The Man With One Red Shoe

This is a comedy in which everyone is the straight man.

VR.5's Lori Singer stars as Maddy - a CIA agent charged with extracting information within 48 hours from Richard Drew (Tom Hanks), who is in fact just an innocent violinist.

The fun in this film is that we get to see the enormous tangle of agendas, deceit and misunderstood inferences from everyone's angle. There are a heck of a lot of factions in this, most of them oblivious to what is actually going on, and by the time the closing credits roll, I don't think there's anyone left who hasn't suffered some sort of personal indignity, be it losing their bathroom, losing all their teeth, or losing their sanity. Every character in this is hapless.

I don't normally care much for famous faces, but Lori Singer and Tom Hanks are always such a pleasure to watch, so to see them performing together in such a well-crafted tale as this one is a joy.



Even the diffident Brown (Edward Herrmann) and his domineering superior Ross (Charles Durning) remind me of the diffident Goldstein and his domineering boss on the ASB adverts, making their string-pulling scenes easy to lock-into.

The morals are a bit shaky (Hanks plays a man who's been having an affair with his best mate's wife, which automatically subtracts sympathy from his character, and his relationship with Maddy is automatically less-appealing once they've slept together) but otherwise, this is a classic comedy.

Maddy: "Are you OK? You seem tense."
Richard: "Oh, no, no, no, I'm not, I'm not tense. Well, I did pass out today... and got hit in the head by a baseball... and brushed my teeth with shampoo... then butchered Rimsky-Korsakov in front of 1,500 people, and my clothes fell apart. But I'm not *tense*."

This Is Spın̈al Tap

"It's such a fine line between stupid, and clever."

So I finally sat down and watched the legendary mockumentary This Is Spın̈al Tap this morning, and you know what? I thought it was absolutely brilliant.

The film charts the attempted comeback of the eponymous rock band Spın̈al Tap, and their journey from has-beens, to breaking-up.

This film's message is straight – success is the consequence of yourself, and other people, but you try telling the lucky recipients about that second one. As the people who they depend upon gradually abandon the band, no matter how hard they try, they cannot become successful again.

It's one of those movies where, if you get the joke from the word go, then the whole hour and a half constantly delivers on your expectations. Their self-inflated egos, and constant ill-fated attempts to lift their behaviour to the impossibly high-standard of their imaginations, of course puts the rest of their world at the other extreme.

One character whinges on about having to fold a slice of ham to fit into a smaller slice of bread, before eventually acquiescing that he will overcome the caterer's incompetence because "I'm a professional." It perfectly encapsulates how the success he's received, once purged of its humbling qualities, has nothing left with which to restrain his pride.

It's an almost fail-safe comedy equation, and director Rob Reiner seemlessly knits a brilliantly crafted script together with moments of improvised genius.

Such a cocktail is heavily dependent upon getting excellent performers of course, and it's ironic that Reiner himself's portrayal of documentary-maker Marty DiBergi is the only element that, for me, doesn't quite cut it. His opening introduction to the film - delivered in-character to camera – just isn't played or directed for authenticity, and I have to conclude that this is deliberate. After all, you have to know in advance that the following 90 minutes are not going to be real, in order to get so much out of them.

The direction too makes predictable errors (at one point there are three cameras all crammed into the same car!) but if you can get past that, then the dialogue contains more priceless gems than it’s possible to remember.

Marty DiBergi: "'This tasteless cover is a good indication of the lack of musical invention within. The musical growth of this band cannot even be charted. They are treading water in a sea of retarded sexuality and bad poetry.'"
Nigel Tufnel: "That's just nitpicking, isn't it?"

[When asked what happened to their first drummer]
David St. Hubbins: "He died in a bizarre gardening accident..."
Nigel Tufnel: "Authorities said... best leave it... unsolved."

David St. Hubbins: "I believe virtually everything I read, and I think that is what makes me more of a selective human than someone who doesn't believe anything."

It's great to watch a film that has such a high reputation, and find that it actually merits it. That said, I'm sure I'd feel much worse about it if I weren't under such heavy sedation.

Eerie-Looking Building

Just what goes on in there? :)

Police Squad! IN COLO(U)R

Nearly 30 years on, Police Squad! In Color is still a masterclass in comedy.

Sure, a few of the jokes are now so well-known that they thud a bit, but the hit-rate is so high that you welcome them anyway.

This is slapstick at its most extreme. Leslie Neilsen's original straight take on Frank Drebin is, for my money, much funnier than his loosened-up performances in the later Naked Gun movies, and the brevity of these episodes' 22-minute run-times ensures that most of them thunder along at breakneck speed.

I haven't listened to any of the directors' commentaries, but the other extras on here offer little to add to the high value of the main feature. The exceptions would be Leslie Neilsen's enlightening perspective on the show's refusal to be mean-spirited, an out-take so disastrous that you wonder why it wasn't used in the programme, and an incredible four-minute freeze-frame gag from the never-released movie edit. I'd have really liked to have seen the whole of that version included on a second disc here.

Police Squad! was cancelled after just 6 episodes due to terrible ratings, and in the absence of a clear reason for its failure, several people have gone on the record with their opinions about it requiring too much attention from the viewer.

I'd like to generously suggest that while that theory may be the strongest explanation available, it still doesn't ring true to me. Slapstick is incredibly popular, and when delivered with this intensity, it's hard to come away without alot of it having hit its target. I think, in fact, the show was just monumentally unlucky, as probability states that every so often one great series must be.

That's the thing about us humans, we insist that there must be an explanation for everything.

Almost a decade later in the UK, the people marketing Red Rock Cider sure banked on its popularity. Want to see a complete new Police Squad! story? See below...



And there were two others...

:)

My Old Vicar

How much effect does a vicar have on your life?

Our local one as I was growing-up dropped in and out of my life repeatedly over those years. Not just on those occasions when I actually went to church, but as my school was an affiliate, he'd regularly show-up to preach in assemblies there too.

I remember the way in which he used to stand there, with his arm behind his back, holding onto his opposite arm, above the elbow.

I also remember him because his daughter was in my class.

Years later I got involved in the church a bit more seriously, and would sometimes find myself talking to him at fellowship meetings and the like. It was quite a big church in those days, and remains so, which made actually having a conversation with the big cheese a bit of a bonus.

He was, to me, very much the definitive vicar. He... err... wasn’t that young, and always seemed so serious, but pleasant with it. The dog-collar didn't exactly subtract from his potential as a comedy vicar either.

