Feedback is welcomed, if not demanded.

That Day Happy New Year, and welcome to 2011, and spending the next twelve months coping with a date that has just one too many syllables when you say it out loud. Yesterday marked the breaking of The Opinion Engine which I hope you all enjoyed with apologies if it was a bit threadbare towards the end and for the generally melancholic tone which at times meant it was about as friendly as being locked in a room with a projection of Tarkovsky's film Mirror for company. Just be pleased it wasn't Lars Von Trier's Antichrist. Or something by the Wayans brothers. Feedback is welcomed, if not demanded.

Christmas was as usual quiet and entertaining and quietly entertaining. Main present was a new mp3 player, though the gift that's kept on giving is a boxset of the 1960s version of the BBC's attempt to film all of Shakespeare's history plays, An Age of Kings, with Sean Connery as Hotspur, Robert Hardy as Henry V and a teenage Judi Dench as the object of his desire. Most of the costumes and sets look like they were later employed in classic Doctor Who a few years later, not to mention Julian Glover who is playing about ten different roles and would later embody Richard I on Who a few years later.

New Year was New Year with all that implies, perking up considerably later on in the evening when we realised that BBC Scotland's Hogmanay was appearing on Freeview's red button and for all the stereotypical features was a far jollier, far more authentic experience than anything the English versions of the television channels had to offer.  You can see what I mean here, and watch out for the entertaining public display of affection towards the end.  That page links to a rather good archive page of previous broadcasts, though isn't brave enough to feature the notorious Live into 85. Thank goodness for Youtube. "It make me mad, when I get sad, because I know I should be gey, I know I should be gey ..."