LinkedOut

Now, as some of you may know, my term of confinement with United Amalgamated Consolidated is almost up. 18 years and 8 months for the same sprawling transglobal corporation. Well, more or less the same corporation - 10 years ago the rapacious United Amalgamated formed a 'partnership' with my lot in Amalgamated Consolidated, much in the way ivy partners trees, or the candiru fish the human urethra. Either way, I've basically worked in the same place for nigh on 19 years. But no longer!

My various attempts to make it over the wire have finally borne fruit, and like the last Prisoner episode (original series goddammit!), I can sense that freedom, long denied, is tantalisingly within my grasp. Although I fervently hope that in my case the boss' human mask doesn't get ripped off to reveal the face of a grinning chimp.

I have the 60 feet of rope, the travel documents, the Bavarian hat and the tin of corned beef. Nothing can stop me now, short of rolling a 1 on the Do Or Die card.
 
But back to my imminent departure from my host organism. I have something less than 3 months until LastDay, and being as it is a modern organisation which not only Invests In People (though evidently not me), but also promotes Dignity At Work (though that has not extended to giving me my own furshlugginer desk), they are obliged to extend we members of the escape committee a good deal of help in preparing for our future existence beyond the gates of United Amalgamated Consolidated. This includes helping us with job-seeking - CV writing, interview skills, that sort of thing. And here's my problem.

By Christ, I hate all that crap.

All that self-promoting nonsense, spinning your work history and selling yourself. Gaaaah. I mean, if I was the sort of person who enjoyed doing that sort of thing, do you think I'd've worked in the same place for so long? I just loathe CVs and interviews and whole horrible falseness of it all. I imagine the same goes for the majority of us lifers here. If we were to write honest CVs, they'd probably start with an opening paragraph a little like this:

An introverted tech-nerd with limited social skills and an overpowering fear of change. Someone who prefers discussing Fin Fang Foom's pants to 'risk management in the finance industry'. This candidate is happiest burrowing deep into your organisation, mastering a few obscure technical tricks that make them seemingly invaluable to the ongoing support of your ageing legacy systems and keeping their head down for a couple of decades. They have no aspirations to management or promotion, though would certainly feel entitled to an annual payrise Above The Fricking Rate Of Inflation (sorry, personal sore point creeping in there), and have little inclination to 'stretch' themself or operate 'out of their comfort zone'.

Yeah, that's a winning statement right there. At least it's bloody honest.

So it's the weekend and what have I been up to? Dealing with the mountain of emails from recruitment agencies that have accumulated this week. Jeebus, these agencies breed like rats. I seriously doubt if there are more than half a dozen people actually involved in the whole thing - probably just a bunch of web-savvy twentysomethings frenetically linking up to each other's sites to give the illusion of choice. I certainly seem to have seen the same job vacancies across the interweb (I'm wholly unsuited to all of them, before you ask).

For the last couple of hours I've done nothing but log on to websites, confirm my personal details, change my variously forgettable passwords, upload my epically dull CV (oh, it's a real page-turner) and work my way through an ever-increasing pile of Welcome emails from the agencies. What fun, what enormous bloody fun. And what comes next is just as bad - the sporadic phone calls from recruiters. Usually when I'm halfway through a sandwich, always when my stupid voice is at its deepest and croakiest, and invariably for a job that's perfect apart from:

• they need me start right now, not in six months
• it's on the wrong side of London (damn you Croydon and your emerging stature in the financial industry)
• they need someone skilled in computer languages written after 1983, not before (amazing, I know...)

But if there's one aspect of this whole damned business that I really, really want nothing to do with, it's the networking side of things. Specifically LinkedIn.

For those of you below or above a certain age bracket, or blessedly free of white-collar employment concerns, you will be unaware of LinkedIn. In a nutshell it's Facebook for 'professionals'. A cruel person might say it's for people with pretensions to careerdom. Not me though. Honest.

What you do is you set yourself up on LinkedIn with your professional profile, or more likely (as in my case) you respond to an invite from a chum/acquaintance to join. I only did it as a favour to one such chum. I thought he'd get points if I linked to him - you know, like in Farmville. Either way, you set yourself up, write a little autobiography about what you do in your job, and then get friends, clients and employers to link to you and hopefully supply a glowing reference. Presumably you then get headhunted for the Best Job Ever. I guess.

All very reasonable, all very useful. A great way to get personal recommendations and put people in touch. But man, it's so not me. All that insincere self-promoting stuff, 'selling yourself as a brand' - it just makes me gag. I want a job goddammit, not a perishing career. And I don't want to get it by linking up with self-styled Network Support Managers, Information Education Advisors, Strategic Business Designers or Heads of User Excellence. Honestly, I look at the job titles of the people on there and it's like the crew manifest of the second Golgafrincham ark, and I do not want to sign on, no way no how.

When people come up to me at work to offer advice on job hunting, they invariably bring up LinkedIn, usually with an expression like they're imparting secret Masonic contact details. I'm surprised they haven't given me the special LinkedIn handshake yet. Maybe they have and I just missed it. Probably because I was rolling my eyes to the heavens at the time.

