Watched in full in the last four weeks:

The Fast Show series 3
Law & Order: Special Victims Unit season 2
House season 4
Animal Crackers (from a Marx Brothers boxset)
Homicide season 5
An Actor's Revenge (huge thanks to Tim for this! My site about it)
Monkey Business
CSI: NY season 1
Deadwood season 1
Law & Order: Special Victims Unit season 3

I did some laundry last night, and was disturbed to hear water running that didn't sound as if it was inside the machine. Went into the kitchen to find a rapidly expanding puddle. Pulled out the machine on the remote chance that the problem lay within the minute compass of my infinitessimal DIY skills. No - seemed to be a joint in a pipe leaking. Someone is coming round later this afternoon. I'll leave work early and go home for this. This makes it unlikely I will be getting to Poptimism, sadly - I was never going to stay late, as I have an early start tomorrow.

Robert Reed - The Well Of Stars

A sequel to Marrow, reviewed recently. Here the Great Ship (200 times the size of Earth, population around 100 billion) encounters an entity that dwarfs it. This nebula-being believes the creation of the universe was aborted, meaning we have a wrong universe, one that is almost entirely nothingness - and the mysterious secret at the heart of the Great Ship is the key to correcting that. I love the mindblowing scale of Reed's creation, and the complexity of its details. Add in the fact that he can write prose and character of depth and intelligence, and this is high class SF.

Green Wing season 1
Dad's Army season 3
Bill Bailey - Tinselworm
Buffy the Vampire Slayer season 3
Law & Order season 3
Buffy the Vampire Slayer season 4
Green Wing season 2
Dad's Army season 4
Buffy the Vampire Slayer season 5
Trapped In The Closet
Buffy the Vampire Slayer season 6
The Incredibles

I've dropped the music diary - it was a chore to keep listing everything, and I don't think anyone was terribly interested, understandably.

Birthday drinks for me in the Blue Posts on Newman Street at afterwork o'clock this evening.

Since no one has made a pub suggestion for my birthday drinks tomorrow (I will be 50 on Monday), I am proposing the Blue Posts on Newman Street. I expect to be there from about 5.10.

There may be Saturday drinks too, but this is not yet certain.

It is my 50th birthday next Monday, so I thought I should have some celebratory drinks. I suspect most will prefer a night out at the end of the week rather than the beginning, so I am thinking this Friday (but may be persuaded towards Saturday instead or even as well if some good friends can make then more easily). You may well be aware that Mark's birthday is the day before mine*, so I am hoping we can call this a joint celebration, but that is his call. Don't know where yet - central London, but I am open to persuasion as to where.

* He will be 49. This is seven squared in any counting system, whereas mine of course is contingent on only some systems, so his is more of a landmark, possibly.

I am going to be on Lollards on the radio in a couple of weeks, in a sportcentric show. Well, maybe I should say 'sport' since I will certainly be talking about American wrestling. Anyway, that inspired me to make a Spotify playlist with a sport theme - and I made the first half all fighting. It starts with Cassius Clay (yes, really) doing a pretty good version of Stand By Me, runs through Dylan, Miles, the Wu-Tang Clan, Blondie, Will Smith, Tom Waits, Kelis, New Order, Underworld, George Jones, Carl Douglas and many others. One track needs special mention, in that you may not be able to detect a sporting connection for Leadbelly's Goodnight Irene: for those who don't know, this has long been the theme song of my beloved Bristol Rovers, so had to be on there. There was quite a lot I'd like to have put on there that Spotify didn't have.

I'm not sure if I get to choose any music for the show (perhaps this playlist can provide some inspiration to the regulars on the show, anyway), but if anyone can get me an MP3 of the Reverend Billy C. Wirtz's 'Teenie Weenie Meanie', I would be very grateful, as it is my favourite track about wrestling ever. Miles Davis's 'Half Nelson' is a poor second choice, but at least I have that on CD. I might go for the more general 'The Winner' by Bobby Bare if I do get to play something (it's about fighting, albeit not in a strictly sporting context).

If anyone would like me to attempt to construct a playlist on any theme, let me know! I love doing these. I already have ones constructed on: hot weather, cold weather, rain, wind (yes, all separate playlists); cars, trains, other transport; New York, USA, London, UK, Europe, the world; age; cats, dogs, birds, bugs, other animals, on the outside chance that anyone would like to hear them.

Has anyone else seen the new Joss Whedon show, Dollhouse? The first episode is repeated on the SF channel at 6 this evening. My review:

Eliza Dushku IS Joe 90.

Ironically or deliberately, you can also get Joe 90 on the SF channel. Of course it's more mature and sinister and complicated that that. Dushku is great, and it's a fabulous part, demanding but offering plenty to get your teeth into. It also has Amy Acker (Fred in Angel, one of my top TV sex symbols) and other good people. There is a risk of it being wholly episodic, with only a rather detached subplot continuing across episodes. Having said that, the first episode is an excellent self-contained story, and introduces lots of major issues very cleverly.

( Showcase Present Martian Manhunter 2 by Jack Miller and Joe Certa )

On a related note, there is a new Sgt Fury comic from Marvel, and they still haven't started on collecting that - I'd have thought they'd have tied that in. There are I think seven or eight Kirby issues, which justifies a collection, though it is all Ayers for ages after that. This would be a good prequel to a Nick Fury collection, too - that starts with a dozen or so by Kirby, then there are the famous Steranko ones. Note that we have had Essential Nova, Ms Marvel, Godzilla, two Dazzlers, two Marvel Sagas and three or four Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe collections. To be fair, at least we finally get the rest of Kirby's Thors next month. (I don't fancy our chances of getting the Kirby western heroes any time soon.) Sometimes their decisions mystify me.

( Nana 3 by Ai Yazawa )

Robert Reed - Marrow

The old 'sense of wonder' may not amount to much of a literary claim, but it is one of the things I love about SF. Here we have a spaceship the size of Jupiter arriving in the galaxy, and humans getting to it first. It's honeycombed with large and small corridors and chambers around a solid core, with energy and life support and all that, but is not just deserted but also sterile. It's also at least five billion years old, maybe much more. A thousand centuries later, the original captain is still in charge, as humans are more or less immortal by this point, and the ship is full of thousands of races, a hundred billion intelligent beings plus loads of cities and so on; and then they discover that the solid core isn't: it's a space containing a planet nearly as large as Earth, and this part isn't sterile. This isn't giving much away - this is set-up. I like this kind of mindblowing scale. On the other hand, I have little tolerance for bad writing, so it's good that Reed can really write, adding strong prose and characters to his mammoth conception (which keeps getting bigger), and a plot with plenty of deceit, action and intrigue. Hard SF at its modern best.