In fact, I don't think I was alone in thinking of him as something of a straight comedy foil. A friend told me the legend of the time when this man had begun a sermon on that most sitcommy of subjects for a comedy vicar to preach on, sex.

He'd stood-up in the ancient pulpit and looked out at the sea of straight faces around the congregation. He drew breath and his serious echoing voice began:

"The Bible doesn't leave us groping around in the dark about sex."

The way my friend tells it, he can remember nothing else of the rest of the sermon apart from that tortuous first line, due to spending the rest of the next 20 minutes trying desperately to maintain a straight face.

A few seconds later, my friend became aware that his pew was gently rocking backwards and forwards, and realised that this was because his friend was also fighting to hold-in his mirth too. Eventually his friend could stand the pressure no more, and fled outside to his car. Dick Emery would be proud.

Time passed. Our vicar became ill for a long time, and took a very extended leave. During this hiatus, a big dispute broke-out among the remaining leadership, and people left, some not by choice. Eventually, he didn't come back either. In retrospect his long illness perhaps acted as some sort of a metaphor for what seemed to be taking place in the rest of the church.

Eventually, there was a new vicar appointed. People got over the earlier rift. Life sprung eternal, and one of the old protagonists would actually use the word 'revival' to me recently.

By now the old vicar had got better, and was occasionally coming back to town to put in an appearance. Special funerals, that sort of thing. While I was off in New Zealand, it was good to hear that he was well again.

He even came back to wish his replacement well when he was promoted to Bishop last year. I wanted to take a photo of him, since in all those years I had never got one, but my camera-battery had died that evening, so I never even asked.

Of course, I didn't expect him to remember little old me either. I walked past him that evening, he said "Hello", I said "Hello", and that was that. How very British. I think I have one of those familiar faces.

This afternoon, with the church taking a breather before a new new vicar is appointed, he was back again to conduct a small communion service in advance of Easter. Being a weekday afternoon, most of those present were seniors, (my mum did the reading!) but I didn't want to miss this either. For me, it was almost a nostalgia-trip. In the old days, his sermons had been the only ones that I had really known, but now that I had circled the globe and been to a few more different types of church, I wondered how he would measure up.

First up, you would never know that he had been ill. This retiree was perfectly active, thank you. (he didn't put his hand behind his back and grip his opposite arm above the elbow though)

Second up, his sermon was entirely consistent with the way I recall. He was absolute in his conviction about Jesus loving his disciples to the very end, and his exposition of all that that meant, struck me as being as definitive as preaching gets. Not necessarily better than anyone else, but presumably a lifetime of doing these things had furnished him with a very definite way of how to put them together.

I should also mention that this is an Anglican church we're talking about, so to hear his voice intoning away through such familiar scripts once more was like putting on an old pair of shoes.

And third up? He did remember me!

Well, sort of. He actually asked Raili who I was. She told him that he'd confirmed me years ago, which wasn't actually correct, so I made a point of reintroducing myself.

We had a brief chat, and I asked if I could take his photo, which of course he was happy to do. He asked where I wanted him to stand, and I said that I really didn't mind what was in the background, it was the subject that I was interested in.

It seemed that he was really surprised to recognise me, because he looked at me at one point and actually protested, "You look so young!"

In equal surprise, the very first – sincere - words on my lips were, "Well you look pretty young yourself..."

Thunderbird 6

After Thunderbirds, and its sequel Thunderbirds Are Go!, I appear to have skipped three movies...

Thunderbird 6 is easily the best film in the trilogy. It has a good plot, some tremendous action sequences, especially at the end, and even fulfils the escapism remit by doubling as a huge travelogue in a technological future. Who among us wouldn't like to actually travel on a futuristic airborne cruise around the world?

Jeff's motivation for keeping Brains behind without even a clear idea why is difficult plot-setting, but overall this is one Thunderbirds adventure that I thoroughly enjoyed.

I think I said in my other two reviews that the early TV episodes were padded-out after completion to match the length of the later 50-minute shows. I also said that I'd only ever seen those early ones, and given-up on the show because they ran so slowly.

I'd very much like to think that the later episodes were therefore a significant improvement, and given that this movie was the last of the original Thunderbirds canon to be made, I remain optimistic.

That last twenty-minutes - that's the stuff that Thunderbirds is remembered for!

F.A.B. – Finally A Blockbuster!

(available here)

The Sarah Jane Adventures: The Mark Of The Berserker

A kid at school finds an ancient talisman, and uses it to control his classmates, effectively turning them all into z...

Then he controls his teacher, turning him into a zom...

When Rani comes upon it, (they so wanted to call this The Mark Of Rani) she uses it to order her dad about, making him a mindless drone with no free will of his own, in fact one might even go so far as to call him a zomb... oh I just can't bring myself to type the word yet again...

(deep breath) Yes, once again, for the fourth story out of four this season, we're confronted with zombies.


You have to feel particularly sorry for the actor with the job of playing Rani's dad, who's also the school headmaster. He must have thought that his dual-purpose in the series would lend his character terrific depth. Instead though, he's had to find the motivation to play a guy who in recent weeks has:


... witnessed several of his pupils becoming zombies (in The Day Of The Clown)...


... seen his wife become a zombie, followed by eleven-twelfths of the rest of the world, including eleven-twelfths of his pupils again (in Secrets Of The Stars)...


... become a zombie himself in this story at the hands of his own daughter, and THEN...


become one again later on at the behest of Clyde's dad.

I really can't see that actor wanting to stay on for season 3. Where's the range?

This story certainly has a different feel throughout. Partly this is because, for different reasons, Sarah and Gita are both out of town for most of the duration, so it's left to the kids to solve the puzzle on their own. But I can't help wondering if the rest of the cast all had trouble with that motivation thing as well...

When Clyde's dad walks back into his life, and it's actually coincidence, Clyde betrays Sarah by taking him into her empty house and showing him through her stuff. I can make-up some reasoning for this on Clyde's behalf, but that's really the job of the storyteller.

When Clyde's dad gets the medallion and the kids want to stop him, he makes no effort to protect himself, eg. by making them forget that he has it. That doesn't really ring true either.

But then, that's because none of them makes any effort to get the thing back off him in the first place. Y'know, quickly cover his mouth and rip it off him while he's looking the other way, that sort of thing. It's fine if our heroes are too apprehensive of the Berserker's power or something, but no-one tries, or even suggests, anything.

Part two progresses at a leisurely pace, with some cracking direction, and an ever-growing number of zombies, most of whom will also have been zombies in last week's story too.

