For those who don’t know about it, this tradition dates back to 2007, when I put together a Christmas compilation with the help of my LiveJournal friends. I wanted to put my favourite Christmassy songs together, but I also wanted to discover some new, interesting and slightly obscurer festive tracks. This album was the result. It’s been tweaked a little most years since, but the core structure and rules remain the same: it’s largely indie/alternative, but with a couple of more well-known and poppier tracks in there. In general, it’s supposed to consist of the tracks that you don’t just hear in every shop you walk into in December. So even if they’re good, you won’t hear things like “Christmas Wrappin’” or “Stop The Cavalry” here.

(The one exception is “All I Want For Christmas Is You”, which thanks to its status as The Greatest Christmas Song Of Them All is featured not only in its original form but also as a surprisingly excellent cover by My Chemical Romance)

This year, I’ve subbed in and out a couple of tracks – Jonathan Coulton’s “Chiron Beta Prime” and She & Him’s new version of “Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas” were the things I wanted to add, so Gorky’s Zygotic Mynci and the Pogues have made way (the latter because… well, as great as it is, it doesn’t really fit here, because it’s so widely-heard over the season).

Of course, if you like some of my choices but not all, you’re perfectly welcome to sub in your own tracks to make your own version! The album as it is here, though, is specifically designed to clock in at just under 80 minutes, and so to fit perfectly onto a CD-R should you wish.

Merry Chrimbo, and enjoy!

Download Now That’s What Seb Calls A Christmas Album! (2011 edition) (via Dropbox)

1. Vince Guaraldi Trio – Christmas Time Is Here (2:44)
2. Murray Gold & Neil Hannon – Song For Ten (3:29)
3. Mariah Carey – All I Want For Christmas Is You (4:01)
4. Fountains of Wayne – I Want an Alien For Christmas (2:19)
5. Loudon Wainwright III – Christmas Morning (3:49)
6. Low – Just Like Christmas (3:08)
7. The Ronettes – I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus (2:41)
8. The Ventures – Sleigh Ride (2:22)
9. Grandaddy – Alan Parsons in a Winter Wonderland (2:59)
10. Bright Eyes – Blue Christmas (2:19)
11. Eels – Everything’s Gonna Be Cool This Christmas (2:48)
12. The Vandals – Oi To The World (2:15)
13. The Beach Boys – Little Saint Nick (2:10)
14. Zombina & The Skeletones – A Chainsaw For Christmas (3:11)
15. The Ramones – Merry Christmas (I Don’t Wanna Fight Tonight) (2:06)
16. The Kinks – Father Christmas (3:43)
17. Rilo Kiley – Xmas Cake (5:24)
18. Jonathan Coulton – Chiron Beta Prime (2:51)
19. Spitting Image – Santa Claus Is On The Dole (3:48)
20. The Long Blondes – Christmas is Cancelled (4:29)
21. Half Man Half Biscuit – It’s Cliched To Be Cynical At Christmas (3:48)
22. She & Him – Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas (3:42)
23. Badly Drawn Boy – Donna and Blitzen (4:19)
24. My Chemical Romance – All I Want For Christmas Is You (3:45)

It’s still sinking in, really, even though the first weekly news updates from my pen (keyboard) are already up on the site for all to see. I’m actually, officially, part of the Red Dwarf “family”. It’s been a long and odd journey getting here – from watching the show as a nipper, to setting up my first blog about it in 2004, to playing Doug Naylor (the Doug Naylor I now work for) in a fan film, to joining the obnoxious loudmouthery of peerless fansite Ganymede & Titan, to publishing a book about the show. Even then, I never expected through any of that that I’d ever really get to have any official connection with the series – even though, like anyone else, I’ve always had a dream that I’d one day be writing it (fitting it in and around my Doctor Who and Superman commitments, of course).

But now I do. I’m responsible for the weekly site news updates, as well as keeping it generally ticking over – and some other bits and bobs of work that I can’t really talk about now, to boot. And there’ll be a lot of news updates to come – in case you didn’t know, Red Dwarf is imminently entering production for a brand new series of six episodes, to be broadcast next year on Dave. And I’m going to be seeing a lot of that first-hand, and telling the world about it. In a lot of cases (as with our already-teased big announcement next week) I’ll be the first person to tell worldwide fandom of major goings-on (although in other cases, Digital Spy will probably beat us to it as we negotiate the “Can we publish this yet?” legal minefield that they’re not bound by).

