A day in the life...

Drive twenty miles through country lanes to an isolated prison, delivering a report for my wife. Stand in a cold muddy field whilst two horses slooooooowly eat their feed, mocking how cold the silly man is. Sit in a noisy studio full of expert sculptors making false teeth. Reassure the anxieties and fears of a man with learning difficulties.

Drive through rush hour traffic to an unemployment office for the second of three trips this week. Go to the supermarket. Reassure the anxieties and fears of a man with learning difficulties.

Eat dinner, thankfully cooked by my wife who was home sick today. Do some more reassuring.

Write this, wondering why my life is so bloody weird.

The Hell Of It All revisited

Confession time. When I reviewed Charlie Brooker's book, I had not finished it. I like to have two or three books on the go at any one time and because of it's episodic nature, being a collection of largely unrelated articles, "The Hell Of It All" has been picked up and dropped as the mood has taken me.

The result of this is that my original thoughts on the book are too wishy-washy. On reflection, the book is both funnier than I had suggested and also much more annoying.

Brooker has a turn of phrase that is sharp like a surgeon's knife. It is a gift, like that possessed by the master of written comedy Dave Barry, which means that repeatedly he assaults your senses with comedic description you just don't see coming. It is this comedic sucker-punch which leaves you looking like an idiot as you sit in a hospital waiting room, giggling uncontrollably and with tears of laughter streaming down your face.

Dave Barry's description of his attempt to participate in synchronised swimming, after having been rude about it another of his columns, is such a piece, as is Clive James's description of his childhood billy-cart race, and this book has another in Brooker's description of his attempts to catch a rat.

Superb though the high points are though, the pressure of producing one TV review sketch and one lifestyle column a week, in addition to his TV and film work, is clearly taking it's toll on the overall quality of his output. The hit to miss ratio is falling and the genius, of which the book contains a good deal, is being lost among articles in which Brooker comes across as a self-obsessed London-centric media-lovey.

I suppose that this is the inevitable result of a columnist having a blank space which must be filled, regardless of whether or not they have something to say. On his bad days, with a change of gender you might be reading Julie Birchill.

On his good days though, Charlie Brooker is up with the best of them. Rather than publish comprehensive collected works though, the books might be improved by leaving out those columns which are sub-standard fillers. The good stuff can stand on it's own.

The low point comes in a vitriolic attack on a reader/fan who has emailed in an article they have written, presumably seeking his approval at how clever they are, which name-calls and belittles Kerry Katona. For Brooker to claim the moral high-ground and slate the idea of kicking someone when they are down, someone you don't even know, is hypocrisy on a grand scale.

What Brooker says about the reader's article is true, it is a small minded arsehole sneering at the foibles and weaknesses of people richer and more successful than themselves, in order to give a sense of superiority to their own lives. I agree wholeheartedly, but this is exactly what Brooker has made a career from. More than once in the book he describes guilt at having met people whose TV appearances he has derided and then felt guilt because they turn out to be really nice in the flesh.

So if it is an exercise in self-loathing the article works, but to me at least, it felt more like the pot calling the kettle black.

In any case, buy the bloody book. If the article about the rat doesn't make you laugh, arrange to have yourself buried, you've died.

Holy Camp Miserable Batman

You know you're in Camp Miserable when...

Damn client confidentiality, I heard a beautiful interaction today which I can't tell you about.

It really made me laugh which, since I've spent most of the last two weeks trying to pull together our annual accounts, provided a much needed lift from the horrors of my own finances.

I can tell you the reply but not the question, as that would make the person speaking identifiable. What made me laugh were the the words "I know someone with a stick".

If you can think of a good question to go with that answer, please let me know. If your effort is funnier than the original, there may be an imaginary prize to be awarded.

Waiting...

Well I didn't expect to see me back here so quickly, but it seems we have broken Star Trek On-line. After a pretty smooth start with just a few buggy annoyances, today the server has been down twice, each time for more than two hours. One was "planned" by way of a server-side bug fix, the second seems to be the result of the poorly tested bug-fix buggering up the game.

Bit of an embarrassment for Cryptic as, despite me personally having played for about 14 hours already, people will only remember the down time. Bad publicity early on can and will damage sales.

The game itself, when it is working, is looking polished and playing well. I have a couple of minor gripes regarding the user interface, but otherwise the experience has been positive and whilst playing, time has just flown by.

The perceived wisdom is that it is best to avoid the first few weeks, even months, of a game of this scale being rolled out. There are always server problems and issues with bugs. On the other hand, there is a certain pleasure to be had from being one of the first to tread new ground, and a community spirit engendered which will dissipate later on.