Rani meets Maria (with the trademark abandonment of urgency to discuss 'cool' stuff), and Alan hacks into the database of the "Unified Intelligence Taskforce".

Alan says "I thought we'd left all this behind us." He's forgotten eleven-twelfths of the world becoming zombies in the previous story, probably including him, Maria and most of the people they know. (All right, I guess I should stop going on about that)

But then it all literally sinks again at the end, when Clyde actually decides to throw the über-dangerous medallion away in the river for the next person to find and endanger the planet with.

The Sarah Jane Adventures, for all its faults, usually scores higher than Doctor Who in terms of looking after its regular characters' reactions to the crazy events that they find themselves in.

I do hope this thinness isn't the shape of things to come.

NEXT WEEK: Rani's dad gets taken over by, oh, I don't know, his dog.

Mother's Day

At church this morning.

Garfield 2: A Tail Of Two Kitties

Garfield 2 almost has the complete album of family-movie concepts.

Early on it goes for the old vacation-in-England plot. Along with talking-cartoon-animal-lost-in-the-big-city storyline. And impending wedding for a main character. And a famous British guest-star as the villain. Who incredulously suffers a sequence of hilarious indignities at the hands of a chorus of talking farmyard animals. Because he's so set on bulldozing their farm to make a fortune. Oh, and did I mention that Garfield even has to switch places with his rich doppelgänger too?

Maybe they should have just gone the whole hog, and also had a judge order Garfield to help a friendly alien to return home, at Christmas?

Garfield: The Prince And The Pawper (or whatever it's titled in your country) is a terrific laugh start-to-finish. The plot bullets along, free in the knowledge that this is all familiar territory, and wholly unashamed of it. I wouldn't call it a finely-honed comedy, but perhaps because it mixes live-action with animation, there is a heck of a lot of planning and rewriting gone into this.

I have no idea why it seems to have suffered so many bad reviews. Apparently it was a big hit outside America, and was made with precisely that audience in mind.

More?


The poster I think they could have used! ;)

(review of Garfield 1 here)

Today's celebrity Bible-reader is… Monsieur Roger LeClerc

It is I, the LORD!

- Exodus 4:11b (God's Word)

THUNDERBIRDS are GO!

Unlike when, in 2005, Tim Downstairs and I snuck a watch of Flatmate Dave's copy, this morning I discovered that this film has a gripping contemporary message for 2009 very early on.

It's when a character holds-up a copy of the News Of The World from 19th June 2066, and we can see that it only costs 15 cents. In the current credit crunch, the west's economic future looks bleak indeed.

Aside from the year, the second chronological Thunderbirds film has clearly moved events on a little since the live-action prequel Thunderbirds. Alan and Tintin have now grown up, but only a bit. In fact, their relationship since Thunderbirds appears to have quietened-down, and Alan is even indulging in fantasies about going out with Lady Penelope. (in the aging stakes, she's fared the worst BTW)

This is incredibly slow, and has a plot that can barely be described as such. It's really a few good sequences stitched together for the sake each individual ride, but even so, I found the early Thunderbirds episodes quite plodding on TV, and again so here. (I've don't know how the later, unpadded, episodes turned-out) Things do appear to be getting going when some incidental characters encounter the rock snakes on Mars, but this storyline is then never returned to. It's a bit like watching some very long deleted scenes.

The highlight of the film for me has to be the puppet versions of Cliff Richard and the Shadows, performing an entire musical number. It's the sort of thing that could only happen in the 1960s, and the world is a brighter place for it.

Creative types tend to be more interested in making whatever they want to, rather than sacrificing their vision to the great god of profit. This film might be a disaster, (my polite way of saying that I think it is) but it's worth it to get to see someone's undiluted work, warts and all. How often does that happen today?

Thunderbirds keep going!

(available here)
(review of 2004's Thunderbirds here)
(review of 1968's Thunderbird 6 here)

Good Bye Lenin!

Came across the bulk of one of my favourite films showing on TV this morning.

Good Bye Lenin! is about a staunch socialist woman who falls into a coma just before the destruction of the Berlin Wall, and only comes around several months later after things have significantly changed.

Of course, she's still pretty sick, so the doctor warns her son that she mustn't have any sudden, nasty shocks. He decides that news of the arrival of capitalism must be kept from his mum at all costs. Comedy ensues.

Yet, this is one of those comedies that is played so straight that it's a drama.

Alex's transition from a reliable son into a manipulative propagandist is subtle, yet huge. In his first lie, he can't even get the weather right. By the end of the film, he's paying actors and having entire fake news-reports piped to her bedside TV on a regular basis. Yes, he even controls the media...

But while this is a very, very funny film, it is also about twice as sad.

His mum is sick throughout, and the enormous emotional strain of her sustained delusion, together with her faltering memory, have devastating consequences outside of her bedroom, and literally ruin her family. Again and again the stakes go even higher, and again and again Alex gambles and loses so much to keep his mother from the shock that might kill her.

The film's ending is, I think, tremendously clever. Tonight, as I say, I watched it a second time, and scrutinised it for the clues that I thought must surely be non-verbally present. I love that they went to so much trouble that I could do that.

Good Bye Lenin. 10 out of 10.

A Retrospective - BBC Radiophonic Workshop (CD)

What if there were a publicly-funded body dedicated to creating new sounds?

These 107 tracks, across two CDs, tell the 40-year journey of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop and its unearthly music, presenting key tracks chronologically from its conception in 1958, right up to its eventual demise in 1997.

The first track Amphitryon 38 (by Daphne Oram) is a short excerpt from the first TV music ever produced by the Workshop – even before its official opening. Although it was composed for a Googie Withers comedy, the clanging metallic echoes sound much more like a science-fiction, specifically the sort that the BBC would be making rather a lot of throughout the coming 1960s.

In other words, it sets the tone extremely well for that opening era. Musique croncrète (creating music by manipulating tape-recordings of everyday sounds) was the order of the decade, and these metallic clanging bongs sound far more scary than they perhaps should.

Not that all the department's output is scary. Pitch-shifted bells ringing, elastic bands twanging, and bottle-necks blooping, when assembled in order to create a tune, can sound extremely cheerful.

To demonstrate, one of the more upbeat marvels on here is Radio Stoke-On-Trent's jingles from 1968, constructed by David Cain entirely from sounds made by Royal Doulton pottery.