By the way, apologies to any Network Support Managers, Information Education Advisors, Strategic Business Designers or Heads of User Excellence reading this. Doubtless you find it a valuable tool in your professional... uh, toolbox, but it's not for me. Maybe you regard this whole self-promoting circus as 'playing the game', but I don't wanna play. Never did. I don't want to market myself, brand myself, demonstrate core competencies, see myself anywhere in particular in 5 years' time or set a personal fricking development plan. Nor, for what it's worth, will I be pushed, filed, stamped, indexed, briefed, debriefed or numbered. But hey, that's just me.

Won't someone just give me a job without forcing me to whore myself out as a 'forward-thinking solutions enabler who embraces the stretch of multi-disciplinary challenges at all levels'. Whatever the hell that means. And please don't make me write about myself in the third person, like someone else wrote my CV for me - it makes me feel like someone with a disassociative identity disorder. Or Doctor Doom.

Doctor Doom, hmm...

Ahem, anyway.

There has to be another way of getting a job, hasn't there? One that won't compromise my Snarky Nonconformist character class restrictions? Don't make me a hypocrite and force me on board the second ark - I couldn't bear to look myself in the mirror. Well, I can't anyway, but that's down to a cruel combination of strong overhead lighting and very fine hair. Damn you, Bulbs Of Baldness!

Just gimme a job. Ideally one that plays to my strengths as a highly expressive misanthrope who hates modern life. Surely those miserable bastards on the Grumpy programmes have writers?

P.S.
My LinkedIn profile used to describe me as a mainframe drone. True fact. But someone said they couldn't recommend me whilst I had that as my job description, so I changed it to jaded code monkey.

I like the image of being a jade monkey - it sounds like something Indy would go in search of. Or Jake Cutter. And I suggest the fact that I can even remember who Jake Cutter is tells potential employers everything they need to know about me.

What I don't get, right...

Hello to you. The following thoughts are best described as thinking out loud about minor mysteries of popular entertainment, preceded by the introductory phrase "What I don't get, right...". Best uttered in a blokey London accent, possibly whilst leaning in toward your audience and gesticulating.


Why does reformed boy band Blue need backing singers? I just saw them performing their Eurovision entry on the Graham Norton show, and they had two blokes behind them singing along. What do they need backing singers for? They're a group composed solely of singers! It's not like they're too busy playing instruments to concentrate on the warbling, for Pete's sake. Was it perhaps an especially tricky song that really needed six voices? Had someone foolishly invited Blue to represent their country at the annual parade of thinly-velied regional politics only to discover - too late! - that the boys are a mere foursome, and not the finely tuned sextet that the anthemic "I Can" absolutely requires? Heads will roll, I can tell you.


Now, I like the actor Tim Roth, I do. But how come in the film The Incredible Hulk, he’s playing the character of Blonsky as British? Blonsky’s a soldier in the U.S. army. It doesn’t make sense. Did he do a swap from the Royal Marines perhaps? And it's not like Tim Roth can't do a good American accent - just look at Mr Orange in Reservoir Dogs. Maybe he's used up his lifetime supply of accents and now can only do his own, hence the Britishness in Hulk and Lie To Me (ooo, he's an idiosyncratic expert surrounded by a diverse team of flunkies! Where do they get their ideas? Well done, the TV studio). Maybe the same will happen to Hugh Laurie soon and House will become inexplicably English mid-season. By the same token, I assume Sean Connery's supply ran out in 1962.

Why do all Just For Men hair colourant adverts feature men just barely the wrong side of 40, with a full head of hair which has been unconvincingly tinted grey at the temples, much in the manner of Mr Fantastic? And why are they always dubbed as obviously as the old Operation ad?

Mario. What's that about? I honestly cannot understand how the little jumping man from Donkey Kong in 1981 has become the most well known character in video games. He's been in over 200 different games! What is the attraction? All those jumpy, platformy, coin collecty Mario games without nary a gun or ravening zombie in sight. I don't get it. I guess I'm just too old for squat Italian plumbers - the story of my life. Ironically, I recently found that I'm too young for Dead Space 2 though. I had nightmares after just watching someone else play it. Jeez.


What's with the weird mad-haired character on the Confused.com adverts? Remember back when it was nothing but a manic round head with blue stripey arms pulling its few remaining hairs out? Then the ads got all animated and musical and - gasp! - it's a guh-girl! And she sings! None of which I have a problem with per se. What I do take issue with are:

a) the painfully diversity-aware adverts depicting everyone else with realistic hair apart from her - implying that she's either suffering from female alopecia or is undergoing intensive chemo,

and b) when, in the recent Chain Reaction advert, the mad-haired character (Let's call her Connie. I bet she does have a name at Confused.com's PR nerve centre. How ghastly.) is flung up into the air, her boobs lightly jiggle. Have a look.

