Fed Up Of That Annoying Monotone Sound? Yeah, I Don't Like Adrian Chiles Either...

I expect even the Amish are aware that there has recently been a small competition called 'The World Cup'. This year it was in South Africa in which the main talk of the World Cup wasn't in anyway football related. It was the new word the whole world learnt: 'Vuvuzela'. Surprisingly, no spell check recognises it as a word... Anyway, most people spent the four weeks complaining about the incredibly irritating sound caused by them and how it meant we could no longer hear the chanting (or booing) from the crowds. For the first few matches there should have been a sign at the bottom of the screen saying 'Do not adjust your sets'. The Vuvuzela, to me, made it sound as if an apocalyptic-sized swarm of angry bees had been set upon South Africa.

I will now join in the millions of English people in criticising the England Football Team. Well, what a ridiculous display that was; a whole nation setting their hopes upon a bunch of over-paid men. Every four years we chant that we will win the World Cup, just like the squad did in 1966. I'm not sure how we developed this naivety towards how rubbish we are. Everyone expected fantastic things from the foot of Wayne Rooney (apparently, he has now just been house trained). Everyone expected great things from the Italian who looked like Postman Pat, Fabio Capello. Everyone even expected us to sail through the group stage with relative ease. How wrong we were.

Every fat man sitting in a pub drinking his third glass of bitter, will claim that they could do a better than the England Team, even though he barely manages to co-ordinate his right hand holding the glass to his open mouth. Well, I feel I should join in on this national pass time. “I reckon me and my ageing family would have done a better job than the England team did against Germany. My blind Nan would obviously be in goal, with the defensive line being covered by all the old female relatives with their handbags and moaning. Midfield would consist of selected Aunts and Uncles and upfront would be my Dad and Grandad, grumbling about their aches and pains. This team, in my idiotic, uncared for, naive, and arrogant opinion, would have done better..."

However, in all honesty, competing in the World Cup was just a waste of money for us Brit's really. We drew 1-1 against the USA, a country who have no interest in our football, but only when it comes to trying to win something. Also, what a ridiculous display by Rob Green in goal; I mean, I know girls who would never let go of a ball that easily... We then drew 0-0 against Algeria and then finally, won 1-0 against Slovenia. This was just about enough for us to get through the Group Stages. However, up until this point, we had done awfully, so I vowed to not watch the game against Germany, and how right I was (even if I was the only person in England to get sunburnt during that game). It was awful as far as I can tell. We lost that 1-4, and yet, everyone made a huge fuss over Lampard's goal being disallowed. What difference would that have made? We still would have lost badly, but not by quite as many goals... How stupid can English people be when it comes to football?

I actually watched a majority of the football games, either the entire way through or at least one half. Nothing exciting really happened, apart from quite a few goals being scored (145) and even more yellow cards given (260). That's only in a space of 64 games. To bring maths into this blog for just a few seconds, that is an average of about 2 goals and 4 yellow cards in each match. Anyway, as I said, I watched a majority of the games but, and this may just only be me that thinks this, a majority of the games were not that entertaining.

The second to last match (the battle for third place between Uruguay and Germany) was possibly my favourite game of the lot. Many goals were scored and it was rather close. I don't see the point of games were teams just pass the ball around to each other. Surely the main purpose of a football match is to score as many goals as possible and stop the other team from scoring more.... This nicely brings me onto the subject of the final match between the Netherlands and Spain. That was possibly one of the most boring matches of the World Cup. Spain eventually scored just before the end of extra time, but by then everyone had stopped caring who won and just wanted the football to finish. I personally think Germany deserved the World Cup more than Spain. Oh well.

I do have one thought: Does the fact that Switzerland was the only country to beat Spain during the World Cup, mean that they are infact the better team?

The World Cup was shown on both the BBC or on ITV. Both had different ways of handling the coverage. The BBC opted for Gary Lineker (a majority of the time), with a row of various pundits such as Alan Shearer and 'Motty', professionally reviewing the match. ITV opted with Adrian Chiles being almost as ignorant as me towards Football, with a team of pundits not as well known as the BBC's. Also, both sides had a South African sat in the middle, occasionally giving their opinions which no-one understood at all. Both Lineker and Chiles would sit their nodding quietly until they thought he'd finished and turned to one of the other pundits and said 'Do you agree?' It was a pointless accessory to the coverage.

ITV also had James Cordon as a key part of their coverage. After every evening football match that ITV showed, he would do a half-hour show, in which he would talk to random celebrities who foolishly put forth their uncared for opinions, in front of a studio audience and the British public. I didn't care much for the show. He then even recorded a World Cup single with Dizzee Rascal, which was a football adaptation of Tears For Fears song - Shout. I didn't care much for the song either. Essentially, I was going to write a concluding joke about James Cordon for this paragraph of the blog, but all I came up with was a big fat nothing...

