That will come to an end, since the court has ruled against the first group of the families, making it clear that there’s no supporting evidence for the claims whatsoever.

The three groups are pretty confusing, and when further rulings will appear is not clear, but CNN says,

“Powers’ litigation steering committee is representing thousands of families that fall into three categories: those who claim MMR vaccines and thimerosal-containing vaccines can combine to cause autism; those who claim thimerosal-containing vaccines alone can cause autism; and those who claim MMR vaccines, without any link to thimerosal, can cause autism. Thursday’s rulings will only affect the families that fall under the first category, Powers said.”

Of course, while this is a victory for scientific rationale and common sense, it’s not a time to celebrate. It means that 4800 families seeking compensation to help them raise their autistic children have had their time wasted and their hopes dashed by these vile and malevolent campaigners, lawyers and quacks.

The people who have lost are innocent victims of the lies spread by Wakefield and his band of useful idiots.

I’m very sorry for all my moaning.

Thank you for the first snowfall I’ve seen in my adult life.

Love,
John

Switching on the news this morning is like receiving a phone call from a friend who’s at the party with simply everyone, while you’re at home on your own with nothing to do, and no invite. Schools closed, trains in disarray, killer snowmen destroying cities – I’m SO happy for you all. Bursting with it.

And as I write this, the sky mocks me with a parody of snow. The tiniest specks of white are falling – well, mostly going upward, really – as if to say, “Yes, I am totally capable of snowing on Bath as much as anywhere, but I’m not going to.”

Screw you, sky. You know what? I’m glad about your stupid ozone hole. I hate you.

And then I realised I like Facebook Status Updates, and then that was that.

My Twitter is here: https://twitter.com/botherer

Right, I realise I’ve barely any readers these days, and I realise last thing on Friday is a stupid time to do this, but I need to know.

Most Brits will remember Farley’s Rusks. The biscuits designed for teething babies, aged 4-6 months and older. I’m sure there are equivalents in other parts of the world. Full of calcium and iron, they’re brilliant for babies with their crunchy start, and quick dissolve into mush in the mouth. They’re clearly designed with babies and toddlers in mind. However, I note on the box that there’s no upper age limit.

I’m really quite shocked by the remarkably negative reaction to my buying some the other day from my housemates. All three of them became demented when I offered them one to eat. “BUT THEY’RE FOR BABIES!”

So is milk. And no, not breast milk. Cow milk. At around six months, when you can start giving a baby Rusks, you can give them regular milk. It contains many nutrients babies need! Does that mean it’s exclusively for babies? NO! You’d have to be a colossal idiot to make such an argument.

Therefore, please, can Rusk accepting people out there please let others know they’re delicious and nutritious. There’s a reason it says “for all ages” on the box, people. I hereby begin the campaign for Rusk-eating adults to loudly and proudly declare these enormously flavourful treats as their own!

Erica Strange – CBC

I might as well hand my testicles in, because I really love this. Erica Strange is 32, single, without a career, and directionless. On a particularly bad day that sees her boyfriend dump her, losing her job, and finishing in hospital after an allergic reaction to a Starbucks drink, she is visited by Dr Tom. He’s not a doctor from the hospital, but in fact a therapist who seems to have a great deal of insight into her life. He leaves her with a card. Things only get worse as she spends a night at her parents’ house, with critical family visiting out of their brand of concern, until she jumps out of an upstairs window in her pyjamas and runs into town. She finds the address on Dr Tom’s card, and is let in to see him.

It seems that the mysterious doctor has a unique therapeutic approach. After having her write down her extensive list of incidents that have emotionally affected her over her life, he sends her back in time. You know, like some therapists do. She’s back at high school, it’s the Fall formal, on the night she got hideously wasted on vodka. She had passed out, vomited, convulsed, lost her boyfriend, and became a laughing stock. It’s a night that she credits as being enormously significant. And she’s back there, apparently given the chance to try again.

It could be a vacuous show about someone getting to make her life perfect, but it’s quite different. The night goes worse, if anything, but the process forces her to think about the patterns of thoughts she lets control her. It’s therapy, basically. And most interestingly, it appears that her time travel is genuine. The consequences of her actions in the past change the present. Not dramatically – there’s a great moment after Erica, speaking to Dr Tom in the past (he’s selling hotdogs outside the school), terrified and bemused about what’s happening asks if her changing the past might cause World War III or something. Dr Tom disparagingly responds, “Is it possible that your alcohol consumption, though [sarcastically] very important to you, might not play a role in influencing world events?”