She has nine hairs on her head and no nose, but the decision was taken during the advert's development to ensure that her evidently perky breasts, concealed beneath her iconic blue stripey sweater, would realistically obey Hooke's law of elasticity! Wrong, so very wrong.

I find the implications disturbing, and reminiscent of a similar phenomenon from the 90s. Remember the original Ribena people? Those anthropomorphic blackcurrants that they used on TV adverts a while ago. No? Here's a reminder:

Note the carefully placed leaves (blackcurrant I assume. Or maybe not. Because that would mean they're from the same plant as the little Ribena person herself, which is either akin to wearing clothes made of your relatives, or else they're implying that she's actually growing leaves on her person in strategic places, much like body hair. Either way, urgh.)

What were they saying about the little Ribena lady's anatomy that needs covering up? Were they suggesting that beneath that Michelangelo-like foliage, she has functional primary and secondary sexual characteristics? Did we need to fear a strong wind might unexpectedly reveal her juicy womanliness as Nature intended it? I shudder at the mental image. Yes, I do have a mental image of it. Don't force me to draw it, because I will if you dare me.

Prince of Biscuits

Here at the Pouch, it has long been a bone of contention that not all Custard Creams are created equal. Indeed, Yours Truly has since childhood been of the opinion that the finest incarnation of this prince among biscuits hails from the aisles of Sainsbury's alone. A tick in the plus column for a supermarket chain that, as you may recall, has earned my displeasure for subdividing its cereals into Adults' and Childrens' thereby daubing me, the sprogless grown-up, as some kind of cereal groomer whenever I slink over to the Frosties shelf.

But enough of Sainsbury's crimes against breakfast. We're here today to talk Custard Creams, the most fabulous, most dunkable, most ornate of all tea-time, indeed anytime, snackage. What other other biscuit can boast the intricate curlicues and flourishes of the Custard Cream? Not the rough old digestive, the MDF of the biscuit world. Not the chocolate hobnob, that painted strumpet. Not even the weird pink wafer thing whose name escapes me. No, for sheer design and elegance, the rococo majesty of the creme de la creme anglaise has no equal in all of bicciedom.



Do not gaze at its weird angles overlong...

If Dan Brown were to conceive of a plot wherein the secret lore of the Knights Templar / Illuminati / Freemasons / Tufty Club (delete to taste) were hidden in (gasp) plain sight, he could do no better than to suggest that the strange, twisting symbols embossed onto each and every Custard Cream pointed the way, in the form of a visual map that only Dr Robert Langdon (and millions of readers across the world) could decipher. Surely there is something of the zodiac in those markings, the alchemical? Do they not also suggest the ancient astronaut carvings of Meso-America, and the Nazca Lines of Peru? Did not those queerly writhing frondlike pictograms inspire old H.P. Lovecraft himself when composing the language of the Elder Things in his novella At The Mountains Of Madness?

No, they did not. But they're bloody tasty all the same.

To return to my original contention, I put it to Herself that Sainsbury's taste the best. Moreover, I claimed that I could identify Sainsbury's Custard Creams by taste alone. A bold assertion made on the back of the previous week's Blind Cola Taste Test, in which I successfully picked out proper Coca-Cola from Diet, Zero and Pepsi Muck variants. Clearly I am like the blind superhero Daredevil, whose superhumanly enhanced tastebuds enable him to distinguish foodstuffs that mere mortals cannot detect. This will doubtless prove useful should I become a crimefighter (or royal taster, whichever pays better).

And lo it came to pass that we carried out a proper scientific blind taste test on a variety of Custard Creams from local supermarkets. Sadly this did not include the venerable Peek Freans as they seem to have been subsumed by the Kraft kolossus some time ago, but as I seem to remember, they were crap anyway. Herself, being very nearly a proper scientist at this point, and having watched one too many episodes of Mythbusters and Brainiac, was only too pleased to do all the hard work of schlepping round the different shops and preparing the test under rigorous laboratory conditions (at the living room table).

The test conditions were as follows:

The test subject (hello) was blindfolded and presented with randomly selected Custard Creams from seven different retail brands. This necessitated an element of trust from Yours Truly, especially when it came to Herself popping said biscuit into my mouth, and not sticking it up my nose or substituting it for a stick of celery or some other foulness. Mercifully her scientific zeal overcame her natural propensity for scampishness, and the tests proceeded free of hilarity.

Each of the seven biscuits were dunked in a cup of scientific tea and presented to me for nibbling. I then judged each for taste, texture and structural integrity with a mark out of five. (Thinking about it now, I should have awarded three different scores for each biscuit - we could then have played Custard Cream Top Trumps later. But sadly too late now.) Finally the seven biscuit samples were randomly mixed up again and offered to me for a second time undunked, just in case they performed differently au naturel. Again, I awarded points accordingly.

And here are those results...

