December 18th - Advent Window 18

No window yesterday, and stink of failure has infiltrated SYi2. But I'm not going to beat myself up about it.

For today's window we're going to have an award for the worst music list of the year. It was close run thing, with Q magazine pushing hard with their top ten headed by the dull, dull dull Coldplay. In a great year for music, the only people think that X+Y is the best album of the year are those who have only bought that one, KT Tunstall and James Blunt.

However, the award goes to the Observer's Music Monthly magazine. The problem with the list is that it's the top 100 albums of the year (Read it for yourself here). What's the point? Why not have a top 20 and then list other albums of note? By rating all 100, you're just going to be so very very wrong. Like putting Robbie at 37 and Bright Eyes at 46. Wrong. Or including Goldie Looking Chain (90) but not mentioning the Super Furries, The National or Wolf Parade. Double Wrong. The no.1 isn't too bad (Anthony and the Johnsons), but how can any list rate Oasis (16) 29 places higher than Bloc Party and 46 places higher than the Kaiser Chiefs. Strike 3. I could go on and on and on.

So, although the Q list was very wrong in it's no.1, the sheer size of the Observer list opens itself up to an almost infinite points of wrongness, and therefore wins the 2005 SYi2 award for "Worst Music List of the Year".

This is how a top album list should be done.

December 16th - Advent Window 16

I went late night shopping yesterday evening, and very nice it was too. This year I have had an excellent lead into Christmas, and I was beginning to feel slightly festive, which, when you don't have children (or are not one yourself) is not always that easy. And after subjecting myself to TMF's 40 ultimate classic Christmas hits yesterday (Which was wrong - no Shakin' Stevens in the top 20, but the Darkness @ no. 2 - I sincerely hope someone is joking), I was really starting to get into the spirit.

But that has been blown out of the water today.

Today is my last day in uni. Whilst working at home next week I was looking forward to enjoying some Christmas movies. But wait, a search of the Radio Times tells me that "Mary Poppins" doesn't appear anywhere in the listings over the next 14 days. Ok ok, what about "It's a Wonderful Life". Nowhere. What the freak. Surely the definitive version of Charles Dickens's "Christmas Carol" by the Muppets will be somewhere.

Not even on Channel 5.

I don't want to watch Bridget Jones, The Grinch or Barney's Christmas Cracker. They're crap. Screw "Mrs Santa Claus", give me Poppins, Goddammit. Surely there's some kind of law that covers this kind of thing - it should at least be in the BBC's charter.

I'm going to play 3d Santa for half an hour whilst listening to Shaky and try to restore my feelings of Goodwill to all men.

December 15th - Advent Window 15

Ah crap. I have nothing to offer today, um... (searches around for anything at all christmassy)... ah ha, a picture of a CGI santa, that'll do.

December 14th - Advent Window 14

OK, so blogging from home isn't as good as blogging from uni. Not only do I have less time to "research" (ha) my posts (hence Parsons Watch, Cartoon of the Week, etc. will be on holiday until early January), but I've got so much other stuff to do at home. Like make bad cover versions of 60s and 70s rock songs. And now that I've finally come to be able to listen to my own voice singing without cringing so much that my back spasms, that's going be taking up my free time over yuletide.

Hmm, I'm rambling, which usually means that I'm actually posting freestyle, which is dangerous. I do have something to say, which is a big Happy Birthday to me mum, who is 50 today. I've got to go and blow up balloons and wrap a gift and the like (I'm not sure which I dislike the most), so I've drafted in a special guest to say happy birthday - everyone, it's Kenneth John Parsons, Hoorah!



Sadly, there's no time to play Ken's "Cryptic Zoom Tomb", although I am gonna work on a cover of it - in a Dylan stylee - real soon.

December13th - Adent Window 15

Another game, and again it's santa racing. I understand that the last one was quite difficult, especially if you don't have the inclination to devote x hours to mastering it.

However, if anyone can be varifiably beat my time on this game of about 39.7 seconds, they will receive a "I'm better than Gary posting".

Adventures in the Sandford Quiz - No. 4

Hoorah, another week, another victory. However, some might say that our victory by 1 1/2 points was kind of hollow because we collected 3 points for answers that were wrong. Not me though. Woohoo - £41 in the curry night pot.

A few awards:

* The Mr A "Are You Sure?" award - Mr A for his answer "Ich Bein" to what is wrote on the George Cross. We felt it would be strange that the German words for "I leg"* would be used on an award given to civilians who displayed bravery during the blitz, but Mr A. was so certain, it was hard to argue otherwise. The right answer was "For Gallantry".

