Guardian follow up

Well, who says blogging does nothing, while the look is the same the search function on the Guardian website now works and you can pull up an archive by columnist, basically now it looks less like "The Guide" and "Comment is Free" are fighting each other. Good work.

Trade fair Damnit

I like coffee, more than a man should perhaps, but i am also a wishy-washy namby-pamby loony-liberal. What this really means is that I like little ways of being slightly less cruel to the world around me and people I've never met. With my coffee, and with food as far as I can, I'll go for fairtrade. Most high street chains respect this and offer fairtrade or, more normally, have fairtrade as standard. Starbucks do fairtrade pretty much by default, that's starbucks, the evil ones. Now flavour wise fairtrade is no different to your unfairly traded coffee (Organic can change that but that's a whole other argument) but it costs more because apparently if we want to treat farmers fairly we will have to pay for it rather than big companies taking small cuts in their massive profits.

Anyway, I was in sainsburys last night and was trying to pick up some coffee (Real stuff, instant is not coffee, its coffee flavouring) and I was particularly keen on a 2 for £3 offer, however in Sainsbury's own range there are 4 fairtrade options out of about 15, A basic Colombian, and organic and a decaff equivalent of each. This is pretty much standard across all the major chains, and is in my view pretty unacceptable. Think of it this way, the only difference between the beans bought for Sainsbury's Fairtrade Colombian coffee and its unfair trade equivalent, is how much the people producing it were paid. This seems absurd when you think about it, Sainsbury's, or Tesco, or Asda, or Morrison's, go to Columbia, and buy two sacks of coffee, for one they say "We'll pay you £20 for this" and for the other, for Fair Trade, they say "We'll pay you £100 for this" this must lead to some confused coffee producers. Its almost as if Fair trade is treated like a separate product, and there are few who are not guilty, Whittards don't have a 100% fairtrade range of coffees, Taylor's of Harrogate have no Fairtrade markings except on designated fairtrade brands and as previously specified all the major supermarkets have a mix.

So, to the Fairtrade people, I say stop this, don't let people away with this anymore. I will look at buying Cafe Direct or that ilk if the supermarket won't sell me fairtrade, so stop letting them away with this, I won't hold them to 100% fiartrade yet, although the Co-Op is there with its own brand stuff, but don't allow a fairtrade range anymore, deny them the use of your mark if they won't buy all their coffee fairtrade.

42 Days

Well, it happened, I even wrote to my MP to try and stop it. See that's due process for you, I should have used my mighty hammer to stop this nonsense. Brown decided to pin his entire career on a policy that undermined magna carta, was deemed unnecessary by most of those in the know, and was only popular amongst the Sun/Daily Hate fraternity. In fact I had to switch off an ex scum editor for harping on about how if this takes suicide bombers off the streets then its worth it. Yes, we arrest everyone who looks a bit Asian, and anyone who protested against the government just to be sure, and keep them for over a month, without even telling them what they've done, brilliant, it was tried in Northern Ireland and was the IRA's most successful recruiting campaign ever. I do shudder about what sort of deal with the devil has been made with the Ulster unionists.

It is a very strange world we currently live in, where men of principle (well at least showing the most principle) are Tory's, and the best hope for freedom and democracy lies with the unelected, undemocratic house of Lords.

However, I'm not one for moaning, ok that's not true, I'm a huge fan of moaning, but at base the problems we have here is twofold.

1. The government wants more power to lock up those who disagree with them, it is paranoid ramblings but this government has done more to take more power unto itself and less to democratic process than any other
2. The MPs in the 42 days vote were more interested in what could be got for them rather than the views of their constituents

So, what can you do. Well, when a vote like this comes up, write to your MP about how you want them to vote. It won't make much difference, but when they do care about you (Come election time) you can broach this subject with them in person when they're trying to toady for your vote. My actual threat was that if my MP voted yes, I wouldn't vote labour in any election, so no support for MSPs MEPs or councillors. You can see all your representatives voting records at www.theyworkforyou.com, a useful site that keeps these people accountable.

The second thing you can do is visit www.noliberties.com, the website of the film "Taking liberties" it has details on action you can do and covers exactly what's been taken by those in power. What I plan to do next time they're grubbing for my votes, mostly in the next Westminster election, is have a copy of what has been taken, and what acts have done this, and ask every candidate if they will work to repeal these laws, regardless of party politics. I doubt I'll get a straight yes/no but seeing them squirm should be fun. And BTW coming from a long standing opponent of Scottish Independence, if you can promise me, on the blood of your expense account, that we'll have none of this nonsense in an independent Scotland, Sign me up matey.

