John Walker's Electronic House

I’m 31 in just under a couple of months. That’s awfully old. Not many people have lived that long before, which means it’s all new territory, with few guidelines for how one survives day-to-day life at such an age.

I want to have a few things done by the time I’m 31. I’m stating them here so people can have a go at me about them when it becomes increasingly obvious I’m failing.

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Today I got hiccups for the first time in what I think might be 15 years. It’s definitely more than 10. This sadly means that my previously held belief that I’ve evolved beyond mortal humans has taken a knock. My extraordinarily strange teeth (inside the gums – they look quite normal to the non-xray-vision-eye) still give me some conviction, but it is now confirmed that I haven’t risen above involuntary spasms of my diaphragm. Pretty good run though.

There have been the odd occasions when I’ve thought I had hiccups, where perhaps two hiccup-like anomalies have occurred in a row, but these have more likely been rogue burps. Today it was unmistakably hiccups, that stayed with me for a good few minutes. They timed themselves cleverly, such that they were released whenever I walked past someone in the street, startling them. Then, when I over the initial intrigue, I took a deep breath and insisted they stop. I really don’t understand the fuss – everyone else should stop having them too.

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Today was spent visiting my family in Guildford. My new niece is six weeks old, but today was the first day I’d met her (my sister, her husband and their two kids live in the unreachable wilds of France). She’s remarkably advanced for her early age, holding up her head herself, sitting comfortably with support, and even putting some convincing strength into her legs when stood up. Despite feeling like she weighs about 3lb. All this is ideal for ‘walking’ her across tables as Babyzilla, destroying buildings and passersby.

It was also nephew Wil’s 2nd birthday on Wednesday, which marks that important moment when parents stop this ridiculous nonsense of aging their children in months. That’s fine up to the first year. Then they’re one, then “one and a bit”. “Nearly two” is a lot more practical a description than the confusing, “22 months”. Parents, stop it. Or carry it through. As of Wednesday I’m 370 months old.

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I discovered podcasts this week. You probably won’t have heard of them, because they’re so very brand new and I’m astonishingly in touch and up-to-date, in a way you could never hope to keep up with. To try to explain them to your tiny brain, they’re like some radio, but in a box on the internet.

This isn’t strictly true – I listened to all the Ricky Gervais podcasts in one go a few months after they happened, a couple of years ago. Then I entirely forgot about the concept. Recently I rediscovered this magic via Housemate Craig’s linking me to the Collings & Herrin podcast, from the audiomouths of top comedian Richard Herring and top bloke Andrew Collins. This is all hosted on their handy website, available as mp3s. Lovely, easypeasy. That’s the sort of podcasting I am built to handle. Right click, save as, dump into Winamp or onto mp3 player. At no point in this entire endeavour does it need to pass through the evil, oily hands of Apple and their one-mouse-buttoned hegemony.

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Looking up at the same time, their eyes met. From one side of the coffee shop’s upper floor to the other, the gaze held. Certainly there was instant attraction, but this was something else – this was something more significant.

The gaze sustained, mutually accepted, kept abroad from simply staring. It was comfortable. It felt safe, and uplifting. They both offered warm smiles.

He gently leant his head forward, not breaking eye contact, and then twice tipped it to the side, beckoning her to join him. Her smile broadened. She glanced at the empty chair next to her, eyes then immediately returning to his, her head slightly inclined. He grinned, looked down at his laptop on the table, the mp3 player beside it, and his full drink, and then beckoned her with his head once more. Her eyes flicked to the bags of shopping surrounding her, the large, awkwardly shaped electrical appliance she had just purchased, and then once more she nodded toward the comfortable chair left empty beside her table.

Pulling a pretend grimace, he swept a hand at all his bits and pieces on his table, waggling his head comically to indicate quite how much he had to gather up and put away. She bowed her head in brief sympathy, then pointed toward all her shopping, and the awkward box, and pulled a face in response to it all. He gestured toward his laptop, then pointed at the wire plugging it into the wall, and leant to one side so she could see how his coat was neatly placed on the back of the chair behind him. He gave a roll of his eyes at the complexity of it all. She jauntily returned his eye roll, both arms spread out to declare the sheer volume of her bags, adding a significant stare at the book on the arm of her chair, and then, cocking her head amusingly to one side, shrugged her shoulders.

He glanced at his laptop screen for a moment, then picked up his coffee to take a sip before looking back. She too was drinking, from her mug of tea, her eyes glancing at the floor. His laptop bleeped to alert him to the arrival of a new email, and he checked to see who it was from. She picked up the upturned book from the arm of her chair and found her page.

You may have noticed I often write about TV shows on this blog. You have a keen eye for details like that. And for as long as I have, Kim has teased me by paraphrasing South Park saying,

Step 1: Write about TV
Step 2: ???
Step 3: Profit!

So much so that the phrase “step 2” has entered our vocabulary as a term to mean, “that mysterious job where I get to write about TV shows.” Well, finally I’ve achieved Step 2.

Giant Realm, the blog conglomerate and site that provides “stuff that doesn’t suck”, has let me write things about television in exchange for money. A wholly reasonable deal. The first piece has just gone up, is about The Middleman, and begins like this:

“Javier Grillo-Marxuach originally intended The Middleman to be a TV pilot. Yes, clearly this happened, but years after he set his work in motion. The established television writer (Lost, Medium, Charmed) first had ambitions to create a show about the sort of heroism and science fiction that had decorated his childhood in 1998, when he wrote the original pilot. Deemed too peculiar by his peers, he sat on the project until the mysterious Middleman and his fresh recruit, artist Wendy Watson, were first seen “fighting evil so you don’t have to” in a four-part comic book in 2005, published by Viper Comics. Three comic volumes later, and everything has come full circle: ABC Family optioned the comic into a show.”