The worst thing about the World Cup was the adverts. Thanks to them, I was sick of the World Cup before it even started frankly. The nation full of false patriotism became even worse when American brands, such as Mars, began supporting England team on their packaging. Some companies will do absolutely anything to sell their products. Pringles even had Peter Crouch on the front while they imaginatively changed their name to 'Pringooooals'.

Almost every advert included some form of mention of the World Cup. The Nike advert was possibly one of the worse, with them paying numerous footballers lots of money for them to appear in their television advert. Wayne Rooney in a caravan with a beard (however, an attractive prospect) and Ronaldo in The Simpson's were just two examples of the pointless 3 minute advert wasting my time and their money.

The television companies were the best at using the World Cup for fraud. Sony spent a lot of their advertising campaign for their new 3D televisions, saying how YOU, the British public should buy THEIR 3D television in order to watch the World Cup in spectacular 3 dimensions. Carefully forgetting to point out that no coverage of the World Cup in the UK would actually be broadcast in 3D; but that is only a minor problem in their plan - right?

Anyway, feel free to correct me on any information I may have got wrong. I do actually only have limited knowledge of football. I have enough to get through life, but not enough to have a substantial conversation on the topic.

P.S. What is with Football and awarding cutlery as a prize? The World Cup... The Super Bowl...

The Regenerated Doctor: Twelve Episodes On. Part II

I feel I should say, just to clear up the confusion from the past blog; I have completely enjoyed this series of Doctor Who. It seems to have grown up a bit; with it being that slight bit darker (despite the odd cheesy bits) and I have enjoyed this series the most so far. I never really got into Ecclestone and Piper's series. Tennant and Piper seemed all a bit fake. Tennant and Agyeman never really worked. Tennant and Tate worked well, but not for a Sci-fi series; maybe a comedy drama. Smith and Gillan seem to have worked the best since it's revival in 2005. The idea of the stories have been fantastic too, and of course a lot of them ideas have come from the head of Moffat, but what my point was in the last blog, was that I did prefer the episodes that were not written by Moffat, but not in any way saying Moffat was 'shit'. I hope that is now clear.

The way I'm going to do this is a ‘short’ paragraph about each of the episodes, giving my opinion. Feel free to disagree with me - they are only my OPINIONS.

Health Warning: Make sure you rest your eyes regularly as this is a long blog. Sorry.

Episode One: The Eleventh Hour.

As opening episodes go, it was actually rather good. Infact, I may go as far as to say 'fantastic'. As an episode on its own, it worked very well, and Moffat done a very good job at writing it and introducing the new Doctor and new characters. In terms of setting up for the rest of the series and the series finale, it was great; without us even knowing, we are told of all this information which helps us as the audience piece together throughout the episodes. Great skill in my opinion. Also, casting Karen Gillan's cousin to play the young Amy Pond was actually quite a good idea, and we are introduced to her, so we recognise her character in later episodes. It is a real introduction into what we can expect.

Episode Two: The Beast Below.

In terms of it being the first episode with Matt Smith and Karen Gillan being away from Earth and fighting something unknown, it wasn't great and a bit disappointing. This episode too was written by Moffat. Again, I cannot quite fathom what it is about it I do not like. I personally think the idea was not big enough to be Amy Pond's first adventure. It was a great idea and quite thought-provoking about how us as human's think we're superior. It was good for us learning about Amy's character, but the idea just was not big enough.

Episode Three: Victory Of The Daleks.

Well, it was a waste of an episode really in terms of storyline. It was the first episode of the series not written by Moffat, and instead by Mark Gatiss. I absolutely LOVED the idea of Winston Churchill wanting to use the Daleks to win the war, it was just a shame it didn't play a bigger part in the episode. I did enjoy it though, I am just being negative and cynical, but there is more of that to come. Fighter Jets being able to fly into space and attack the Dalek spaceship? I did think that was a slightly silly idea. Inventive, but silly. Also, new Doctor means new Daleks (apparently). These Daleks seem to resemble the new sleek and colourful cars we see, and if you put a Dalek and Ford KA together, they would be hard to distinguish. They may be bigger and fierce, but they have essentially been made plastic and colourful to make them more commercial, so they can be made into little toys like Thomas the Tank Engine. I did enjoy the episode however - although you wouldn't believe it by this paragraph.

Episodes Four & Five: The Time Of The Angels & Flesh And Stone.

