Ten Songs Idol Hopefuls Sang, Arguably, Better than the Originals.

* Maybe it’s because they are shorter that the Idol’s versions seem more dynamic; maybe its the way they reworked them to suit their characters and personalities: I just like them more.

1. Hayley: Pink’s ‘Funhouse’.
2. Damien: Jeff Buckley's 'Hallelujah'.
3. Stan: Beyonce's 'Single Ladies'.
4. Wes: Michael Jackson's 'Black or White'.
5. Jessica: Lulu's 'To Sir With Love'.
6. Luke: The Temptations' 'My Girl'.
7. Mark: Kings of Leon's 'Sex on Fire'.
8. Natalie: Michael Jackson's 'Man in the Mirror'.
9. Natalie (again): Nat King Cole's 'Orange Coloured Sky'.
10. Kate: Stealer's Wheel's 'Stuck in the Middle With You'.

Under Construction ...

Ten Funny Things my Nieces and Nephews Have Said.

1. S—— came out of his room with a large colourful 'afro' wig on his head. B—— asked him why he was wearing my (Charlie's) hair.
2. D—— told S—— not to question her because she knew everything. Bad move. He replied with the valid question: If you know everything, why don't you know why the chicken crossed the road?
3. Mum, will I go to jail if I don’t take a wife. Someone has been paying a bit of attention in RE.
4. Some people have problems with addition. My nephew couldn’t understand why, he can add just fine. And they had even talked about it on the radio. Turned out it was ‘addiction’.

Under Construction ...

Ten Favourite Ads.

1. I love that ad with the older couple discussing which of their recorded shows they'll watch:
Him: Midsummer Murders? Maybe later.
Her: American Idol?
Him: I think that's one you can watch on your own, dear.
Together: Selling Houses.
Then the son, thirty-something, esconsed on his couch space, says 'I can't believe you watch this stuff'.
The father responds: Are you still here, I thought you moved out in your twenties.
The son does the 4 Pickles silent laugh.
It's hilarious because it's true.

Ten Superheroes Who Are Just Odd.

Thanks goes for this research to Comic Vine at http://www.comicvine.com

1. Swamp Thing. Variously 'reincarnated' from a scientist killed in a lab experiment gone wrong, Swamp Thing is a vegetable matter superhero who is very hard to destroy (he just rejuvenates), who can transport his consciousness into vegetation in another location, and who can control the plants around him. He is, on occasion, a bit of an eco-superhero. Mmm, odd.

2, Black Canary. I like that this female superhero came about due to the police force's misogynistic hiring policies of the forties—necessitating her becoming a superhero for the Justice League of America. Her power is the Canary Cry—a high pitch scream which breaks things and debilitates her opponents. A canary, even a black one, doesn't seem the most ominous of creatures. Maybe her subtlety is a killer, but no male superhero would ever have to be the incarnation of a small fluffy bird. And just in case this all didn't seem sexist enough, her character had to be changed so that she was in fact her own daughter when, like news readers, she got too old to be conceivably super.

3. Absorbing Man. I like it when they don't mess around with fancy names. What does Absorbing Man do? He absorbs. There you go. He is actually a bad guy, but there is a great moment of the metaphysical when he absorbs/is absorbed by the ocean as a means of escape, and in the immensity of the ocean loses his sanity because he cannot reconcile his self. It's an interesting idea to pinch and rework.

4. Longshot. His super power—among the normal things like speed, accurancy, strength and power—is that he can affect probability to give himself good luck. It only works as good if his motives are, and somewhere bad luck occurs as a result. I suppose that would make it so you only used it when absolutely necessary. Odd premise for a superhero—a way to bring morality into a comic (as if it wasn't already there).

5. Desaad. A literary refernece super-villain in a plethora of puns. He is recruited by Darkseid and taken to Apokolips. He is, of course a saadist. He dies all the time, but Darkseid needs him and so he is the most resurected supper-entity in living history.

