Romola on Pussy Riot.

Feminism Future Doctor Who, Romola Garai writes in The Guardian about Maria Alyokhina's hunger strike and its implications:

"... they embody a real feminist anger and uncompromisingly scornful attitude to the patriarchal values that women have been taught to accept as the status quo. They reject the pantomime of equality in which we are expected to perform. Women in the public eye who can genuinely be called nonconformist are vital for expanding the horizons of other women. It was figures such as the musicians Kim Gordon and PJ Harvey who taught me, when I was 14, what a truly independent spirit looked like. When I see what my daughter will be told a "strong woman" looks like, I see women in their underwear sucking in their tummies with a look of terror on their faces. This isn't what I want for her and I celebrate the obvious, unadulterated "fuck you" that lies behind Pussy Riot's eyes."

It's all kicking off. Possibly. (updated!)

TV A couple of days ago, Ian Levine, fan, sent out this tweet:

I just heard this rumour - Start date last week in Aug 2014 12 eps. New Doctor. BBC Worldwide email ACCIDENTALLY sent out today to employees
— Ian Levine (@IanLevine) May 30, 2013

This afternoon he sent out this tweet:

Oh dear.I'm told the BBC are not happy with me.Apparently my name is discussed on internal memos because I leaked the secret news I got told
— Ian Levine (@IanLevine) June 1, 2013

Which was fine.  There's a lot drama around some fans twitter feeds and there's a fun element about watching which rumours gain traction and which wither. Then tonight, before watching episode four of Terror of the Autons in observance of Saturday night, then The Last Starfighter for the first time in twenty-five years (Wil Wheaton's in it!) I noticed a version of this story on Bleeding Cool.

Two hours of watching Earth being saved later, and it's all kicking off my first inkling of which was:

Dr Who fans won't have to wait till midnight. BBC Worldwide will email the press release to 557 random people in Stockport at 9.30pm.
— Gary Gillatt (@Gary_Gillatt) June 1, 2013

Followed by this story at Starburst indicating that the BBC will indeed be releasing one of the midnight press releases, which again is simply momentum for something possibly happening. Then:

My ugly face will be on @bbcbreakfast tomorrow - sometime after 6:30, I believe. I tell you this so you can make sure you don't see it.
— Tom Spilsbury (@TomSpilsbury) June 1, 2013

By then Matt Smith. It's been fun.

What will we find out at midnight (or in about half an hour given how leaky this thing has been already)? Probably the contents of Ian Levine's initial tweet.  I'm actually fine with it being just the twelve it means they're all in a row, because the split seasons have sapped all momentum out of the series, and the budget can be spread better across them.

In theory we shouldn't also have an announcement for the casting of the new Doctor, but again given the hole in the BBC's information bucket at the moment, if they're already cast, it'd be strange for us not to find out now rather than in the papers on Monday. Plus without it, those same papers and everyone else will be discussing who's going to be taking over for the next however many months overshadowing Matt's own final lap, just as it somewhat did when David Tennant was leaving.

Who do I want as the new Doctor?

Apart from the usual someone good, and we've been lucky so far, I genuinely think it's time for a female Doctor. I appreciate the arguments about "well, this is a male role..." and "it's tradition" and all of that nonsense, but if you really want to give the show a kick and take it into potential narrative areas otherwise uninvestigated then, yes a female Doctor.

My first choice Romola Garai is unlikely, even if The Hour's just been cancelled. It's a big commitment and at this point she doesn't seem like she wants to be tied down to a role like this for three years with all the other merchandising business and whatnot.

Other than that. No idea.  Morven Christie, maybe?  Laura Fraser?  Gina Bellman now that Leverage is over and she's worked with Steven Moffat before several times?

It'd be the same for male casting. No one at this point really presents themselves other the like of Lawrence Fox, Paterson Joseph and everyone who was "in the frame" (and I really hate that phrase) last time.

