Commiserations on the Achilles injury. I went and broke my ankle by getting the skill/speed ratio wrong whilst mountainbiking the day after Boxing day and have been similarly on my arse ever since. A great way to ruin a summer. Should be?

Prime is the home of vampires, werewolves and ghosts: season one of Being Human screens this year

Oo, promise? Cause I could do with some bandwidth back.

Life isn't as rosy for jocks as people might assume ... football captain surprisingly artistically talented ... popularity of cheerleader plummets after being kicked off the squad ...?

three apparent twenty-something characters sharing a house in Bristol, trying to live a normal social life, despite being a ghost, a werewolf and a vampire respectively

Yep normal humans doing normal things.
Now if you want normal try living in a house with a?

Am I the only person who sees massive parallels between Glee and Ryan Murphy's earlier attempt at high school satire in Popular?

Nope, not just you – definitely very similar, and the same strange mixture of outrageous, hilarious, brilliant, snarky episodes with inconsistent "lesson" episodes. Popular was such a great?

Got the first series of Big Bang Theory for Christmas. Great entertainment for these winter days.

We're just into the second season, and while I enjoy it a great deal, it definitely suffers from a few characterisation issues – notably Leonard's inconsistent people skills (+20 whenever the episode demans he?

Am I the only person who sees massive parallels between Glee and Ryan Murphy's earlier attempt at high school satire in Popular?

Freaks and Geeks, too? Interesting that parents I have talked to tend to like Glee more than their offspring (such?

When your partner (The Owner as he is sometimes called) mentioned you had blown your Achillies playing tennis, post chistmas I just felt sick for you. Been there, done that etc

The up side is you should have more time to post??

If they are a real Deaf choir why do they need to be helped to provide sound?

Easy – so blind viewers can sing along.

What kills Glee for me, apart from excessive hamminess at times, is the auto-tune over-dub. Can't sing? Don't.

It does kill the mood somewhat when Corey Monteith talks about he's just like Finn and never had any singing training and we're all thinking "Dude. That coudn't be any more painfully?

http://www.youtube.com/user/anonykai#p/u/16/9nYvWMF1boQ

Shappi Khorsandi is hilarious she starts at 4.00

Are the choir all Deaf or just actors like the kid in the wheelchair?

There's some info here about that; also, it seems that Ryan Murphy thinks he's really going into bat for the disabled community all round. Guess it's just in that glib but occasionally meaningful Glee way.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DfyosGOuED8

Not just you. Glee does suffer from tokenism quite a lot of the time; the gay guy is extremely femme and fashion-conscious, the Asian girl is quirky, the Jewish family watch Schindler's List...

Well, at least this time Ryan Murphy hired an out dyke to play the bitter and twisted?

Modern Family started well, I thought, and I managed some genuine belly laughs.

I don't see it being something I'd feel I need to watch, but it was okay.

The new episode of The Simpsons, however, just seemed to be missing humour.

Freaks and Geeks, too?

Both good, certainly, but?

The new episode of The Simpsons, however, just seemed to be missing humour.

That episode was written by the Knocked Up / Superbad / Pineapple Express / etc. team of Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg. I found it about as funny as those films (ie not very). As much as?

The big entertainment story for me so far this year is the late night war. I suspect we're both really #teamletterman, but just following it on the web has me feeling like a part of history =)

Really? It had me feeling like actual news value and insider schadenfreude at?

Well, at least this time Ryan Murphy hired an out dyke to play the bitter and twisted butch villian. It's up to you whether that's progress.

(At least she wasn't a PE teacher, I guess...)

If you want to be extremely generous you could argue it's interesting to see a?

If you want to be extremely generous you could argue it's interesting to see a lead antagonist with a more traditionally male role/lines being a woman, but you probably don't.

I do — and love Jane Lynch's angular presence (and Swiss watch comic timing) to distraction. But Murphy has this?

But Murphy has this weird track record of casting lesbians as evil twisted and bitter, man-hating bitch cheerleaders.

I'm not really familiar with his earlier work, so that's new to me – but weird is definitely the word.

I don't know what to think about this scene in Glee last week with the Deaf choir. Is it tokenistic?