6. The Crimson Avenger: Jill Carlyle. This is all okay in the early manifestation of this superhero who is male, but gets weird when Jill takes the mantel. Jill inherits the original hero's powers when she buys his guns from a pawn shop. She wears a red mask over her eyes to symbolise Justice; develops a bleeding hole in the middle of her chest. Is it me or is this just some weird manifestation, by a male I imagine, of the menstrual cycle??

7. Doll Man. Doll Man can will himself to be six inches tall, and has special clothes that shrink with him—thus avoiding embarrasing nakedness. I love it when 'special abilities' become the deus ex machina to stop all the questions that the nerdy type of people who like cartoons would ask of the practicalities of superheroness. I also love that this superhero is so perfectly made to be a lifesize action figure of himself—just a shame he has such a wimpy name that no one would buy him.

8. Typhoid Mary. Why is the comic world so misogynistic? Typhoid Mary is man's ultimate phantasy apparently: the virgin, the whore, the little girl and the mommy. But she'll kill you too—making her a 'bad guy'. She also has a psychological disorder: multiple personality. It's the old 'insane' woman trope. Am I over-reacting? Probably: One of her personalities claims she is a feminist after all, killing only men who abuse women. That's alright then.

9. Shaft. Shaft doesn't get much of a write-up—he's the leader of Youngblood and has a MySpace site—but he needs to be included with a phallic name like that doesn't he? Apparently he doesn't have many super-powers—size not mahic after all. But he shoots straight (tee hee). He is also very bad at spelling and grammar. Definitely not my type of superhero!

10. Synn. Synn is a go-go dancer, who after being 'experimented' on by a Dr Dirk Farkas while strapped near naked to a door, has a chemical reasction thanks to the LSD in her system and becomes super-brainy, more brainy than she can control. She becomes on of the members of FemForce, and by the look of it they are just good superheroes, doing good, and it has nothing to do with feminine exploitation. Nope, not a thing. I don't think I will ever be able to read a comic again. Either that, or this would be a great thesis.

Ten TV Shows I Watched as a Child/Teenager—Remember ...

1. Kenny Everett Show. I can only remember it vaguely as bad eighties costumes and funny and wrong humour. It was weird as far as I remember. A skit show of ridiculousness, probably along the lines of a new generation Monty Python.
2. Dr Who. Tom was always my favourite doctor. I think I may have even made a scarf. The theme songs stay in your subconscious—I can’t hum it but I can feel how it goes.
3. Countdown. That I can recall the song to—but I am better at words than music. How cool were the clothes of the eighties? I didn’t think that would be something I would ever say. I also find it really interesting to look at the females on Countdown and see how voluptuous they look. I used to look at the women on Countdown when I was a teenager and wish I could be that skinny. Now they look practically fat in comparison to the ‘famous’ of now. It scares me how much that means a contemporary teenager thinks they need to lose in weight to look ‘cool’.
4. Get Smart. How could 99 ever fall in love with such a klutz? I suppose we did. Remember the poor depressed guy who always had to hide in very small spaces? I would be depressed too if Max was promoted over me, and I ended up inside a fire hydrant.
5. The Goodies. Goodie, goodie, yum, yum. What were they saying at the end of that refrain? Don’t tell me because then I will never be able to remember what I originally thought it was—like Cheap Wine and a Three Day Growth. I don’t think I valued these shows enough at the time—especially now that it is so hard to see them again without a TV antennae or cable.
6. Moonlighting. Any platform that launches Bruce Willis has to be a good, or at least moderately mediocre, platform. Throw in a naughty boy/professional woman sexual tension, some comedy and murder mysteries and it’s a guarantee you will be in front of the telly every week. It is also a way for someone (maybe a sister) to get sucked into buying Bruce Willis musical albums.
7. The Avengers. This is a show that takes me all the way back to South Africa where it was more likely that the episodes would be viewed on a hired projector than on TV. The catsuit stands out. Maybe that is where my idea of being a female spy comes from—if I was one I would look like her.
8. M*A*S*H. Do you think that this is one of the places where the really good character based shows started? Or maybe it’s just that I came to it at the right time to understand, or feel, that character was important, vital.
9. The Greatest American Hero. A TV equivalent of a one-hit wonder. Character is one thing; fallibility is another. Quirk is the third. I can’t remember character from this one but it did have the other two.
10. The Muppets. I was going to put McGyver down but I think it was more D——‘s thing than it ever was mine. I have just seen my work colleague do the Swedish chef’s hands and it brought this crazy cast back to mind. A timeless classic.