The Custard Cream blind tasting test:
                     (Dunked / Dry)

Asda:                       4 / 4
M&S:                       4 / 4
Morrisons:              4 / 4
Sainsbury's:            4 / 4
Sainsbury's Basic:  4 / 3
Tesco:                      2 / 2 (appalling and fell apart)
Waitrose:                3 / 3 (different, just different)

As you can see, Sainsbury's scored among the highest, but was no better than Asda, Morrisons or M&S, causing us to suspect that perhaps these chains are all scandalously subcontracting the Custard Cream production to some unsung hero of the biscuit industry. So while my contention that Sainsbury's taste best has been sort of borne out by our scrupulous experimentation, I cannot say hand on heart that they are uniquely the best. On the other hand, it does mean that I can spread my patronage wider and obtain my fix from whichever dealer vendor is closest at hand. Huzzah.

And for some slightly less subjective numbers, here are a few health facts and figures cribbed from the packets of said biscuits. Some of those packets had already been in the kitchen bin for a day when I thought to do this next bit, so I hope you appreciate the lengths I have gone to in order to pad substantiate my article with cold hard factosity:

Custard Cream health facts per biccie:
                              (Calories / Sugar / Fat)

Asda:                       60 kcal / 3.5g / 2.8g
M&S:                       60 kcal / 3.2g / 2.8g
Morrisons:              59 kcal / 3.5g / 2.8g
Sainsbury's:            59 kcal / 3.5g / 2.8g
Sainsbury's Basic:  56 kcal / 3.2g / 2.6g
Tesco:                      65 kcal / 3.7g / 2.7g
Waitrose:                 59 kcal / 3.5g / 2.8g

I've no idea what we can make of those figures, apart from that Tesco's Custard Creams are not only the nastiest and least structurally coherent, but are also the most calorific and sugary. So they might be good for an emergency sugar boost, but to paraphrase Jules Winnfield, I won't eat the mofo.

A final sobering note: the Wikipedia entry for the Custard Cream warrants a mere eight sentences. This is the equivalent of reducing the entire history of the planet Earth to 'Mostly Harmless'. Shameful. I expect the authorities to rectify this sorry state of affairs as soon as they receive my letter of complaint.

Commie Ceratopsians vs earthbound Pterodactylia

I'm bored. Or as Mr Igward Pop would have it, I'm the chairman of the bored. It is 10:43 am. I have been in the office 27 minutes – yes, I am a terrible slacker for not getting in before 10:00 am – and I have run out of things to do already. The sum total of my email inbox was as follows:

• 1 test environment availability notification
• 1 train service alteration notification from the tweet-happy National Express East Anglia.
• 2 'working from home' emails from people with better sense than I.
• 1 'book in to your hot desk' reminder – already redundant as my pre-booked desk has been inevitably gazumped by one of the teenage laptop-jockeys that have invaded the office this week as part of some appalling 'cash in on the iPhone app market' project that's just been launched. Damn them and their promising career prospects.

So yeah, I'm bored.

I did just manage to kill about 2 minutes looking up the actor Neil Dudgeon on Wikipedia (so much more readable than IMDB). He replaced John Nettles as 'the new Inspector Barnaby' in the closing minutes of last night's Midsomer Murders in the most clumsy passing of the baton since the deceased El Bandido was swiftly replaced by his newly discovered son El Bandissimo.

El Bandido anybody? Bernie Clifton? Anybody?

Sigh. Am I the only person to remember this musical tour de force from Bernie Clifton's Comedy Shop (Radio 2, 1986)? Apparently I am. Poor Bernie. Poor me.

Tum te tum.

The spellcheck's been turned off of Word on this fershlugginer PC. It just let me get away with the 'nihgt'. Shocking. Can't seem to turn it back on neither. It says 'The spell check is complete'. Yeah, complete but bloody wrong. What am I supposed to do – check it myself, using my eyes? Oh, the pain, the pain.

I did once meet Jonathan Harris you know. He was very old. What do you mean you don't know who Jonathan Harris is? Does the phrase 'You bubble-headed booby' mean nothing to you? Tch, I say. Tch.

It's 11:10 now. 1 hour and 5 minutes until lunch time.

I was very keen to show you how I spent my day on Tuesday, by retrieving my Internet Explorer history and breaking it down by website and category. This would have been followed by a detailed review of each web page for interest and content, possibly accompanied by some sort of Excel pie chart representing that day's web-usage. But I can't do that because of the aforementioned youth squatting at the desk I used on Tuesday. So I can't get at the PC and retrieve my history. My great boredom alleviating plan has been thwarted by malign forces. Maybe I can get him to move.

I'm thinking of setting up a kind of Scooby Doo fake monster scam, to frighten him off so I can get at the PC. I'll have to improvise the creature from materials readily available in the office, mind, so the likelihood of fashioning a glowing diving suit or trapjawed robot is slim. From what I can lay my hands on, the monster is likely to be The Plastic Cup Ghoul Of Desk BO19, which I doubt will generate the levels of stark terror needed to scare that meddling kid away. Bum.



I have now established that dour 1970's sitcom I Didn't Know You Cared was written not by David Nobbs (he of Reginald Perrin distinction) but Peter Tinniswood. Though they did collaborate on The Frost Report. So.