The first two parter, and it was written by Moffat. With the return of the Weeping Angels and River Song, it was an amalgamation of four of his previous best episodes into one story. Just to prove I am not negative towards Moffat, I did nearly like these two episodes. However, the Weeping Angels are considered to be the scariest aliens of the new era of Doctor Who, with them being everyday objects which attack when people blink or cannot be seen. 'Blink' was one of the scariest episodes for children, and yet in this episode, it was not used to its full potential. However, as episodes go, it still was actually quite good, despite the first episode being ruined by a cartoon Graham Norton. Those little banners are incredibly annoying in any television show, so doing it in the final, dramatic scene of the episode is 'a travesty' and ‘Why don’t the BBC just wipe shit all over the screen during the final scene of Dr.Who next week?’ to quote Charlie Brooker.

Episode Six: The Vampires Of Venice.

Okay, I liked this episode greatly because of Rory. His introduction and development during this episode I actually really liked. However, remember this episode was not typed from the fingers of Moffat, but instead by Toby Whithouse. The introduction to the episode was pure brilliance, with The Doctor jumping out of a cake during Rory's stag do, and just fumbling around the place. It was a shame that Doctor Who has joined in with the recent hype of Vampire's, but as usual, they put a different twist on the whole idea; fish creatures from another planet coming to Earth to find women to help reproduce their species. It was a fine example of Doctor Who explaining something that was unexplained in human history.

Episode Seven: Amy's Choice.

My second favourite episode of the series, and guess what - it wasn't written by Moffat, but instead by Simon Nye, a comedian who has history in Doctor Who. 'The Dream Lord' was a great idea, and also the thought of coming from the dark impulses of The Doctor, which it was suggested as being, was pretty clever. Swapping between two life-threatening scenarios, in which they had to decide which was real. One included the TARDIS crashing into a freezing star, the other with a pregnant Amy and being chased by Old People. I actually LOVED the idea. Also, for you fact-fans reading this blog, if you recognised the voice of the Dream Lord, it was because the actor Toby Jones, does the voice for Dobby the House Elf in Harry Potter. Cool aye?

Episodes Eight & Nine: The Hungry Earth & Cold Blood.

The second of the two parters, and this one was not written by Moffat, but instead by Chris Chibnall, who is the head writer of Torchwood. I enjoyed these - actually a lot, and I was truly gripped. The Silurians returned from the original series, and these were creatures that live in the centre of Earth, that once ruled planet Earth. They are great 'aliens' and I love the idea. This too was a good example of Doctor Who reflecting a mirror to the attitudes of the Human Race and us hating any form of change. Two clever episodes, and I think they were absolutely great. Also, I rather like the idea of us sharing the Earth with creatures of similar intelligence in 1000 years... Was a shame about Rory dying, but because it had no build up, it was predictable that he was going to return.

Episode Ten: Vincent And The Doctor.

It was my favourite episode of Doctor Who - possibly ever! Helped by the fact it was written by Richard Curtis, God of the cheesy comedy writing and one of my writing 'inspirations'. Anyway, there are not many things on Television that can bring me to tears, but, and I am not ashamed to admit it, I had a tear in my eye during the final scenes with Vincent in the art gallery. I have a prejudice towards Doctor Who episodes meeting famous historical characters like Agatha Christie, Shakespeare and Charles Dickens, so I was expecting to hate this episode, so the surprise of me loving it, was brilliant. They could have taken it further with the monster, with this episode being mainly about Gough and his torment, but it really did work. The scenes with Matt Smith fighting an invisible alien were also quite good.

Episode Eleven: The Lodger.

I liked and it wasn't written by Moffat, but instead by Gareth Roberts. I did love the idea of The Doctor becoming stuck on Earth and having to interact with normal everyday day-to-day life on Earth, by moving into a flat and playing football. It was a humorous episode, but lacked the sci-fi edge; that was thrown in for the last 10 minutes of the episode. The episode bumps off the recent popularity around James Cordon, and has the classic storyline of two best friends being in love, which always makes me laugh. However, like I said, it didn't really focus on the alien and Sci-Fi element of the show until the final 10 minutes, so as a storyline for Doctor Who, was kind of weak.

The Finale: Episodes Twelve & Thirteen: The Pandorica Opens & The Big Bang.

We return to Moffat's writing, and as Moffat's writing goes, this wasn't 'alf bad. My liking of this episode can be explained by the fact he didn't write it entirely on his own however. With the first episode being set in Roman times and around Stonehenge, I really liked it. Obviously, because Moffat wrote it, River Song returned yet again, and as I predicted, so did Rory. As I said earlier, I love the episodes of Doctor Who when they give an explanation for an unexplained phenomenon, and Stonehenge is a prime example. Loved it, and I never expected the Pandorica being for him. It was a fantastic build up with lots of alien action - including the Cybermen, which happen to be my favourite Doctor Who aliens.