Ten Cryptic Crossword Clues I Have (Eventually) Managed to Solve.

Clues:
1. Marine backwards.
2. Feature of insolent talk.
3. Reason to withdraw permit to fly.
4. Near to a part-song.
5. Settles in a phlegmatic way.
6. The plane might be a jumbo.
7. Reckon I'm dividing what's left.
8. Royal house set out in words.
9. Toss a coin with me for profit.
10. Protect a worker who is accused.

Answers:
1. Ebb.
2. Cheek.
3. Ground.
4. Around.
5. Coughs Up.
6. Elephant ('the' and 'plane' mixed up).
7. Estimate (EstI'mate.
8. Windsor.
9. Income ('coin' and 'me' mixed up).
10. Defendant (defend and ant).

Under Construction ...

Ten Adverts That Say One Thing and Mean Another.

1. NAB: More give, Less take. Watch the ad. The girl steals the boy’s quiff. He cries, she gives it back. So the message I get is that the bank gives you back that which was yours in the first place and which was taken from you forcefully—no more, no less. Ah, thanks NAB.
2. NAB: No asterisk. They are trying to convince us that they have accounts without the small print. Look at the bottom of the screen—ther's an asterisk!
3. Radio Rentals: We won’t say no to any rental item you can afford. Um, is it just me that thinks this sounds stupid?
4. AAMI: The singing one (which is annoying on its own level). There is a strange mix of tenses when the doorman holding half a door sings his line. He says: 'He gets the same as I did'. Because one is ongoing present tense and one the past it implies that the doorman now gets a different rate and therefore there is no point to what they are saying which is that safe drivers are not advantaged. I think it belies the fact that they are telling porkies. This is a hunch and is yet to be actually proven true—but it is an insurance company, you know what I am saying yes?
5. Biofilm. I can't recall just which idiotic toothpaste company believes we are completely gullible, but,really, this is just an ad to say that all toothpastes do the same thing so we are going to try and scare you into buying ours on another level by calling the same old stuff that happens to teeth by a new name—biofilm.I'm not buying it. I like the one that gets all foamy in your mouth.
6. Budget, Budget. Car Insurance. Besides the fact that I hate the ad to death, I just don’t understand it either. Why is the French bimbo in the old man who she met on the side of the road’s bathroom having a shower? Why is a young girl in a much older man’s shower anyway? What are they trying to say at all? In a way they are perhaps unfairly placed in this list because in order to say one thing and mean another, they need to be saying something in the first place.
7. This one is literal, but no less (eek) annoying for the fact. There is a Ford ad that is all about ‘less’—less petrol needed, less cost to purchase etc. But the starting sentence they have is ‘Less trips to the fuel pump’. Fewer!! Fewer, fewer, fewer! trips to the fuel pump. This is how languages are ruined and morons are born. I know that sounds harsh but I am writing this at work where the evidence of language degradation is abundant and annoyingly annoying.
8. I think it is either ANZ or Eftpos in general that have an ad which seems to implying that the world works smoothly when people all file after each other touching their card to a thingy and not holding anyone up with the inconvenience of cash. They all crash into one another when someone takes out their wallet and hands over a note. Um? Stepford wives? They're all auto-bots with zero personality or individuality, following each other unthinkingly. Nothing disincentivizes me more than an add that tells me to be like everyone else. 9. Quilton Toilet Tissue. They ask you to imagine the 'world's fluffiest cloud, the softest baby lambs or the softness of feathers and pillows'. Um, do you mean I have to imagine wiping my bottom with any of those? A cloud would be refreshing and watery but not really very solid. A lamb would squirm about, and is somehow immoral. And feather by themselves, messy and a bit like being tarred and feathered, and the whole pillow is really a bit of a waste! Not good analogies.