Ok I'm going to reveal how simplistic I am. I loved the scene and cried both times I watched it. I appreciate that it's likely they are actors (as opposed?

Nope — as long as The Simpsons is on air, there's no room for Fox to greenlight Seth MacFarlane to pinch off another load of mean-spirited poo gags. Seriously, The Cleveland Show is painful...

Spoke too soon.

Frankly, The Simpsons has been going downhill for so long, I just can't?

I don't know what to think about this scene in Glee last week with the Deaf choir. Is it tokenistic?

I can normally accept silly cheesy emotional heart-string pulling, but even that was too much for me. Not a Glee watcher however, so maybe it fits in context better.

So, two widely unwatched men on the least watched network (which appears to be run by people who couldn't arrange the proverbial field trip to a brewery) is "history" because...?

Because ... The Tonight Show has been on the air for more than 50 years. It has a place in?

and also very heavily closeted until she got involved with Melissa Etheridge, one media dyke you can't really date from inside a glass closet.

Wait: Melissa Etheridge is gay?

leacacy

I mean 'legacy'. (6:46 am, and all).

I'm with Graeme: the Tonight Show debacle has been fascinating. But perhaps the fact that we don't get Conan or Leno rather undercuts all the drama. I've been a fan of Conan's for a decade now and I have *despised*?

NSFW due to time more than anything else.

http://www.moviesfoundonline.com/perversion_for_profit.php

We're just into the second season, and while I enjoy it a great deal, it definitely suffers from a few characterisation issues – notably Leonard's inconsistent people skills (+20 whenever the episode demans he play straight man to Sheldon, -20 whenever it doesn't)

I have the same problem with __Bones__?

It's a good read, especially if you hate Jerry Lewis. And let's face it, who doesn't?

That does it, I'm going to rent King of Comedy today.

We're just into the second season, and while I enjoy it a great deal, it definitely suffers from a few characterisation issues – notably Leonard's inconsistent people skills (+20 whenever the episode demans he play straight man to Sheldon, -20 whenever it doesn't)

They've sorted that out in the current?

Wait: Melissa Etheridge is gay?

I know! Next they'll be outing Ellen DeGeneres.

Jane Lynch talks about Glee and what makes her comedy tick.

Next they'll be outing Ellen DeGeneres.

Well duh! Lesbians don't wear dresses so it was obvious she had to be gay.

Most worrisome: after the settlement NBC still 'owns' the characters Triumph the Insult Comic Dog and the Masturbating Bear!

What about Bugatti Veyron Mouse?

To be fair, Lucy, you're not the only person who found Penny The Hot-But-Borderline-Brain-Damaged-BimBlonde the least appealing thing in BBT.

She's not the neighbour, is she? I saw only one episode of BBT, where she threw a birthday party, and she was the only one in the show that appeared?

not sure about how TV shows seem to be treating Aspergers as the new "quirky".

Concerning me a little too with Bones and Doc Martin starting again last night. One or more of the characters in Glee likely will have their tentative Aspergers played up in the future I'm sure.?

Concerning me a little too with Bones and Doc Martin starting again last night. One or more of the characters in Glee likely will have their tentative Aspergers played up in the future I'm sure.

Well, I think we've had this all out on another thread but I'm more 'concerned'?

About A Boy

Is there Aspergers-referencing in that film? I don't remember that, but I haven't seen it for a few years.

Not because I think being an Aspie is some repulsive mark of Cain, but because we really don't need another way in pop culture to turn social outsiders into pathological cases who can be explained away with lashings of pseudo-medical jargon. Do we?

Seconded.

"mannish women" were portrayed back in?

How that would fit in with the aspie angle (if at all) I don't know.

Plus it has Hugh 'well, er, gosh!' Grant in?

'only by conforming can you be truly happy'

Oh, I didn't get that feeling at all! It's not exactly Ally Sheedy's makeover in The Breakfast Club, is it?

Plus Hugh plays kind of a douche, which I think is actually his true calling (see also: Bridget Jones's Diary).

He comes across in the film as (to quote wiki) 'introverted and eccentric'. He is bullied because of it.