Unless they do offer something timey-whimey and we see the return of a past Doctor like Paul McGann. Or John Hurt's actually going to take over the role at the end of the 50th somehow though given the insurance issues and his health that doesn't seem likely either, though the return of a grandfatherly figure would be another good twist with Jenna-Louise given a much stronger narrative role.

Perhaps it'll be another Matt Smith. Someone the general populace will look at and wonder "Who?"

We'll find out in about two hours anyway. Or not.

Updated!  About ten minutes after I clicked post, the BBC have put out a press release.  Early.  As expected.   Matt's written us a letter:

"Doctor Who has been the most brilliant experience for me as an actor and a bloke, and that largely is down to the cast, crew and fans of the show. I'm incredibly grateful to all the cast and crew who work tirelessly every day, to realise all the elements of the show and deliver Doctor Who to the audience. Many of them have become good friends and I'm incredibly proud of what we have achieved over the last four years.

"Having Steven Moffat as show runner write such varied, funny, mind-bending and brilliant scripts has been one of the greatest and most rewarding challenges of my career. It's been a privilege and a treat to work with Steven, he's a good friend and will continue to shape a brilliant world for the Doctor.

"The fans of Doctor Who around the world are unlike any other; they dress up, shout louder, know more about the history of the show (and speculate more about the future of the show) in a way that I've never seen before, your dedication is truly remarkable. Thank you so very much for supporting my incarnation of the Time Lord, number Eleven, who I might add is not done yet, I'm back for the 50th anniversary and the Christmas special!

"It's been an honour to play this part, to follow the legacy of brilliant actors, and helm the TARDIS for a spell with 'the ginger, the nose and the impossible one'. But when ya gotta go, ya gotta go and Trenzalore calls. Thank you guys. Matt."

Sniff. As expected, because it's the BBC, the name of his replacement hasn't been included, which is fine actually because the story's still about Matt leaving rather than Romola taking over or whoever. Apart from in the Telegraph, who've already printed (because they accidentally posted the story rather than set the thing to go off at midnight as per the time on their version) (see comments below):

"Rumours of Smith's departure from the series sparked speculation over who will be his replacement when the Doctor is regenerated in a new form once more. Favourites include Homeland star Damian Lewis or that Tennant may make a return."

Yes, both of those seem likely.

I will be on @BBCBreakfast tomorrow morning from 6am to talk about Matt Smith leaving Doctor Who. My cab comes at 5am. "I don't want to go!"
— Tom Spilsbury (@TomSpilsbury) June 1, 2013

Miranda July has a new project, We Think Alone.

Art Miranda July has a new project, We Think Alone. The text on the sign up website probably says everything important, so here it is again:

We Think Alone
A project by Miranda July

For On the Tip of My Tongue

Magasin 3 Stockholm Konsthall

20 e-mails over
20 weeks from the
Sent mail folders of:

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar
Lena Dunham
Kirsten Dunst
Sheila Heti
Etgar Keret
Kate and Laura Mulleavy
Catherine Opie
Lee Smolin
Danh Vo

First emails arrive July 1st
First subject: AN EMAIL ABOUT MONEY

I've signed up on the strength of those names. Kirsten Dunst? Lena Dunham?  Wow.

Restoring the Coronation.

History Tomorrow, the Coronation Of Queen Elizabeth II is being shown in its entirety by BBC Parliament, exactly 60 years after its original broadcast. The colourist and restorer on the piece is Jonathan Wood, who some of you will know for his work on the added-value material on Doctor Who dvds. Here he talks about the effort of getting these old rolls ready for repeat:

"In 1953 TV technology was in its infancy and video recording had not been invented, so the only way the BBC could retain a copy of what was transmitted on that day was by filming the output - basically pointing a camera at a 405-line television monitor!

"The BBC did this using 35mm black and white film. Recording the broadcast onto film and storing it for 60 years brings its own problems, like dirt and scratches.

"These film faults were not part of what the public actually saw on the day, therefore our challenge was to restore the pictures as closely as possible to how people would have experienced them at the time."

