The Spirit of the Stairwell

“True or False? A Sontaran’s favourite food is potato waffle?”

Strap yourself in for an entirely new podcasting experience as The Ood Cast present The Regeneration Game. Yes, no one has ever tried it before, it’s a quiz show based on Doctor Who.

Genius.

No, wait, come back, this is different, honest – this is a new kind of quiz. A quiz where intelligence, an agile brain and an exhaustive knowledge of the subject will have no bearing whatsoever on whether you end up winning.

Maybe it’s because the questions are mostly made up? Maybe it’s because Chris Sigma hasn’t brought a pen and paper to write down the scores? Maybe it’s because truth is an abstract concept which can only be explored and never known?

Whatever the reason you can be sure of an adrenalin-filled question-based thrill ride of an episode including title mash ups, mime, Dalek co-hosts, over 9 flavours of jingle and an appearance by “The Moth”.

Let’s get QUIZZICAL!

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 30:53 — 28.5MB)

“I’m going to sex it right up … like a sexy bent shoe.”

That’s what happens when you leave two recently engaged Who fans alone with a microphone …

This week, Chris Sigma and Laura present a whole hodge podge of tidbits scattered from the final two episodes, present the winner of the lyrics competition, discover just how tantalising a cup of tea can be and listen to the existential crisis of a Star Whale. It’s a bit schitzophrenic- but with a person who’s had ten other personalities being our starting point, who can blame us?

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 24:57 — 23.1MB)

Film Club #1 – 6th February 2010

“You Can’t Kiss Away A Murder!”

Join me for the inaugural Film Club this February and a whole day’s worth of shadowy figures, femme fatales, plot twists, heavy drinking and hard knocks. Also there will be films to watch. Ahahaha – see what I did there? I pretended that the words that described the films were actually the things we were going to do on the day. It’s an old comedic device but, I think we can all agree, a hilarious one. Especially now I’ve explained it fully to you.

Film noir is a cinematic term used primarily to describe stylish Hollywood crime dramas, particularly those that emphasize cynical attitudes and sexual motivations. Hollywood’s classic film noir period is generally regarded as stretching from the early 1940s to the late 1950s. Film noir of this era is associated with a low-key black-and-white visual style that has roots in German Expressionist cinematography, while many of the prototypical stories and much of the attitude of classic noir derive from the hardboiled school of crime fiction that emerged in the United States during the Depression.

Don’t worry, I have suddenly got really intelligent or anything, I just copied it from Wikipedia. Film noir will be the theme of our first club day and I’ve chosen 4 of the best films of the genre to show you and also a silly Steve Martin pastiche to round off the day. You’re welcome to come for as much or as little of the day as you want.

Anyway, here’s how it should all pan out:

Schedule

10.00am – We all start drinking whiskey early in the morning.

10.30am - Asphalt Jungle Kick off with John Huston’s original heist movie, made the same year he introduced America to film noir with The Maltese Falcon. We wouldn’t have Reservoir Dogs without it.

12.30pm - Gilda Why did Tim Robbin’s character want a poster of Rita Hayworth on his cell wall during the Shawshank Redemption? This film is why (also the tunnel thing).

2.15pm – Stakeout Food. Lunch will be a selection of things you could consume while on a stakeout. Binoculars will be provided to spy on the neighbours.

2.30pm - Touch of Evil Orson Welles’ masterpiece and one of the best film noir ever made. The version we’ll be showing is the 1998 recut that attempted to reassemble Welles’ original vision from a 58 page memo the director wrote after viewing the studio’s original theatrical release. It’s the best version basically.

5.30pm – A selection of detective-themed games – cluedo and scotland yard among them. Also more shots of whiskey and maybe a fist fight.

7.00pm – DOUBLE BILL: Double Indemnity/ Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid – Played back to back, the most twisted, dark, OTT classic the genre has ever produced and a silly Steve Martin comedy that makes fun of it. Dress code is film noir, let’s all dress up as femme fatales and private dicks.

And it should all be over by 10.15pm.

Click here to be taken to the facebook event to register your interest in attending and find out location details.

