Twatter

Oh, hi! Where have I been, you ask? That's a good question, but I might ask you the same thing. It's past ten and your dinner's cold, and frankly I don't know why I bother anymore. Anyway, it's been a while. I could blame work and personal commitments for my unforgivable failure to update since 2008, but really it's because in the middle of November I was hurled screaming into the sky and awoke on the lightless planet of Ordure IV, placed in indentured servitude to the blasphemous Bivalve Allmother (and her many temporary eyes), doomed to spend my remaining days toiling at the construction of her Ebon Sarcophagus, a vast basalt mausoleum to the million slaves who would die whilst toiling at the construction of the Ebon Sarcophagus, a vast basalt mausoleum to the million slaves, etc.

However, that didn't happen so I can't say that.

Mostly I have been working in a shop that sells board games, card games and associated items. Overall this is a pretty neat job to have, as the majority of time is spent playing games and talking about games with nerds (mostly good nerds, with a modest smattering of the enormous, heavily-breathing ones that bear the seductive aroma of years-unwashed crevices) so the days go fairly quickly. I've been there since August and am now being made assistant manager, all responsibilities and extra dosh, which I guess is pretty good going for a guy that used to eke out a Dickensian pittance milling around in the background of television dramas. I do still find time for that occasionally though, most recently I appeared for like five whole seconds in shit unfunny BBC con man series Hustle, being abused by a posh lady! Stage Magazine said my performance was "like a brilliantine opal afloat in a sea of musty bog-water, otherwise punctuated only by smug gurning twats in their smug suits all smugging around a racially homogenised, inexplicably pristeen Bizarro London where everything keeps slowing down then speeding up for no apparent reason".

Well, it said that after I wrote it in my copy anyway. Using my own tears of frustration.

Anyway, this has all yet to come through, but my whopping fifteen pence pay rise has already come into effect, so I guess this is all gravy. Me + Claude going to San "den of rampaging homosexuals" Francisco in October, so it'll all contribute to the bail money for when they catch the scoundrel smuggling certain sensitive materials into the country. Mo'fugger LOVE smuggling sensitive materials.

So hey, they made a new Star Trek film, about the original characters. I went to see it last week, and I was pretty impressed, although my viewing pleasure was interrupted by the usual cadre of retards that always know when I'm going to see a film and book tickets for the same performance as me. The moving and talking was very good, and the work done by the makeup artists was nothing short of legendary. Leonard Nimoy, well into his seventies, didn't look a day over 23 in his role as Spock. There was even a scene where he met a version of himself without makeup, to show the difference. I don't know how they had it so that there were two of him, I think it's one of those things they done off a computer, like on Red Dwarf except it's funny sometimes.

Anyway, it's a fast-paced, good-humoured adventure with an excellent cast who really bounce off eachother in the tradition of the original series' chucklesome banter. As such, it really fucking annoyed me, because there's nothing worse than a film that's impossible for me to complain about in some small way, but fortunately they indulged me by making the music shit.

I am a gent of simple pleasures - grog, erotic pamphletry of the 17th century and, chiefly, dramatic film music. I honestly lap dat shit up, so I was very excited when I heard that Michael Giacchino, who's previously been responsible for the rousing orchestral soundtracks to the Medal of Honour game series (really bloody good) and Lost (also good, in a discordant way), was doing the score. Unfortunately, it turned out really generic and crap - like, Hans Zimmer crap. There was one identical theme for everything, from orbital skydiving to imploding planet to the climactic Romulan shooting gallery. It might as well have been a theatrical "dun-dun-DUNNNN!" played on a cheap 1900s picture-house organ. The only memorable music in the film came from Alexander Courage (admittedly badass remix of silly original theme) and of course the Beastie Boys, whose work I'd never expect to see in a Star Trek film, and yet it made such perfect, beautiful sense seeing as the Beasties are such humungous nerds.

Anything else? Well, only trifling things: Phasers should go 'ZEEEEEEEEE', not 'PYOO' as this is not the bloody Phantom Menace, and also there have now been two Star Trek films in a row where the baddy is an annoyed Romulan in a gigantic doom-vessel shaped like one of those 'Celtic Fantasy Daggers' you see for sale at new-age shops in dismal Medway towns. Why not mix it up in the next film and have a villain who, say, is a different kind of Romulan, or not a Romulan at all, or a villain who turns out to be a decent chap in the end, or no villain at all? One of my fave things about Star Trek 4...

hang on.

NERD BALLS DESCENDING! AWOOGA!

Ahem, yes, my fave thing about that film (besides the bit where reincarnated hippy Spock wastes the unconvincing '80s punk rocker) was that the alien causing all the grief was just a confused space thingy with no malicious intent, that obligingly buggered off when it had the situation adequately explained to it. See, everyone was friends in the end and plus they totally brought back the whales! A happy sentiment that JJ Abrams might do well to heed, and ought to gain more relevance now Barack Obama is in charge and an end to all war has been declared.

Until he starts enslaving all the white people, of course.