* The Over Generous Marker Award The guys marking our paper, as previously mentioned. Answers they gave us marks for included "Glove" when the right one was "A dive", "Bill Turnball" when the correct answer was "Christopher Meyer" (we actually spotted this one and deducted it) and "a web" for a "ball of venomous material". Cheers lads.

The final quiz is next sunday, a Christmas special. Can we break £50?


* In his defence, Mr A might have been thinking of Ich Dien, which means I Serve

December 12th - Advent Window 12

Another Cartoon of the Week vs. Chrimbo.



Ha ha, a baby with a beard. Crazy.

December 11th - Advent Window 11

A neat little game here where you have to race santa around a track.

December 10th - Advent Window Number 10

I've realised I've been doing the dates all Americanified, as in "It's December 10th, here is the news" as opposed to (adopts BBC newsreader voice) "Today is the 10th of December. In other news, BBC Breakfast grinds to halt as the email and texting services collapse." Oh well, I've started now.

There are few things I enjoy more than googling my own name. However, one other pastime is thinking up a name and then seeing how many ex-colonial countries have a town sharing that name. It's not a great game, true. However, I thought I should check out the whereabouts of Christmas, USA, and sure enough, there it was down in Florida:



Christmas, Florida is home to the worlds largest non-organic alligator. Non-organic. I'm guessing therefore, he/she has been genetically modified into some kind of super-alligator.

And I was right. The alligator, affectionally known as ALG-1689, has been on a programme of steroids, cheap Somerfield Cola and red Jolly Ranchers. This potent combination has caused an unprecendated growth spurt, as demonstrated in this picture:



Apparently ALG-1689 would have ate Chris Martin, but had just eaten an Apple.

December 9th - Advent Window No. 9

So far the advent windows have focussed on some pretty dire stuff - dogs in Santa suits, cats in baubles, denim & wooly jumper combos. So today I'm going to provide a little culture to try and raise the standard around here - a nice advent calendar from the Tate to be found here, and from which we take an image.



Apparently it's the "Untitled (rooms)" sculpture by Rachel Whitebread. Most probably have to be there.

December 8th - Advent Window No. 8

It never gets that cold down here in the South West - we get the odd cold snap around the zero mark, but most of the time we hover around a mildish 5 to 10 degrees.

This creates problems for the likes of me who enjoy their winter fashion.

It is never cold enough long enough for me to wear both my really thick wooly off-white jumper underneath my denim waistcoat. Man, in no time at all I'm cooking under all those layers. However, fear not, for at last M & M Sports have come up with the perfect solution.



Yes! It's a denim waistcoat with the sleeves and collar of a nice warm jumper sown onto it. Hey, it's even got a bit of jumper at the bottom to complete the illusion. Now I can look rubbish no matter how mild the winter day - if only I hadn't sent off my Christmas list so damn early.

December 7th - Advent Window No. 7

Wow, a week of advent has almost passed. To celebrate, today we have a clipping from the mighty local rag "The Crediton Country Courier". This photo is from the "Christmas in Crediton" section, where local shop A.E.Lee suggest hankerchiefs (buy 4 @ 20p get the 5th free) as the perfect Christmas gift. Apologies for the poor picture quality.



Note how the Courier has chosen to spell the surname Brooking. "Is that with 7 i's, Sir, or just the 6?"

At Least They Were A North European Culture - No. 1

Aaah, the Express and Echo letters page. Home to the maddest and baddest of Exeter's correspondents. To be honest, I've given up the letters page over the past few months, but felt that it was ripe for the picking in an occasional new series here on SYi2.

The inaugral prime cut comes from a letter (or most probably email) sent from the good ol' US of A. Ex-pat Nick Spicer writes in response to an E&E story about some judge who is going to clamp down on crime:

SUPPORT FOR THE JUDGE, FROM USA

I write regarding Judge ready to get tough, Echo, November 29. I left Exeter in 1966 to emigrate to the USA.

I would love to bring my family to see my home town, but the streets are no longer safe.

I applaud the judge's actions.

Nick J Spicer
Florida
United States of America

So Nick doesn't want to bring his family home becase "the streets are no longer safe". Um, now I have lived for a few years in Exeter, and I can't say I've ever felt particularly threatened - but maybe I've just been lucky and potential ruffians have been put off by my rugged physique and menacing looks. Let's get some cold hard figures in to see how much more dangerous the "mean streets" of Exeter are than peaceful "Trumpton" Florida.