In the 1970s section, actual electronic-synthesisers come into play, but of course initially they all sound like electronic-synthesisers. As CD1 progresses however, you can hear the improvement in technology develop, as the concrète element recedes.

By 1977 we get Peter Howell's exciting The Astronauts, a track I used to listen to 25 years ago when I found it on the B side of his arrangement of the Doctor Who theme. Listening to it again after so long, this track refilled my head with impressions of my teenage years – school, my father, and the crazy stories that I used to write, which were often inspired by music just such as this. For me, the only thing this track lacks is a catchy melody.

Perhaps the Workshop's most prolific composition is the Greenwich Chorus from 1978. Composed (again by Howell) as merely incidental music for the TV documentary The Body In Question, it was formed principally from the ticking of a clock at the Greenwich Observatory, but with human voices beautifully shaped in to craft a song. The resulting piece sounds neither human, nor animal, nor electronic, so it's no wonder that upon transmission the Workshop was inundated with phone calls asking who, or perhaps what, was performing those vocals?!

By now the CD is entering the lonely and/or optimistic era of the 1980s, when the next generation of synthesisers were taking over. There are still some real instruments in there too, but fused-together in a way that's often tricky to tell apart.

My favourite composer Paddy Kingsland seems to take centre-stage for a bit as we reach what I can only describe as the department's "Hitchhiker phase". Brighton Pier was an awesome nightmare of a track in 1980, and still is today, as so many of these are.

With the Fairlight in strong evidence, loads of these tracks are now rereleases from the contemporary LP The Soundhouse, and the chance to hear these sunny, fun and downright mad tracks again is so welcome.

1982's bubbly Fancy Fish ("Aquarium") (by Howell again with Dick Mills) is still bonkers, as is Radiophonic Rock, which was their 6-way collaboration with Roger Limb, Jonathan Gibbs, Malcolm Clarke and Elizabeth Parker to celebrate the Workshop's 25th anniversary in 1983.

Wow - I consider this track to be the climax of the department's output. I remember how it felt to listen to this music at the time, with no idea what the futuristic-sounding 1990s held. What incredible new audio horizons could be waiting to envelope us in the future?

Irony intended. Not due to any lack of creativity, Radiophonic Rock unexpectedly gave-way to the beginning of the end.

For with the mid-1980s came the death of the BBC's interest in science-fiction, and with it, far less enthusiasm for anything that sounded weird. Earthsearch, The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy, The Tripods, Doctor Who... One-by-one spacey series were discontinued, not to be replaced with much else of the same genre. Away with them went any wish for similar-sounding music to accompany more mundane, down-to-Earth shows.

Consequently, the second half of disc 2 becomes increasingly dull, as throughout the actual 1990s traditional instruments were mixed more and more to the fore, with artificially-made sounds becoming a little too subtle underneath.

Finally, the Workshop's last ever composition is included here from 1997. Assignment (Kofi Annan) by Elizabeth Parker, composed for a current affairs series, is something of a tragedy. You see, although it seems it was produced entirely on an electric keyboard, every electronic note is simulating the sound of an ordinary musical instrument. So why not just record the actual instruments? What a living-death.

From those far-off metallic clanging bongs of the 1960s that opened this release, what an oppressive, unvalued way to be put to sleep.

What a waste of time and money the BBC of the day apparently considered the last 40 years had been.

And what an awesome legacy it is now...

:)

Available here.

Thunderbirds (2004)

Everything that I had heard about this film turned out to be true.

In fact, it's hard to see what I can add to the catalogue of criticisms already levelled at it by so many other harsh reviewers. Only more negative stuff, I'm afraid. I really thought that I would find a good angle in here somewhere... :(

It should have all been so easy. The original series creator – Gerry Anderson MBE – is such a fine action-director. He made both UFO and Space:1999! Whenever I come across these shows, I wish that I could see another pulse-pounding live-action movie by him. Imagine – live action Thunderbirds by Gerry Anderson – what more sure-fire ingredients do you need?

Yet according to Wikipedia, not only was Anderson not asked to direct, but ultimately ruled-out of even being a consultant on his own creations. Apparently while the studio did not want the expense of paying him for that, they were paradoxically willing to offer him £86,000 just to attend the premiere! (he refused, theatrically the film only recouped around half its cost)

In the circumstances, I certainly wasn't going to pay these people any money to go see it either. I wonder how many other potential viewers didn't?

It's hard to understand how Jonathan Frakes, after his years of experience in Star Trek circles, could ever have signed on to direct a film that he must have known could not possibly overcome such an insult to its core audience.

I'd suspect that he was trying to make the best of a bad job – good for him in that respect – but on almost every other level this film is a parody of bad modern kidflicks.

The main Thunderbird characters are even pushed into the background, so that the film can principally focus on three children. The fact that this accidentally makes the film a prequel actually covers a multitude of sins.

However it cannot hide the token story, the dreary music or the rushed pacing. Throughout, this defines the apathetic, patronising and condescending tone of today's throwaway cinema. Even the highlighting at the top of the poster above is wrong. Yeah, that'll do. Whatever.

Just before the end there is a brief Thunderbirds-ish moment when Thunderbird 4 has to save some people in a submerged monorail, but it's all over so quickly that there's just no time for anyone to care.

However there's another ingredient that modern remakes tend to smugly fit-in too: the subtle tribute to the original. Even here, Thunderbirds thinks the way to wink knowingly at fans is by actually rubbishing the series they love. Under mind-control, Brains is forced to awkwardly walk "like a puppet on a string". I gather that there was also another shot when they had given someone's hand a visible string. Okay, I've got it, you hate the original series, Gerry Anderson, and me, you can stop now.

But here's the really incredible thing – I actually don't have a lot of love for the original Thunderbirds series. Never really have done. I gave up after the first few shows, because I found it was all far too slow for me. (I gather that Lew Grade ordered the early ones to be padded-out to double their running-time) Yet as I watched this version on ITV today, even I was offended by all the arrogance on display.

If Gerry Anderson had made this film, then no matter how bad it had turned-out, even if it had been pixel-for-pixel identical, at least it would have carried the authority necessary to be accepted.

Ugh, awful. But here's the paragraph in which I attempt to qualify my criticisms by finding something about it to praise:

The kids themselves. These roles could so easily have gone to children who couldn't act, but Brady Corbet (as Alan) and Vanessa Anne Hudgens (as Tintin) make a pair who are actually fun to watch when separated from the rest of the production. (which they extensively are) Soren Fulton (Fermat) and Sophia Myles (Lady Penelope) cover their corners well too. Ben Kingsley (the Hood) and Ron Cook (Parker) do the job they're paid to do, and probably got out of there quick afterwards.

