NEWSFLASH - CELEBRITY NOT YET ABOUT TO NOT DO SOMETHING

We love a good bit of celebrity news, don't we? Yes we do. First we liked hearing what celebs were doing. Then we liked hearing about what the pampered little arsetards weren't doing. Now, we get to hear about what they are not doing to do, but haven't got round to not doing it yet. Thank goodness I heard about it before I went ahead and actually did something. Something that I regretted. Thank you, The Media:

Inaugural Trains

Comrades, to the future! London to Glasgow in five minutes!

Seriously though, can't wait for a bit of High Speed Two. But come on, UK PLC. Whack out the mega-wads for some Maglev.

Living in a Box

Idols. Leaders. Inspirations. We all need them. The problem is, they're generally human, and humans die. And when they die, they're gone, at least physically speaking. Of course you can say their spirit lives on, and stuff like that, but unfortunately, they're not there, and considering my only interactions with massively influential people is that I get shouted at by them, it's quite a big difference.

Anyway, this needn't be a problem anymore, thanks to taxidermy. Enter academic behemoth University College London - so attached were they to their utilitarian founder Jeremy Bentham, they stuffed him:

Quote: "Hiyaaaa!"

What is better is that they have also put him in an action pose, inside a box on which is written 'JEREMY BENTHAM'. Anyway, I was reminded by this as I walked past him the other day, and by this rather stoic notice on the BBC's front page:


Apparently they got Stuffed Bentham and made him attend the UCL big wig meetings, where they would vote on things and Jez would be marked down as 'absent'. Touching stuff. It's quite easy to be sentimental about things after you've stuffed said things and they can't shout back at you: 'I AM NOT ABSENT, I AM JUST FULL OF FEATHERS'.

Wot a Rascal

I love watching the news. It's boss. It tells me what is going on in the bits of the world that affect me and how bothered I should be about it. It even prioritises the importance of each event so I don't even need to think about whether News A is more applicable to me than News B. The news more efficient than Pop Tarts!

The news got even better yesterday. Jeremy Paxman was doing his political chatty thingy, when he suddenly bellows:

"SO, DIZZEE RASCAL, WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT THE U.S. ELECTIONS?"

We then cut to a split screen, shared by Mr. Rascal (aka Dylan Mills) and someone else who was black. It might have been Maya Angelou, Tracy Chapman, Dave Benson-Phillips. I forget. Although it was nice to see the Rascal on the BBC news spaffing out his political weltanschaaung, which amounted to '1 chap is good for morale, but you need a whole load of brothers to do the change thing', the best bit was watching him say it in his Dizzee Rascal way. He was shuffling around like - for some bizarre reason - he hadn't featured on too many white-media political discussion segments before, and was trying his best not to suffix anything with 'an' ting'. Kudos, Dizzee Rascal.

Because it was TV History, it made it onto the front page of the BBC web page. Note the impressive pouting:



In fact, it could have been the most impressive pouting ever seen on the BBC homepage, if it were not for the SIMULTANEOUS pouting on the image responsible for promoting the BBC radaptation of Dickens' 'Little Dorrit':



Kudos also goes to the BBC's Web 2.0 wizards, who have somehow made their promotional material match my end-user feelings on the matter. "Little Dorrit? Hmm, don't fancy that much. Have a pout instead, kidder." Why the world (UK) needs to see a serialised TV version of Little Dorrit, no one knows. But we've got it, and it's pouting. Let's hope for more BBC pouting in the future. A pouting Charlie Boorman sampling the culinary delights of the River Mersey. A pouting Jonathan Dimbleby venturing through the depths of deepest Aldershot. Pouting corpses on Casualty. We can only hope.