The second episode was also fantastic, but if I am brutally honest, and I am going to be disliked for this, but I was disappointed. I loved The Doctor flitting between two different times in the episode, and it was great recognising him later in the episode. Rory was great, as were the two Amy's and Matt Smith was really good. The faults for me were them not making a bigger thing out of 'Nile Penguins' and 'Himalayan Pharaohs', in which you probably won't be aware of unless you watched Confidential. The idea was that the stars changed reality, so penguins lived in Egypt for example. That was a great piece of the story. Also, I was disappointed with the INCREDIBLY cheesy ending of the Doctor being brought back by a memory. There are probably poor children desperately trying to remember their grandparents to bring them back thanks to that. Anyway, I disliked the cheesiness of it. Forgetting that, I thought the episode itself was brilliant, and Matt Smith's dancing made it worthwhile.

I am also, slightly disappointed by the lack of any new aliens or brand new planets. The Weeping Angels episode, which was easily filmed in a quarry and a British Spaceship in the second episode, were the only episodes not based on Earth. There were no big, impressive CGI planets and sceneries. Also, there were no new, big aliens which required imagination. Apart from changing the design of the Daleks and Silurians, there were no new, impressive aliens. An alien that is invisible for a huge majority of an episode? Well, that's imaginative.

However, I love it when Doctor Who makes everyday objects scary for children. Essentially, that has made up for the lack of big aliens and planets, by imaginatively making everyday objects scary. Kids have had Statues, Cracks in walls, Old People and even the ground to be scared of after this series. Small ideas which are great. I feel sorry for any children that go on a day trip to an old castle with their parents this summer. Old castles generally have cracks in walls, statues, Old people walking around and are surrounded by lots of ground.

Something else I haven't quite liked is the return of River Song. I find her character just too complex. Why can she not just have a normal timeline like every other character? I spend episodes trying to work out at what point in her timeline with the Doctor we are at. I just find her far too complex. What race is she? We don’t know, and in my head, the fact that she is a time traveller, makes me wonder if she too is a Time Lord... I just don't know, and I don't like not knowing. I do not doubt her returning in the next series, because there are many questions still unanswered, for example: Does she marry the Doctor? Does she kill the Doctor?

My problem is that I don't just sit down and enjoy TV, but I am constantly ready to negatively criticise, which does annoy me, but despite all this negativity I seem to have against this series of Doctor Who and Moffat's writing, I honestly have loved this series! Matt Smith WILL shape up to be the best since Tom Baker.

As for the Christmas Special, not much has been released so far. All we know is that it includes Amy and Rory’s honeymoon, Michael Gambon and Katherine Jenkins. I assume that’s good. Anyway...

Long live Matt Smith!

P.S. If you have just read this entire blog, the next website you visit should be Vision Express to book an appointment to get your eyes checked. I am so very sorry! http://www.visionexpress.com/book-eye-test/

The Regenerated Doctor: Twelve Episodes On. Part I

The out first series with Matt Smith and Karen Gillan is now but over, and it is fair to that I have been both amazed and disappointed. I am very surprised with how good Matt Smith has been as the Doctor and I certainly think he will be remembered as one of the big iconic Doctor's in the future. Karen Gillan's Amy Pond also works brilliantly next to Matt Smith's Doctor, with their social interaction being top notch. However, I have been very disappointed with the writing, in particular with one writer, Steven Moffat.

If you cast your minds back to my blog at the beginning of the series, you will remember that I wasted an entire paragraph saying how good Steven Moffat's writing should be and how it will be brilliant and humorous. Don't get me wrong, the episodes have been brilliant and humorous, it is just as shame those episodes were the ones not written by Moffat. I have failed to put my finger on what it is I have not liked about his writing in this series. Maybe it is because he fails to take the storylines far enough. Maybe it is because he has spent too long developing on the characters persona. Maybe my expectations were just too high.

Before I completely write him off (Budom Tshh) as the lead writer of Doctor Who, I must compliment him on the series storyline. The continuous storyline of Amy Pond and the cracks in the Universe must be one of the biggest storylines seen in Doctor Who. Throughout the series there have been continuous hints and links in each episode to the finale. It has been a pretty mind-boggling storyline for people to piece together, with everyone having a guess to what is happening and only occasionally getting odd bits right. I think that is brilliant. Keeping the audience guessing, gripped and thinking by not giving answers away easily is an idea which I have loved.