I shall leave the final comment on this sorry indictment on modern remakes to Gerry Anderson himself, summing up his opinion to The Guardian over two years after the film's release:

"In fact, it was the biggest load of crap I have ever seen in my life."

Whoa, steady on there Gerry, surely it couldn't have been that bad...

:)

(available here)
(review of Thunderbirds Are Go! here)
(review of Thunderbird 6 here)

Read The Bible Three Times In A Year

A year ago I read the Bible in 40 days.

At the end, I read it again (in the right order this time) at a much more sedate pace – more like six months. And now I've just read it again in five. (months – not days)

Sheesh - I remember when I used to think that once-through in a year sounded undoable. Wha' haaappened?

I guess what happened is, I became a bit addicted.

Y'see, much of that first 40-day sprint was necessarily spent reading many of the longer books in a single sitting each. Afterwards I found that to return to breaking them up again, especially the shorties, was harder than I'd expected. I tried telling myself that I'd strip each book across a week, Monday to Saturday, but I found that anything 16 chapters or less now felt much more doable in one go.

I'd also been trying to mix-up the different translations, so that where possible I was reading each book in a new wording, but this resulted in an OCD-ish feeling that I should really absorb the whole thing in each of those translations.

Consulting my notes I could see that the Good News and the NIV were going well, but I'd also made far too much progress with the Message and the CEV to leave them half-finished now.

So I kept on reading, and re-reading. Now I'm eyeing-up the God's Word version...

I saw Perry tonight and told him of my solitary year-long achievement, explaining that I needed to just tell someone about it. Perry's computer-like, and super-Holy, mind immediately furnished him with the response "So - you read nine chapters a day then?" Clearly, Perry retains even more Biblical stats than I do.

Over the past year, as well as switching between translations, I've varied things as much as possible in other ways, reading parts of it in my head, out loud, over the internet, quickly and slowly, but always making a point of comprehending it. I've also tried to read it in some sort of chronological order, because that forces me to think more about how it all fits together. I usually read all the footnotes, endnotes and cross-references too, which particularly with the CEV has resulted in a tremendous amount of revision.

Perhaps the most curious spin on motoring through it three times in a year though, has been that I've been fairly churchless for much of this season of my life.

And, perhaps unexpectedly, there's been something oddly liberating about reading it in that context. I've had the chance to take much of this in without other people shaping my interpretation it all the time. Don't get me wrong – I value a wealth of different opinions when it comes to studying the Bible, or most things for that matter, but reading it in a silence away from those other voices must surely help me to identify my own thoughts amongst those opinions. That's gotta be harder to do when some people might be telling you, purely for example, that Jesus' coming is foreshadowed throughout the Old Testament.

So, what do I think about the Bible now?

Well, first of all, I'm very careful about being 100% sure of anything. That tends to sound like arrogance and closed-mindedness to me. There have been issues in my heart this year which have wavered above and below the 50% mark on my scale of certainty. When I'm 51% sure that I have something figured-out, then that doesn't swing it for me. Partly because I'm still 49% unsure, but also because next week those figures might well have switched places.

It's important to maintain some uncertainty, otherwise what room is there for one's understanding to grow?

With that in mind then, here are a few of the uncertain questions that have emerged about the Bible for me this year. Again, you'll notice that I've used the phrase "uncertain questions" rather than "definite conclusions". Everything below this line falls within the context of this paragraph, which is here to make it clear that these are questions.


The Bible is a tough read, but the toughest part must surely be trying to separate the book from the millennia of opinions that now precede it.

Last year I was talking with a non-Christian couple. One of them said that the Old Testament had actually been written after the New Testament, and that that was how it was able to appear to foretell the events of the New Testament. The other said that the Old Testament contradicted the New Testament, because the character of God was different – wrathful in the OT but loving in the NT. Although they were both united in their rejection of it, neither guy nor gal seemed aware that they were also apparently disagreeing with each other over the reason why.

In my opinion, the Bible is basically a collection of documents regarding various different people's experiences of a being who claims to be the only God. Throughout history, men and women have reported seeing and conversing with a bright light, 'angels' and occassionally dead people. Others have claimed to have witnessed impossible events taking place, and / or claimed to know messages from God. The Bible collects together some of these accounts from throughout the millennia, together with some poetry and moral teaching.

Is the Bible written by God? There is nothing that I can currently see to suggest that it is. I think it's collaborative. God seems to like doing things together with us. I come to the book with the preconception that God guides many people's lives, often through the Bible, but without that preconception, the Bible barely makes that claim about itself, and it certainly doesn't claim to have been worded by him. Not even on the spine.

Is it true? Aside from some minor contradictions, I can't find a reason why it can't be. Sorry, double-negative, I think it is true. I choose to believe it's true, but my understanding of "truth" has expanded to allow for paraphrases, colloquial expressions, exaggerations and rounding of numbers. Just like the English language today.

I could write on this blog:

Earlier today I said "Now I am going to type-up my blog."

Nobody would take that to mean that I actually spoke those words out loud, because in fact the sentence communicates that I made the decision to do it. There are instances in the Bible when a crowd speaks, and I'm sure they didn't all chant the same words in unison, panto-style.

Similarly, when God is described as angry, it's hard not to suppose that this is the author of that bit asserting their take on events, and maybe composing words to paraphrase God's actions. What other perspective would an author have through which to understand God's drive, other than his / her own emotions?

To sum-up the God of the Old Testament as simply 'wrathful' is selective and misleading. There are instances of wrath, yes, to stop man's wrath, and make man nice again. There are instances of God being many other things as well.

By definition, God must be far more complex than we are. Unfortunately, we can only understand things that are simpler than we are. Hence, we describe God as not just simpler than he is, but simpler than we are.

Is the creation story actually true, or is it allegorical? I see no reason why it shouldn't be true, (another double-negative) it certainly makes no claim to be an allegory. If it were, we'd have to seriously consider if the rest of the Bible is allegorical, and as I understand it, many atheist historians would have problems with parts of that.

Yes, I believe the creation model, but mainly because I disbelieve the untempered, and mostly supposed, millions-of-years model. Everything changes, especially things that are alive. We're kidding ourselves if we think we can mathematically calculate events as long as 200 years ago, with no-one to corroborate if even one answer is correct. To base further calculations on unconfirmed results... well.