Hugh Grant 'help[s] Marcus to fit into the modern adolescent world by taking him shopping?

Take home message: only by conforming can you be happy.

And hence we are surrounded by happy nonconformists. Perhaps that should have been a question? Where's that irony tag when you need it?

but the best comedies on right now are Community and Parks & Recreation. If you're a torrenter and you're not watching them, you are WASTING YOUR LIFE.

But here's a public health warning: Stay away from the six episode first season of Parks and Recreation. The first three episodes are truly?

Hugh Grant 'help[s] Marcus to fit into the modern adolescent world by taking him shopping to buy shoes.' As a consequence of his newly found fashion sense, he becomes friends with the cool kids at school. All ends happily.

That's not even an accurate summation of the movie. His shoes?

It's his dorky attraction to the frightening, punk-y alternative girl and his performance with Hugh Grant that gets him ahead in life.

Perhaps this is the message all these programmes are trying to express to the 'fringe' elements who didn't make the Cheerleading team, or first fifteen, and who sat?

it's quite nice to see the stupid sexist side of nerdery get a sound thrashing every now and again.

Sure — and Barney on How I Met Your Mother is a character I can find amusing on television, but would punch in the mouth if he was a real person.?

(Yeah: I feel like this show is aimed at 30somethings, not young people.)

There was this moment in the episode where they have a random jam session, and the song they're singing made me WTF because it was old when *I* was in my early teens – ten years ago?

first heard on Glee (cough Single Ladies cough)

That was the song on the radio that made me change stations every time – until after I saw it on Glee.

first heard on Glee (cough Single Ladies cough)

Fortunately for all of humanity Sony has removed the mash up of Single Ladies with the Birdy Song over-dub from YouTube. Otherwise I'd be posting that right about ..... here >>>

the mash up of Single Ladies with the Birdy Song

Glorious! Also, .

That was the song on the radio that made me change stations every time

Birdy Song over-dub from YouTube. Otherwise I'd be posting that right about ..... here >>>

roflnui

which caused me to have to explain why I was laughing to my workmates

D'oh!

I read an essay not so long ago which was called something like "Why Women And Gays Have Ruined Sci-Fi"

Chris Trotter is branching out, then?

first heard on Glee (cough Single Ladies cough)

I had to look that up.

I couldn't stop thinking "those three women don't appear to have human hips and waists".

Phew! So my distraction from Lucy's "Why Women And Gays Have Ruined Sci-Fi" worked.

I'd just like to take a moment to disassociate myself from any implication that I approve, endorse, condone, or otherwise am willing to be placed in the same room as this work.

those three women don't appear to have human hips and waists

It's clear that Beyonce is not actually human at all:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NNvfIDbotHY

I'd just like to take a moment to disassociate myself from any implication that I approve, endorse, condone, or otherwise am willing to be placed in the same room as this work.

I think that was well understood, or at least assumed on my part. My concern was the potential?

It's clear that Beyonce is not actually human at all

Apparently there are also rules about the two sides of her top not joining together above her navel.

I can't tell which one's the pot?

Fair enough, your wayward use of the possessive just made me want to be clear on the subject.

Sorry about that. This rolling discourse is like a fast moving train sometimes.

Who's got a pendant? I didn't know about those.

not wanting to interrupt, but it's rather amusing to see a pendantic discussion on sci-fi characterisation and the rights and wrongs on various depictions of geekery as related to the real world while also confessing to having no idea about recent Beyonce singles...

Meh – 'Single Ladies' was a barn-burner,?

Crazy in Love is a great song, but really isn't a patch on the song it samples: Chi Lites Are You My Woman?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bt98AbNSDZQ

not wanting to interrupt, but it's rather amusing to see a pendantic discussion on sci-fi characterisation and the rights and wrongs on various depictions of geekery as related to the real world while also confessing to having no idea about recent Beyonce singles...

I thought I was pretty clear that?

Rich – the book is much better (and doesn't have Hugh Grant in it). The boy is written as much more autistic than portrayed in the movie.

He sure is — although still not named as such, if I recall correctly. But I think I'd have spotted it even if?

I'd have said four through nine, but it hasn't just been a slow decline. I've really like a number of episodes in seasons 19 and 20.