Since 2003, Exeter has experienced 1 murder. Devon and Cornwall combined have had 43. Pretty rough. Florida, in the first 6-months of this year, has had 408, which is going to work out at about 1650 for the same time period. Even taking into account the differences in population, you're nearly 5 times more likely to be murdered in Florida than in Devon and Cornwall. And let's not even bother with armed robbery and violent assault.

Now it maybe unfair to use statistics to rubbish what is already a poor letter, but come on, the man's an idiot. He's just covering up for the fact that his kids are desperate to go to Crealy Park and he ain't willing to shell out the money to take them.

December 6th - Advent Window No. 6

December 5th - Advent Window No. 5

A bit of a combination posting today - Cartoon of the Week is absorbed into our 5th advent calender window.



The chemistry set is a great present, often dismissed by the uninterested child. However, if the child is willing to put in the time, it is possible to get some great explosive material. This I know from experience - when I was 10, my Gran gave me the present that most young boys who show any interest in anything at all sciency (I quite liked How2) get. Across the book of experiments, writ in large letters, was the warning "DO NOT MIX ALL CHEMICALS TOGETHER". I realised that if I was going to be any kind of scientist, I could not accept this as a given and had to gather some verifiable experimental evidence.

Basically what happened was, when put in a test tube of hot water and shook vigourously, the chemicals exploded. The cork top flew into my parents ceiling where it put a dent into the artex (still viewable). The bottom of the test tube was also blown out, allowing the acid-like fluid to not only stain my parent's carpet, but also dissolve sections of it. It was great.

However, like George in the Marvellous Medicine books, I could never repeat my experiment again with the same results. (Obviously I employed an assistant researcher, my brother, to do the holding and shaking of future test tubes.)

December 4th - Advent Window No. 4

Christmas is indeed coming - I saw the Coca Cola advert with all the lorries for the first time this morning, which is a sure sign. It's like hearing the first cuckoo of spring, if cuckoos were a large multi-national company that advertise using a large fleet of articulated vehicles.

Hmm, although the sun is shinging for the first time in a few days (crikey did it rain yesterday) and my mood is good, I'm feeling a bit of Scroogish moment coming on.


Personally, I think that people who own such ugly, ugly, ugly displays (more of which can be found here) should be made to sell all but three items of external light equipment and forced to donate the proceeds plus the money they save on their electricity bill to a good cause.

That feels better.

December 3rd - Advent Window No. 3

Enough of pet pictures. Here's a picture of an island.



Obviously it is Christmas Island. And here is a picture of a bomb being detonated about 10 miles south of the island in 1962.



The Brits and Americans tested quite a few bombs near the island, and even evacuated the natives for some of the tests (and put them in effective detention camps where a lot died), although some servicemen had to remain so that we could find out what effects radioactivity had on them (er, they became really ill). But at least we got our bombs.

Wait a minute, this isn't very Christmassy. Must make up for it tomorrow.

Parsons Watch - Episode 4

We start Parsons Watch this week with a brand new theme tune:

"Duh...Duh du du de duh duh...Bah Bah Baaah...Dum Bah Bah Bah...Do De Do...laaaa (dum didi dum) Laaaa (dum didi dum) LAAAAA (dedodedode do doooo)"

Tony Writes:
There are few things more fun than using the stick of hindisght to beat a hapless hack. Cast your mind back to the start of November: Charles and Camilla were on their tour of the States. Response to the Royal couple from the Americans was hardly overwhelming, I think that it is agreed. This may have dismayed the Duchess of Cornwall, especially if she had caught Tony's column of the same week. "Camilla Parker Bowles [will become] bigger than Catherine Zeta-Jones over there" he cried. Ooh, what insight.


Parsons of the Week:

A wintery Parsons of the week as we meet the unmistakable Kristen Parsons (on the right, wearing her coat of many wolves). You are most probably asking yourself "Where have I seen that face before?"

That's right, Kristen won "Miss Teen Newfoundland and Labrador 2002". (I was going to insert a dog joke here, but that would be derogatory, cruel and unfair, and totally against the high standards I require of Parsons Watch). And anyway, none of my half-baked remarks could compete with the image of Kristen and fellow winner Lori posing with a, er... well, whatever that guy is meant to be dressed up as. (Surely it can't be that?)

***Parsons in Music***

So far in our Parsons supergroup we have Gram (guitar and vocals) and Alan (producer). Our next addition is none other than Mr Gene Parsons, drummer with The Byrds.