The creation story might well be wrong too. Jesus seemed to think the creation story was literal. (Mark 10:5-6) I swing that way too, by default, because I have fewer problems with that theory.

Do I think the Bible is infallible? What the heck does infallible mean? What a confusing word to use in this context. Who's writing these questions?

Do I think the Bible is "alive"? No. If it were, it would change.

Do I realise that it's been insidiously changed by evil monarchs and church leaders down the years?

Sorry, no. I've read it.

There are extremely minor differences between very early sources, but that's it. I consider editing and redaction to be a part of the writing process, I think all writers do. If you wanted to "control the masses" with this, I'm afraid you'd have to change so much, you'd need to give the whole thing a complete overhaul. Or begin again from scratch. In my opinion, this has so not happened.

In the Bible, the authorities, the church, and people who follow God are repeatedly portrayed as corrupt. No-one's ancestor was a good guy, no-one lived for thousands of years and no-one became a god. God's anger talks of having people eat their own children. You just wouldn't make those things up, or leave them in.

I do accept that Paul's letters are written by Paul, (just as this blog is written by me) and therefore have something of an agenda to them. In fact, I'd have to accept that every one of these books was written with an agenda. That's why we write books. That's why we speak. That's why we do everything we do. Perhaps an important question to ask is just what each individual author's agenda was? In Paul's case, he openly wrote to promote the church. And criticise it.

It was suggested to me tonight, (not by Perry) that some of the early historical books may well be by believers attempting to make some sense out of history, including seeking to understand why God had caused / allowed Israel's troubles, such as the exile. That sounds like a good theory to me. If that person was writing to make the case for God's existence, then the Bible is exactly where that book should be today.

Is it relevant to our lives today? Yes and no. Morality has changed a bit, but not much. Depending on how literal the translation is, many of the idioms are not used in modern English, and the local culture throughout sounds rather, erm, well, stupid. (sorry)

Coming to the Bible with my own set of preconceptions, I've found that it does prompt me to think rather a lot, and I honestly believe that's the point. Blindly following rules does usually remove any examination of morality. Jesus healed on the Sabbath, and tried to get those people present to think about why. (Mark 3:4-5)

Is it a good read? No, it's a drag. It has its moments, but it's really not written to be enjoyed. These are simple historical accounts, including lots of very dull lists. Some of it is census results! :) There is some poetry in there, but English is obviously not its first language.

Very little of this flows like modern fiction. Bits of it, like Job and Esther, do. That might simply mean that they were written by someone who was better at telling history in an interesting way.

The main character is God, as everyone else dies sooner or later, obviously. Don't read this looking for a human hero to root for, because they almost always let you down, just like in real life. God is the hero, but the action is firmly on the humans.

Favourite book:
It keeps changing. It used to be Job. At the moment I think it’s Ezekiel, as it always seems to make a lot of sense to me.

Least favourite book:
The Song Of Songs. If there's a book I don't believe, it's this one.

In summary, the Bible is an uphill read.

If you have the preconception that it's fiction, then that's cool, but I wouldn't recommend ploughing through it, because it just won't deliver on those expectations. It's not simple enough. You'll probably be really, really bored. I'm sorry, but there it is.

If, on the other hand, you read it with the preconception that it is true, then the complexity of the real world fleshes it out enormously. Contradictions have exceptions that are not on the page.

If you just don't have an opinon whether it's true, then that's cool too.

I do encourage you to dive-in and see what you reckon though.

it's time to go NATIONWIDE

Nationwide was a BBC current affairs and light entertainment programme that ran most weeknights between 1969 and 1983.

Hold on a sec – current affairs and light entertainment?

Well, apparently it had a reputation for being quite silly. For in amongst the early evening headlines tended to be things like granny beauty-contests, a half-hour Wizard Of Oz re-enactment, and a film about a duck who could skateboard.

Oh, and songs.

Alas, I only really became aware of the show in its dying years, when it became a lot more serious. And that was the end of that.

This morning I watched the throwback documentary it's time to go NATIONWIDE, which seemed to do a pretty good job of recapping the years that I'd missed. What a tremendous show it must have been in its heyday – injecting the dry news of the day with such a sense of fun, and therefore everyday optimism.

Like most docos, there appear to be one or two interviewees with a mind to simplify things (the public hardly always ask better questions than reporters, John Stapleton) and much effort seems to be made to create some sort of story out of events behind the scenes. In that respect, the ingredients sometimes let this programme down. Mrs Thatcher's on-air altercation with Diana Gould might well have hurt her election prospects, but what this programme avoids mentioning is that she still won it. Not that huge an event really.

However the explanation given by one contributor for the show's eventual demise (after they cut-back on the fun) was one that frankly offended me. "They forgot the golden rule – that you can always dumb-down, but you can never dumb-up."

Bad news – most people's intelligence grows over time.

For all that, this is a good well-made documentary, as far as I know.

I honestly wonder how much more positive a culture we might have in the UK if weekday evenings were this chuckly again.

Today's celebrity Bible-Reader is... Mr Morden

"What do you want?"

- John 1:38b (CEV)

Today's celebrity Bible-reader is... Elvis Aaron Presley

"Don't be cruel"

- Matthew 18:10a (CEV)

Today's celebrity Bible-reader is... Des Lynam

You have worn out the LORD with your words. And yet, you ask, "How did we do that?"

- Malachi 2:17a (CEV)

Today's celebrity Bible-Reader is... Churchill

Oh Yes!

- Nehemiah 8:6b (Message)

Oh, no.

- Isaiah 27:7b (Message)

Auckland Is The New London

From the NZHerald's website:

Today's celebrity Bible-reader is... BBC-2

So what is coming next? Anybody want to venture a try?

- Isaiah 44:7b (Message)

Today's celebrity Bible-Reader is... Arthur Philip Dent

Ray Bradbury's The Illustrated Man (movie)

Either I've been watching more intellectual films of late, or I'm becoming stupider.

This is another cinematic outing that I just did not understand the plot of. Carl's body is covered in tattoos, sorry, "skin illustrations", and he's out to find and exact revenge upon the mysterious woman who drew them.

Carl's temper makes him an unlikable lead character, but this does lend the film an edge of realism. We get several short stories from his past life with said woman, which seem to suggest that he married her and travelled to the future, where they had kids, he joined the army, and then they put their kids to sleep to save them from the end of the world. That's the only narrative that I can make out, but it makes little sense because they could have saved their kids by travelling back in time with them.

It might be that these were just unconnected tales that had been illustrated on his body, but I thought the reuse of the same actors, particularly the same children, implied otherwise.