Yeah, I'd say that's about right. The Simpsons has started a decline since...well, somewhere in the middle of their 21 seasons, but I couldn't?

Chi Lites Are You My Woman?

Tell Me So!

I am totally down with the original song (I went on a quest for it when I read about the sample), but actually, I think 'Crazy in Love' works that horn riff pretty badassly (a word I have just coined) too.?

Frankly, The Simpsons has been going downhill for so long, I just can't wait for it to die; they are ruining their leacacy. For me, seasons four and five was the peak, and pretty much each season since (21st, now) has been a bit less great than the previous.

Coincidentally,?

Barney on How I Met Your Mother is a character I can find amusing on television, but would punch in the mouth if he was a real person. But there's a line between "stupid and sexist jerk gets his" and wondering why we haven't yet had the very episode where?

Although similarly, knowing that Charlie Sheen is in fact a real life misogynist on charges for assaulting a woman while drunk makes watching Two and a Half Men just that much more less likely, and his on-screen persona even more creepy.

And yet it has very high ratings. I'm never?

Heh! As a kind of registered freaknroguescholar, I think I better go watch the series...

Good luck with that. I've got the DVDs, but that's because I'm crazy.

And re funny TV – not quite the Daily Show but @7 on TV3 hasn't?

I quite agree with all your Simpsons opinions. For the record, I agree that series 6 thru 8-or-9 are also great.

___

Leo... really does not want to talk about Aspergers

No one wants their personality pathologised. (I realise that issues around diagnosis are far more?

And yet [ Two and a Half Men] has very high ratings. I'm never going to get that.

It's that golden 7:30 slot, I reckon.

not quite the Daily Show but @7 on TV3 hasn't been too bad for a first attempt in my IMHO.

I didn't see very much of it (never a whole episode), but their interview with Prince William had an excellent Clarke and Dawe vibe going (I happened to get it?

Let's not mention that they needed a real wheelie to perform the dance moves rather than the fake ex-boyband one. Murphy is a prize douche if he thinks that's helping.

I thought it was a shame that Glee couldn't seem to find a singer?

Opinions on Skins? Nicholson in the Guardian thinks it's clever and well done. I have no idea, because it's never appealed to me enough to watch a full episode.

I've been very impressed by it- it's not only clearly a cut above the OC/Gossip Girl school of teen melodrama?

Increasingly, I think of people being neurologically diverse, rather than a diagnostic checklist.

In an ideal world, this would be the basis for educational, victim support and health decision making,?

Lucy, what I meant was that your discussion could be taken as being about whether these televisual geeks were realistic, and how their particular world view doesn't necessarily mesh with those who don't share their areas of interest.?

I didn't see very much of it (never a whole episode), but their interview with Prince William had an excellent Clarke and Dawe vibe going (I happened to get it for Christmas):

It had highs and lows. Lows included Petra Bagust and her frozen awkwardness whenever the comedy veered near?

Anyone see last week's squash-the-junkie ep? Ouch!

Yes! Great!

Petra Bagust and her frozen awkwardness whenever the comedy veered near sex and religion

And didn't the comedians play on that after a while – along with the odd christian dig and her own unforced blurts about the state of her mariage. Who would you?

Who would you put in that hot seat instead though?

Ooh, thought of an answer: Jaquie Brown

badassly

freaknroguescholar

Ooh, thought of an answer: Jaquie Brown

There's some potential there, definitely.

I didn't see very much of it (never a whole episode), but their interview with Prince William had an excellent Clarke and Dawe vibe going (I happened to get it for Christmas):

I've caught @seven a couple of times. Didn't quite hold my attention enough.

I do however like that?

Prudishness can be cute, but when she also talk of "Indian Giving", it just looks, well I suppose it looks like what it is.

Opinions on Skins? Nicholson in the Guardian thinks it's clever and well done. I have no idea, because it's never appealed to me enough to watch a full episode.

I'm basically with Russell T. Davies, who is a big enough fan of Skins to include a positively gushing fan e-mail?

I think he makes a good point that it took him a long time to get a grip on the show because the writing and style isn't pitched at middle aged men like him (and me).