Whiskey Mike

A quick post following up my piece on War Machine. Ok so he's not got the solo title yet but news is that the next Iron Man story is a War machine story. A nice idea, basically when Tony was taken out in Secret Invasion, it triggers an automatic call to Rhodey telling him what he has to do. Its a nice touch, firstly because the War Machine suit was originally designed by Stark to clean up his affairs before he "Died" and something which puts War Machine into taht role is a nice reference, also because that has been Rhodey's role traditionally, replacing stark when he's down.

Looking forward to this needless to say.

Still no further on his cyborgisation, my guess is that no one actually has an idea of why yet, they're still coming up with a story, for the future presumably.

This Years TV: The New Blood

So a few days ago I covered the returning shows, however we usually get a crop of new stuff each year, usually its 90% guff but this year has been a good one. Here's what I consider the top 5 (in no particular order) of the new genre series this year.

How did this get made. Seriously, how. With the networks that axed BSG, killed Firefly etc, how the hell did something this whimsically addictive get past initial pitch. All I can assume is that they pitched it as a crime series and left out the details until the cheques were cashed. I can see the meeting:

"We've got an idea for a series, there's a guy who can bring dead people back to life, but only for a minute or else something else dies, so him and his PI friend use the power to solve murders"

"Sounds good, fantasy twist on what is otherwise a crime show"

"Score, we've pulled the wool over their eyes"

See, Pushing daises is set in a bizarre fantasy world, ts kind of like a made up 1950's, but present day, Our hero is a Pie Maker, and at the core is the romance between him and the love of his life, Chuck, who he brought back from the dead. Only now he can't touch her or else she'll die again. She likewise can't get back in touch with her aunts, two retired synchronised swimmers, for fear of their reaction to her death. And that's just a taster of the madness that follows. Its light whimsy, with plenty of laughs and its just a real cuddly joy of a series. Hope this gets kept on.

Easily the most technically ambitious of the new crop this spinnoff from the Terminator franchise had a hard furrow to plough, for starters the 3rd Terminator film had killed Sarah Connor. However it was a very entertaining series, took some interesting angles and used a nice time travel style plot to effectively separate the timelines from that of the films. It had some nice ideas regarding the sending back of people and also had a rather chilling idea of how well a terminator can infiltrate (One has actually lived with a lover for years). To the series credit it also Didn't shirk from the terminator style effects. Indeed from what I hear it was expensive. Still, it appears to have survived the cull and got a second series, so hopefully we'll see this develop further.

There was a disturbing similarity in two brief descriptions for series this year, both augured ill. Reaper was described as "Bill & Ted meets the grim reaper" and features a slacker who's parents sold his soul to Satan and now has to collect escaped souls from hell assisted by his slacker mates. It sounded weak and despite having Kevin Smith's name attached looked missable, but it was on when nothing else was and I was really surprised. Basic premise is as described, we have Sam as our Reaper who works in a DIY shop called The Work bench (Kind of like B&Q) and each week he gets some telltale powers that hint to the escaped soul, and a vessel to catch it. It took its basic Monster of the Week format and developed it. In fact later episodes we get much more about demons living among us and a mystery surrounding Sam's true relationship with the devil. The supporting cast are good with his uber-Slacker mate Sock being easily the most likeable, despite being a cheap man's Jack Black. Its been fun and solid entertainment, again looks like we get a second season and unlike earlier this year, where I hoped it would die fast so we had 20 or so fun episodes before it went cack, it now has a direction and I'm looking forward to where this is going.

This was the second of the "Bill and ted meets.." pitches, only this time slackers were to be spies. The premise is that Chuck, normal guy who works at the "Nerd Herd" a sort of on site IT support for a big brand electronics store, accidentally gets a whole job lot of government secrets dumped in his brain, which he uses to foil acts of evil. He gets two handlers, one NSA who is pretty much an assassin, and the CIA one, an attractive blond. As a supporting cast he has his Sister and her husband, and his best mate Morgan. This was also entertaining, although much more of a One Man show compared to Reaper, we mainly focus on Chuck and his possible relationship with his CIA handler. It is a bit less light hearted than reaper as there is a lot about how disposable he is, how nasty the Government agencies can be etc, and Morgan took a lot longer to grow on me than Sock, but overall its been very good and definitely has a second season.

Ok, not really genre, but geek themed I decided was good enough. This comedy about a group of geeks and their attractive neighbour had a weak start. Initially the humour was very much focused on "Look at these daft geeks" however somewhere along the line the attractive neighbour had her role reduced and the humour started centring more around the interactions between the geeks. As a result its really become worth watching.

So, overall some good new starts this year, hopefully there won't be too many edits to this article to say they died young, and this is good, we loose BSG this (or next depending on how long they spin out Season 4) year, and lost the year after, so I am looking to what will fill the holes these shows leave.