Dr Tom’s office turns out not to exist, or, well, not exist where it first was. In later episodes it appears through doors in other buildings. Dr Tom, with his habit of throwing in quotations into every conversion, appears in varying roles in her earlier life, where Erica gets second goes at moments on her list. It’s hard to describe without it seeming very cloying. It mostly isn’t. She’s not putting right what once went wrong. She’s not learning a valuable life lesson. She’s simply experiencing a literal version of the process of theray, where discussing past events and the attached thoughts and feelings helps someone to make small breakthroughs. The show also has the sense to keep the whizzbang of the gimmick peculiarly low-key. There’s usually around fifteen minutes of present-day story before there’s any time travel, and five minutes at the end, meaning almost half the episode isn’t in the flashback. And Erica is pleasingly relaxed about it all. Of course in reality someone might be taking themselves to a psychotherapist, or at least talking to someone else about what was happening to them. But I like the fact that she’s not panicking or skeptical about the process. It’s happening, so she gets on with it.

Ultimately, it’s a girly show about a woman trying to figure out why she’s so self-destructive, while in love with her best friend from college, and having a tough time with her shoes. But who cares, it’s pretty great. Good scripts, and a surprisingly ageless lead in Erin Karpluk, who isn’t unconvincingly 32 and 20 in a single episode. (High school was pushing it). She’s immensely likeable and cute, which helps. Michael Riley is fantastic as Dr Tom, all goatee bird and kind eyes. And thank goodness it’s on CBC, where grown ups are allowed to say “shit” in the right moments.

Scrubs – ABC

How lovely to see the “ABC” after the name, after eight years of being kicked around the alleyway behind NBC. There are no changes to the core show at all – something that seems odd since Kelso retired at the end of last series. But thanks to the previously established free muffins for life deal at the hospital’s Coffee Bucks, he’s around every episode. A brief threat the kick him out, along with the Janitor, proved to be a false alarm in the first two episodes, and the status quo is restored, with a new crop of interns.

However, there have been changes to the writing. Recognising things had become a little too slapstick, there’s been a conscious effort to return to the dramatic nature of the earlier seasons. JD still has his fantasies, of course, and there’s still a great propensity for silliness. But at the same time the stories are heavier, deeper. In fact, three of the last four episodes have dealt with people dying from cancer. And as if in recognition of this new attempt at maturity, JD and Elliot are once again back together, but with a fresh, mature attitude. Who knows whether Bill Lawrence will keep them together – which is to say, whether he’s a capable enough writer to survive resolving his will-they-won’t-they. He rapidly wrote his way out of JD’s having a son, by keeping the baby out the show as much as possible – mentioned twice in six episodes, I think? But that’s for the best. Getting your WTWT together is only slightly less stupid than giving your lead a baby. (Can Dexter survive this curse?)

There’s a fantastic moment in the sixth episode where Elliot points out that JD’s an idiot. Incredibly knowingly, he responds that she knew what she was getting into, and she beams in response. They seem a bit more like people this time, than the forgetful cartoon rabbits the annual relationship story usually turned them into.

But my goodness, the fifth episode was good. As if written for me by angels, it featured Sesame Street Muppets in the hospital, within JD’s daydreams. Oscar, Grover and Elmo in Scrubs… But what was extraordinary was how this was the saddest episode since Ben died. Written and directed by Lawrence, his deft skill let a scene with Elmo teaching the new super-bitch intern, Denise/Jo, how to be kind to patients, feature in an episode that ended in not only death, but the main cast all recognising significant failings. Oh, and it ends with the saddest version of the Sesame Street theme you could ever imagine.

Still brilliant after all these years.

United States Of Tara – Showtime

That a deep cable programme about a deeply dysfunctional family, with a mother exhibiting Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID, formerly Multiple Personality Disorder), came from the imagination of Steven Spielberg is just plain strange. In no way does it represent his saccharine interpretation of the American family, and nor is it him dredging over his parents’ divorce once again. Although since his only credit is “creator”, not even getting a nominal “executive producer”, presumably his involvement went as far as a post-it note.

The show is instead the work of Diablo Cody, who came to prominence over Juno. United States of Tara reflects the same dingy, unpleasant tone that Juno exuded, but here it’s appropriate. Where Juno was meant to be kitsch and clever, it was only ever spiteful. USOT, in setting out to be far more morbid, lets its moments of positivity feel genuine and a relief.

There’s an interesting issue for the programme. DID is extremely controversial, since most evidence suggests the condition only exhibits itself as a result of therapy, rather than existing before. In fact, there were barely any diagnosed cases of it before Sybil was written in the 70s. And even the central character of Sybil has been mostly discredited. So what does the show do? Taking the lazy route and pretend it’s a definite condition, and then make a twist comedy drama out of the situation would be the direction in which most TV would. Rather brilliantly, USOT embraces the confusion, and exists in ambiguity.