Needless to say my PVR is all ready and waiting. Wow.

What shape is the Earth?

Science Flat?

"Flat earth theory is still around. On the internet and in small meeting rooms in Britain and the US, flat earth believers get together to challenge the "conspiracy" that the Earth is round.

"People are definitely prejudiced against flat-earthers," says John Davis, a flat earth theorist based in Tennessee, reacting to the new Microsoft commercial.

"Many use the term 'flat-earther' as a term of abuse, and with connotations that imply blind faith, ignorance or even anti-intellectualism."

[...]

"Mr Davis now believes "the Earth is flat and horizontally infinite - it stretches horizontally forever".

Werner Herzog's 'don't text and drive' public safety advert.

Robert Webb on his attempt at being a newspaper columnist.

Journalism Robert Webb on his attempt at being a newspaper columnist:

"Indeed, the only notable disaster in his career to date seems to have been an ill-starred attempt to write a column for the Daily Telegraph, where he took terrible offence at negative comments from the barmier, climate-change-denying fringes of the paper's online readership, and ended up getting fired after a year. "I wasn't particularly busy at the time, so what I should have been doing in three hours, I was taking a day and a half to do, while getting drunk. I'd sit in the garden, drinking and talking to myself, then go back upstairs, write another sentence, go, 'Oh, this isn't right.' I'd make such a meal of it. If I'd been more professional, I'd have just done it and got on with my life. But because I'd turned it into this three-day psychodrama, and then the bastards hated it, that was quite hard to take." He laughs. "And now they're the official opposition in most councils, it seems."

This is the column, which has a comments section that makes The Guardian's look temperate. Here's the key quote from the piece, which is actually really, really good:

"Let me have a go at understanding these people: wish me luck. I suppose that if you really think climate change is a sham; if you really think it's possible for a global scientific community to get together to fabricate a mountainous embarrassment of evidence in support of a particular theory and that, furthermore, they are able to hoodwink successfully – or even secretly conspire with – hundreds of governments and political parties, who are wildly opposed on everything else, so that there is a consensus that something should be done, then I suppose you're going to be quite annoyed when, as a result of this mammoth fraud, someone asks you to turn the central heating down."

To an extent I wonder if the reason Webb's columns are so good is because their source was a "three day psychodrama". So many of them usually look like they have been thrown together in a few minutes and probably demand about as much attention.

WHO 50: 1990: Search Out Space.

TV Even with my everything is canon attitude to Doctor Who, which is quite willing to accept the Doctor Who Quiz Book of Dinosaurs as a perfectly reasonable example of one of those interregnum stories which are just about sight seeing, has difficulty dealing with Search Out Space.

Almost the last vestige of broadcast Doctor Who before Dimensions in Time came along and destroyed all hope for at least a year, Search Out Space is an episode of the school science programme, Search Out Science in which for some unknown reason the Doctor presents an intergalactic gameshow with Ace and some hitherto unseen companion called Cedric as contestants. The Doctor offers his posers to camera while floating in a platform in a void and each of the questions is given a going over with his friends utilising props and stock footage.

It's available to watch in the special features of the Survival dvd.

Packed with information, K9 and a redesigned TARDIS interior (if you like) it’s nevertheless unfortunate that this was Doctor Who’s sole representative on television in 1990, and curiously so since if the show’s stock was so low, and apparently so little watched by a non-fan audience it’s bonkers that the education department thought this lot would be the perfect way to impart that information.

A similar device was employed a couple of decades earlier in Exploration Earth, in which the Fourth Doctor and Sarah explored the processes which formed the formation of the Earth. That had the distinction of being Doctor Who’s first radio drama, and actually being a real drama.

This, well this, well, in truth this is a bit sad. Both Sylv and Sophie are doing their best with the script, but it’s a presenting job, more akin to Corners, neither of them really allowed to bring much of their actual characters into it.

Which wouldn’t be as much of a problem during the run of the series perhaps but I can imagine what it must have been like for fans turning in whenever this was broadcast, desperate for whatever they can of the show only to be faced with what is just a schools programme.