Although Gene's musical credentials are enough alone to get him into the supergroup, I think we'd all be lying if we didn't say that it is his moustache that really cements his position on the skins.

Although best known for his drumming, Gene has a strong interest in all of the country music instruments. As well as the banjo, he is also considering learning the Bluegrass Mandolin and maybe even how to fiddle.

Parsons Word Fact: I once spelt Parsons wrong in an A-Level maths test, substituting the second S for an O. The teacher deducted a mark from me, thus depriving me of a rare test-victory over my arch-rival, Conrad Dowding.

December 2nd - Advent Window No. 2

I started off this week with a pretty low opinon of cats. I think that, if I were forced to say, I would definitely have classed myself as more of a dog person. However, after finding today's Christmas images, I'm not so sure.





How can I possibly stick up for dogs when they show so little pride in themselves. I mean, come on, you're a frickin' alsation, yet you're wearing a Santa outfit. Better put some dignity on your Christmas doggy list.

I can't imagine a cat would ever allow itself to be abused by it's owner such, and thus I grudgingly admit respect for the feline and a rise in my opinon of them.

Little Britain, Peep Show and Neighbours

So another episode of Little Britain tonight. I saw the second (??) episode last week and was shocked - not in a Outraged from Tunbridge Wells kind of way - but at how unfunny it was. Nothing made me laugh. Not even a snigger. The whole show seemed barren of ideas.

Now there seems to be a myth - started by Fawlty Towers and carried on by Ricky Gervais - that classic comedies should only last a couple of series, and a few LB apologists have been saying that maybe the third series is too far. I think this is rubbish, and was glad to hear in a Simon Mayo interview last week that David Mitchell and Robert Webb agree. David and Robert are obviously from the excellent Peep Show, which is also in its third series and, in my opinion is as strong as ever.

Basically, to paraphrase David, if you're any kind of comedy writer and you have a great idea, you should be able to get a load of mileage out of it, not just 12 amusing situations. Look at the US shows, for Chrissakes. And don't go on about big teams of writers, cos I don't care. And so the good news is that Peep Show looks like it could be running for a while yet. In addition, David and Robert are recording the pilot for the transition of their sketch show from radio to television, which is also something to keep an eye on.

When I was mentioning my dislike for the current series of Little Britain, a friend said it was most probably because I found it offensive. This is of course rubbish - although I am considered the "prudish one" amongst my dad's side of the family. I think this arose from me dissenting a Jethro video once. Now if that's prudish, then stick a white wig on my head and call me Mary.

However, one thing that I have been finding offensively over the past few months is Neighbours.

Yes, I watch Neighbours. It's on at the right time for when I get back from uni, and... wait, I don't have to justify why I watch it, I just do. Over the past few months, maybe even a year (time is hard to measure in Neighbours) the older women have broken up from their respective spouses and started finding new love. Fine - a not unheard story development in the world of soap operas.

What I do object to is the footage of the old couples (and I put anyone above the age of 40ish into this category) kissing. Lin Scully and Jo Mangle. Susan Kennedy and Max's dad. Lin and Max's dad. The big blonde one and Max's dad. Susan and her new old bloke. Lil and David. Lil and Paul. Paul and Izzy. I think Lou was even shown kissing someone, but thankfully I've blanked it out. To use an outdated US teen saying, EEEeeeww.

It's horrible, and I'm usually eating my tea/dinner/supper (delete according to regionality) when it's on, and it's pretty deappetising, I can tell you. Can't they just pan away to a fluttering cutain or a lava lamp or the like? I feel a letter to PoV coming on...

December 1st - Advent Window No. 1

Day 1 of the Christmas countdown, which gives me an excellent excuse to milk the festive period for some cheap and easy postings - and surely that is what Christmas is all about, no?

So we start our blog-advent-calender with a simple image, and a link to a whole website worth if it's your kind of thing.



Kinda topical, what with my earlier posts this week. One of these cats is called Katmanblu (a fine name for a cat) and you can see more of him at Digitalpetpix. Believe me , this ain't the freakiest picture - a lot of them seem to merge the idea of Christmas, cats (obviously) and the not so traditional setting of a beach. You might think that this is yet another obsessive lover of the cat, although it is questionable when you see the decidedly violent animations involving Katmanblu and friend under the animations tab.

Advent Calender

A load of Christmas related rubbish, dredged from the internet, the Crediton Country Courier and a clothes catalogue.

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