Google-Whacked

This may be the very last time I ever use the internet. The reason being that I met someone online who works for Google. And, if I cross them, then... no searching, no gmail, no blogger, no YouTube... If I'm lucky I might get a dial-up modem and Ask Jeeves.

You see, I had a cold. Now, I get cravings with colds. One day last week it was for Monster Munch. Couldn't have enough of it. This was followed by a craving for Keith (name has been changed in the vain hope that my gmail ads aren't suddenly all from Dignitas).

Poor Keith. We hadn't even met. But there was something about him... Through my lemsip haze he seemed genuine and exciting and romantic. Plus, worked for Google. I couldn't say "no". Well, I daren't say "no" - imagine having to go back to using Netscape Navigator 3.0...

Anyway, he seemed so lovely and I couldn't wait to meet up with him last Thursday. I was stuffed full of decongestant, higher than a kite, but very enthusiastic. But he postponed - "sorry, got to work late" - apparently Google had a crisis or had invaded Mars or something. So, I waited and waited. A quick message from him - "Still at work! Nightmare! Will call when I'm out. x". So I waited a bit longer. And then, eventually, I went to bed. He will call me eventually. I know this. For he is Keith and he works for Google. He knows where I live.

The next day I meet up with my slutty friend Joshua for lunch. "How's the love life?" he asks.
"Oh, goodness me," I blather, eyeing up the salad bar, "Well, it's early days yet, but I think I've met someone really exciting. He's ever so lovely. And, guess what, he's a manager at Google!"
"Really?" says Joshua. "Last night I shagged some guy from Google. His name was Keith."
Oh.

DoomWatch Watch: Into the Dark and The Iron Doctor

These two episodes both spring from a similar premise - what happens when computers become involved in keeping someone alive?

In Into The Dark, Patrick Troughton's head explains that his pet computer alows him to live forever, a thinking brain in a rotting body and that's fine, thank you. Only Quist turns up and has a couple of chats, and Patrick Troughton decides he'd like to die after all (well, wouldn't you rather than sit in a room with Quist - the Gordon Brown of Science?).

There's a bit more to it, but it's mostly just an excuse for Quist and Troughton to run through a few quick acting exercises and then The End. Several other issues here get discarded along the way - toxic cargo on wartime shipwrecks, running a company from beyong the grave, but mostly it's just Troughton looking a bit ill and Quist doing thoughtful cardigan acting.

Meanwhile, The Iron Doctor tells us all about a hospital ward where the patients are being kept alive by a radical computer. Only - whoops - they accidentally bought in a military computer, and it's killing off the patients and waging war against hospital staff it doesn't like.

The whole episode is about tensions in the NHS, lining up Caring Doctor and Cuddly Matron against Sinister Administrator and his Battle Computer. Quist and Fay Chantry bumble around a bit, stumble on the truth after a few people have died, and then it's up to Grumpy Computer Colin to save the day with his screwdriver.

The episode is both duller and more exciting than you think it's going to be. It starts out as being about medical ethics (can we trust a computer to prolong life?) and then switches to red tape conspiracy before turning out to be "The hospital's run by a Dalek!".

There's a few little notes about Patient Confidentiality (all the old people on the ward are under constant CCTV) and, in an odd point, clearly the view out of the Sinister Administrator's window must be fascinating because every character spends most of their time on the set crossing over and peering through the slats of his Ventian Blind. I wonder what they're seeing - is it a geriatric being given a bed bath?

nPower

Good news: After much trial and error, I have now succeeded in getting nPower to add me to their "Marketing Suppression Database".

Bad news: So far they've sent me four letters telling me that they're no longer going to contact me again. The latest letter tells me they've tried to phone me several times to tell me they're not going to contact me, and can I instead phone them within 5 working days otherwise they may not be able to fulfil my request. I ring them and say "this is weirdly like a nightmare, isn't it?"

Next time I am dating, I shall behave more like nPower.

"Hi Ustvlad, I understand you said you would call me rather than me calling you, but I am just calling you to see if that is still the case. I'm sorry - would you just mind holding for a second while I call your details up? That's lovely *blast of Leona Lewis*. Now, let me just see - do you have a reference number to hand Ustvlad? No? Don't worry, we'll just set you up on the system. Bear with me, this won't take a moment. *blast of Jedward singing Jerusalem*...."