Have decided to compile a list of British sitcoms that have been remade in America. So far I've come up with Reggie (starring Richard Mulligan from Soap), Sanford And Son (which is a black Steptoe I think), Dear John USA (I suspect it wasn't called that in the USA though), and Coupling (which bombed unsurprisingly, being a remake of a remake of Friends).

Am thinking of coming up with a few more sitcoms for Americanization, such as Pa's Army (a platoon of overaged Californians stumble around harassing immigrant Japanese in the wake of Pearl Harbour), Y'All Being Served? (set in the unreconstructed deep south, where Mr Humphries is viciously beaten for being a good fer nuthin' faggot in episode one), and The Minister Of Dibleyville (where the main character is a painfully thin woman).

11:44. Half an hour to go.

Have just learnt that Jon Bon Jovi's first record appearance was on the Star Wars Christmas Album. Also, Miss Tibbs and Miss Gatsby from Fawlty Towers once appeared in Only Fools And Horses. So the morning hasn't been a total waste. I wonder what useful knowledge has been pushed out of my head by these recent additions? Probably something to do with traffic signs or how to cook vegetables – stuff I rarely use anyway.

Lunch comes. Lunch goes. Time stretches before me like a trackless ebon void, much in the style of popular 80’s video game Tempest.

2:23 pm. Things I have learnt to fear from films:

• Being lost in the trackless desert and trying to walk out but ultimately ending up walking in a giant circle because of my uneven stride length (and grotesquely fat right foot).
• Turning my back on any domestic appliance or kitchen implement without first unplugging them or locking them in a drawer. I've seen Final Destination, which makes my ironing routine a tad more health and safety conscious than it otherwise might be.
• Watching meteor showers, shooting stars or other celestial lightshows. I am genuinely convinced that the result will be total blindness within 24 hours, which will coincide with a disastrous upsurge in the number of ambulatory killer plants loose on the streets.
• Plastic bags blowing loosely in the street. First one will innocently tumble along the pavement next to you, then it will wrap around a foot, then another, then another, until you're completely smothered, just like Robert DeNiro. Brrr.

Have managed to kill some time reading a spirited debate on the accent of the new Worgen player race in online game World Of Warcraft. Is it 'fake Cockney' or 'standard British'? Apparently the cocks on the bulletin boards just can't agree. What is it about bulletin boards and forums (fora?) that bring out the arse in anyone who posts?

3:00 pm. Tea time. Blessed relief. Exchange thirty seconds of pleasantries with charming Polish girl behind the counter of Starbucks. This constitutes the longest conversation I’ve had outside my head in several hours.

Spend some time watching the ongoing chaos on the streets of Cairo, courtesy of Sky News and its shamelessly padded coverage (I stopped watching when I realized the so-called live feed had looped around after 10 minutes. Either that or two identical Egyptians just got two firecrackers lobbed at their feet exactly 10 minutes apart.)

Riveting as the running street battles and synchronized rock throwing events were, I can't help but compare them unfavourably with yesterday's excellent equestrian demonstration in Tahrir Square. Is it wrong of me to have got unhealthily excited at the sight of a man on camelback whipping his way through the mobs? Of course it is. Bloody entertaining though.

Right, there's nothing for it but to comprise a list of something to keep me occupied.

It was a close run thing between the two front-runners, but I've chosen My Top Ten Fictional Dinosaurs over My Top Ten Fictional Ghosts. Better luck next time, you spooks (as Mr Meaker would probably say).

1. Devil Dinosaur. Obviously. If only for his excellent dentistry and furry little chum.
2. Godzilla off the old Hanna-Barbera cartoon. Coz he was heroic and came to the aid of the crew of the Calico whenever they needed him (or whenever the bearded guy pressed the electronic Godzilla-signal, which suggests a questionable element of dino-brainwashing which I prefer to gloss over).
3. The excavator-dinosaur at the beginning of The Flintstones. I always wanted to slide down his back like Fred did at knocking off time. I've tried it with one of the larger chaps at work but it's not the same.

4. Droog. What do you mean you've never heard of him? Well, he was a big orange triceratops who spoke in rhyme and appeared in one issue of The Incredible Hulk in the 1970's. He was technically a bad guy as he was the loyal pet of the communist super scientist known as the Gremlin, but he was very cool, and I'm lobbying Marvel to give him his own mini-series, or at least a cameo in Lockjaw and the Pet Avengers.
5. Gwangi from The Valley Of. I pronounce that with two hard 'G' sounds, by the way. He held his own against a posse of cowboys and a circus elephant if memory serves, which is quite a stretch genre-wise. Well done to him.