Unfortunately, this also means I have to keep my opinions about Series VIII to myself from now on, but hey ho.

It’s a bloody exciting time, though. Unlike the man I’m replacing – the eleven-years-serving, pretty-much-impossible-to-follow Andrew Ellard, now a scriptwriter/editor of no small renown – this isn’t my full-time job, and I’m not involved in the production side of things, or anything like that. I’m the part-time news-monkey, basically. But still – all of a sudden, I’m getting paid to write about Red Dwarf. Every week.

It’s definitely one of those “wish I could tell the teenage self” moments, I’ll tell you that.

Thing the first: Captain America!

I saw it! It was great! And I wrote about it for Film4, thusly:

It’s true that it doesn’t aspire to be anything particularly weighty or original – but at what it sets out to do, it rarely puts a foot wrong. Director Joe Johnston, in full-on Rocketeer mode, crafts a charming and entertaining period action romp that may never exactly hit an unpredictable beat, but is no less enjoyable for it.

Miles better than Green Lantern, not quite as good as X-Men: First Class, but about on a level with Thor. Splendid.

(Less splendid : Rotten Tomatoes posting the review, but not attributing it to me – just to “Film4″ generally – thus meaning it’s missing from my scorecard. Booo!)

Thing the second: New podcast!

My regular collaborator/partner in crime/argument board James Hunt and I have launched a new comics podcast, via our website Alternate Cover. It’s called The Graphic Novel Book Club, and it does exactly what it sounds like – each month, we solicit comments from our readers/listeners on a different graphic novel or trade paperback collection, setting discussion topic questions but also looking for any opinions/insights/etc. that people might have – then we throw them into the mix with our own thoughts and sit there chatting about it all for three-quarters of an hour. The first episode is now live on Podomatic and iTunes, and we’ve already posted discussion topics for the second, which we’ll be recording in a couple of weeks. Have a listen! Some people say it’s listenable and entertaining even if you don’t know the comics we’re talking about. I couldn’t possibly comment.

(And yes, it does have a slightly tautological name. “The Graphic Novel Club” might have been better, but then it wouldn’t have been as clear that we were specifically using a book group/book club format. It would have just sounded like a club.)

Thing the third: When Saturday Comes #295!

I’ve written at unnecessarily gushing length in the past about how much of an honour it is to write for When Saturday Comes, so I won’t retread all that ground again. But! This month is quite special, because for years now I’ve read their annual season preview supplement – in which one writer for each club in the league answers questions about their opinions on the previous season and expectations for the coming one – and thought about what I’d say if I were doing the section on Liverpool. So it’s quite exciting that this year, those answers are actually in the real supplement. I actually did a little double-take when I got the email asking if I’d do it. No, really.

What’s more, in the issue itself, an article I did a little while back about the history and merits (or lack thereof) of the away goals rule has made it to print. It’s not quite as exciting a piece as I was hoping when I started it – I was hoping to go into more extensive details about the circumstances of the rule’s creation/introduction, but discovered surprisingly little readily-available information despite doing some extensive library-based research and everything – but it’s still a relatively fun skim over the rule’s history and musing on whether or not it’s still a valid method of settling draws nowadays. Er, if you’re into that sort of thing.

Anyway, the issue’s out in shops on Wednesday – I’d post a picture of the cover, but WSC haven’t put it on their website yet. But it’s issue #295, it costs £3.50, and it’s got Stewart Downing, Phil Jones and Jordan Henderson on the front. So, you know. Buy it, if you like.

What follows is an uninspired superhero origin story that trots out all the predictable story beats of the genre without ever adding anything new or inspired. All the good promise of both the concept and some excellent effects sequences is lost in a script that is determined to plod its hero from A (reckless responsibility-phobe) to B (world-saving hero) without ever developing or exploring his personality along the way.

So that’s a big fat “no”, then. The rest’s over at Film4.

