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Doctor Who Jr

26-year-old Matt Smith has been named the new Doctor Who. He’ll be taking over from David Tennant in Spring 2010. Comments on Twitter went from ‘OMG he looks 12′, to ‘The new doctor is emo!’ and ‘Breaking news: Doctor Who moves to CBBC.’

I really like my Who to be someone to 1. look up to and (alright, shallow) 2. fanciable. 3. Preferably 40+. I thought David Tennant was too young to float my boat, but he proved me wrong and kind of is my favourite Doctor now. But a 26-year-old? Can’t really look up to him. As for the second point? Well, I’ve always been into older guys. Also.. he’s not much of a looker, is he? Well, not my type anyway.

Mr Hg thinks it’s a brave choice. Hmm. I think it’s a cynical BBC plot to haul in the teeny boppers emo kids.

OK Matt, prove this agist wrong.

Bookmarks for November 23rd through November 24th

These are my links for November 23rd through November 24th:

Bookmarks for November 11th through November 13th

These are my links for November 11th through November 13th:

Did I mention I loathed the 90s?

Anyone watch Pop on Trial, the 90’s with Stuart Maconie, Caitlin Moran, Goldie and Paolo Hewitt on BBC 4? Oh. My. God. The. Smug. Goldie’s the only one I didn’t want to throttle. He seemed a lot more interesting than previously suspected. Hewitt, Moran and Maconie represent everything I hated in the British music press in the 90s. The insular, anti-European, suspicious of anything attempting to be more than entertainment vibe. No mention of U2, of course - the band that arguably dominated the early 90s world wide. Paolo ‘I’m so far up the Gallagher’s arse my face looks like I’m permanently smelling poo’ Hewitt especially I wanted to gag. I don’t know who said it and I’m paraphrasing but, yeah, the 90s… all about Thatcher’s children run amok. Fuck Oasis and Loaded and lads and ladettes.

BBC beta homepage

bbc.jpg

I hadn’t visited the BBC homepage for a while and when I had a look this morning a largish button said: ‘Try out our new, customisable homepage’. So I went and did just that. On first glance, it certainly improves on the current, unimpressive (the international one in particular, which is just a series of links grouped together) home.

This beta page is quite simple, with a few visual flourishes allowed in the larger image top right. Clicking the coloured buttons underneath it will change both the image and the rest of the page’s supportive colours, and the image itself might go over its own set border (the top of the woman’s head sticks out in this picture, as does a tree in the frosty blue Garderner’s World picture and the locks of David Tennant’s cartoon head in the orange ‘Pilot the Tardis’ option. You can make some, but not too many, changes to the content.

There’s a choice of various headlines and an option to localise your page, sadly not to anywhere outside of the U.K., so I’m stuck with London weather. Not everything works as it should yet (duh, beta) as dragging blocks into different columns will not always align properly. But I appreciate the return to larger images and the effort to make BBC’s home more appealing. Now can it stay ad-free, please? And will the underlying content also take on this new look?

Name that bands

Hate it when that happens, I’m watching the BBC’s coverage of the Reading and Leeds festivals and there was one song I liked by a band I didn’t recognise and I missed their introduction. They were joined by rappers (Dizzee Rascal?) on stage, but it looked like it was just a gimmick for the festival. They sounded quite punky and the only lyric I could make out was ‘In the city… it’s alright’ or something like that.

… must have been The Rakes, judging from this picture, and these lyrics:

in the city is a riot,22 grand job
in the city is a riot,22 grand job
in the city is a riot,22 grand job
in the city is a riot,there’s aint nice
it’s alright,it’ alright

TV eye

UPC is changing its digital TV package and for once, it’s to my advantage. The (total) price is going down (no more separate bills for analog and digital) and I will be getting a few more channels, including (huzzah!) BBC 3 (new drama, comedy) and BBC 4 (culture, arts, science). I’ll never have to leave the house again.

Going digital

More music. That’s the main reason why I’m ordering UPC digital TV, eventhough they don’t have the greatest range of channels. It ain’t Sky digital, that’s for sure. Still, it’s got 60 TV channels (pdf) and 55 music (radio) channels, films on demand, games and 35 ‘interactive sites’. All at Euro 9,95 a month.

A lot of the 60 TV channels on it are also available through my analog subscription (which I cannot cancel), but at least I’ll get threeo extra MTV channels (that actually broadcast music), VH1 and VH1 classic, as well as the VPRO digital music channels, which are also available streaming. I’ll also get BBC Prime, next to the usual BBC1, 2 and World.

What I really want is all the other British channels and the Sci-fi channel, but that’s just not going to happen right now. I’m sure the Hallmark channel will make me forget all about ‘em.

Progress

Ten years ago, when I built one of my first websites, it got mentioned first in the Irish Times, then in The Guardian. It was featured on the BBC, as well as appearing in most Internet magazines and books on the shelves at the time.

I’ve come a long way since then. Everybody I knew online back then has gone on to bigger, better, greater things. But none of them can boast this, I’m sure:

Whedonesque appeared in The Sun today.

Show me the way to…

I think I must have missed something, somewhere.But why is Tony Christie at number 1 in the British charts?

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