Two sets of people entirely passionate about Doctor Who investing all they can emotionally into something which may well its last gasp. No wonder it can’t bare the responsibility.

There are some good elements. The special effects, provided by Mat Irvine are some of the best Doctor Who’s seen up until that point notably K9 floating in space, an image which would be repeated later in The Sarah Jane Adventures. Plus Leeson’s performance is pitch perfect, especially considering the length of time which had passed since he’d last played the role.

Nevertheless, oh dear, oh dear and oh dear. As you can see I’m slightly techy about it, and I didn’t even discover its existence until Mike Tucker and Robert Perry wrote a prequel, Storm in a Tikka, for the Short Trips and Side Steps anthology.

Now, what about Attack of the Graske? Does that count?

How to follow Facebook pages via RSS and email.

Web I don't think I've posted about this before but if I have, my apologies. But it is insanely useful and I am tweaking it slightly, so I think it's worth repeating.

It's still possible to subscribe to Facebook pages via RSS.

This website has a tutorial. It works.

Facebook didn't remove the functionality, which used to be available via the usual channels on pages and in the URL box on most browsers. They simply hid it. Now you can get it back.

Ultimately a lot of Facebook pages are still filled with a certain amount of noise and repetition because they're desperate to be seen in a person's feedpageriverthingywhateveritscallednowdoodah. Wall?

My workaround is to turn the RSS feed into emails.

Having found the working RSS feed, I feed it into Blogtrottr and ask it to email me a daily digest which includes a glanceable index at the top.

Incidentally, Twitter also still has RSS feeds available.  So does YouTube.  Installing Google's own RSS Subscription Extension in Chrome reveals them as a link at the top of the page.  As with Facebook, I have daily emails sent via Blogtrottr when videos are uploaded to the YouTube channels which is really useful when those channels upload only rarely.

Losing Rachel McAdams.

TV The AV Club as an interview with Susan Coyne, Bob Martin and Mark McKinney, the creators of Slings & Arrows whose first season co-starred Rachel McAdams as an inengue:

AVC: Did you have other plans for the character of Kate that then had to be cut short because of Rachel McAdams’ success elsewhere?

MM: That’s one of the sad things. We talked for a long, long time about what it’s like to come into the arts as a young person, and we were going to lay it all out. I can’t even remember now, where we wanted to…

BM: Basically she becomes Ellen in a sense, right? Except she doesn’t become Ellen. But she has that same arc, so we sort of see it happen. And then we lost Rachel. [Laughs.] To success. She was fabulous to work with, obviously. But then when she had… It was Mean Girls that, I guess, gave her the three-picture deal.

MM: No, it was The Notebook, wasn’t it?

BM: No, I mean Mean Girls was released, and that sort of made her career.

SC: I remember talking about it when we were doing publicity.

BM: We literally could only get her for a couple days of season two, so we just had to change completely the young-people storyline. It became a challenge to come up with one each season. It was always supposed to be about Kate.

I really should return to the series. I adored the first series, but availability in the UK, it's still not been released on R2 despite the presence of Rachel McAdams, has made it difficult. Oh well.

Making Slings & Arrows.

The AV Club as an interview with Susan Coyne, Bob Martin and Mark McKinney, the creators of Slings & Arrows whose first season was about a production of Hamlet:

AVC: Where did the Oliver [Stephen Ouimette’s character] come from? It’s rather unusual to have a ghost as a regular character.

BM: Well, not if the main thrust of your first season is a production of Hamlet.

MM: It was from talking about Hamlet, but a lot of Susan’s best ideas for the series she says and then goes, “Oh no, no, no. Too much, too much.” She came up with the ghost idea, which brought together about eleventy-hundred different things, in a really great way.

[Susan laughs.]