I was twenty when I first saw it and it has never appealed to?

I get why people would get pissed off about that

Yep, it's pretty much the same as breaking out the shoe nugget when there are black actors out there who have the advantage of, oh, being black already. Or getting men to don dresses a la Shakespeare and co.

It?

@seven needs to be @nine and let the humourists go for it.

That's 7 Days

Love 7 Days

I concur. When they had Rove on last year during one episode, there was one moment that had me practically crack a rib. I'm not sure how much of it is scripted, but the timing suggests very little, and they are sure quick off the mark. And?

I'm not sure how much of it is scripted, but the timing suggests very little, and they are sure quick off the mark. And the kids drawings are priceless.

A lot of it is about the editing. They film about two hours on the Thursday and edit it to 23?

Yep, it's pretty much the same as breaking out the shoe nugget when there are black actors out there who have the advantage of, oh, being black already. Or getting men to don dresses a la Shakespeare and co.

Woah... so, you're really comparing the casting of Kevin McHale to?

And just for the record, Sacha, you might want to have a think about the diss on cross-dressers there. I think Harvey Firestein (the original Broadway Edna Turnblad in Hairspray) would have a word or two to say about the charge that his casting was in any waty misogynistic.

I'm?

Also, the turtle! Holy crap! BB does tend to get people out of sticky situations with just some random luck (like Jesse and the drug?

turtle!

Tortoise! :)

Oversimplifying again, I see.

WTF, Sacha? You were the one saying the casting of Kevin McHale was (and I quote) "pretty much the same as breaking out the shoe nugget when there are black actors out there who have the advantage of, oh, being black already."

Well, perhaps you'd care?

Tortoise! :)

Did you get a pendant too? ;-)

Breaking Bad was particularly awesome last night, especially the opening song, and as I'm not clever enough to embed a YouTube clip, here's the link.

I need to get the back catalogue, cause it was pretty damn good, and the better?

I'm pretty sure Sacha was referring to the times when women were banned from appearing on stage

Thanks, Lucy. Imagine persuading people after the ban was lifted that women were capable of performing those female characters – and the problems finding many who were capable when they had not had?

Breaking Bad was particularly awesome last night, especially the opening song, and as I'm not clever enough to embed a YouTube clip, here's the link.

You could have asked me! Why don't we talk any more? All we do now is watch tennis. Are we trying to recapture the lost?

Of course that was just the?

tendon-ness

sweet

Breaking Bad was particularly awesome last night

My favourite television event for a dozen years, or at least since the Sopranos. I have had to devour the entire thing in an *coff* out-of-band fashion.

specially the opening song

Indeed. Also trying to obtain the "Breaking Bad Pirate SoundtracK", whatever that?

Barney on How I Met Your Mother

has the best lines

"you can call it a ninja star danger-jock if you want"

and going back to that Glee scene with the deaf choir – dad-dom means I'm home of a Friday now... – that did strike a very odd tone. Would they have got up and taken over with any other choir? It struck me as extremely patronising.

Am I the first?

I can't actually come up with a superior alternative

I can – let the Deaf choir sing their own song. In full.

Do a magical blend with one of the many other choirs the gleeks have sung with and yet somehow resisted the urge to "rescue". Oh and the Deaf?

Because I find that WAY more offensive.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jW2opwzQh1M

I thought it was a shame that Glee couldn't seem to find a singer in a wheelchair

Ok this is starting to bug me. I really don't understand the need for characters to be acted by actors with the same skills or lack thereof.

Temperance Brennan is NOT a scientist.?

Are you saying that the Deaf choir is somehow special and exempt from being considered in the pool of choirs for this scene?

No, Amy, I'm saying that it is the only one to my knowledge that ever has been treated this way on the show. I believe there's a?

And no I'm not saying that they shouldn't have to be be able to act or sing?

treated this way

???

I really don't understand the grief about "treatment".

It's not about "helping". (Helping how? For what?) That is a very ableist interpretation. You don't sing or play with other people to HELP them. You do it because you want to make music together.

There were two guest?

but there will be a period where extra investment is needed to get things off the ground – just as there was when other groups started being included.

