Phew, for a minute there I lost myself

Browsing the Internet late at night is an odd thing. You never know quite where you'll end up or why or indeed how. In my case, tonight, I ended up coming across a screengrab from a National Lampoon film with the Griswolds running over Thom Yorke while singing a Radiohead song.

This is the story of how I got there.

From The Back Of The Cupboard: The Great Farscape

It’s Spring, 2001. It’s a dark time for space exploration as Mir is de-orbitted and it only gets worse for fans of sci-fi comedy as Douglas Adams dies and the last 3^rd Rock episode goes out. But if the tears are getting to you then forget about them with SFX’s guide to the sexiest corners of modern science-fiction.

From The Back Of The Cupboard: Voyager ain't half bad

Reading through old magazines is absolutely fascinating. It cuts through time-accumulated received wisdom and shows how things were perceived at the time. But when it comes to the geeky magazines I've got lying around my house there's also some bizarre speculations and rumours that you can only wish had come to pass. If I can be bothered, I'll be highlighting some of the more interesting finds in this series-to-be, "From The Back Of The Cupboard." First stop: September 1997.

The films I saw in 2012

In January I decided it would be a great idea to keep a list of the films I saw, for the first time, in 2012. And while I was at it, why not continuously rank them in the list? I don't remember the exact moment I came up with this idea, but I know it certainly wasn't New Year's Day, when I was watching Music & Lyrics.

Am I a good person?

Rhetorical questions are one of the best tools an advertiser could use. They are inherently intriguing, as with the above pictured booklet. “Are you a good person?” Of course I’m going to want to find out more and, in particular, find out whether I am a good person. So I took it from the university noticeboard where it had been pinned and began a voyage that may loosely be termed self-discovery, but more accurately is A Bit Of A Rant.

Don't tell me the sky's the limit if you're a moron

When it comes to wittily-constructed names of musical artists, I suppose I would have to side with will.i.am over Flo Rida. The annoying punctuation is a problem, but at least there's a construction of something from a normal name that makes sense, rather than just chopping a place name in two. And for bonus points, at least he's actually called William. But that's where my admiration of Mr .am has to end, for there are numerous problems with his tenuous grasp of grammar and common sense.

Why I won't be saving the world

There I was, sitting in my first-year University kitchen. It was the social hub, really; we lacked any shared space except the kitchen. A girl from an American university, staying for a semester, was sat with me.

“Stephen,” she said, for that is my name, “you’re pretty smart.”
I hate it when people say that to me. It doesn’t happen regularly or anything, but it has happened in the past. How are you supposed to respond to such a flattering accusation?