Until Kristen Stewart sprang with superhuman speed between him and the taxi, denting its metal hull but saving his life

Paul Chi and Lisa Ingrassia, "Robert Pattinson Hit by Taxicab," People Magazine (Thursday 18 June 2009)

"Have you read David Scrota?" "Uh, no... Iridology is just fine for diagnosing paranoia, thanks very much"

"... Am I crazy or does this preview make the show seem like a not-so-subtle fringe-right-wing criticism of Obama and Obama followers?..."

- David Scrota, "'V' - The Right's New Favourite TV Show, Or Inadvertent Proof of The Ubiquity of The Right's Fables?", Huffington Post (21 May 2009), URL: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-sirota/v-the-rights-new-favouri_b_206342.html­

Fondly do We recall the watching of "The Fee" in mid-1984. The bright orange jumpsuits prefigured Guantanamo Bay, whereas the big-permed girl named Robin who got pregnant to an alien was ominous in a more specific sense. For those of you who have seen "Firefly/ Serenity", Inara (minus big perm) as the new Diana - this time named Anna, so presumably there's only one of her, not two - is a spin-out.

"I come in peace," it said, adding, after a long moment of further grinding, "take me to your Lizard."

Ford Prefect, of course, had an explanation for this, as he sat with Arthur and watched the non-stop frenetic news reports on television, none of which had anything to say other than to record that the thing had done this amount of damage which was valued at that amount of billions of pounds and had killed this totally other number of people, and then say it again, because the robot was doing nothing more than standing there, swaying very slightly, and emitting short incomprehensible error messages.

"It comes from a very ancient democracy, you see."

"You mean, it comes from a world of lizards?

"No," said Ford... "nothing so simple. Nothing anything like to straightforward. On its world, the people are people. The leaders are lizards. The people hate the lizards and the lizards rule the people."

"Odd," said Arthur, "I thought you said it was a democracy."

"I did, said Ford. It is."

"So," said Arthur, hoping he wasn't sounding ridiculously obtuse, "why don't the people get rid of the lizards?"

"It honestly doesn't occur to them," said Ford. "They've all got the vote, so they all pretty much assume that the government they've voted in more or less approximates to the government they want."

"You mean they actually vote for the lizards?"

"Oh yes," said Ford with a shrug, of course.

"But," said Arthur, going for the big one again, "why?"

"Because if they didn't vote for a lizard," said Ford, "the wrong lizard might get in..."

- Douglas Adams, So Long - And Thanks For All The Fish (1984), Chapter 36.

(Fal)Staff Training Sessions

Prince Harry has been ordered by his British army bosses to enrol in an equality course after calling a fellow officer a "Paki". The 24-year-old is understood to have been formally disciplined by army chiefs for making the offensive remark and told he must realise his behaviour was unacceptable...

- "Prince Harry to attend equality course," NineMSN News (Thursday 12 February 2009)

One here pictures Hazza's tutor bowing low before him and saying "If it please Your Royal Highness, might I may be so bold as to venture to instruct your Royal Highness that the equality of all subjects - from the highest nobility down to the merest commoners -  is deeply, deeply, embedded in the laws, usages and customs of Our Sovereign Lady Your Most Majestic Grandmother's realms, lands and dominions, wheresoever situate."

Because it's not always the red shirt who gets dismembered first

Problem A: younger offspring loved the figures from Wiggles [TM] keyboard so much that ended up pulling off the top half of Greg the Yellow, leaving him a legless corpse like the android Bishop. [*]

Problem B: older offspring loved various Wall.e toys so much (Wall.e being to our TV room floor what Elvis is to a typical Beenleigh pensioner's lounge room wall) that frequent dis-assembling thereof left one with a missing head - presumably vacuumed up weeks ago (dark grey being vary hard to see on the lino), and so gone forever.

Solution: a Greg/ Wall.e cybrid (cyborg hybrid) - with a curious resemblance to a sort of robotic Mr Tumnus....

[*]     That's Lance Hendriksen's character in The Aliens (1986), not Baths.

Kylie Eleison

'Singer Kylie Minogue is so desperate to wed Spanish model Andrés Valencoso in a church she is considering converting to Catholicism. The 41-year-old singer reportedly has her heart set on a traditional church wedding and may adopt his faith in order to have the ceremony of her dreams...''

- "Kylie Minogue wants to convert to Catholicism for dream wedding", The Courier-Mail (15 June 2009)

Hmmm.... Australia's Sweetheart decides that the theological subtleties of Unam Sanctam are unimportant compared to the fact that she really, really loves her latest overseas heart-throb. I'm sure this will end well... I was going to say "At least this time there won't be any disparity of cult, if she converts", but apparently some Protestant UQ Medical Student referred to Scientology as a "cult" years ago and Tom Cruise has needed counselling for it ever since.

Nay, sai, 'twere Jack McCabe

"KUNG-FU cult hero David Carradine may have been killed by a secret society of martial arts assassins, his family's lawyer claims...."

- NEWS.com.au (8 June 2009)

Who the hey is my neighbour?