And also, although it was a few weeks ago, I’m quite pleased with my main contribution to the Doctor Who review canon this year (we’ll ignore my sloppy, far-too-short and unfocused review of “Day of the Moon”) – I’ve been waiting a long, long time for Neil Gaiman to write an episode of the show, so there’s a good reason why my write-up of “The Doctor’s Wife” is somewhat long and rambling. But I think I hit upon a nice theme with it, and that it’s a good piece all in all, so… yeah.

Firstly! There’s another issue of the fine and august publication When Saturday Comes out with something by me in it. Just a little something, mind – a sidebar piece for the regular “Screen Test” feature, in which old football-related VHSes are dusted off and written about. What did I review? Well, you’ll have to buy the magazine to find out, innit. But it’s something I used to own about twenty years ago, then recently remembered about, and thought “Hey, I should buy that off eBay and then write about it for WSC, shouldn’t I?” So I did. The cover looks uncannily like that picture on the left, and you can find out more about what’s in the issue here.

Secondly, last week I went to see the first of this year’s barrage of superhero movies, Thor, and then reviewed it for Film 4. And here that is. I didn’t make a single joke about how the lead character’s name sounds like someone with a lisp saying “sore”. I think that shows remarkable restraint and maturity.

Specifically, I collected a load of articles about Red Dwarf written by the Ganymede & Titan team over the last eight years, shuffled them around, edited them, formatted them, and turned them into a print-on-demand book that’s now on sale via Lulu.com. Hurrah!

There’d been talk about doing a G&T book of some kind for years, but it was after getting Jane Killick’s Stasis Leaked (a collection of old articles of hers on the making of Series I) for my Kindle that I again reasoned we could probably do something similar. The original plan was for an eBook release, with a view to possibly printing at some point – but as I investigated publishing options, it became apparent that getting a physical copy out there would actually be pretty feasible. The deadline I’d set – to have the book onsale at the Dimension Jump convention this last weekend – made it too tight to actually get any new material in (for one thing, I wanted to do a mammoth article on the history of the Dwarf novels), but it’s still a pretty solid package, with 200 pages of material that while available online will probably not have been read even by everyone who visits the site regularly. And if this one does alright, we may well do a Volume 2 – with more in the way of new stuff – in future.

G&T’s Photoshop wiz Danny Stephenson came up with an absolutely astounding wraparound cover based on my original concept, and this is one of the things that I think really helps it stand out as a darned fine artefact in its own right. Here’s what it says on the back:

Red Dwarf, the cult BBC2 and Dave sci-fi sitcom, has entertained millions of fans worldwide since its first broadcast in 1988.

Ganymede & Titan, a Red Dwarf fan website, has entertained literally several of those fans since its launch in 1999.

Now, a selection of the site’s best articles from between 2003 and 2011 have been rounded up and thrown into The Garbage Pod, the first such collection of unofficial fan writing in the show’s long and illustrious history.

Inside, you’ll find analytical critical commentary, bloody-minded arguing, meticulously researched Lists of Stuff, hard-sci-fi theorising and elaborate swearing from the site’s team of entirely unprofessional and equally unsanitary writers.

Over at Lulu, we’re selling the print copy for £4.99, and the PDF download for £1.99 (and a Kindle version might well follow when I can sort out creating/formatting it). We’re making a small profit on each copy sold, all of which is being donated to Amnesty International. And while I imagine most of the people I know who are Dwarf fans are already G&T readers so know all about it already, if there’s anyone who isn’t but would be interested in picking it up, you can do so right here.

We figured, though, that our best business would be done at DJ – and it seemed to go down pretty well. We sold around two-thirds of the copies we’d ordered in bulk and brought with us, and drummed up a decent amount of interest. We also gave copies to, among other people, visual effects king Mike Tucker, and – most excitingly – Doug Naylor himself (who insisted on paying for his copy, and asked us all to sign it, which was A BIT OF A THRILL). People who got around to reading any of it while there seemed to enjoy it, which was great.

So it may be a daft little self-published vanity project with an incredibly narrow niche market - but still. I’ve got a book out. Yay!

