“Listeners, if anyone does know what Laura is talking about, please write in and let the rest of the Ood Cast know…”

Hi. How’re you doing today? Welcome to the Ood Cast Store.

Within these aging walls you’ll find whole worlds to explore. We stock everything any self-respecting Whovian may require. Why not take a look around?

Ground Floor: A review of Closing Time.

First Floor: Two goats & a penny.

Second Floor: Doctor Who Monsters vs Customer Services.

Third Floor: Perfume & Ladies’ Underwear.

Fourth Floor: Cyber Sex & the City.

Fifth Floor: The Power of LURVE.

WE’RE FREE!

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 37:05 — 34.2MB)

“… as if every single fibre of him was steeped in the blood of kittens.”

With gateaux, mockney and added Americans, the whole Ood Cast are finally back in the room together as they gently fillet and fry (with a wooden pan) Mark Gatiss’ latest episode, Night Terrors.

Enjoy a trip to a UK retail favourite, poke fun at small children, analyse the London Riots in the context of time-travel and hear us accuse politicians of being a bit rubbish.

We wouldn’t want to be in Westminster right now. We bet they’re quaking in their boots.

If all that sounds a bit full-on then fear not, we also talk a lot about Doctor Who, between songs of revolution and early 90s bubblegum techno-pop.

Something’s in the wardrobe – and it’s not Mr Tumnus.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 35:38 — 32.9MB)

“It’s a little, tiny gypsy. I imprisoned him in my nose.”

Ood cast, ood cast, uber alles…

The Oods are back with a vengeance – spluttering slowly to our recording booth and pulling together another slice of silliness and sycophancy for your delectation.

Sadly missing Chris Alpha for the inaugral episood of Season 4, we’ve roped in a colleague from across the pond to add some salt to the rim of our margherita of joy – Erik from the Dr Who Book Club.

So come on – let’s kiss Hitler.

Kill.

We meant kill.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 39:49 — 36.5MB)

“They’ve taken her, you see. They’ve taken my fiancée.”

This is it. The final episode of Season 3. The intricate, gossamer threads of our artful narrative finally weave together to reveal the epic truth. Join the Ood Cast as they plunge headlong through time & space in a thrilling, last gasp dash to save one of their own.

Witness samurai sword wielding Time Lords, robotic Canadians, ruddy-cheeked podcast proteges and dastardly revenge-stricken megalomaniacs in camper vans. Thrill to the sounds of weirdly accurate baby noises, lactating Sontarans & playdough manipulating Daleks. All this, a review of A Good Man Goes To War and a song about Headless Monks sung simultaneously by fourteen different podcasters scattered across the globe.

Featuring the vocal talents of Radio Free Skaro, The Two Minute Time Lord, Radio Rassilon, The Doctor Who Podcast, Bridging The Rift, Tim’s Take On, Adventures in Time, Space & Music, The Minute Doctor Who Podcast, The Crossover Adventures, The Doctor Who Book Club, The DWO Whocast & The Flashing Blade, this is one barn-storming audio joy blitz.

Guest starring Clayton Hickman & Gareth Roberts with amazing cover art by Louis B Tosche of the Mostly Harmless Cutaway Podcast.

In the language of the Forest, we’d be called The Ood Cat (they don’t have a word for podcast).

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 48:32 — 44.6MB)

“It just looked like a crazy jacuzzi that somebody had sharted in…”

On this week’s Ood Cast, the Oods are spooked out, concerned and over the moon with things all at once as they review The Rebel Flesh. But even slightly freaked out, we still manage to run at you with some freshly-concocted Oody goodness, like a madman with a stick.

So watch out this week while we dissect what happens when you use the flesh technology to fool your friends into thinking you have a real girlfriend, unearth an advertising treat from the future (it’s acidic and terrific) and take a look into an official inspection of another mining plant’s secretarial staff.

All that and Chris Alpha catches us on series 6 through the medium of haiku while Laura duets with her own ganger.

Classic.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 35:35 — 32.8MB)

#3

Adventureland (film) Emboldened by rum/ a fairground akward and strange/ he steals love’s first kiss  Sports Night (tv) New York in winter/ I feel the heat in your words/ but you talk of sport  Spicy Jerk Chicken with mango salsa on pepper and chilli bread (sandwich) Saturated fat/ absent like snow in july/ it melts on the tongue  Strawberry Swing (music video) I lay on the floor/ the world erupts around me/ in fire and smudged chalk  (500) Days of Summer (film) In the wrong order/ love cools with passing seasons/ a boy meets a girl  American Dad (tv) Like family guy/ but in this one the fish talks/ that’s progress for you  Pow! (iphone app) Adan West is gone/ but his flying fists live on/ blam crash bang thunk pow  Arkham Asylum (ps3 game) Digital Gothlam/ the dark knight detective stalks/ down linear paths  Inglourious Basterds (film) Tarintino hacks/ this film into bloody chunks/ some don’t really work  Hamlet 2 (film) Shakespeare this is not/ but rock me sexy jesus/ is hilarious  Jordan (celebrity) Spring’s brief blush has passed/ flesh droops in autumnal hues/ forget fame and live

Over the last week I have had figuratively tens of emails about my regular column – The Haiku Review.  There are, it turns out, hundreds of rules a haiku must honour before it is worthy of that title. A hundred tiny hoops for the poor tyke to jump through, contorting its syllables into grotesque shapes to facilitate safe passage. Does it have a season word or kigo? Does it have two distinct phrases? A caesura? Concrete images? An ‘A-ha’ moment? Seriously, google it, it’s insane.