BM: The beauty of it, too, is that it wasn’t specifically a ghost. It’s really interesting to be having this discussion after you were discussing episode four [of season three] and seeing everyone wondering whether he was a ghost or just a manifestation of Geoffrey’s madness. He was always meant to be ambiguous. And remember when we had that conversation about should we have Bill Hutt see him, should we have Charles see Oliver, and how exciting that was?

My old review of Slings & Arrows is here. I really should return to it at some point.

"You horrible, horrible person."

Life I nearly lost my temper today. In public. With a complete stranger.

I was at a local discount emporium buying some discount things.

The person behind me in the queue was talking loudly into a mobile phone.  Glancing surreptitiously over I thought, they're not going to stop talking on that mobile phone when she reaches the checkout. That conversation is going to continue right through the transaction, the shop assistant trying her best to offer excellent customer service while the person she's serving is ignoring her existence, unless she makes a mistake because she's distracted by this person the mobile phone having a conversation. She'll probably even pack the customer's bag for them and thank them for their custom even though they've been dehumanised to the point that they might as well be replaced with a self-service machine.  Except not because they need the job.

This disappointed me, or rather I was disappointed with myself because I'd made this assumption about a fellow human. That my expectations of my own species are now so low, I just assume this pattern of behaviour from us.

 Perhaps, when this person has noticed they're next, they will offer to call their contact back or end the call altogether if it's not especially important. What I'd do in fact, though it's rare I'd end up in a queue to begin with when in the middle of a phone call.

The shop assistant served me. The conversation behind me continued. I paid. I smiled and paused briefly. I wanted so desperately to wait, to see what would happen, to tell this stranger as they ignored the shop assistant just how rude they were being, how they were essentially treating this other person with utter contempt, but I slipped away because in the end, I'm a coward. A coward any day.

As I walked out of the shop, sure enough, fulfilling those low expectations I now have for some portions of humanity, they didn't stop talking on their mobile phone, the conversation continued right through the transaction, the shop assistant packing the person's bag, and what's more disappointing is that she had the resigned look of someone who'd been in this situation before, that this isn't an unusual situation.

How did we reach this point? How, in the space of only a few years, as the dance of respect that is a service industry transaction reached the point where customers, who probably expect some deep respect from the person and company they're requesting the service from, don't offer the same in kind? Certainly they'd be annoyed if the shop assistant decided to have a conversation in the middle of their transaction. Imagine if they were both at it. We'd be waiting even longer in queues.

Certainly it's true I've been in shops when the assistants have been having conversations and I've been ignored, which is the flipside of the situation.

Also that I shouldn't be that surprised. Mobile phone, or rather smart phones now, have become an excellent way of dividing the rude people, as in the people worth knowing, with the not.

But it feels like the breakdown of society is nearly complete when a person can't put their mobile phone away for the brief period it takes to carry out a transaction in the service industries, to treat the person they're buying stuff from with a modicum of respect.

 Yes, through your purchases, you're paying their wages, but that's no excuse for treating them so badly. You horrible, horrible person.

Which is presumably what I could have said earlier. But let's face it, what would have been the point? If they're doing it in the first place, they're not going to understand why it's quite so wrong.

cities made of song

Music Ever since 2008 I've been dying to bring you this, We Built This Starbucks On Heart and Soul by Jefferson Starbucks. If ever a piece of music was designed to make you hate a corporation it's this.

As I said back then:

"The original Starship version was my favourite song ever when I was eight years old, just as every song was my favourite song ever if it was getting enough airplay on the local radio station. Now, I’m really not so sure, but it's certainly superior to this corporate reworking created for what they called a ‘leadership conference’ and leaked onto the internet. It’s the kind of work which has the power to make you like your favourite coffee chain just a little bit less each time you hear it.

"Two weedy vocalists over a disappointing backing track pass the ethos of the company on to its employees without irony and with horrid, demoralising lyrics such as ‘So many partners / working late at night / living the ways of being / in the green apron look’, a totalitarian message, that knocks on for five whole minutes and blows the impression Starbucks wants us to have of their shops being a comfortable regular third place to be with staff that are our friends."