Prang

The other day a white van drove into me in the bus lane. I've spent ages worrying about getting knocked off my bike, but it wasn't actually that bad. My elbow and his wing mirror met at a reasonable speed. No bones broken, just a very loud snapping noise and a big bruise.

I get off my bike.

The white van stops.

The white van driver stops.

The white van driver gets out of his white van.

The white van driver walks around his van, carefully checking it for damages.

And only then does he look up from readjusting his wing mirror and say "you okay, mate?"

And that's when I start shouting at him.

And, in other work

Very nicely, been asked to do a quick guide to Doctor Who for AOL. Have genuinely tried to make it a bit more fun than those awful "Tom Baker wore a scarf and had a robot dog" filler pieces you get.

DoomWatch Watch: The Inquest

Best Doomwatch ever. Forget your Plastic Eaters and your Rats, this one is just great.

Oh, it's dull and cheap, but that's its charm. For a start, it's Computer Colin's episode. In every single other episode he's just mumbled "Eckee thump, I'll run it through t'computer, but ee, I've got other work ta do, ya know," but finally they give him something to do, and he absolutely shines.

With every other member of the team on holiday or off filming, Quist summons Colin to the office. "It's a studio-based courtroom drama. I can't be bothered. Off you trot, old chap" and, with a face like a lovesick haddock, off Colin slouches to go and attend an inquest into a girl who died of rabies.

Since Colin is a man of considerable girth, this features quite the stockiest guest cast of any Doomwatch episode - the world's fattest coroner, the largest ever Lady Bountiful, and the widest ever man from the ministry. It's like a Slitheen convention!

Size isn't Colin's only asset - turns out he's a great actor, and you immediately wish that DoomWatch was just him and Quist solving science crimes like a grumpy Steed and Mrs Peel.

Setting almost the entire action in a country hotel allows the episode to really unwrap a complicated scientific mystery - what killed the girl? Was it really a rabid dog? Or was it a mutant tse-tse fly escaped from the local maverick scientist's lab?

Mary Lincoln from Sybil Hall - a solid dog-breeding gal decked out in Evans' country casuals range, carefully explains her solid theory that it was a mutated fly carrying a version of rabies. A theory that has the whole village on her side - because Science Is Wrong, and the government just want to kill their dogs, the swine.

It's up to Colin to quietly, patiently knock this down. Without test-tubes or a computer he just stands there and simply, and patiently explains the process of genetic manipulation and you just go "Coooo. I've actualy learned something. Blimey, this guy's great."

Just when you're turning against Mrs Lincoln, it turns out that the rabid dog came from her farm! Gasp! She was the evil one all along, not the Sinister Scientist!

Then, in another shift, it turns out that the dog came from Sinister Scientist's lab after all... so it was him! Only... he didn't know it had rabies. The dog was stolen from his lab by the genial pub landlord's son, and he's been keeping a whole pack of rabid hounds in a shed... and the kid's been bitten himself. So if anyone's evil, it's the kid - only he was simply misguided.

Just when you think this is the most morally complicated Doomwatch yet, up pops Quist wearing what can only be described as his Battle Dungarees. He's worked it out - the rabid dog was actualy procured for the scientist by the genial pub landlord - he's effectively killed one girl, and now his own son is ill. Case closed. The Villagers rush off to get their torches and pitchforks.

Time for Doomwatch to make a quick exit, but not before Quist, with his famous sensitivity, gets to say to the landlord "Well, you'd better hope we got to your son in time. Cheerio."

And then they're off. Whole thing utterly brilliant - neat idea, some solid explanation of science, great characters and a thumping good guest cast. More like this please.

Sad Face

I remember once laughing at my friend Lee when he announced that he was stopping seeing someone because of "their appalling sex face".

You know what, I thought, surely it can never be that bad? I mean, I've seen a fair few, some of them quite 2012. There was Craig the Builder in Oxford who had a bed made out of an old car. His "moment of pleasure" was so extreme that it was like an epileptic fit, which means that I've been in an indoor car crash. It's true. The whole thing tipped over like a smart car in a hurricane and Craig landed on top of me still spasming like a landed trout with his foot stuck in the glove compartment.

But anyway, that's not my point. My point is that I could never quite see how anyone could manage to find a sex face so deeply appalling that they'd stop seeing someone... and then....