6. Pterry. He of Jigsaw fame, home of Adrian Hedley and his tall hat, Janet Ellis and her big bosoms, Jigg the crap animated jigsaw piece, Biggun the unconvincing giant, and the nightmare made form that was Mr Noseybonk. Anyway, Pterry was a noble Pterodactyl, or possible Pteranodon. I'm unsure of the difference. He had trouble flying as I recall, not unlike Orville but minus the suspect relationship with Keith Harris.
7. The Chewits dinosaur. For his sheer voraciousness and fabulously mobile claymated mouth. For years I kept an increasingly squishy packet of Chewits with me, just in case I had the bad luck to be passing a major world attraction when the ever-hungry monster turned up.

8. Big Hungry. He was a nothosaur from the second book of the series Flesh in 2000AD, and spent his idle hours munching up prehistoric sea-life and menacing time-travelling fishermen, before being flung 'up the time lanes' as we Flesh-o-philes say, and plopping down in Loch Ness. Much to the annoyance of the Skarasen I should imagine.
9. The T-Rex in the original Tomb Raider game. My God, that was scary when he came round the side of the valley and charged Lara. But at least he forced me to learn the awkward 'backflip whilst firing' combo.

10. The brachiosaurus at Blackgang Chine. I believe he still looms over the treetop walkway as you enter the chine, which is both marvellous and a little intimidating. Even better his old head, the less impressive 'Ducky' as he is known, can still be seen smirking his big green face off nearby.

Feel free to contribute your own.

5:27 pm. Realize I have become far too engrossed in pondering the relative merits of rhyming commie ceratopsians versus tragically earth-bound pterodactylia, and should really make plans to slope off home, another productive day of work complete.

Annoyingly, workaholic colleagues surround me on all sides, having got into the office before me and are now seemingly intent on working into the evening out of some sort of misguided sense of corporate loyalty. Thus am forced to twiddle thumbs (in reality, rearrange my favourites on Internet Explorer into alphabetical order) until the desks have been sufficiently vacated that I can nip off without looking like a total slackpants.

Belatedly notice that my screen has been unwisely angled so as to be on view to the majority of the office all day and must now hope vainly that nobody noticed that the ‘design document’ I’ve been hammering away at all day has the unusual title of Bored. Tch.

Black-Eared Bolt

Preface: Should you not have grown up worshipping at the altar of American comic books, you may find the following material easier to follow if I can trouble you to do a little preliminary viewing:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=17eeZPl_Pgo&feature=fvw

At the very least, knowing the name of Thor's first foes may come in handy at some future quiz night. No? Oh suit yourself.


Now, a lot of comic heads will cite legends Stan Lee and Jack Kirby as true fonts of imagination. Men of raw originality who created some of the most iconic characters in comic books from nothing but their own dreamstuff and mindgasm. Spider-Man, The Fantastic Four, The X-Men... Lee and Kirby crafted a 20th century pantheon of costumed demi-gods such as the world had never seen before.

Or had they?

Recently evidence has come to light which casts the reputation of these trailblazing imagineers into doubt. Evidence which is as compelling as it is indisputable. Prepare to have your preconceptions flicked sharply with a wet towel...

Let's start with this case study. In 1965, Lee and Kirby wrote and drew Fantastic Four issue #45, in which we met a strange race of beings who lived hidden from mankind in their incredible city of Attilan, high in the Himalayas. Each member of that secretive society had their own unique super-power, some of them barely human in appearance. They were... The Inhumans:

The Inhumans were led by the regal Black Bolt, whose powerful voice could lay waste to skyscrapers with but a single syllable. Thus he remained ever-silent, preferring to communicate indirectly, through the members of his royal family, Medusa of the living tresses, Karnak the shatterer, Gorgon of the thunderous tread, Triton the amphibian and Lockjaw the uh... giant teleporting bulldog. Yeah.

Anyway, I was struck by the similarity between Black Bolt and another popular fictional character, seemingly mute, possessed of uncanny magical powers and attended by a weird extended family of inhuman creatures. Here he is, with some of his friends:

Yes, the similarities are incredible aren't they? Too close perhaps for mere coincidence. Now let's look at the rest of the cast of The Sooty Show:

Sooty's simpering panda girlfriend Soo is an obvious match for Medusa, the excitable Sweep is a dead ringer for Karnak with his funny dome-shaped head, gruff Butch is a perfect Gorgon, Kipper is the other girl so she must be Crystal, and the sinister snake Ramsbottom must be Triton as he's the only one left. Unless you count that little kiddie version of Sooty in the school uniform, who's probably called Spanky or Zipper or something. Maybe he's Lockjaw. No, Butch would have to be Lockjaw coz they're both dogs, so Spanky would have to be Gorgon. Or something like that. Oh, I don't know. But you get the idea.

Anyway, it's compelling darn evidence and no mistake. And here's the shocking twist - Sooty predates The Inhumans by some 17 years! Which would make Lee and Kirby dirty plagiarists who ripped off Harry Corbett's lovable glove puppets and thought they'd get away with it by sticking them in skintight ziggy-zaggy costumes and sticking an inexplicable tuning fork on their main character's forehead. Look at this damning early draft of Jack Kirby's artwork, before Marvel comics' lawyers insisted he redraw 'Black-Eared Bolt':

Well I'm here to tell you that the revelation may be coming some 45 years late, and 50% of the suspects may have sadly passed beyond the veil, but Sootygate is but the tip of the iceberg at the House of Ideas. Which would make it a very big house, I suppose. Maybe the iceberg is sort of underneath the house. I dunno.