Essentially if you already hate Starbucks, this is just fuel for the dry-roaster.  The rest of us will just like them slightly less.  Then buy another latte.

Good Charlotte.

TV One hears so often about Doctor Who's location shoots that it's always surprising when another show pops up and makes news. Local media in Charlotte, North Carolina are positively agog at Claire Danes and Homeland filming in their town, the Charlotte Observer doubling for the Washington Post.

From the Charlotte Observer itself:

"Claire Danes rolled her head around on her neck in slow circles as cameras made last-minute adjustments, and then – just like you’d imagine it happening in Hollywood – someone called out, “Action!”

"With the precision and intensity of an Emmy Award-winning actress, Danes punched out a seemingly flawless take that lasted less than three minutes.

"After the director yelled “Cut,” a bystander turned to a camera operator and asked, “Are they gonna do it again?”

"The crew member nearly fell over laughing.

Newsobserver has many photos of Claire gesticulating and looking frustrated (as usual). Whatever could they mean?

  Meanwhile, the local NBC station speaks to the fans:

"Friends Brendan Shea and Donna MacKay were among the lucky ones. They spotted Homeland's star, Claire Danes, and immediately pulled out their cell phones to capture photos.

"I guess it’s my introduction to being a paparazzi," says Shea, an attorney who works nearby.

"We came down and saw the equipment and saw the buzz going on, decided to take a walk down the street a little, then we saw Claire Danes come out. She grabbed something at the food stand and she was being ushered around with somebody with a script," he said."

Here's the video version of that, which also has interviews with people who've never seen Homeland.  For balance.

"a range of accessories called Masai"

Commerce Brand Maasai: Why nomads might trademark their name:

"According to Light Years IP - an NGO which specialises in securing intellectual property rights in developing countries - about 80 companies around the world are currently using either the Maasai image or name.

"These include a range of accessories called Masai made for Land Rover; Masai Barefoot Technology, which makes speciality trainers; and high-end fashion house Louis Vuitton which has a Masai line, including beach towels, hats, scarves and duffle bags."

Such exoticism is of course being exploited to further the company's image, but it hadn't occurred to me that the original warriors hadn't been consulted let alone given their permission. My question is about the name. The more common commercial use is the Masai spelling whereas as the article demonstrates the tribe itself utilises Maasai. That extra 'a' will probably become pretty important when when and if this comes to court.

dimensional bridge

Radio How Stuff Works has a pretty good primer for The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy even if it utilises photos from the rubbish film throughout instead of the BBC series even when considering the BBC series. As ever, there's the odd reminder of just how awful the film is and why:

"Adams wrote the latest version of the screenplay himself, but Garth Jennings and Karey Kirkpatrick revised the script after Adams' death."

Which it seems as MJ Simpson's blistering review back in the day led to:

Hitchhiker's Guide always had a strong opening. It was beginnings that Douglas Adams was good at, middles and especially ends being a bit trickier. The dialogue between Arthur and Prosser, which was written for a sketch in a Cambridge Footlights revue in October 1973, is a terrific example of Douglas' clever way with - and love of - language:

"I eventually had to go down to the cellar to find them."
"That's the Display Department."
"With a torch."
"The lights had probably gone."
"So had the stairs."
"But you found the plans, didn't you?"
"Oh yes, they were 'on display' in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying 'Beware of the leopard.'"

Or, as the movie version has it:

"I eventually had to go down to the cellar to find them."
"But you found the plans, didn't you?"

Can you spot what has been removed from this scene, gentle reader, in order to shorten it? That's right. The jokes. The jokes have gone. The funny bits, the wit, the humour. The clever stuff that made it worth including in the first place.

More damaging for a lot of people, the film's their first introduction to Hitchhikers now and I wonder how many of them will seek out the rest? At least it has my favourite Trillian and I'd decided that before I really knew who Zooey was. So nyer.