It’s an oft-stated truism that there aren’t enough “strong female characters” in movies. But it’s also a truism that whenever people do decide to put together a list of “strong female characters” from movies, they tend to zoom in on one particular word – and one particular interpretation of that word – and focus on discussing characters who are, literally, physically “strong”. Look up any list of the best female characters in film, and you’ll usually be presented with a list that is largely made up of (with the exception of perennial favourites Holly Golightly and Annie Hall) ass-kicking action heroines such as Sarah Connor, Ellen Ripley, The Bride, Trinity, assorted Milla Jovovich characters, and so on.

Some of these deserve their places on these lists (I’ll fight anyone who dares argue that Ripley, in the second film especially, isn’t the greatest action movie heroine of all time), and some probably don’t (hello Lara Croft). But I’ve also noticed a name that these lists don’t often tend to include – Fargo‘s Marge Gunderson. This despite the fact that she is, for my money, one of the best female characters in movie history. So in honour of International Women’s Day, and inspired in part by this latest from Kate Beaton showing up this morning, here’s a little bit about why.

Marge is the emotional centre of Fargo, a dark and violent black comedy about nasty and/or misguided people doing nasty things to one-another. She’s intelligent (showing a Holmesian display of deductive reasoning when first visiting the initial crime scene), kind, empathetic, insightful, funny, and satisfied with her lot – enjoying her work and a healthy and loving relationship with her husband that, while it doesn’t necessarily subvert traditional gender roles, certainly blurs them (their memorable introductory appearance is a flip on the classic “sleepy cop answers phone in middle of night” routine, as Marge takes the call while Norm trundles out of bed to make her some eggs).

Quite crucially, however, part of what makes Marge so great is the fact that she’s a woman. A problem with so many female characters considered as “strong” is that in order to be so, they’ve often had to make themselves become more like a man (Sarah Connor syndrome, if you like), taking on physical and/or emotional characteristics that enable them to play the same role as a traditional male hero. But in Fargo, although Marge is not averse to kicking ass and taking names – remember that she single-handedly brings down the brutal murderer Grimsrud with a well-placed gunshot – it’s her gender that sets her apart from everyone else in the film.

Fargo is all about the failures and incompetencies of men – men who succumb to rapacious lusts and desires (primarily for money, but let’s not forget the significance of the somewhat grim sequence in which the two kidnappers enjoy the services of a pair of bored prostitutes) – but at the centre of it all is Marge, the only truly competent person either on the side of the good or the bad. All around her are men acting or being stupid – Jerry, Carl and Graer, Lou (“I’m not sure I agree with you a hundred percent on your police work, there, Lou”), even her old high-school classmate Mike – and she just calmly gets on with doing the right thing, the right way.

In addition to the powers of deduction that make her such a great cop, Marge’s intelligence is emotional, as well. Throughout the film, she instinctively knows how to approach characters in exactly the right way – taking different tones and approaches to the extent that she never comes off the worst out of a conversation (or an interrogation). Not that there ever seems to be anything planned or cynical about this – it’s just the way she is. And if I can say this without it sounding patronising, a huge part of this is undoubtedly the fact that she’s a woman (and an expectant mother, at that), making her empathy seem all that more natural.

In this manner, Marge “kicks ass” in a far greater way than any literal instance of high-kicking or smart-mouthed sassy quips from a hundred “empowered” (yet still strangely over-sexualized) cinematic peers. And she even finds time to be the film’s philosopher, as demonstrated by this really quite profound (and spoilerfic, obviously) sequence towards the end. A superb creation in both writing and performance (the film rightly won Academy Awards for both elements – the role being the finest and most nuanced moment in the particularly exceptional career of Frances McDormand, one of the best screen actors – male or female – of the last fifty years), she may not have the complex intrigue of Annie Hall, or the sheer bloody-minded determination and will of Ripley, but Marge Gunderson is still undoubtedly one of cinema’s greatest ever women.

“Hautman’s blue-winged teal got the 29-cent. People don’t much use the three-cent.”
“Oh, for Pete’s sake. Of course they do. Whenever they raise the postage, people need the little stamps.”

I’ve been watching lately a fair few episodes from what I’d call the “Late Imperial” era of The Simpsons - that is, the era in which, at its best, it was still the best thing on television; but in which it wasn’t hitting its “best” with every episode. This has largely involved watching most of season eight, but I’ve also watched odds and sods from seasons seven and nine as well. And this got me thinking in more detail about a theory I’ve had for a little while, which is this:

I believe a Simpsons episode is more likely to be good if it opens with an in-universe TV show/film/radio show than if it doesn’t.

