Miscellaneous

Golden Doughnut Award

Golden Doughnut Awards 2011 - 8th January 2012

So here we go again with my annual rant at all that is good, bad and incompetent in Life, The Universe, Cricket and Everything. Please bear in mind that as usual, pretty much everything that has been deemed worthy of receiving one of these coveted awards has been forgotten about due to my failure to remember it and / or write it down, so as usual this has been compiled more or less from scratch at more or less the last minute. So without further delay, well, here we go again….

The 'Filling Of Unfillable Shoes' Award

I‘m really not sure who to give this award to this year, on the grounds that I can‘t think of anyone who‘s taken over from anyone extremely noteworthy and done a fantastic job. The only one I can think of is Andrew Garfield stepping into the role of Peter Parker / Spider-Man in the upcoming Spider-Man reboot, but as the film is still about six months from being released, and no-one has actually seen any footage of Garfield in the role which frankly Tobey Maguire made his own, dishing this award out to him seems a bit premature. Besides which I‘m really keen on them re-booting Spider-Man. So this award is therefore suspended for a year, in anticipation of giving it to Martin Freeman for his performance as Bilbo Baggins in The Hobbit: Part 1 this time in 2013.

The Best TV Series I Have Discovered This Year Award

The Big Bang Theory. (Thanks Laurence), or possibly Top Gear (Thanks Dave - The Home Of Witty Banter). Some say that four of the five main characters in The Big Bang Theory are so geeky they make me look like a rank amateur by comparison. And on that bombshell…..

The Film Which Made People Fall Off Their Chair With Excitement Award

The Wild Hunt. Ask me (or Susan, or David) and I (or Susan or David) will explain. Possibly.

The Insufferable Know-It-All Who?s Had Their Name Read Out On Test Match Special Award

Well, duh…

The Clumsy Oath Award For The Only Person Who Could Go To Watch A Cricket Match And End Up At The Local A & E.

Ummmm, wonder who that could be referring to….? So that‘s me down to Earth with a bump after cleaning up on the Know-It-all / TMS Award, then. (Actually it was a bump, literally. Followed by a very painful drive home and then a trip to A & E).

The Most Inappropriate Book To Read In A Jury Waiting Room

The Big Over Easy by Jasper Fforde. It is a fantastic read (or at least the first 267 pages of it are), but my badly contained laughter caused me to get some funny looks from people. This is because it‘s a detective story which features the Nursery Crimes Division of Reading Police and is the story of the investigation into the death of Humpty Dumpty.

Scary Moment Award

Dave Trace dressed as Amy Pond dressed as a police women in the ArmadaCon Masquerade. (Shudder).

The Most Inappropriate T-shirt worn By someone On Jury service Award

Goes to one of my fellow jurors at Winchester Crown Court back in February, during my two weeks of weirdness, who got a very withering look and a roll of the eyes from the judge as a result. (Do you know how to roll your eyes? Crown court judges do). It also had the effect of actually causing the introduction speech for new jurors at the start of the following week to be changed to include a line about being allowed to wear t-shirts but please make sure they are entirely appropriate! For the record, the T-shirt said on the front ?How‘s My Drinking? and displayed a presumably entirely fictional phone number on the back.

The Best Lighbulb Related Joke Of The Year

How many Halfords mechanics does it take to change a lightbulb? Answer: all of them, apparently! (Ask me and I‘ll explain).

The Crushing Disappointment Award

This relates to the new(ish) Sherlock Holmes film. Now while I really enjoyed the film (go and see it, it‘s really good), it occurred to me that there was a major missed opportunity in this film. Stephen Fry was co-starring as Sherlock‘s brother, and kept referring to him as 'Sherly'. I really wanted, at the very least, for Watson to say to him "don‘t call him Sherly!"

The Award For Taking A Wicket With The Worst Ball In Recorded History

Oh, I wonder who that could be for then? It really was a horrible ball that deserved to be hacked into the next county, let alone the road. Fortunately, someone had the good sense to stand as far away from the batsman as they could without standing in the pavilion – and as a result of this wise piece of field placing, they caught it. The batsman really could not believe it. The rest of the fielding team also could not believe it, and as for the scorer….well he was in therapy for weeks. (I can also assure you the bowler was also more than a little startled).

The Supreme Optimism Award

This goes to the person responsible for designing the cover for the DVD box set of StarHike, which states "The Complete Series One". As if there was ever any danger of them making any more than one series!

The “I'm Really Glad This Film Is Not In 3D” Award

This also goes to Sherlock Holmes: A Game Of Shadows. All I‘ll say is that this is because of a certain scene involving Stephen Fry, and while I really hope there will be more Sherlock Holmes films in it‘s current re-imagined series, if Stephen Fry is in them, please, for the love of god, can he keep his clothes on?!

