the end regarding a Martian Virus, not sure if it’s actually a spoiler but it made me smile.

So, if you can find this on the discovery channel again, I can heartily recommend this. Danny boyl, take note.

Showdown: Air Combat

This is a series I’ve been catching and felt the need to blog about.

The premise is simple. Major Paul “Max” Moga, an F22 pilot takes us through some of histories most thrilling dogfights, looking in depth at the planes, pilots and tactics used. The key hook is that the series uses replica or surviving fighters is a mock-up to illustrate the dogfight while Max commentates from a chase plane. Why he needs to do this is unclear but it seems to keep him happy.

Now, I’m a bit of an aviation geek. I’m one of those people who enjoys playing with Microsoft flight simulator, just to fly. Love aviation history and do take a standard male pleasure watching programmes about Arial combat. This series has its high and low points. High points are definitely in the detail in which it analyses the aircraft, doing the standard tech spec analysis but combining this with sitting in cockpits to give an idea about what the pilot would actually see. The look at tactics and pilots is also interesting and the re-enactments are great for at least enjoying the view of old warplanes haring about.

The problems spawn from a problem that affects quite a lot of the Discovery Channel’s output, particularly in military documentaries. That is a heavy bias towards the US. Now I know they were very important in WWII but on occasion as a brit you do feel like shouting “Oi, we were there too, and for longer” There is also often a stereotypical American “Gung-Ho” attitude in the US documentaries that seems a little tasteless when you think about the subject matter (War) and seems almost childish when compared to the sombre approach British documentaries take.

Anyway, I initially thought my fears would not be realised as the first episode had a few surprises. It focused on the conflict between the F86 Sabre and the Mug 15. The particular focus was on the Pilot James “Jabby” Jabara, the first Jet Ace. Again, it was American-centric but this is understandable for a pilot with such an accolade. It also had some remarkable sense from the commentators, who did point out that Jabara was dangerously reckless in that particular battle. Normally US documentaries make legends of men who show Balls over brains.

However the US-Centric approach really has made the majority of the series a bit of a mixed bag. They seem short on legendary dogfights with US pilots, so we get some odd picks, in particular the legendary rivalry between the P51 mustang and the ME-109, no Spitfire then? And in quite a few of these dogfights, The mustang, The P38 vs. Zero and the Corsair vs. Zero (We see a lot of the Zero) it really is a US pilot in a superior plane, with superior tactics blundering enough to make the fight exciting.

If we got a second season I’d hope for a few non US dogfights (Russian, British, we were all in WWII) and perhaps some WWI stuff, but until then this will live as another promising series damaged by US bluster