The final space on his body, he says, displays the death of whoever stares at it long enough. So of course Willie stares at it, and sees Carl murdering him, although Carl doesn't look injured yet in it.

The individual chapters are absorbing, and it's a shame that more wasn't made of some of their great ideas, such as the virtual reality machine that develops such a threatening undertone. Overall though, I'm afraid I found that this required more patience than it rewarded for.

Futurama: The Time Bender Trilogy

Scripts: Ian Boothby
Pencils: James Lloyd, John Delaney

Four-part time-travel trilogy featuring the cast of everyone's favourite sci-fi TV cartoon called Futurama.

Alas, while I enjoyed this, I found it thinner on material than their other comic-strip time-warp Doctor What, but a fun ride for all that.

And you have to admire Cubert's reaction the yarn's resolution on the final page:

"I've made a list of all the ways that makes no sense!"

Available here.

The Sarah Jane Adventures: Secrets Of The Stars

Very much a story of two halves.

Part One has all the ingredients of a great. There's a showman in town using astrology to perform mind-reading tricks on the general public. Our heroes go along and wisely debunk the whole thing...

... for as long as they can anyway...

Once they realise that they're out of their depth, their critical thinking turns philosophical. It becomes a fight to outwit their preobserved destiny, along with the realisation that the Ancient Lights have existed since the universe before this one, and hence don't conform to this universe's scientific laws.

The cliffhanger ending to episode one, which has Mr Smith calmly concluding that "Nothing is happening" because the events are inconsistent with science is terrific, thought-provoking stuff.

But the other half of that cliffhanger is... can you guess? Yes, the evil Trueman has turned Clyde into a zombie.


After such a stunning opening, part two barely matches-up. Having used-up the story's climax as the cliffhanger to part one, part two just has nowhere left to go except straight to the story's conclusion. Hence, it's very slow and drawn-out, with much of it spent standing-around doing nothing, most awkwardly by the series' heroine Sarah.


In fact, with almost everyone on Earth getting getting zombified yet again, the writers (the prolific Gareth Roberts doesn't appear to have written this alone) seem unsure of how to treat Sarah's possession, and so shy away from the final starsign of Earth's population getting taken over too.

That's actually a bit of a shame. While I think it was unwise to have as much as eleven-twelfths of the Earth getting taken-over, I also think that if the show is resigned to going that far anyway, then they might as well have just gone the whole hog and made it twelve-twelfths. As Luke saved the day by being the only person on Earth without a birthday, (not counting all the other aliens) it might have been a trigger worth pulling to make him and Trueman the only two people left in the world with their own free will. It certainly would have meant that a bit more happened in part two.

There are two back-references worth highlighting here:

1. Despite the implications about it in School Reunion, Sarah's relationship with the Doctor gets thankfully restored to its previous innocence. Trueman says to her:

“Some years ago you travelled far and wide and, oh, the things you have seen. And there was a man, a very special man…it wasn’t a romance…it was something much more than that. He taught you so much. There was laughter, and adventure, and you prayed your time with him would never, never end. A man with no name, a scientist? No, a doctor, the Doctor.”

(I think he meant to say "Yes, a doctor")

2. Probably referring to some previous story, Sarah actually delivers the line: "Believe me - I know what it's like to be taken over." Yes Sarah, and so does just about everyone else on Earth, even before this story. Quite probably including some of the kids you're talking to. Remember The Christmas Invasion, when an entire third of Earth's population got 'done'?

Waikaremoana Jones And The Last Crusade For The Lost Holy MacGuffin, Chapter Three

The original script to episode three, performed twice at Cession Church today. The subtext this time was to relate covenants to "Each other as Partners in the gospel".

Chapter 1 here.
Chapter 2 here.


MUSIC.

ANNOUNCER. Thrills! Excitement! Adventure! Another exciting archaeological escapade with Waikaremoana Jones! This week: Waikaremoana Jones And The Last Crusade For The Lost Holy MacGuffin! Part Three!

Last week, as you recall, following the instructions of an ancient scroll, the intrepid Waikaremoana Jones and the evil Nazi Crystal were confronting each other in a crypt in Cairo, where they were each on the brink of finally discovering the lost holy MacGuffin of power...

MUSIC FADES. JONES AND CRYSTAL STAND AS AT THE END OF EPISODE TWO, WITH CRYSTAL POINTING HER SWORD AT JONES.

JONES. (READING SCROLL THOUGHTFULLY) "You MUST obey the instructions in this letter. Work WITH this letter, for the good of the world, and the people around you." But in this instance, maybe in order to serve the good of one of the people around me, I have to sacrifice the good of the world? Hmm, that doesn't sit well with me, but what the heck – the opposite way didn't exactly work out. (TO CRYSTAL) Crystal! I'm going to help you!

CRYSTAL. (STUNNED) What???

JONES. Well, if there's one thing I learnt from the end of the first episode, it's that I mustn't be passive. But if there's one thing I learnt from the end of the second episode, it's that I mustn't be active. Therefore, to be faithful to this ancient scroll's promise, I must be neither passive, nor active. I can't think of a way of doing neither, but I can think of a way of doing both. So, long story short, I'm going to have to help you defeat me. That way I'll be both passive and active. Go on – run me through.

CRYSTAL. You're... not going to fight?

JONES. No. There's the box containing the lost holy MacGuffin. Go on – kill me and take it. Rule the world. Enslave it. I encourage you. Oh, stop wasting time, look, give me the sword.

CRYSTAL. No!

HE TAKES THE SWORD OFF HER AND TRIES TO STAB HIMSELF WITH IT, WITH ONLY CRYSTAL STOPPING HIM.

CRYSTAL. You are not committing suicide on my watch! It's new and it's digital!

SHE GETS THE SWORD BACK OFF HIM.

CRYSTAL. You will stay alive long enough to witness my victory! (SHE GETS THE BOX CONTAINING THE LOST HOLY MACGUFFIN) Behold, Waikaremoana Jones! I hold ze box containing ze key to all power in my hands. How does it feel to realise you have failed? Do you not tremble with fear at the knowledge that I am superior?

JONES. You've forgotten something.

CRYSTAL. What?

JONES HANDS HER HIS GUN.

CRYSTAL. Oh, you're determined to make this no fun at all. But anyway – Behold: The lost Holy MacGuffin!