Yup I really get that Sacha. But I really also think that aiming at Glee is the wrong target for two reasons.?

What I expect is that they be selected based on how well they can portray what is needed.

So you'd expect to see more women playing men and vice versa?

If you want to criticize the actor in the wheelchair for getting something wrong, that's OK. But for not really being the character he portrays?

I think someone should point out that while 'able-bodied' people can play a character in a wheelchair, the reverse doesn't apply. Given that the only?

Given that the only role that an actor in a wheelchair can play, is a character in a wheelchair, it'd be nice if they got those roles sometimes.

To change angle a little, it would be nice if roles being cast weren't assumed to be able-bodied (and probably white) unless?

Now, where are those guys with that rocket...

It's not like characters in wheelchairs get that many roles in TV or film to start with.

I've thought a lot about this kind of thing ever since I saw post-accident Christopher Reeve as the male lead in the remake of Rear Window.

Also: Marlee Matlin.

I wish I had?

I definitely think they should make a movie about Stephen Hawking while he could still do it himself.

A Brief History of Time by Errol Morris.

A Brief History of Time by Errol Morris.

Don't know where you got your quote from, because I said something completely different, as you can see ;-)

Anypoo, off to Mars I go...

then I think we could make more sense about our views on the subtext here.

but I'll have to leave that to Sasha?

I'd be interested to hear what was it about that scene that made you cry?

What made me cry was the song and the power of the deaf choir and then both choirs together. Imagine is an enormously powerful song and the delivery first by the deaf choir and then?

the other team bowled in over the top

I would absolutely have preferred it if the Deaf choir had explicitly invited the New Horizons kids to join them. I don't even think it would have been that difficult to implement in the context of the scene.

however

I get the?

I think what Amy has said is that choirs "joining in" isn't that farfetched.

Oh, just joining in with someone else's performance apropos of nothing is totally far-fetched (and obviously rude, in the real world in which we aren't all dressing up in our Grease catsuits, kicking the winning field?

Oh, just joining in with someone else's performance apropos of nothing is totally far-fetched

As opposed to the near-documentary depiction of a high school glee club barely back from the dead turning out numbers of a slickness that wouldn't disgrace a Las Vegas lounge act overnight? Next you'll be asking?

Next you'll be asking me to buy Liza Minnelli

I really read that as if you were intending to buy Liza Minnelli... were you planning to put her on trademe?

And are you suggesting Glee isn't the way US high schools really are??

Seriously though I once wandered through fraternity?

And are you suggesting Glee isn't the way US high schools really are??

I guess I am. :) But what do I know, the Ohio public school system might well resource their glee clubs like Vegas nightclubs. Stranger things have happened.

I really read that as if you were intending?

Personally I missed the original Jo, who didn't go blind because she was blind drunk after a party and sleeping it off and was mildly famous for writing a salacious novel; she had more character.

Meh... even in the 1981 adaptation, Douglas Livingstone said he decided to drop the whole?

And also would not work, on account of how carnivorous plants are one of the most grossly inefficient ways to produce fuel ever.

But I'm sure we can all agree: carnivorous plants are awesome. How many of you know that New Zealand has around a dozen native species of carnivorous?

Don't get me wrong, I think John Wyndham's best work has endured for good reasons. But they also have elements that have dated very badly indeed.

Ohhhh... The Trouble With Lichen. Reading it now, you can see what a good book it was, but it creaks so badly with its?

Ohhhh... The Trouble With Lichen. Reading it now, you can see what a good book it was, but it creaks so badly with its age.

If I was writing the script for an adaptation, I'd have to include at least one shot of Diana Brackley toying with a nut-cracker in?

Phyllis Watson of "The Kraken Wakes"

From memory, she is also the one who 'saves the day' for her family by having the foresight to build an enormous secret bunker full of food, thus ensuring they can comfortably ride out the rising waters of the melting icecaps apocalypse.

The 'calm,?

Goodness, yes!

There are 4 native spp. here in Big O (3 Drosera, and bladderwort): my lovely little family of Nepenthe dangle hopeful pitchers above the desk-

(As a side-bar, I'd like to proffer this note for the costume designer of the next post-apocalytic disaster show. Bureaucrats that have just survived the end of the world aren't likely to make a top priority of laying in a supply of power suits and keeping them immaculately dry-cleaned.)