Despite that, I do still stick my point of being disappointed by his episodes. He wrote some of the classics of the previous series, such as 'The Empty Children' (from the first series, set in World War II with the classic line 'Are you my mummy?'), 'Blink' (the original episode with the Weeping Angels) and 'Silence In The Library' (the original episodes with River Song). Moffat wrote 6 episodes for this series: the opening two episodes, the two episodes with the Weeping Angels and River Song (he was obviously proud of them two ideas) and then the concluding two episodes, but that was with help. The reason why his original episodes worked may be because they were very small ideas, but now he is using similar ideas on a bigger scale.

Let's not dwell on the negatives though.

Matt Smith has been a brilliant Doctor in my opinion, and I am glad I did not write him off like all the David Tennant fans did. Even the people who were positive that he wouldn't be good and it would no longer work without Tennant seem to like him. Obviously, there are the people who are totally against him and don't think him impressive, but those people are stubborn and don't realise the concept of Doctor Who. The idea of regeneration is a brilliant plot idea, which allows the program to continue successfully, long after an actor has left to pursue pastures new.

This reincarnation of The Doctor, I feel will go down in Doctor Who history as one of the greatest, just like Tom Baker, who does seem to be iconic Doctor from the old series. With Matt Smith not having the classic sex appeal that Tennant seemed to have, which is good because people watch him for the personality of the character, and not just get lost in his deep, blue eyes... Anyway, the persona of this Doctor seems somewhat mad, which is just fantastic. Eccleston had a touch of the madness, but let's not talk about him. Smith seems very 'retro' and 'vintage', to use some of my favourite buzzwords, and these mixed with the madness,  a splash of quirkiness and a sprinkling of one-liners, create the perfect mixture for what I think would make a great Doctor.

One-liners such as:

"Oh yeah, it's an inter-dimensional, multi-form from outer space. They're all terrified of wood."

"Oh. Ok? I escaped then? Brilliant. Love it when I do that!"

"You can do loads in 12 minutes. Suck a mint, buy a sledge, have a fast bath..."

"I like the bit when someone says "It's bigger on the inside!" I always look forward to that."

"Oh that's good, fantastic that is. Twenty minutes to save the world and I have a post office... And it's shut!"

"Why does no one ever listen to me, do I just have a face that nobody listens to? Again?"

"I'm The Doctor. Well, they call me The Doctor. I don't know why. I call me The Doctor too. Still don't know why..."

If I have to compliment Steven Moffat and Matt Smith on one thing; it is the creation of this brilliant persona. He is a genuine benevolent, brainy Timelord, just like Tom Baker and Patrick Troughton.

Karen Gillan playing Amy Pond; the attractive and feisty companion for the Doctor, has been met with pretty positive criticisms. Young enough for the child viewers to be able to relate with her and find her a fun character, independent enough for the feminists among the viewing public to like her and old enough for men to drool over her short (infact, very very short) skirts. Again, there are the few people who don't quite grasp the concept of Doctor Who and think she should be setting an example by wearing layers of clothing. However, for her to appeal to the audience of the time and fit a certain 'stereotype', she matches the fashion of today.

Amy Pond has a partner called Rory, who is played by a man called Arthur Darvill, and he is another great comic character, who compliments the Doctor and Amy perfectly. Now, Rory was at risk of becoming another Mickey, Rose's Boyfriend, in that he could have been a useless and whining character. He may slightly tick them boxes, but he much more. He has infact become a main and panicle character, who is rather humorous. I like him. His character wasn't developed in the first episode and I wasn't that keen on him, but as the series went on, his character begins to unravel and became rather liked by all. In the next series, I hope we see a lot more of him and that he continues to be great.

Fashion is an odd thing. With whatever Karen Gillan wears (on or off television) being criticised by the media, and making the redhead popular, she doesn't seem to have done much wrong in their eyes. Even Matt Smith has not done bad. He has made the tweed jacket somewhat of a fashion 'must-have' this year and I'm waiting to see whether the Fez hat is going to follow suit (a very slight bad pun - geddit?). Not sure the Bowtie has made it popular, despite his persistence that "Bowties are cool!"

Right, so part 1 is done: A general synopsis of the writing, actors and their characters from this series. Like a proper blogger, I have waffled on about things I don't particularly know about, but instead what I have observed and forced my opinions onto you; the innocent reader.

In part 2 of my Doctor Who blog, I plan to delve into the plotlines and episodes of series 5 of the new, revamped Doctor Who episodes.

Oh, and anything else I think of.