Washout

QUick aside to pay triute to one of the best self contained issues I've read in a long time. The initiative just finished its current arc which saw the recruits that we've followed for the past 12 or so issues graduate to become full fledged heroes, this issue may have been the start of a new arc but works equally well as a standalone piece. The new recruits arrive at camp hammond, as well as Prodigy, the load of new recruits includes indestructable ex frycook Boulder, or as he becomed known, Butterball. As a nice idea though, while completely impossible to damage, he's unfit, clumsy and weak, and due to his powers, can't get fit or stronger. But he's possibly the most enthusiastic amongst the new recruits. By the end of the issue he is washed out, and while most peopel count him lucky, only ex villains Taskmaster and Constrictor actually understand and give him a very nice parting gift. Just a nice, well written and strangely touching story, possibly because you really identify with the enthusiastic but clumsy butterball who only wants to be a super hero. It also has one of the better showings of registration. He leaves camp hammond registered and War Machine even suggests he has a bright future working in hazardous environments or search and rescue. So not everyone with powers has to join a super-team or even pass camp hammond.

I'd thoroughly reccomend this issue to everyone, even if you haven't previously read The Initiative, or indeed a marvel comic.

Personally, I'd hope to see butterball appear in any future Damage Control series.

This Year's TV: The Returners

I went on, at tedious length about the new "golden age" of genre TV, now I'd like to review the year, ok so the year isn't over but particularly with the writers strike sending everything all ahooey this seems as good a time as any to review this year. As there has been so much I thought I'd split it between this post about the returning series and the next about the new boys.

A favorite of mine last season none the less suffered from some sluggish episodes in between the big stories. There was also the fear that for a series about a giant galactic convoy it was going nowhere. In that respect pitching this as the final series has most definitely done it the world of good. The Razor 2 parter concerning life on the Pegasus was good and had all those nice fan touches like classic cylons. The series itself is really motoring, in fact my biggest criticism is that with all the individual storylines going on we don't get as much of Edward James Olomos as Adama, who has been sidelined of late but still owns every scene he is in. There is also now a palpable sense of danger, the fleet took heavy losses in episode 1 and the government is verging on totalitarian plus religious wars in dogtown its really looking like all hell is really about to break loose. And that's just in the fleet. Overall its been a cracking season so far, and I'm genuinely looking forward to a conclusion of some sort, even if they wait until next year to show the second half.

Wild fan speculation: The fleet is wiped out, cylons populate the earth and become the humans we are today

Worst outcome: They find earth in the 1980s and have flying motorbikes.


Lost was the big "Must watch" show with mass crossover appeal. However for the past 3 years you could sum up the show by saying "Watch the first 5 episodes, ignore the middle and watch the last 5, you'll get the best bits with none of the tedious treading water that the middle of each series gave. Indeed when Lost was good, it was excellent, and when it was bad it was just plodding. There was speculation that this was because there was a disagreement between the show runners and the studio, the studio wanting things to be left open so that the show could run into the ground, the show runners preferring a set timescale, while this was up in the air the series did suffer from an over abundance of padding, particularly in the case of Jack, where I'm amazed we didn't have an oh so significant flashback to the Christmas where he didn't get that scaelextric set he so dearly wanted. However with a 5 year timescale now set in stone this is possibly up for the award of most improved. Things are really rolling, flashbacks have been (For the most part) replaced with flash forwards, adding a new layer of mystery and things just seem to be moving.

Wild Fan speculation: Ok not so wild but I predict that we'll see the circumstances of the Oceanic 6's rescue by series end, and that the final series will be wresting control of the island from the baddies.

Worst Outcome: We see a prolonged flashback concerning Jack learning to ride his first bike.


Heroes had a lot to live up to in its second series. The first was brilliant, but almost self contained. It left a little open but resolved many of its outlying plots. Indeed the first few episodes of the new season seemed to be faltering, but its slow burn and is slowly (On BBC2 speed at any rate) building up interest again, still to see the results of the post writers strike episodes when they allegedly undertook a serious rethink about the direction. Sill, going strong so far.

Wild Fanboy speculation: As long as they can run it out I reckon the underlying story will generally focus on a series "Big Bad" as a framing for development of history and character.

Worst Outcome: It starts getting bogged down in its own history and goes the way of the X-Files.


Arguably the oldest of these old series, Atlantis was one of the few not to be affected by the writers strike managing to deliver a whole series with no interruptions. It sagged in places as all stargate series tend to but we had some fun individual episodes and the arc plot when it kicked in is suitably meaty. Also worth noting is that they finally did an episode where T'ulc and Ronin kill everything. We also got the spinnoff TV movie The Arc of truth to complete SG1's Ori plot which was entertaining and a satisfying conclusion, although as a criticism it lacked the epic feel of some of SG1's season finale's.

Wild Fanboy Speculation: Teyla will be the next series main bad.

Worst outcome: They decide to do more replicator stuff.

Next post, the New boys