And my first reaction to this onslaught was to simply ignore it completely. For me haiku is about capturing a moment or a feeling with absolute precision. That’s why it’s so perfect for reviews, you can show how something made you feel- surely a brilliant resource when everything else about critical appreciation is so subjective and open to debate? I like this description from dreamsmith.org:

People often link Haiku with Zen. ‘The Haiku Moment’ is a moment of Zen-like awareness. We all have them from time to time. We suddenly see the world with great clarity. We see details that we don’t normally notice. And if we’re lucky, we note some special significance in the ‘insignificant’ details we usually ignore. The moment passes, but we’re left with something special. We then capture that moment in a short poem, preserving it and (we hope) its special message.

Perfect. So why complicate matters with a load of ancient rules? Surely all they can possibly hope to achieve is to crush the spontaneity of the creative spirit on which ‘the haiku moment’ relies? Especially when contemporary English haiku are a bastardisation of a Japanese art form and the rules in question largely contradict each other anyway. Also, it just seems like too much damn work.

But then I thought – rules are good sometimes, if nothing else it gives me something to break when I feel like it. So with that in mind I have come up with a set of 13 rules that I am going to stick to from this day forward (probably). They may not be definitive, they may not result in perfect haiku but they are mine and I like them.

Here they are:

1. Seventeen syllables written in three lines divided into 5-7-5.
2. Write what can be said in one breath.
3. Use a season word (kigo) or seasonal reference.
4. Use a caesura (break) at the end of either the first or second line, but not at both.
5. Have two images that are only associative when illuminated by the third image.
6. Limited use of personal pronouns.
7. Use of sentence fragments.
8. Attempt to have levels of meaning in the haiku. On the surface it is a set of simple images; underneath a philosophy or lesson of life.
9. Use of puns and word plays.
10. Write of the impossible in an ordinary way.
11. Telling it as it is in the real world around us.
12. Use no punctuation for ambiguity.
13. Capitalize the first word only.

Also, from now on, comments on The Haiku Review should only be phrased in Haiku format following these rules. And feel free to add your own reviews of films, books, comics, music, art, people, food etc.

A new era blooms
horizons scudded with clouds
a blinking cursor

Reviews listed from best to worst.

#2

Laura’s Chocolate & Beef Stew (bespoke foodstuff) By all the laws of/ God and man it shouldn’t work/ but somehow it does  Dr Horrible’s Sing Along Blog (web comic) If you haven’t seen/ this yet then you can’t be my/ friend until you do Jamie’s Italian (restaurant) He may act like an/ idiot but the boy sure/ knows how to cook pork  Brick (film) The Maltese Falcon/ meets 10 Things I Hate About/ You but with more laughs  District 9 (film) Has a great bit in/ it where someone is killed by/ a jet-propelled pig  Bejeweled Blitz Beta (facebook app) We should all live life/ to the full. But first I’ll have/ one more go on this  Cyanide & Happiness (web comic) Badly drawn and in/ questionable taste but when/ it’s good you’ll laugh hard  Old People Karaoke (pastime) Sing us your heart’s song/ memories fade to echoes/ melodies linger  The Final Destination 3D (film) Shit in 3D is/ still shit. Oh look another/ evisceration  The Boondock Saints (film) I am Troy Duffy/ I’m the new Tarantino/ Actually I’m not  

Reviews don’t really mean anything, do they? We’re all wired so differently that a film or a song or a risotto is going to have a wildly different effect on me than it’s going to have on you. And yet we love to quantify, categorise and clarify. We live to put stuff in boxes and then mark them good or bad with thick black unequivocal lines. The Haiku Review is different. It recognises that reviewing stuff is pretty much meaningless and as such it only spends 17 syllables doing it. It doesn’t differentiate between media and it’s structured from best to worst, enabling you my lucky readers to make direct comparisons between, say, my new shoes and stand-up comedian Jimmy Carr. Be here every Friday for more Ancient Japanese-themed review fun.

#1

Weddings (traditional ceremony) Today you joined hands/ and ran headlong into your/ future. Never stop  Y: The Last Man (comic) It makes me weep that/ something so funny and smart/ exists in this world  Greenbelt (festival) We shall do well here/ people seem genuinely/ happy together  Chocolate Chai Tea (drink) It tastes like a bar/ of chocolate exploded in/ a spice factory  Hoopla Impro Workshop (workshop) Your entertainment/ for the evening is coming/ out of your own head  Leeds (city) It is cold up here/ fearless girls bare their flesh and/ don’t even goose bump  inFamous (game ps3) Like Grand Theft Auto/ but I can shoot lightning and/ throw cars around. Nice!  Alton Towers (theme park) Sensations that are/ otherwise reserved for those/ ending their own lives Funny People (film) Long, self-indulgent/ movie that is nonetheless/ revelatory  The Host (book) Clumsy, obvious/ broad-brushed and naive and yet/ fitfully brilliant  Pizza Express (restaurant) Tasty, generic/ food served in disturbingly/ identical rooms  The Time Traveler’s Wife (film) Although you have a/ kind of warmth. It is mostly/ reflected glory  G-Force (film) Shit in 3D is/ still shit. It’s just shit with a/ greater depth of field