Let's look briefly at some other test cases and see if you agree with me. In each instance, I propose to demonstrate incontrovertibly that iconic characters from Marvel comics, and in some cases their competitors at DC, are actually thinly disguised ripoffs of much-loved British childrens' television shows.

Right, so Rainbow is the obvious inspiration for the mythical rainbow bridge linking the world of men to Asgard, the home of the Norse gods, which makes Bungle and his friends all prototypical Asgardians from The Mighty Thor. Bungle is obviously the noble thunder god himself, his dull mate Geoffrey would be Balder the brave, the sneering Zippy just has to be wily Loki the lord of mischief, leaving girly mega-lashed George in the role of the goddess Sif.

And Rod, Jane and Freddy are the Warriors Three. Simple.

Moving over to DC, we note that the super-escape artist Mister Miracle, with his brightly coloured clothing and irrepressible spirit, is nothing but Basil Brush in human form. And his sidekick Oberon is just Mr Rodney/Derek/Roy/Billy/whatever with mutton chops. We also see in Basil's deerstalker and manic laughter the gestating forms of both Detective Chimp and The Creeper.

That of course takes us neatly onto Basil's dark counterpart Emu, who must surely be the ur-form of the New God Orion - ever struggling with his savage nature. Hull is clearly Highfather whose steady hand stays Emu's bestial fury.

And if that isn't enough to convince you that some of the greatest creations in comicdom are nothing but pale mockeries of older myths, just examine this beloved tale of a saggy old Lord of Dreams:

It hardly needs spelling out does it? Neil Gaiman's cast of the Sandman, those archetypes of the human experience known as The Endless, are nothing but the cast of Bagpuss dressed up for the artsy 'comics are for adults' crowd.

Consider: the sandman Morpheus, whose realm is that of dreams, is so clearly Bagpuss that it's not even funny. The dour Despair is none other than Professor Yaffle, that carved wooden bookend in the shape of a woodpecker. Seductive, androgynous Desire is none other than the collective form of those tricksome mice on the mouse organ  pandering to the unwary's deepest needs, even going so far as to perpetrate the infamous Chocolate Biscuit Scam. Smiling pale-faced Death is a ringer for Madeleine the doll, and Destiny with his chained books of secrets is actually Gabriel the toad and his banjo of visions. That just leaves insane Delirium as the clearly disturbed Emily. Destruction is of course not present, though I strongly suspect he is the Hamish:

http://www.smallfilms.co.uk/bagpuss/stories.htm#Hamish

Why yes, I do have a lot of free time on my hands. Why do you ask?

Shite Critter Fight

Hello. Carrying on from my last contribution, we shall again be looking at that weird rectangular item in the corner of your living room.

Television, it really is the drug of the nation, isn't it? Or is that the potent marijuana derivative skunk? I always get them mixed up. Tch.

Any road up, I have been musing just now on the genre of made-for-TV movies that I like to call Shite Critter Fights, such as the well-known Mega Shark vs Giant Octopus or the excellent Dinocroc vs Supergator:



This is in no way related to the fact that I have been 'working from home' with the Horror Channel on in the background for the last two days. Oh no. You'd be a fool and a communist to suggest so.

Keen observers will have noticed that these films do tend to follow a definite formula. I won't bother to outline how the plots start, as nobody ever actually watches these things from the beginning - we just happen across them halfway through as we're flicking around the channels trying to avoid Murder She Wrote and Everyone Loves Raymond.

But there are common elements. These include:

• Sort of Hawaiian foresty setting, like the film crew have snuck onto the Lost set at the weekend.
• Budget-friendly cast of about 5 people.
• Two enormous CGI animals (often reptiles, possibly because scales are so much easier to do than fur).
• Unshaven rough bloke with a gun, given to shooting at enormous CGI animal (off-screen).
• Hot chick in a tight black vest. She will often be a doctor / scientist / anthropolologist.
• Back-up rough blokes and hot chicks, given to pointing at enormous CGI animal (off-screen) and getting eaten/swatted by a tail (off-screen).
• Seventy minutes of waffle and running around before we get to the money shot of the two enormous CGI animals hissing and biting at each other. Oh, how they tease us.

That's basically how they all work, though I do recommend Boa vs Python for its trangressive inter-serpent sex sub-plot. Challenging:

Now, it occurs to me that we in Britain are woefully under-represented in these cinematic gems. Or rather our noble native fauna is. So, to redress this shocking imbalance, I have put together a proposal for a number of homegrown Shite Critter Fights to be developed by the BBC. I mean, they can do Walking With Monsters and all those Attenborough Refuses To Retire Even Though He Talks Like He's Had A Stroke series, so this should be a doddle. It'll knock the pants off Springwatch. Check it:

• Megafox vs Starbadger
• Duckzilla vs King Coot
• Voleociraptor vs Dinoshrew
• Slayworm vs Grossnake
• Terrorgoose vs Cyberswan

I was going to spend the rest of the evening trawling Google Images for likely wildlife pictures to mash up into movie posters with Photoshop Elements, but even I have a life. Besides, Cobra vs Komodo is on later.