Tara is played by the completely brilliant Toni Collette (the mother in Little Miss Sunshine), who switches between Tara’s ‘alters’ smoothly and convincingly. Convincingly in the sense that you are forced to wonder all the time if it’s an act, an elaborate and conscious defence mechanism, or if she’s genuinely changing personalities. This confusion is increased by the reactions of those around her. Her husband, John Corbett (Chris from Northern Exposure! And just incredible here), verbally maintains his belief in DID, and talks to the alters as individuals, and doesn’t hold his wife accountable for their actions. However, the veneer occasionally seems false, and a moment at the end of the second episode almost gives him away. Her older teenage daughter is disgusted by it all, acting out, and being a pretty brattish – in fact, she’s a pretty weak stereotype of a grumpy teenager, which is perhaps Cody’s weakness. The 14 year old son is much more interesting, patient and level-headed, but clearly about to lose balance. Then Tara’s sister doesn’t believe in it at all, instead believing it’s her sister faking everything. The backstory, slowly hinted at, is that Tara’s recently come off the meds, and the menagerie of alters familiar to the family are reappearing.

Some people seem to be confusing the shorter running time, 26 minutes an episode, as meaning it’s a sitcom. The term can only stretch so far. This is a drama, and certainly isn’t playing for laughs. It’s funny, certainly, but that’s not the point. It’s hard to know where it’s going. Whether it can sustain, without becoming Alter Of The Week, will be interesting. And what it will do with the ambiguity will possibly make or break it.

Parents have the crap scared out of them every other fifteen seconds. One book will proclaim if you give your five month old a piece of banana before their fifth month and second week they will definitely die by catching on fire. Then the next says that failure to provide banana by this point ensures they’ll die of meningitis. Your baby doesn’t sleep through the night by 13 months? You’re the worst parent ever and you’re going to prison for ever. Your baby does sleep through the night by 13 months? Your baby has Sleep Cancer and will be dead by the morning, you murderer.

Never mind the “advice” visited upon you by everyone who’s had a kid, been a kid, or seen a picture of a kid in a book, all sucking through their teeth at your every action. “Tssss. You let your baby cry for ten minutes?” “Tssssssss. You bath your baby three times a week?” “Tssssssssssssss. You carry your baby on your left hip?”

With so much certain doom prophesied upon you by these morbid soothsayers every day, I think there’s certainly room for the baby raising book where there is a risk for the child.

For instance: Your baby cries too much at night, and you’re not sleeping, and nothing will soothe it? Increase the levels of carbon monoxide in the room. It will help the baby sleep, but it might kill it a bit too.

Worried about diseases? Babies need to build up an immune system to prevent them from getting sick when they’re older. So instead of food, feed your child a variety of poisons, allergens and dirt. If they survive, they’ll be near immortal.

Concerned your child may have latent super-powers that aren’t being realised by traditional baby-raising advice? We all know babies can instinctively swim, but later lose the ability if not taught. The same is true for all manner of paranormal powers. To check for most of these before those instincts are lost, throw it out an upstairs window.

Despite this, during the last week I’ve been left alone for the odd hour with an eighteen-month-old girl, which is far less terrifying than I’d thought. I’d assumed it would be the cute little girl screaming in misery at being left with the hairy big man, him sitting there helplessly, surrounded by bleeping toys and puddles of tears. Turns out such brief babysitting is mostly about going through wooden books with colourful pictures of cows and apples, stacking boxes into short-lived towers, and watching Yo Gabba Gabba on Tivo. Oh, Yo Gabba Gabba – it is by far the best thing in pre-school TV since Sesame Street. I will be writing more about Yo Gabba Gabba for sure.

The store was just astonishingly loud. I’ve been in noisy music shops, but never have I been anywhere outside of a club or live music venue at this volume. In fact, I’d likely leave a club or live music venue that felt the need to have the sound quite so obnoxiously loud. This isn’t the exaggerated grumbling of an ageing man – it was, beyond belief, insanely loud. I literally had to shout at the top of my voice to the sales assistant to ask for some boots to try on, repeating myself three times before she heard what size. She went into a back room to look for them.

While I waited I watched the very many staff in the place enjoying the music. It was, extraordinarily, a sort of UK garage-meets-rasta remix of the Scooby-Doo theme, which clumsily stumbled its way into the Sesame Street theme, all decorated with enthusiastic shouting. All at a volume far beyond that which the in-store speakers were equipped to handle. So it wasn’t only loud, but also fizzing and popping in pain. The staff seemed very pleased with it, with one girl doing some excellent dancing to entertain all within.

