What On Earth Is Wrong With Gravity?
BBC2, 29th January 2008, 9PM. Clips from the Horizon programme "What on Earth is wrong with gravity?" featuring the scientist that everyone books when they need a physicist in a pinch, Dr Brian Cox. Searching for gravity waves in the swamps of Louisiana Here Brian demonstrates his intellectual superiority to average mortals by exposing his very sensible fear of spiders, creatures apparently drawn to gravity wave experiments like moths to flames or turtles to discussions about genetic drift in cloning. En route to GPS HQ, Colorado Springs, Colorado If you like science programmes but wish they could be just a little bit more Top Geary, minus Jeremy Clarkson (of course), then you’ll just love this clip of Brian in his car talking. If you dislike nanoseconds then you’ll love this clip just a little bit less. Explaining a gravitational wave Have you ever thought to yourself: how can I explain gravitational waves through space to a person who can’t comprehend that waves can compress and expand and still be waves and aren’t limited to sine curves with seagulls bobbing up and down on them whilst in a diner? Dr Brian Cox supplies the answer in this video clip. Napkins! Faking the moon landings Some helpful advice now for any would-be passengers in Dr Brian Cox’s car: don’t mention fake moon landings! Don’t drive angry, Brian, don’t drive...
Top 5 Terrifying Music Videos
There follows a short countdown of what currently constitutes my top five terrifying music videos. These are music videos that – whether deliberately or not – I find genuinely scary or creepy or disturbing. 5. Unkle – Eye For An Eye I know what you’re thinking: yeah, that was nasty! All those black things bursting out and killing everything in sight! Gruesome! Scary! Eeevil with three es! Yeah, that’s not what disturbs me. Breast feeding in public is what disturbs me. It’s not big and it’s not clever and yes, it’s natural, but so is defecating and that’s frowned upon so stop it. Big-mouthed, naked things climbing up and suckling on nipples is not on. If it was then I’d do it more often. 4. Mason vs Princess Superstar – Perfect So just what’s so perfectly terrifying about this video for the Princess Superstar remix? I can sum that up in one word: eyelashes. Don’t get me wrong; I’m not scared of eyelashes as a rule. If I was then I’d spend half the day flapping at my face and poking myself in the eyeballs in terror. And I also understand and appreciate that eyelashes serve an important purpose in keeping the mascara industry in employment. However, I’m quite picky in where my eyelashes go. I’m your average, run-of-the-mill "let’s have them on the eyelids, eh?" sort of person. When they start appearing on the cheekbones … shudder. Now that’s just wrong. Freak show wrong. I watch that video and feel I’m seconds away from being kidnapped, having my limbs chopped off, and forced to live out my life with the girls in the video chanting "one of us". No sir, I don’t like it; I don’t like it at all. 3. Queen – I Want To Break Free A moustachioed man in a mini-skirt? That’s not scary. I live in a naval port. Brian May with his hair in rollers and dressed in a silky nightdress? That’s not scary. That’s just how Brian lives. If I had curly hair I might even do the same. People in cow-patterned leotards stretching with no regard for viewers’ sensibilities? A little odd, but not even mildly distressing when compared to the truly frightening aspect of this Queen video. Roger Taylor looking good in that schoolgirl outfit? Aiiieee! Night! Terrors! 2. The Reynolds Girls – I’d Rather Jack It’s a cheesy song with a cheap video and clearly not enough rehearsal time for the dance choreography but it contains some seriously scary elements. Look at the clothing! And that hair! And then factor in that I was studying at Liverpool University not...
NFL At Wembley In Pictures
The day started really well and by that I mean that is was raining as we left making us drenched before we reached the train station. From there things got much better and by that I mean that the trains weren’t operating for the first five or so stops so a nice, slow bus service was in use instead. But once we were on the train things went swimmingly at long last. And by that I mean that there was engineering work around Clapham Junction and the train needed to sightsee Chertsey and Staines before it could arrive at Waterloo tacking on another 25 minutes to the journey. There are no pictures of this part of the journey. There are pictures for other parts of the journey taken with my – as it turned out, rather crappy – camera phone. Yes, even the ones that look like they weren’t. We boarded the Tube for Wembley! The Tube was hot. Real hot. The kind of hot that makes Satan whip up a memo stating "Turn it down, would you? Regards, Dark Master." But we arrived at Wembley after a small trek from the Tube station in the pouring rain. You’d think we’d appreciate it after the heat but we seriously didn’t. We found our seats early. Ooh! Right in line with one of the End Zones! Where all the exciting action would take place! There was a pre-game show involving the Miami Dolphins Cheerleaders, some band I’d never heard of, an inflatable thing, and two giant team shirts carried around, rotated, and flapped by people. The Cheerleaders were good. The game started after some awesome booing for John Terry, honorary team captain for the day, during the coin toss. We do so like to boo John Terry. Clever move, NFL, asking him to come along. Action on the field of play! It was raining a little bit, but not so you’d really notice. Luckily we were dry as the roof covered us nicely. I pity the fools near the pitch action though. I started noticing those horrible things called "other people" in the stadium. For example: Observe the heads of the people in the row in front of me. These "other people" had apparently turned up not to watch a real, live game of American Football in Wembley, but rather to see just how much beer and food they could buy during the first quarter, and then try to better that record for the second. With absolutely no exaggeration I can confirm that they left their seats and returned with beer and food – much of it spilt on themselves...
Strictly Come Dancing 2007
If you’re anything like me – and let’s all hope they find a cure for that and soon – then you just find yourself glued to the television screen on Saturday evenings watching the BBC’s Strictly Come Dancing programme. It’s simply a perfect blend of elegant ballroom dancing, sexy latin dancing, judges who have become parodies of themselves, and laughing at celebrities with no natural rhythm and two or more left feet that forms a ratings winner. This year has seen the introduction of two new changes to the programme format in a bid to freshen the show up and get people talking about it. I’m talking about so it must have worked! First off is the voting results show being on a Sunday night instead of later on the Saturday. Far from enabling longer in the editing room to pad out the highlights clips and produce more programming hours for lower production costs whilst simultaneously trying to enforce channel loyalty and shift the ratings on Sunday evenings away from competitor channels, this move instead is due to "research" indicating that "the people" wanted their Sundays filled thusly. What people and what research? All will be revealed after Christmas in the new BBC TV series Strictly Come Dancing People And Research Secrets Revealed. Claudia Winkleman will also host the fanzine show It Takes Clipboards. The second change to the programme is in the way the dancers are now voted off the show. The old method of the judges’ scores being supplemented by the public licence fee-payers democratic phone votes was deemed to be unfair to those celebrities who the judges had taken a shine to early on and decided should progress despite their obvious failings and clear bias from the panel. The makers of Strictly Come Dancing decided that a system that didn’t allow viewers of the programme to overrule the predetermined wishes of the tuxedoed elite was more in keeping with the spirit of a light entertainment programme. The judges now have a veto. But enough bitterness, just who are the competitors (left at time of writing) in this year’s Strictly Come Dancing competition? Dominic Littlewood & Lilia Kopylova Dominic Littlewood is the cheekiest chappy known to mankind. It’s pretty near impossible to mention Dominic without using the word "cheeky" or some derivative in every sentence. His natural cheekiness is enhanced by dousing with Calvin Klein’s Eau Seau Cheeky on a daily basis. This envelops Dominic in a misty field of supercheeky particulates that scientists label "The Cheeky Zone". He fancies one of The Cheeky Girls; the gormless one. Lilia is the fiery Russian minx that nobody would...
Wembley, Giants, Dolphins, Tickets, Me
Image modified to remove seating information. Guess who’s going to Wembley to see the New York Giants versus the Miami Dolphins! You’ll never guess! No, go on! Guess! Give up? It’s me! I don’t even like any of the teams! I don’t care! I’m going to see the game! "Peyton, give us a wave, Peyton, Peyton give us a wave!" Eli will LOVE that! Look out for me on TV. I’ll be one of almost eighteen thousand people in the stadium wearing a Patriots Brady #12 top! You can’t miss...
The Media Versus The Patriots
There is a land across the sea; a vast land with occasionally vast people in it. It is the land where everyone is assumed innocent until proven guilty by enforced public opinion. It is the land where spying on citizens, intercepting their emails, tapping their phones, and quite possibly inserting cameras in ceiling tiles above every toilet cubicle in the country to stamp out forbidden consensual acts of homolove is all accepted with little more than a whimper from the seated masses, their representatives in power, and the media who feed them their daily dose of Things We Tell You To Think®. Americaland. So what’s making the news in Americaland these days? The New England Patriots were caught doing something illegal during a recent football game. The New England Patriots cheated. The New England Patriots’ reputation is shredded. The New England Patriots spoilt Christmas for little Jimmy. The New England Patriots were working in league with Osama all along. Really? Apparently so. If you listen to the media. Which you shouldn’t. Ever. What Did The New England Patriots Actually Do? The Patriots used a video camera to record the play-calling of their opponents – The Mangini Nancyboys out of New Jersey – from the sideline during the game. This is against the rules. Bad Patriots. Naughty Patriots. What’s not against the rules is: using a camera to record the play calling of opponents from booths at the ends of the field or on the 50-yard line (which everyone does), taking still photographs, printing, and writing on them (which everyone does), using binoculars to spy on your opponents and making notes about plays (which everyone does), just looking across at the opposing bench and field and writing down what you see (which everyone does), employing players who use their ears to listen to opposing calls, their eyes to see what the opposing team does, their brains to remember what happened, and their mouths to mention this to their teammates and coaches (which everyone does), asking new members of former teams about the play calls of their previous employers (which everyone does), sacrificing chickens and examining their entrails to identify defensive formations long in advance (which the Arizona Cardinals do to awesome effect!) The video camera-taping by the Patriots did not provide a direct feed into heads-up displays in the helmets of the team. Head Coach Bill Belichick does not have a cybernetic implant that allows him to tune into video camera feeds wirelessly. He does have cybernetic implants. Just not that one. The Patriots broke a rule for the convenience of taking notes. Yes they did. Not for cheating. Getting...
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