'HARE Krishnas and Baptists seem like odd neighbours but both religious groups are planning massive developments on land in the same short, pot-holed and overgrown street in Brisbane's southwest. Sundays in Seventeen Mile Rocks may never be the same again. Locals fear the imposing Hare Krishna temple, with its Indian-style architecture, three conical altars up to 15m high, restaurant, shop, and six accommodation "ashrams", will become an imposing blight on an escarpment overlooking the Rocks River Park. The escarpment has views all the way to Brisbane's CBD....'

- John McCarthy, "Hare Krishnas and Baptists may be neighours," Courier-Mail (1 June 2009)

Baptists and Hari Krishnae. One lot shave their hair short, bail you up in the street, and repeat repetitive phrases during their worship services, while the other... Anyway. Sounds like Seventeen Mile Rocks (or, as it is known to those who reject the Protestant heresy of "Sola Scriptura", Twenty-Three Mile Rocks) is nearly as theologically diverse these days as Cordelia Street.

The biggest colluder?

There's the forgivable type of price-fixing cartel. And then there's the unforgivable type.

From JJ Adams to JJ Abrams, or: "First DeForest, then Urban" is not a zoning by-law

(Warning: possible spoilers)

"Remember a movie called Forbidden Planet? It was made in 1956, long before Star Trek was ever conceived... Leslie Nielsen's JJ Adams and William Shatner's James T Kirk would be equally at home on each other's spaceships."

- David Gerrold, The World of STAR TREK (NY, Ballantine Books, 1973), pp 204-05.

Curiously, the last two films I've seen have related to Brother Gerrold's book:

Last week, Martian Child (2007) starring John Cusack, based on a fictionalized version of Gerrold's own life.

Then, this week, saw Star Trek XI and was, as the reviewers warned, blown away thereby. It's better even than First Contact, I'd say.

Only two flaws I could point to:

(a) one bi-i-i-g plot coincidence, in a scene that seemed to have been borrowed from Monsters Inc; and

(b) a problem not so much with this film on its own, as with its place in the ST canon as a whole. That is, most of the plot points in "XI" are good and make sense in this film, BUT have been used before in previous Trek films. Vengeful Ahab-like villain? Check (II, VII, X). Sinister Romulan with family issues, personal vendetta and enormous super-ship? Check (X, XI). Unstoppable alien force travels back in time? Check (VIII, XI). Heads towards Earth? Check (I, IV, VII, X). Starts huge ruckus in San Francisco Bay? Check (VI, X). And so forth.

Having said that, one can construct a similar list of similarities for, say, rebooted BSG (if you cite Trek DS9, Blade Runner and The Terminator, you've pretty much covered the field) yet that is not to deny that the re-user may come up with a much better production than the original.

Four more points of note:

*       Good to see Amanda - Spock's mother and she who is (wave arm benevolently in her general direction) Sarek's wife - wearing a head covering. As Jane Seymour proved playing Serina in the original BSG, a simple shawl/ scarf is successful in wholly nullifying a woman's sexual attraction to males.

*       The Quinto Element.

*       Sulu putting the "slash" into "Star Trek slash fiction". How weird is that?!

*       Now that Abrams has struck cinematic gold with Trek XI, he should get the go-ahead from the studio money men for his next project - Stephen King's Dark Tower, praise the Man Jesus.

Kingsryche

'Britain may allow the monarch to marry a Catholic and give female heirs an equal claim to the throne, the Government said, in what would be a reversal of discriminatory laws going back 300 years.... Prime Minister Gordon Brown and Queen Elizabeth have held talks on changing the 1701 law on succession to the throne that was drawn up at a time of widespread hostility to Roman Catholics.... The Act of Settlement bars royals from becoming king or queen if they "profess the popish religion or shall marry a papist"....'

- Reuters, "UK flags reversal of discriminatory monarch laws," ABC News (28 March 2009)

Vatican spokesperson Cardinal Aircraftcarria praised the move. "We are pleased that perfidious Albion has at last dragged itself into the 21st century", he was quoted as commenting. "Restricting the office of Head of State to a particular religion is as unacceptable as restricting it on the grounds of gender. Neither should be tolerated in the laws of any sovereign state."

"The much-married Newt Gingrich converts to Catholicism this weekend - and I'd pay a year's salary to have been a bug on the wall during his religious instruction....'

- Christopher Buckley, "The Audacity of Poping," The Daily Beast (26 March 2009)

At least that'll push the Herbert W Armstrongites off the first page of hits next time someone Googles "Catholicism + Beast".
 
Article #1 above will be good news to Catholics everywhere. It raises the intriguing possibility that, when the Airstrip One Regional Consultative Council (formerly the "UK Parliament") proscribes Love and Responsibility as "hate speech" in a couple of decades' time, the Royal Assent to the Bill could be given by a Catholic King or Queen.

On the other hand, as Article #2 shows, it also creates a risk of Noot the Grinch eventually taking the Throne at Westminster in a "King Ralph"-style comedy of errors.