SHE OPENS THE BOX, AND LOOKS INSIDE IN HORROR. THEN SHE SLOWLY LOOKS AT JONES. JONES SLOWLY GETS UP AND WALKS OVER TO LOOK IN THE BOX TOO. HE LOOKS CONFUSED. HE PRODUCES THE SCROLL AND RE-EXAMINES WHAT IT SAYS.

JONES. Ohhh, I guess I must have mistranslated the ancient prophesy. I thought it said that we were to go on a quest for the lost holy MacGuffin. The very MacGuffin used by Jesus of Nazareth himself. I suppose I didn't notice this smudge here. It seems that we’ve actually been on an international feature-length quest for the lost...

HE GETS IT OUT FROM THE BOX.

... mouldy McMuffin.

THE BOX CONTAINS A MOULDY MCMUFFIN FROM MCDONALD'S. JONES AND CRYSTAL LOOK AT EACH OTHER. THEN THEY BOTH LAUGH AND FREEZE, LIKE AT THE END OF POLICE SQUAD. MUSIC.

ANNOUNCER. And so once again the world has been saved from the forces of evil by the plucky adventures of Doctor Waikaremoana Jones! See you next time, special archaeologists!

Cession In Progress

The first time I ever set foot in a NZ church was five years ago this week, on Sunday 7th March 2004.

Having spent the weekend at a beachhouse in Omokoroa, we'd rushed back home and then charged-up State Highway 1 to spend a few days in Auckland, trying to arrive in time for the service at CLC.

Well, we didn't, we missed it. It had been a special baptism service anyway.

Subsequent attempts to experience a 'regular' service at CLCA tended to involve arriving late too, and blessed me with accidentally attending their Christmas pantomime, and a service featuring a visiting speaker who was selling the prosperity gospel. I still haven't made it to a full-length 'regular' service there.

But back on that first night at a New Zealand church though, as I wandered around the dispersing crowd inside, I felt quite warm and at home. I liked this church. I knew I could become a part of things here. However despite friends there, that future would not actually come to pass.

What I didn't know though was that across town, presumably at around that same moment that evening, (correct me if I'm wrong) another crowd of people were also milling around after their very first church service in New Zealand. Perhaps I should rephrase that - it was their brand new church's first ever service.

Over the coming five years, it was instead many of them who would become my trusted friends, and thinking back to that evening now makes me automatically wonder why on Earth we hadn't attended that church that night instead. If I could go back in time to that night, we sure would.

Well, because I hadn't met them all at that point, obviously. But it still feels odd to know my geographical location in relation to where my friends-to-be all were on that pivotal night, (we passed within four miles!) especially since my intention to regularly attend a church in NZ matched so well the one they were simultaneously launching.

Apparently it also matched the intentions of the person who'd brought me along that night.

Later that month she told me: "I have been praying that you will find a church you can attend regularly and one that you can really meet with God in - where you feel challenged but at peace also. One where you will feel part of the body of Christ and where you will meet people you can trust, relate to and be motivated and encouraged by."

Within about a week I had heard of a DJ called Frank, and by the end of that year I had not only been introduced to him, but been invited and driven along by him and his wife to my first service there. Divine plan unfolding?

The church was called Cession | Community, and I'm recounting these events here because tonight they celebrated their fifth anniversary.

Yep, like I said above, it's now been five years since that first night when I didn't go there.

Tonight, photos from the last (first?) five years had been invited from members, presumably for use in the service, but I didn't know how. Having taken many pics over the years, I selected eleven and emailed them in, wary of sending a deluge and clogging-up the office's Inbox. As I'd suspected, they got included in a rotation of images on the screen at the front during the service.

Anyway, by way of my own tribute, I've collected them together below too, along with some other images that I would have liked to have also included. (a few off DVD – thanks camerapeople!) They give my inevitably personal perspective on Cession's formative half-decade (obviously I've predominantly photographed the things that I did there) and every one of them is a happy memory. I don't have any unhappy memories of Cession.

I have, just for once, omitted the picture of Brett looking like a drug baron. Here we go:


Christmas Day 2004: Frank and Melva, several hours after introducing me to Cession's midnight Christmas service.


In May 2005, by invitation, I moved-in with friends I'd met through the Korean Salvation Army church that I had been attending in the City. As it turned-out, they lived so close to Botany Down Secondary School (where Cession's services were held in those days) that I didn't even have to cross any roads to get there. I dropped in to say hi, and left wondering why the comedic sacriledge in the service's comedy-skit was never debunked afterwards. It was a real culture-shock to try to get it through my head that nobody in the audience needed to have something so obvious explained to them.


Here's Dave, in his alter ego as Random Dave. No, wait, that's his real persona. Random Dave would use illogic logic tell people things they didn't believe. It was part of a series called "Up-Side Down Religion". As was the first item they invited me to do in a service...


Yes, give the bible-reading in Klingon. The YouTube clip has now had over 4,000 viewings, including one by the guy who translated it!


Party-poppers were distributed for use during the 1812 overture, as part of a service on joy.


Demonstrating her Guatemalan mission-work, Tina offered to take everyone's blood-pressure one week. Reuben looks brave.


The super-organised Kristen, masterminding Kids' Encounter. She asked me to help out one week. Three-quarters of a year in advance. And, come October, I did!


Most of these prints aren't mine. (officer)


Katie at Kids' Encounter. (on right)


Not actually a photo, but the conclusion to a list of ice-breaker anagrams we revealed over five weeks.


Referring back to the service on joy from five months earlier, Brett again handed-out party-poppers and incorporated my photo into the service as a flashback!


Ministry Of Works - a series of four sketches (with Tyrone and Jacob) recapping each preceding week's lesson on faith in the workplace.


Myself and serious Dave performing 1 Peter 1:13 – 2:3 as a conversation for the Wholly Holy series.


Whoops how did that get in here?


Jacob and Jon bust Rhett for driving under the influence of Tab. How else are you going to breach a subject like alcohol addiction?


Grown men saying goodbye. There are probably other churches in the world where they send-off a member to pastorate training by publicly giving them undies that match their jacket, but I haven't come across them. I think Rhett is crying.


"Welcome kids,
It's Christmas Town,
I'm an elf,
Not a scary clown..."


Planning the services' creative content: Melissa, Brett, Steve, Greg and Dave.


Dave (the not-so-random one) and Rebecca in the third Conspiracy Busters sketch. People only ever wear lab-coats in sketches.


Are you my mummy? This is the last sketch I have appeared in so far. Because I ripped my trousers in front of the entire church.


Kate, Paul, and the multi-talented Megan. This is my most recent photo of Cession.