And Now On Ocelot TV…

Long-time correspondents will be aware of my many proposed additions to your nightly televisual offerings, such as the reality shows Celebrity Surgeon and Fuck Island, and so I am pleased to offer you a preview of just some of the programme proposals I have recently submitted to the major networks for development. Brace yourself – some of them are a bit Chris Morrissy, if you get my drift…

First up, the reality shows. You can never have enough of these, as a brief flick through the Radio Times will hammer home to you:

Touch The Coma Girl, a spectacular live 24-hour event in which members of the public, desperate for much-needed organ transplants, must remain in constant physical contact with a brain-dead road accident victim in otherwise excellent health.

A Mummy For Matthew, in which a young boy with severe behavioural problems is placed with a different foster family every week. In the first episode, Matthew meets recovering heroin addict Janette and her on-again/off-again boyfriend Garry. Will Matthew form that crucial bond with his ‘mummy of the week’ or will the presence of Garry’s boisterous Staffordshire terrier Moatie trigger one of his seizures? Next week, Matthew is introduced to needy fund manager Lorraine and her adopted son Ishmael, a former Rwandan boy soldier.

Inmate, Outmate, in which members of the public voluntarily trade places with patients from Broadmoor high-security psychiatric hospital, to see who copes better. In week one, accounts adviser and father of three Chris submits to a programme of electro-convulsive therapy and pig tranquillisers, whilst delusional sociopath Ewan takes Chris’ family to the local garden centre, with unpredictable results…

Fame Battalion, in which a selection of former soap stars, barely literate sportsmen, disgraced politicians and reality whores are taken through the gruelling process of basic training by the Royal Anglian Regiment, before shipping out for a tour of duty in Afghanistan. In week three, the stars are tasked with policing a known hotbed of insurgents some 20 miles from the nearest support, if they are to earn enough stars for a fresh supply of ammunition and clean water. Watch out for Coleen Rooney’s hilarious attempts to conduct a perilous house-to-house search with only a dysentery-stricken Joe Pasquale for back-up.

Dancing With Tears In Their Eyes, in which a group of people with terminal illnesses compete in the intense world of ballroom dancing. Each week, we follow them through the highs and lows of learning new steps, bonding with their professional partners, undergoing chemo and periodically expiring in mid-tango. As a panel of bitter old choreographers, rampant egomaniacs, preposterous euro-twats and Dr Hilary Jones pronounce judgement on the performances of the increasingly gaunt and hollow-eyed contestants, we give you the audience the opportunity to vote which will receive a much needed ‘stay of execution’ in a hospice to rebalance their meds, and which will be forced to literally ‘dance till they drop’.

The Madrassa, in which a selection of disaffected youths, credulous buffoons and religious nutbags attend a hardline Islamic education camp somewhere in western Pakistan. In week two, former wiccan Becky is beaten for not lowering her eyes before the men, and Kieran, now Jabalah, studies the processional route of the forthcoming Royal Wedding.

Next, some new additions to the already saturated quiz-show market…

The Vanilla Quiz – 30 minutes of questions fired directly at the viewer, delivered by an unseen voiceover. No rounds, no bonuses, no contestants, no prizes. The only concession to tension is a heartbeat-style sound effect, played in the background, which gradually increases in tempo and speed as the end of the quiz approaches. Viewers like me, irritated by the ‘thinking aloud’ padding of Eggheads or the embarrassing ‘getting to know you’ bits in Mastermind, will welcome the introduction of 100% uncut quizzage.

The Slightly Different Quiz – basically the same as Fifteen To One or The Weakest Link, but whenever someone gets a question wrong, the contestant to the left must slap them full in the face. In the final head-to-head round, the quizmaster, armed with a dead halibut, stands directly in front of the two finalists, delivering a teeth-loosening two-hander for every wrong answer. The winner gets to take the fish home. A TV must for clever clogs, sadists and anglers everywhere.

Just to switch over to the wireless for a moment, here’s my idea for a disappointing 6:30pm Radio 4 situation comedy series. It’s called It Takes Two To Quango. It probably revolves around the chalk-and-cheese relationship between two dull and unoriginal sub-Yes Minister characters. It will feature otherwise reputable actors unwisely choosing to perform the sort of light comedy that should have been compassionately euthanized in the 80’s.

And finally, inspired by our recent New Year’s hols in the West Country, here is my latest drama submission for your approval: Jessie Wallace plays a single mum struggling to survive as Devon’s least likely call-girl. It’s called Westward Ho’. I think it will do well in the prestigious Doc Martin slot.

Happy viewing.