Well, I was dating this guy over the summer. And he was lovely. Cultured, smart, nice. Only he reminded me of someone. Just a bit. And especially when he was approaching lift off.

But I couldn't quite put my finger on it when I was putting my finger on it. There was definitely something familiar about him, but I just couldn't quite work out what. Until one day Lee asked me to describe him.

"Oh," I said, "He's like a sexy... a sexy... Martin Clunes."

Lee stared at me. And I suddenly realised the full horror of what I'd just said.

Online dating fail

I receive the following message this week from an 18 year old:

"Hi. I fancy a good seeing-to from an old man. U up for it?"

Ouch.

Brighton

I've had a slight cold this week. Which has been useful in that it's meant that I've been able to have a succession of days of mild lunchtime drinking (dunno why, but whenever I've got a cold, my body stops finding alcohol a struggle).

Yesterday I stomped around Brighton with friends, which was marvellous and a bit drunken and involved sitting in a bar working my way through the bespoke cocktail menu before getting on a train home. Why is Brighton so easy to get to but so hard to leave? Is there some kind of magnetic pull, or is it just that the trains are odd?

Anyway, brilliantly, I sat on the train back watching cluthing this:

It is, of course, wrong to assemble the Lego Christmas Toy Shop until December. But oh happy day!

Also on the train I watched the first episode of Fringe Series 2. By the end of Series 1, plucky Olivia Dunham still hadn't cracked a smile, lightened up, or done anything in the way of likeable or warm. She's got the screen presence of a wine cooler.

Without spoilers, series 2 opens with Olivia in hospital, and the regular cast getting on just fine without her. They've even got a new female FBI agent - she's perky, smart and sassy, is clearly fun to be around and likes the central heating on. She probably owns a shitload of cats.

By the end of the episode, it's clear that poor old Deadly Dull Dunham is on probation. When the rest of the cast catch up with her on hospital and deliver lines like "Oh it's great to see you're better" and "We really can't live without you" it's clear they're actually thinking the exact opposite. But will Agent Dunham learn her lesson quickly enough to save the show? Hmmn.

The Waters of Arse

I got back from holiday to find my flat flooded by the toilet upstairs. It took me a while to notice, but I'm gradually discovering pots and pans in the kitchen cupboards full of strangely coloured water. Plus there's a smell - not a nice smell. It turns out, of course, that Camden don't particularly care about sorting this out, and neither do the two flats upstairs, each of them happily blaming the other.

Not amusing, but there we go. I'm having one of those weeks, really - nice things are ,erely the sandwich filling for the bread of bitterness, the jam in the pop tart of misery. So, I had a lovely holiday - and then come back to find my flat slighty pooey. Equally, the world's most attractive Slovakian comes round... and gives me his cold.

Cheeringly, though, last night I went out for drinks with the Perfectons, and they were as stunning as ever. One of them is currently saving Surry from environmental collapse (2012 for the home counties), the other is juggling server farm administration with starring in a ballet. He showed me the pictures on his iPhone, and my tiny heart broke just a little.

We were having a lovely evening - or, at least, they were ignoring my cold and telling me about their conquest of a Latvian Florist - cold, dead eyes of a killer, but fabulous and high-maintenance. I've asked for his details, as, now I've got a cat, I figure I could handle high-maintenance gays.

Anyway, suddenly a good-looking man lands face down on our table. He looks up at us, shrugs, apologises in French, and is then shoved out of the bar by a very drunk man who staggers up to us. "Excuse my friend!" he squawks. "That's Harry Potter! From the future! Which is why he's French!"

He explains that his tipsy friend is an actor who may, just may, have been cast in the last Harry Potter film as a grown-up Harry. Or, and this is where it got confusing, Harry Potter's grown-up hands. "Beautiful fingers," the drunk man sighed, "He does typing for me, but now he's getting proper work with those lovely hands. Bless him."

He pulled up a chair and joined us (why do drunks do this?). Clearly, sumo-throwing a Frenchman onto our table was his version of a calling card, and now he was going to tell us the story of his life. Or, at least, he coughed and said "I'm an entrepreneur."

This is a terrible thing to call yourself - I remember trying to rent out a box-room on the Abingdon Road 12 years ago and being surprised to receive a call from someone who said they were "An International Shipping Magnate". This is kind of in the same league.

But eventually he ran out of things to say, squeezed one of the Perfectons on the shoulder and staggered out into the night.