I’ve come up with this theory based on the fact that the “show within a show” kinds of fiction (largely covering TV shows, but also including movies and radio stations) often tend to be among the funniest and most memorable moments in the series’ history (particularly when they involve Krusty, Kent Brockman or Troy McClure). And for some reason, when an episode opens with one of these scenes, it instantly feels sharper and more imaginative than one that just brings us in to a random scene somewhere in Springfield or at the Simpsons’ home. This is particularly noticeable during these later seasons (and when I say “later”, I mean “later in the good period” – we’re going by the assumption that the programme is largely not worth watching, and thus non-existent in my head, after around season eleven), when it’s the more dull and boring episodes that seem to start in this mundane way, and the better ones that give the laughs by opening with – for example – the Krusty Komedy Klassic, or an edition of Eye on Springfield. It therefore feels to me like I’m simply more likely to enjoy an episode if it’s got one of these opening scenes (which from now on I’m referring to as “TV openings”, even though they also covers other forms of media).

So, I’ve decided to test it out. And count up data in Excel. And turn it into a graph. Because that’s how I roll.

The test, then, goes like this. I’m going through four seasons – the sixth, seventh, eighth, and ninth. This is because I think figures would be unfairly skewed by looking either at the first five seasons (during which the show is as close to consistently perfect as anything can be, and so attempting to graph it would be useless), or any from the tenth onwards (where I simply don’t know a lot of the episodes well enough to pass judgement on them, or where I know that the majority are too weak to offer fair data). This “middle period”, however, seems to be the most variable in quality – in that there can be utterly fantastic episodes in the same season as major stinkers – and so the most interesting to test out.

For each season, I’ve listed the episodes and – from memory, without looking them up or checking whether or not they have TV openings in order to avoid subconsciously skewing the data – given each my own rating out of 5. It’s worth noting that these are my own, personal opinions – I’m basing this survey on my taste, and not on any sort of general consensus or view of objective quality. I’ve also excluded, in each season, the Treehouse of Horrors and clip shows (or, in season eight’s case, the Spin-Off Showcase), as they stand somewhat separately from “normal” judgement. Finally, I’ve gone through and marked out which episodes count as having “TV openings” (there’s got to be a better phrase for this, right?), and which ones don’t. Here are the ground rules:

- The first scene of the episode has to feature an in-universe TV show, movie or radio programme, being watched/listened to by onscreen characters
- For the most part, the first shot of the episode should be a shot of the screen in question. However, I’m also allowing episodes that have an establishing shot (e.g. Bart and Lisa switching on the TV in In Marge We Trust) so long as it’s clear that the TV show is still part of the first scene
- Circumstances where the TV show in question is talking to us the viewer (rather than characters onscreen) shouldn’t count. Since I’ve excluded clip shows, Treehouse and the Spin-Off Showcase, though, I think the only example of this is The Springfield Files.

After that, I gave an average rating for each season, and then for each season’s episodes with and without the TV openings. And then I put it all in a graph. So without any further ado… on with the data!

Season Six
Although this season has a couple of episodes I’m not keen on – Bart vs Australia is the first ep, post-season-one, that I’d only rate at 2 out of 5 – it’s still remarkably strong on the whole. The average rating is 4.26. Nine of these episodes have TV openings, and they’re all pretty spectacularly good – five get the full 5/5 rating, and four get 4. Therefore, their average is a whopping 4.56. Meanwhile, the average of the 14 “without” is a mere 4.07. So far, so good.

Season Seven
The average ratings start to drop with this season – down to 3.57 already. Things are also much closer when testing the hypothesis – of the seven episodes that have TV openings, only one is a 5er (Two Bad Neighbors: “It’s the grand nationals of sand-castle building… preview!”) , while there’s also one I’d only rate at 2 (Scenes From The Class Struggle In Springfield, which opens with the family watching Bumblebee Man – I’m being generous by counting it). This all makes for an average of just 3.57. Meanwhile, of the remaining sixteen eps, there are four stone-cold classics (including Radioactive Man and Team Homer), and despite some clunkers, there’s an overall average of 3.56. So for season seven, it seems clear that opening with a fictional TV show doesn’t really make a difference.