Penn & Teller’s Showtime show, Bullshit! is an often very good (and occasionally poor) debunking programming, in which the two passionate skeptics pick a subject of some manner of flim-flammery, and then mock it. They also do useful things like get experts to provide evidence, and less useful things like tricking members of the public in scams, to demonstrate how much people are willing to unquestionably believe.

When it’s good, it’s great. (When it’s bad, it’s last week’s about climate change, where they sort of muddle through talking about the business that’s grown up around it based on using people’s guilt, which is a valid subject, but muddle themselves with the larger issue, tearing Al Gore to pieces (which I don’t exactly disapprove of) and then pointing out that they don’t know if climate change is real or a myth). They’re never better than when attacking alternative medicines, but this week’s, on “stranger danger”, was unexpectedly superb.

But one moment was jaw-dropping. To set up the clip, you need to know the way the show works. Penn & Teller are in their white studio, taking the piss out of things between recorded segments, narrated by Penn. These segments are comprised of interviews with conmen/women, experts, or members of the public, and films of either the snake oil salespeople at work, or their own, mostly pointless, pranks. Penn interrupts the interviews to shout obsenities in frustration, or to point out where people are most openly lying. But mostly to shout, “Fuck!” So this episode has been about over-protective parents in denial of the realities of danger for children. They’ve been over the statistics, they’ve had idiots make stupid statements, and experts state facts, and then the following happens:

I think she is one of the most remarkable woman I’ve ever heard of. She is extraordinary. I write all this to celebrate her. The praise P&T give her is unique in the programme’s five year history, and is deserved. As Penn Jillette says, it’s humbling. This is her foundation’s site.

Oh dear me, Brown’s a goner.

I’m delighted for Scotland. I was also hoping the SNP would win purely because it’s the more interesting result. A Labour win would be a nothing – a big let-down after all the build up. But turning around a 13,507 majority to win (by 365) is incredible, and also funny. It demonstrates how deeply hated Labour have become. Not just disapproved of, but loathed.

Of course, the counter to this is the terrifying fear I now have – a certainty that the Tories will win the next general election. It’s indicative of Labour’s hopelessness, and while I’m as angry with them as anyone with a brain, they’re still a far better option than the horror that is the Conservative party. That Labour have openly abandoned all left wing principles is disgusting and abhorrent. However, this doesn’t automagically make the Tories an alternative. It makes them the further extreme of where Labour have headed. But they will win, and this country will swerve violently to the right, in line with an increasing amount of Europe. I’m genuinely scared.

And all the while the US is looking increasingly likely to be voting in Obama, who despite his current centerist behaviour is clearly a massively left swing for the nation, with a socialist agenda. At that point, with Cameron in power here and Obama in power there, surely I can apply for asylum?

Okay, I can’t leave it at that. The promo highlight reel for season 39 is, thank goodness, embeddable, so here it is:

If you’ve talked to me about the Muppets before, or read anything I might have written, you’ll know I always end up blubbing with happiness. (Or you know, with RAGE that one time).

It’s hard to stress how seriously I mean this: Sesame Street is one of the greatest examples of how humans are amazing. It gives me hope. The astonishing amounts of love and work that go into it, from the educational research and curriculum development, to the artistry of the Muppets, to the quality of the performances from all involved, is overwhelming. And it’s all for a show aimed at children under 4.

I use it as a measure. Celebrities willing to go on the show are the ones worth my time. So who knew LL Cool J was on that list, but the moment he hugs Elmo and sings a song about addition, he’s in. Neil Patrick Harris – well, he’s already the greatest human alive for HIMYM and Dr Horrible, but this transcends him beyond mortal man. Just watch through that highlight reel, and spot the names, and the gags. “Are You Smarter Than An Egg Layer?”, 30 ROCKS, Preschool Musical. Jonah Hill, Jack Black, Will Arnett… and then, when Mike Rowe appeared out of Oscar’s trash can, yup, I cried.

It’s just such pure goodness. Yes, it’s deeply tragic that despite being on PBS it still requires sponsorship from evil companies like MacDonalds and Pizza Hut – businesses that should be nowhere near pre-schoolers, let alone promoting their products to them. It’s incredibly sad. It’s the sort of sad that should be addressed by someone of unimaginable wealth who could fund the otherwise publically funded project such that such names need be nowhere near it. But Sesame Street remains a goodness that transcends the corporate commercials that appear before and after, and the canny parent would switch off after and before. Or Tivo past it.

It’s often described as being written on two levels, one for the kids and one for the adults. And to a great extent that’s true. No 2 year old is going to appreciate the Tina Fey spoof for 30 ROCKS. But there’s a third, greater level on which it’s written, which is for everyone. It’s written and performed with passion, and it’s that love that makes it so appealing to any age. As adults sneakily watching clips, we get to fall about laughing a spoof of Deal Or No Deal (Meal Or No Meal, with a perfect Mandell Muppet, and Cookie as the shadowy banker), while kids get to learn (that a plate of cakes is not a meal, but protein and vegetables is). But the real reason we’re both watching is because it’s so entirely wonderful. It’s Henson’s greatest legacy, and it’s the one remaining aspect of the Muppets that is worthy of his memory.

So, here’s Cookie on Colbert from a few weeks back:

Okay, that’s it, I’m ready to be gay now:

(The buffoons have prevented embedding the clip, because apparently they don’t quite understand how viral advertising works).