An article in the recent issue of Skeptic magazine researching public reaction to the cringe-inducing, gauche and generally unnecessary “The Brights” campaign. The article (by Skeptic founder/director Michael Shermer) doesn’t come t[…]

To follow up Mark’s post below, there are some special editions of boardgames which seem incomprehensible to me. Having viewed the Betty Boop Monopoly set some weeks before Christmas I am still no closer as to how the standard board has been al[…]

DO YOU DEE? Weighed down by its own “ironic” shtick and dreary self-awareness, DEE CONSTRUCTION: THE SIMON DEE STORY (C4, Dec 29, 10pm) nevertheless contained some gruesomely fascinating moments – almost all directly involving the s[…]

Are there any board games which are actually IMPROVED or AT ALL CHANGED – as opposed to momentarily coloured – by having their own classic scenarios recast to conform to some TV programme or other? My sister was given Simpsons Cluedo for […]

Picture if you will the dying throes of Britpop (the dying bit is unfortunately a metaphor here). The kids, slowly turning off their Oases and Blurs with the feeling the had been robbed, which they had. What did indie music have to throw up? The only[…]

I wrote a short plot treatment for a film course I did about seven years ago called Penis Envy. The premise was two conjoined twins joined at the penis. Finally in adulthood the pair get separated, with the proviso that one of the pair gets all the p[…]

Because without that title you could happily assume that the protagonist are actually supposed to be fifteen or older. The age of the leads is one of the key points, thirteen is teenage but we think of delinquency really kicking in just before adulth[…]

Wow – there is an unlikely celebrity pairing. Mind you I have seen Seinfeld and it was unclear he would ever get hitched to anyone. He eats stuff out of the bin after all. As long as it isn’t touching anything else.
Any potential connecti[…]

Sculpting Sand: Dry In The Hand, Like Putty In The Water. Now I am not sure of the chemical construction of said toy sculpting sand, but I do know that the claim to be like putty in the water is hyperbolic to say the least. Unless your use of putty i[…]

Kinflicks – Lisa Alther
The best book I read over Christmas was this feminist coming of age novel from the mid-seventies. Telling the tale of the sexual misadventures of the lead Ginny Babcock the book could be seen as coming from the Erica Jon[…]