But?

But if they don't, how will anyone know they're bureaucrats?

*ForeheadSmack* The chilly micro-climate created by the near proximity of a soulless, brutally pragmatic Ice Queen? :)

Oh and I still think plutonium is scary, even if Martin Campbell thinks we don't care anymore.

I wonder if Craig's still pretty optimistic?

I wonder if Craig's still pretty optimistic?

Yes. Mel Gibson is still a leaky douche-bag of a man, but a decent actor; Martin Campbell isn't exactly a fumble-fingered hack and I'm actually going to hang fire and judge the film on its own merits. State of Play is never going?

Sigh I remember the days of Gallipoli and The Bounty when Mel was sex on a stick.And especially the hawt repressed sizzling with Diane Keaton in Mrs Soffel. The?

Also, I read this in a comment of Craig R's (not here, under Graham's lovely post about Pauly Fuemana but it didn't feel appropriate to make?

Triffids? they are supposed to have THREE legs FFS not some tangled mass of Art Department foam rubber tentacles.

Snortle. Indeed. The 1981 triffids were beautiful, malevolent, vicious, giant-tropical orchid looking things. These new ones are just super-awful. When they were tottering about the place I kept hearing a voice?

The 1981 triffids were beautiful, malevolent, vicious, giant-tropical orchid looking things.

The primary design influence in the 1981 triffids was real, actual carnivorous plants – the "trumpet pitchers" of North American ( Sarracenia species, particularly S. flava and S. alata). So there's even a touch of realism there in them,?

and wondered – has somebody been watching The Middleman?

Oh yes... sadly, one of those shows that was too cool, smart and indecently geek-gasmic fun not to be strangled in its cradle.

Snortle. Indeed. The 1981 triffids were beautiful, malevolent, vicious, giant-tropical orchid looking things.

I had to go back?

intractable problem — the whole idea of lumbering, carnivorous plants is a deeply silly one.

I used to have the same problem with Daleks (how did they get up stairs?) before they learnt to fly.

I used to have the same problem with Daleks (how did they get up stairs?) before they learnt to fly.

Reduce the staircase, and the lesser lifeforms that use it, to a vast, level plain of ash and dust?

Which is a nice segue to a question for Fiona. Any?

I have a wee collection of Sarracenia also – do you know of any carnivorous plant that is other than a passive trapper?

The obvious one is the venus flytrap ( Dionea muscipula ), which is an active trapper. Insect walks across the leaf, hits the trigger hairs, and the?

...but visually they're difficult to realise without making them look like malevolent lillies with arthritis.

That's a rum lily...
and some of 'em do pad about...
or
I canna make em go any faster, Captain...

I have a wee collection of Sarracenia also – do you know of any carnivorous?

Re: Caprica – it does look tasty and stylish in a Brazil kinda way, but I can't believe we'll be dressing like the Untouchables that far in the future

WARNING: EXTREMELY BIG-ARSE SPOILER OF THE LAST SCENE OF BATTLESTAR GALACTICA AHEAD

Well, if you want to get fan-wanky about it?

WARNING: EXTREMELY BIG-ARSE SPOILER OF THE LAST SCENE OF BATTLESTAR GALACTICA AHEAD

Ha ha more like, EXTREMELY BIG-ARSE SPOILER OF FOUR ENTIRE SEASONS-WORTH OF BSG AHEAD ;)

And *active-trapper* is one that seeks prey.

And yep, as I wrote in an earlier post (tho' my apologies if it wasnt transparent) I know my Drosera from my Nepenthes-the thing about those latter wonderful plants -?

all the examples you've given are of *reactive-trappers* – i.e they're triggered. And *active-trapper* is one that seeks prey.

I was wondering if that was what you meant. In that case, I believe that some fungi do actively seek out prey – but that's probably a bit small. So no,?

I've noted that some tiny spiders have webs between one of my Sarracenia – sort of carnivorous-plant commensalists.

And as you say Jack – fun plants.