“She liked me. I could feel that. The way you feel when the cards are falling right for you, with a nice little pile of blue and yellow chips in the middle of the table. Only what I didn’t know then was that I wasn’t playing her. She was playing me, with a deck of marked cards and the stakes weren’t any blue and yellow chips. They were dynamite.”

Let me put this bluntly. There’s no way to sugar coat it, I’m a geek. A card carrying, statistic spouting, pedant spluttering member of the cultural elite. In fact I’m not just one kind of geek, I’m legion. I’m a computer geek and a theatre geek and a movie buff geek and a comics geek but more than anything else, oh so very much more, I’m a Doctor Who geek.

Yes, from 1989 onwards I’ve been in the thrall of the timelord and I can’t think of a programme that’s had a more positive effect on my life. While other young boys had heroes who kicked balls into far off nets or slaughtered hundreds of enemy soldiers with a belt-fed machine gun, my hero defeated evil with little more than a bag of jelly babies and an off the wall sense of humour. No behind the sofa for me, I had my face pressed up against the screen.

This may sound silly but I can actually remember making the decision to be more like the Doctor, to clown around and let people underestimate me, to attack any new situation with a mixture of childish enthusiasm and deep thought. I don’t think it’s too far-fetched to say that the man I am today owes a lot to the values instilled in me then. I still abhor violence, I still love traveling and meeting people, I even sometimes still walk with my hands clasped behind my back (although admittedly this did look very odd when I was 9 years old, I kept overbalancing and falling on my head).

I mention this because myself and a couple of equally eccentric pals will shortly be unleashing a new Dr Who podcast on the world, hosted from this very website. We’ve called it ‘The Ood Cast‘ – see what we did there? The first series of six episodes will consist of an introductory show followed by a programme on each of the five 2009 specials, up to and including the end of David Tennant’s 10th Doctor.

So … exciting for everyone who likes either a) Dr Who, b) my podcasts or c) both.

Extremely dull for everyone else. But then I guess we can’t all like the same things …

‘I can’t stand burnt toast. I loathe bus stations – terrible places, full of lost luggage and lost souls. And then there’s unrequited love, and tyranny, and cruelty. We all have a world of our own terrors to face.’ – The Doctor

PS – Check out the Ood Cast Blog while you’re waiting for the audio adventures to begin.

Nanowrimo continues, with my current word count up to a healthy 5,111 words. I’m still a good 1,500 behind schedule but nevertheless that’s pretty impressive for me, I’d have given up long ago under normal circumstances.

My novel now has a working title: Invading Personal Spaces and also a synopsis. Here it is:

Jem has a crap job in advertising. Mel is a model when she’s not being a prostitute. Or telekenetic. Seb is a sociopath and Greg writes a lot of fanfic. Roisin doesn’t understand why being good at her job doesn’t equal job security.

Her job is to conquer Earth and subjugate humanity utterly.

A book about life and love in the late Noughties where some of the characters just happen to be an elite group of invading alien warriors.

I also got bored last night and designed a cover for it.

I’m learning to play the ukulele. It’s a tiny little guitar and it makes me look like a giant. At the moment, on a scale of 1 to 100, I’m absolutely rubbish.

Anyway, I’ll be putting up a video about once a week so I guess we’ll all see if I improve at all.

In this first musical extravaganza I play something that sounds a bit like Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony while maintaining a look of pure terror on my face.

Also once it’s finished I look inappropriately pleased with myself.

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you my first faltering steps towards competency, I give you Ukulele Diary: Day One …

Not a lot I can really add to this. Ukulele’s are obviously pure sex wrapped up in curvy wood. I’ve only recently started to learn and I’m already having to turn down dates with Uke-loving super models and Brick Lane-dwelling hipster chicks in floral dresses and thick rimmed specs.

Plus I can only really play the first 5 bars of Ode to Joy at half speed with a 70% note accuracy.

Here’s two funny ladies playing a mega mix of 90s hits on a Uke/ Gee-tar combo. Because you demanded it.

They’re called Garfunkel and Oates and I reckon they should be as successful as the Conchords. Fact.