Vamp

I think Molly was at least partly hindered by the lame staging to be honest.

I preface this by saying I really likes Molly's song as a song, but for next year I think it'd be a step in the right direction to get a songwriter in who knows about writing popular songs on the continent. When the UK tries to come up with something it thinks Europe will like it's normally miles off. So getting someone who knows a thing or two about making a song the rest of Europe likes would probably be pretty helpful...

Once again the right act won. Austria went for simple staging and sheer power and emotion and nailed it. The genius of that song is that people think it's going to be a gimmick and then it's one of the least gimmicky songs of the night. Definitely would have won whoever the performer was.

Bollocks.

Yeah you're right to pull me up on that. I was being silly.

Definitely would have won with any performer as long as they were equally as good a performer as Conchita.

Once again the right act won. Austria went for simple staging and sheer power and emotion and nailed it. The genius of that song is that people think it's going to be a gimmick and then it's one of the least gimmicky songs of the night. Definitely would have won whoever the performer was.

So is there an online radio station or website or whatever dedicated to 'Euro pop'? A place which plays the top pop songs from the continent?

Seemed like a better place to ask than in the music forums.

That was after Kasper from Borgen had a nice little dig at Russia too.

I like Ukraine's song but the staging undermines how good it is. Hungary seemed one of the stronger, more dramatic and catchier songs of the night. Unsure about Sweden, it's very good but seems to lack a certain something for me. It just does grab me as much as impress me. Holland was alright but struck me as a Josh Ritter song if he couldn't sing and had a strange taste in hats.

I liked Portugal and thought that might sneak through but oh well. The mummy song and the cake song can both gladly bugger off.

I kind of dislike when they change characters' names just for the purpose of "oh it might be confusing". Like, holy shit, are TV viewers that thick that they're going to confuse Robert Arryn and Robert Baratheon? Holy shit, they have the same first name, I'm so confused guys help me I thought Robert Baratheon was the king not a sickly boy so confused ahhhh

I mean I guess there's precedent given Robert Arryn's nickname (Sweetrobin), but still, come onnnnn.

To be honest I'd be surprised if I could actually name more than ten characters just watching the show. I can recognise most of them by appearance, though not all, but there's no hope of me remembering even half of the names.

The horror channel is going to be showing some of the classic from Easter weekend onwards.

Or go on a meaningless political rant...

This season hasn't been too hot, the cycling gag one might have been better if they made it clear the joke was on them, which I think is what they intended actually, but it all came across a bit limp. The format could do with a bit of preening too. Bugger the chat show bit, who cares? The news bit is alright if it's kept really short. I suppose they have to do car tests and that they've probably run out of gimmicks for them.

Anyway last week's was fantastic fun. I guess because these shows tend to roll more organically. There's something Victorian about the top gear specials that I'm sure is their appeal. Three not especially skilled people with money to fund entirely ridiculous explorations.

I actually think Price would have done quite well in the role, certainly better than a lot of those names. He was competent at being cheesy, amusing, serious, dramatic and scary, yet also, at times, entirely comforting.

As an aside I'm gutted we didn't get an eleventh and Wilf adventure.

To be fair I doubt that's the whole story.

Unlike previous years it looks like the next season is going to air in one go

God I hope that's true. I guess they probably want to do a full season with it being Capaldi's first one. Give him six or whatever and then stopping might be a bit jarring.

Now I hope they can realise there's a balance between turning the entire series into a soap and just doing one parters. I always felt the one parter thing was a strange reaction to complaints about series 6's overpowering arc. I can understand toying with the format but getting rid of two parters just didn't work for me. I think a series works a better with two parters sprinkled into the one parters.

Explanation of my friend's problem with Moffat:

You can't just explain everything with wibbly wobbly timey wimey non linear nonsense and then placate us all with references! MAAAAAAAAAN!

Two things:

1) Mmmyeah he can.

2) I think she hates fun.

There's been times over the last few years where some of that's actually possibly justified but who cares tonight? Tonight wasn't about telling a great story so much as telling a fun story and they delivered that in bucket loads.

Adventures of Time and Space I think. Its not really a documentary.

The documentary was wonderful. Bar a slightly odd ending with Matt Smith, but it was also very touching.

I knew moments after seeing that that people would think it was overly sentimental and wouldn't like it, but it took moments because I was too busy feeling the effect of it. Doctor Who's a fairy tale, and to an effect so was this look at the making of it, and that's pretty fitting. Plus how could you dream it up and then not do it?

Ye gods!

The/A trailer is up for anyone who wants to have a look. I'm undecided whether to do so or not as I want to moderate my expectations. Although I kind of feel watching the trailer might actually be a better way of doing that.

I think a big issue with III was starting off with an interesting character before doing a twist which led to the player getting the really dull guy they'd spend the rest of the game with.

Although my bigger issue with Creed is the endings never feel as satisfying as endings should. That's partly because the game has to carry on to let you to do all the extra side things but it feels anti-climatic when you get the ending and then you're asked to play tag or run around collecting things in the dull world that's left. Partly because it reveals how bland that world actually was in case you hadn't noticed before.

Ghost Light's alright. Nowhere near as good as The Happiness Patrol (but then what is?) but alright. Just don't expect the plot to make any sense whatsoever. And it might have some "The Doctor is more than just a time travelling alien he's also a God or something" guff.

To be fair the regeneration thing is a pretty boring and irritating discussion point anyway. Its a thing that people hang onto for god knows what reason. "But he can only have 13 regenerations!" Yeah, until he waves his magic wand around and says the magic words "timey wimey" and we can get on with the show rather than some hang up about one line from ages ago. Its vaguely interesting in that it could be used to add jeapordy in a "I don't know if I'll regenerate again now" plot but beyond that it's just a line. A lot of Doctor Who fans seem to be a pretty unimaginative bunch though. Hence the "but he's always been a man" dribble.

I doubt that'll be on BBC America

If I'm understanding what it is rightly then I think it already has been on BBC America.

Apparently there was going to be a press conference about it but it was postponed.

There's also been some controversy and conspiracy about how long people have known about this, whether certain things were leaked that weren't meant to be and seemingly the number of episodes that have been foudn but I gave up following it all because it was way too confusing.

Does the game still 'cheat' sometimes like it did with NHL 12? That frustrated the hell out of me.

Its not Colin's fault that when he went through the hypderdimensional scoopaloop the polarity wasn't reversed and so the interdimension stabalisers weren't corrected to allow for the variable of the horizontal access.

Or to use a more technical term, timey wimey init.