"The Librarian of Eternity"

TV A writer with username Jef With One F has written for The Houston Press an alternative history of Doctor Who imagining which American actresses could have been in the role. His approach isn't simply to find alternatives that are similar to the British actors, but like Paul Magrs's Iris Wildthyme, to imagine the kinds of logical casting choices that might have been made by various producers across the years, the producers being some of the great luminaries of American sci-fi. Some it, like the "original title" of the series, above is really, really well thought through. It begins:

"Twenty years after she had become one of the masters of radio drama with Sorry, Wrong Number and The Hitch-Hiker, Lucille Fletcher was approached by Rod Serling to have some of her works adapted for his show, The Twilight Zone. During an initial meeting, the ever-prolific but inundated Serling mentioned an idea he had of a time traveler that would careen uncontrollably through space and time saving people. The premise intrigued Fletcher, who offered to explore it in writing. Serling agreed, thinking it might make a good episode."

At a certain point, I began to wish the show had actually existed because like our Who it would have been able to track the changes in production methods and audience tastes, though to an extent Star Trek is the potential substitute, though in later years it became trapped within its own modes of production.

Jef has previously done the same exercise with American actors.

Milkman.

Groceries This sounds unlikely, but once GeekWire explains their headline a bit, it does make some sense:

Amazon patents the milkman

Amazon.com this week won a broad patent on technology that lets customers schedule product deliveries to their doorsteps or mailboxes on a recurring basis, without needing to submit a new order every time. The patent filing says this approach will be particularly useful to overcome “the challenges presented by the delivery of perishable goods or other consumables.”

“For instance,” the filing explains, “a customer may request delivery of one bunch of bananas every week and two gallons of milk every two weeks.”

Even having used Subscribe & Save a bit because the bulk prices are cheaper than even Costco, it hadn't occurred to me that this is very close to the service the milkman used to offer, albeit without the enticement of the special bottle of Barr's Cream Soda (the green stuff) if I've been well behaved this week.

Pink Sky.

Links Pink: "I am a human being, therefore I am able to catch illness. It is beyond my control- and I can't apologize for that. And you know what I've been performing through the last week? ROTA virus. Look it up. I challenge any one of you to do what I do while sick with that. You couldn't do it. "

Pink house: "A newly-wed couple got back from honeymoon to find their home painted in the style of Mr Blobby - as part of a revenge prank by the groom's brother. Plasterer Russell O'Rourke, 35, spent two days on the makeover of his brother Steve's home in Hamstel Road, Southend. It was in retaliation to a joke six years ago when Russell was on honeymoon and Steve, a builder, put up a brick wall across his driveway."

Pink baseball bats: "The bats ran afoul of an edict issued by Roy Krasik, Major League Baseball’s senior director for baseball operations. According to a memorandum he sent out in April and then reiterated two weeks ago to all of the bat companies used by major league players, companies were free to produce all-pink bats for Mother’s Day but only Hillerich & Bradsby, the makers of Louisville Slugger, the most widely used bat in baseball, could display its logo on the bats."

Pink marketing: "Jane Cunningham and Philippa Roberts founded Pretty Little Head in 2007, having previously worked in advertising for DDB. Their second book, The Daring Book for Boys in Business, has just been published, and is aimed at companies who are comfortable marketing to men, but struggle to engage with female customers. We caught up with Jane to ask how they got started ..."

Perivale.

Music Rick Wakeman has a blog of sorts, a monthly ramble on his official website about this and that. Here's May:

"2013 continues to throw up surprises but certainly the first four months could be considered as the most frustrating and exasperating that I can ever recall, but having said that, there’s an awful lot waiting in the wings that really could be tremendously exciting and shape not just the rest of 2013, but many years to come. I had hoped to have been able to have made some announcements in this month’s GORR, but it looks like it will be June now, but should anything happen before then it will be announced immediately on the website."

As a bonus, here's a 1994 episode of Bygones, the panel game presented by Danny Baker in which Rick's dayglo jacket was a team captain. The other captain was Craig Ferguson's floppy hair. Funny old world: