Now I don’t normally inflict my footballing prejudices on this blog - I’ve always been of the opinion that I’ve made my own bed and therefore I should lie in it and suffer more or less alone (M&N being obvious and unfortunate exceptions to that rule). And, generally, you won’t find me spreading the memes of our corporate masters around the net.

But I’m going to make an exception for this because:

1. I think I’ve actually fallen in love with Fernando Torres,

2. The “Fernando Torres” chant to “Johnny Comes Marching Home” has been the best addition to the Liverpool songbook since Fields of Athenry (though the new Maschereno to the tune of “Seven Nation Army” comes close too),

and 3. This is a fantastically funny and brilliantly observed little advert (with Hungarian subtitles) that won’t get shown in this country and doesn’t do the hard sell.

The two old blokes coming out of the chippie with an “Adios laa” and the lad saying “Gracias mate” crack me up every time.

And for those who don’t know, the translation of the chant being sung in Spanish is:

“His armband proved he was a red, Torres! Torres!
You’ll never walk alone, it said, Torres! Torres!
We brought the lad from sunny Spain,
He gets the ball and he scores again,
Fernando Torres, Liverpool’s number nine”

Nanananana… and bounce maniacally ad nauseum

Posted May 31, 2008 Comments(0)

Haven’t been here for a while - insanely busy with union annual conference and ludcrously tight magazine deadline…

Anyway, I’m working on a couple of longer pieces which I hope will get up soon.

In the meantime, The Stage is posting this news about Stephen Moffat being appointed “lead writer and executive producer” of Dr Who - taking over from RT Davies. I’ve never been one of those people who were highly critical of Davies, but if he was going, this is surely the best possible replacement?

Posted May 20, 2008 Comments(0)

Blue Tyson at Free SF Reader has reviewed Hub 50 and my story Home Protection - which you can still read here.

It’s hard to know exactly what to make of the review. At first 3 out of 5 seems disappointingly low but the site has pretty high standards (the big pro US magazines average around 3.5 an issue) so three doesn’t seem too bad a score. And you can’t really argue with the summary (well, I could but it would ruin the ending).

Posted May 12, 2008 Comments(0)

So I had some bad news, then I got sick, and in truth I’ve spent most of the last week in bed feeling sorry for myself - it’s not a pretty sight - and I’m gutted that this coincided with Sci-Fi London (one of the weekends I look forward to most all year - I’d bought tickets for eight movies and got to see none of them) and the ACC Awards Ceremony.

Somewhere in the middle of that my contributions to Illuminations also took a bit of a kicking (well most of my favourites did anyway) - I’m not complaining about the review, just noting that this week I’ve had the tendency to focus on the negative.

So, I’m still croaking from this chest infection, but back to work today and some nice news… Douglas Hoffman has reviewed “Home Protection” on The Fix and liked it

I know one is supposed to take these things with equanimity - but it’s always nicer to get a positive word. I wrote “Home Protection” a long time ago (maybe three years?) and looking at it now all I see are the things I’d like to change but I’ve always liked the idea at the heart of the story and it’s nice that some new eyes saw it and appreciated it.

More soon.

Posted May 7, 2008 Comments(0)