Season Eight
Ah, the season whose watching caused me to have this theory in the first place. Will the figures bear it out? Well, the overall season rating is down again, to 3.48. But we’ve got seven TV openers again – and this time it’s a much stronger crop. The average rating is 4.00, with an excellent set that includes Bart After Dark and Homer’s Enemy. Even the weak My Sister, My Sitter (opening with an Eye on Springfield ep) can’t bring the average down too much. Elsewhere, though, it’s disappointment – the remaining sixteen episodes only average at 3.25, despite including Homer vs. the Eighteenth Amendment and You Only Move Twice. So in season eight the contrast is much more stark – the funnier, more imaginative episodes, on the whole tend to open with footage of a spoof TV show or film. But the mundane episodes on which this season often falls back are easily identifiable by not doing so.

Season Nine
Finally, a season that does still have its moments, but also a lot of duff filler. Average rating is just 3.30 – the only five-star ep I’d count in the entire season is The Trouble With Trillions. Interestingly, though, that ep doesn’t actually fall in the TV openings – and all of a sudden, my theory is thrown out somewhat. Because the five TV-opener eps include two rated at only 2/5 – making for an average of 3.30. This compares with the rest of the season’s average of 3.39. It seems that by this point, the makers had got bored of these sharp and funny pop culture spoofs – and as a result, the episodes that feature them are no longer generally the funniest.

Here, then, is how those four series graph against one-another:

ON THE WHOLE, HOWEVER
Despite season nine being the one at which the bottom falls out of my theory, it still just about holds true over the course of the four seasons. Of 92 episodes counted, with an overall average rating of 3.65, there are 28 with “TV openings” – and they hold an average score of 3.89. Meanwhile, the episodes that don’t have them only average 3.55. Therefore, the results are clear: Simpsons episodes that open with a spoof TV show or movie are (a bit) more likely to make me laugh than ones that don’t.

There. Was it worth all that? Probably not. But graphs are fun. And my mom says I’m cool.

If you want to browse more Blackwell excellence, there’s now – finally – a pretty much complete archive online, courtesy of this excellent site (a far cry from the days when searching for “…Dukla Prague Away Kit” lyrics would give you reference to something called “Sub-U-Dome”). And if you’ve never listened to HMHB, in the Spotify age there’s really no excuse not to start.

It’s funny ‘cos it’s true
Observational comedy at its finest. McIntyre, take notes. Actually, don’t.

Even men with steel hearts love to see a dog on the pitch
(Even Men with Steel Hearts)

When you’re holding tea and toast
And there’s no-one else around
Do you switch the kitchen light off with your chin?
(Lock Up Your Mountain Bikes)

Not long now before lollipop men are called Darren
(Totnes Bickering Fair)

Darts in soap operas: oh so wrong, oh so wrong
No-one’s scoring, and there’s too much chat between each throw
Worse than this, though, is when cheers are raised for the bull
Granted, bull’s a double and an out – but I know that they don’t know
(Surging out of Convalescence)

Opinionated weather forecasters who tell me it’s going to be a “miserable day”
Miserable to who? I quite like a bit of drizzle, so stick to the facts!
(A Country Practice)

She stayed with me until she moved to Notting Hill
She said it was the place she needs to be
Where the cocaine is fair trade, and frequently displayed
Is the Buena Vista Social Club’s CD
(The Light At The End of the Tunnel (Is The Light Of An Oncoming Train))

A woman who described herself as “A little bit Bridget, a little bit Ally, a little bit Sex And The City” and chose to call her baby boy Fred as a childishly rebellious attempt at a clever reaction to those who might have expected her to call him Julian or Rupert. Bit of advice: call him Rupert, it fits, and besides it’s a good name. Don’t be calling him Fred or Archie, with all its cheeky but lovable working class scamp connotations, unless you really do have plans for him to spend his life in William Hill’s waiting for them to weigh in at Newton Abbot.
(Breaking News)