Most Annoying TV Advert

The Walls Magnum advert. Doesn‘t Inappropriately Under-Clad Ice Cream Girl ever get tired of stalking that film crew through the Ecuadorian rain forest?? (If anyone here watched any of the IPL on ITV4 in the spring, they‘ll know what I‘m talking about. So that would be…no-one, then).

A close second is the advert for Peugeot which had as it‘s slogan ?Motion and Emotion?. This is annoying because during the time I owned a Peugeot the only Peugeot-related motions I experienced were generally slow and the only Peugeot related emotions I experienced were frustration and hatred.

The Best Impression of Private Godfrey From Dad’s Army By A Dalek Award

Goes to Raymond, one of the Daleks who took part in the Q&A session at the Corsham event this year. When asked what he did during the Time War, Raymond replied ?I had a nice cup of tea and hoped it would all blow over…?

The “Strangest Convention Costume” (Without Even Realising He Was Wearing It) Award

Goes to the person in the exceptionally loud shirt who was sitting in the row front of me during the Ben Aaronovitch / Doctor Who panel at Redemption this year. When he raised his hand to ask a question, the interviewer pointed to him and said, to much applause and chortling, "another question then….chap over there wearing the John Nathan Turner costume…."

The “You Are Complete B?$#@rd$ And Will Be Second Against The Wall Come The Revolution” Award

People who write computer viruses and distribute them for financial gain or simply for malicious intent. There is a special place reserved in hell for you, where I hope you remain until and beyond the day Satan turns up to work on a snowboard.

JEREMY OGDEN

"Oh gravity, why art thou such a heartless bitch?"

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Enterprise A

Whatever happened to "A" Starship? - 6th February 2011

Earlier this weekend, Susan and I found ourselves watching Star Trek Generations. (I know, you can put this down as a major character flaw. What can I say; it was on the telly so we watched it). Whilst watching, I found myself asking a question that I had never thought of before. What ever happened to the Enterprise A?

The brave crew of the star ship Enterprise, fried their trusty craft mid way through Star Trek III. After their heroics in the forth film they are assigned the brand new Enterprise "A" in which they attempt to make some essence of sense of the script of the Final Frontier. Then in number six, they use their new craft in anger for the first time. At the end of the Undiscovered Country, the crew are due to stand down and poised to enjoy a quiet retirement. Scotty has even "bought a boat".

So we can assume that the Enterprise carries on with a new, younger crew at the helm. Then, just a few years later the "retired" crew are treated as VIP guests, bearing witness to the very first outing of the all new Enterprise "B".

Now, the question has to be asked, just what happened to the Enterprise "A"? Maybe she was destroyed in combat, maybe a terrible accident occurred that rendered her either destroyed or damaged beyond repair. Now whilst it's completely possible for this to occur in a couple of years cruising around the cosmos, the question has to be asked about just how long it must take to design a completely new Star Ship design.

The Enterprise B is obviously an evolution of the USS Excelsior, certainly if looks are anything to judge it by. Now the Excelsior itself is a brand new concept in ship yard engineering, so at this point in Star Fleets time line, any improved re-designs of this ship should be no further advanced than the drawing board stage. The only solution to this conundrum is that whilst a new design of starship was in the midst of construction, the new (and presumably inept) crew of the Starship Enterprise did one of the following:

  1. Upset the Romulans once too often!
  2. Couldn't navigate their way out of an Asteroid belt!
  3. Saw a recording of the original series, and thought, "Sod this for a game of soldiers", and buggered off into the neutral zone, and traded their ship for a life time's supply of Cattle Rustlers Monthly and a Yorky Bar concession!

That leaves Star Fleet up the creak without a flag ship. As a result, they're left with no option but to quickly alter the name of their latest creation in order to perpetuate the most famous name to ever adorn a Federation starship. What this means is that they'll need a new name plaque. It'll be fitted, but probably not until Tuesday!
(To boldly go, and cry like a sissy!)

David Offen-James

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Enterprise A

Vacuum versus Wheely Bin - unknown

Have you ever thought to compare a high tech Sci–Fi Super Intelligent Astro Droid with a basic household appliance (no, Dave, we’re not you—Ed.), no, well here goes:

  In the Blue corner;
R2 D2 Astro Droid.
In the Red corner;
Common Vaccum Cleaner.
Power Supply Portable recharger
(only found in swamps)
Any household 240V supply
3 / 10 8 / 10
   
Attachments 5 + Light Sabre Ejector Seat 3 + Dysons Don’t Need A Bag
9 / 10 5 / 10
   
Warranty Liable To Blow Its Motivator, Thirty Seconds After Purchase 12 Months Unlimited Dixons Warranty
5 / 10 1 / 10
   
Inteligence State Of The Art On Board, Self Aware Computer With Built In Sensor Net And Language Centre Automatic Cable Rewind
6 / 10 10 / 10
   
Total 23 / 40 24 / 40
   

There you go, proof, as if it was needed, that they should have stuck with Dusty Bin!

David James

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