After a while another staff member asked if I was being served. I boomed my explanation that a while back someone had gone into this back room looking, and I was beginning to worry about her. She followed her in. And also vanished. Were they dead? Or simply letting their ear drums have a moment of respite?

After far too long in this nonsensically noisy place – like some kind of mad nursery for horrendous pre-schoolers – I was give the brown Converse boots I’d asked for, and made my getaway. Having realised that, oh no, doesn’t David Tennant’s Doctor Who wear brown Converse? Am I unconsciously attempting to dress myself as a mutant version of various Time Lords?

The answer to this is clearly, and deeply troublingly, yes. And I think the long-coated, longer-scarfed, grey-stripey-cotton-hatted, brown-shoed, hair-faced figure I now cut in public should strike fear into the hearts of space monsters and naughty robots everywhere. And indeed anyone else who walks past.

I’m over in Philadelphia (or near enough) for a while, visiting Kim and Nick. But today I’m in New York, currently in a Starbucks filling half an hour before I get on a subway down to Brooklyn to try and find 826NYC and the Superhero Supply Store.

This is how cold New York is: All the cold. It’s so cold that my beard froze. Emerging from Penn Station, condensation in my hairy face from the temperature change, I wiped it to hear cracking sounds. I am fairly certain this means my impending death as soon as I venture from the warmth of this narrow coffee hole. It’s the sort of cold where you’re whole face hurts and you wonder if you’ll be able to do expressions again. The sort of cold where people exchange looks of pain as they walk past each other. I love it.

To celebrate I went into Macy’s to buy a scarf. Even though the British Pound’s tombstoning jump into half an inch of lava and spikes means the US is no longer half-price, it’s still a far more reasonably priced nation, and it’s always worth getting as much stuff here as you can squeeze into your bag. Macy’s isn’t exactly a place for bargains, but anything in a sale is going to be less than half the cost in the UK still. However, the same rule doesn’t appear to apply to scarves. Average price: $50. All because they’ve got some stupid logo or other printed on them, in some remote corner. I don’t need to spend £30+ on anything, let alone a long thin bit of wool. However, between these stands of massively overpriced piles of knitting were racks of $25 scarves, which would seem just about reasonable until you see how long they are.

The man at the counter asked me if it was two or three I’d picked up. It was one. This scarf is long enough for two people to share, without needing to be in the same town. It’s so long it’s almost impossible to wear. And it’s entirely impossible to wear without looking like a reject from the Doctor Who auditions. Which fortunately is the look I’m consistently striving for. “What do you mean you don’t want a fat, hairy Doctor? TO HELL WITH YOU ALL!” And then with a swish off my scarf over my shoulder, and the resulting deaths of three passers-by, I storm off.

And that’s all the scarf news.

The BBC has replaced the unwatchable Hole In The Wall with their version, Total Wipeout, clearly recognising the show was in a similar vein – the ridiculous Japanese game shows we’ve previously only enjoyed in their original language. And they’ve been extremely loyal to the format (of course licensed through Endemol), using the same course in the same Argentinian location, the same opening titles, the same structure… Except for one thing. They’ve made the ingenious decision to do away with two commentators sharing their quips, replacing them with a terrified-looking Richard Hammond, for some reason sporting Zoe Wanamaker’s haircut, talking to himself like a madman on a train.

It’s a staggering decision. It’s as if the BBC has some sort of bet with itself to see how stupid a choice they can make with any show they import. Has there ever been anything with one commentator, ever? Even golf has two people sat next to each other to report the non-stop frenetic action. But here the whole format is slaughtered by transvestite-haired Hammond’s awkward mumbling, trying to tell half-arsed jokes to himself. Good grief, put Clarkson in there with him and you have a show.

More terribly, the solo voice gives the show a sense of gravity that makes it almost unbearably stupid. Add in sincere interviews with the contestants where they speak about how important it is to them to win, padding out the extra 16 minutes the BBC version pointlessly lasts, and the programme can’t help but start to take itself seriously in the most inappropriate way. The US show was so self-deprecating, and so wryly contemptuous of the players, that it made sense to watch through the nonsense. And naturally they screw up the edit, with constant shots of people from the waist up as their legs negotiate obstacles, or mysteriously bad angles as people fall. Such decisions seem like sabotage, as if the BBC can’t help but deliberately spoil something so simple.

It’s not hard. It’s some morons falling over. You have two people taking the piss, and you film them falling over. It’s impressive to spend money buying such a format and to not get that.