I want to perch myself halfway up a metal staircase with the Polydor girls and talk about meerkats
And come out with statements like:
“Well of course music these days is the slave of mammon, and as a result has become corrupt and shallow
Its real essence is industry
Its moral purpose is the acquisition of money
Its aesthetic pretext is the entertainment of those who are bored
Though yes, we’re really excited about going back into the studio
Hotly tipped, highly anticipated and slated for release”
(Thy Damnation Slumbereth Not)

So I’m walking down the road, and heading towards me
Is somebody I know, but not like a brother
He’s seen me, and we both realise that we’re going to have to put into operation
The tricky manoeuvre that is
Acknowledgement without breaking stride
(Soft Verges)

Neil Morrisey’s a knobhead
(Bottleneck at Capel Curig)

Poetry & wordplay
Blackwell has two particular skills as a wordsmith – first off, although not displayed as often as his humour, he can have a brilliant way with metaphor and phrasing. And he’s also a fan of making puns that wouldn’t even have occurred to anyone else…

They say “Plenty more fish”
I say “Amoco Cadiz”
(Keeping Two Chevrons Apart)

There’s a man with a mullet going mad with a mallet in Millets
(National Shite Day)

Nero fiddles while Gordon Burns
(Joy Division Oven Gloves)

Who’s afraid of Virginia Wade?
(Outbreak of Vitas Gerulaitis)

You never hear of folk getting knocked on the bonce
Although there was a drive-by shouting once
(For What Is Chatteris…)

Did you play in the Garden of Eden?
Were the goalkeeper’s gloves to you tossed?
‘Cos it seems to me you’re the reason
You’re the reason why Paradise lost
(Paradise Lost (You’re The Reason Why))

Your optimism strikes me like junk mail addressed to the dead
(Depressed Beyond Tablets)

On touching the trig point, I found my thrill
To the east Brokeback Mountain, to the west Benny Hill
I’ll give you the grid ref, you might like to go
SO224350
Could this be heaven, would that be the Severn
Twmpa, Twmpa, you’re gonna need a jumper
(Lord Hereford’s Knob)

I didn’t take much time convincing her:
“Baby, I’m from the Wirral Peninsula”
(A Lilac Harry Quinn)

Following a commendable stab at “Sylvia”, Helen shouted at the guitarist:
“Are you knackered, man?”
To which he replied, “No, I’m Jan Akkerman!”
(Tour Jacket With Detachable Sleeves)

Just downright funny
Sometimes the lines are just uncategorisably, indefinably, laugh-out-loud hilarious. Such as…

I’m gonna feed our children non-organic food
And with the money saved, take them to the zoo
(Totnes Bickering Fair)

I tried to put everything into perspective, set it against the scale of human suffering. And I thought of the Mugabe government, and the children of the Calcutta Railways. This worked for a while, but then I encountered Primark FM.
(National Shite Day)

U is for the Umpire, which I wish I’d been instead. You never hear a cricket crowd chanting “Who’s the bastard in the hat?”
(The Referee’s Alphabet)

Aleister Crowley knew my father
Or rather:
Business once took Dad up into the Glens
Where in a small hotel bar Crowley asked,
“Have you got change for the fruit machine, chief? I’m all out…”
(Get Kramer)

But I could put a tennis racket up against my face
And pretend that I’m Kendo Nagasaki
(Everything’s AOR)

I ring up Dial-A-Pizza
And say “That’s not how I would spell Hawaiian”
(Petty Sessions)

His paranoia is absurd:
“Are you thinkin’ ‘bout my bird?!?”
(On the ‘Roids)

I should have just got a job on the bins
The pay’s better and I’d know some hard blokes
And I wouldn’t have to pretend
That I know what “rhetorical” means
I could have been like Lou Barlow
But I’m more like Ken Barlow
(Lark Descending)

Oh help me Mrs Medlicott
I don’t know what to do
I’ve only got three bullets
And there’s four of Motley Crue
(Upon Westminster Bridge)

Curse those in charge of plots, curse these forget-me-nots
I’ve been sharing my innermost thoughts with an Edward Macrae
I’m inconsolable, and at times uncontrollable
Ah, but she wouldn’t know, ‘cos she’s two hundred metres away…
(Tending The Wrong Grave For 23 Years)

Have I missed your favourite? Drop it in the comments!