Sunday 22 January 2012

Milton Jones - The House of Rooms [Review]

It's not often I watch a pilot of a comedy show and immediately fall in love with it (Felix and Murdo, I'm looking at you for how it shouldn't be done) but I'm glad that my mum spotted this initial one-off offering from one-liner comedian Milton Jones and told me to watch it.

Already a fan of Jones this is very much in the style of his funny, slightly surreal humour and I absolutely loved it.

Based around a house that Jones and his mum (Coronation Street's Susie Blake) own and rent out rooms in, Jones is a mummy's boy and social awkward and pines for the girl in the flat but, in this episode, faces competition from smooth operator Paul who is everything Jones isn't. Milton also has to combat a pushy gas salesman and his flirtacious mother in a thirty-minute episode that mixes some cracking visual jokes, one-liners and even a fight scene into a very promising episode.

I cannot really recommend this one-off more highly and you can still see it on Channel 4's on-line on-demand service. Highlights include Jones' way of getting rid of cold callers; a scene in which he gets trapped under a bed and tries to eat some chocolates; and a date that goes hilariously wrong.

When a show can even make you laugh with a display of the words 'end of part one' before the adverts with a piece of schtick I don't want to spoil and is creative with captions for advancing the action, you know this is going to be a winner.

Please, Channel 4, commission this show for a series. It's the best comedy I've seen on television since the excellent festive delight of 'The Bleak Old Shop of Stuff'.

Excellent stuff. 10/10

Wednesday 18 January 2012

10 Possible Explanations for the Sherlock Ending

* Spoilers to follow *

On Sunday the second series of Sherlock came to an end with the apparent death of Sherlock Holmes when his body and the pavement made their acquaintance. However, before the credits rolled, he was back alive. But how?
Here we take a look at ten possible theories of how Holmes survived his fall to continue onto a third season…

1. It’s all timey wimey…



Already the connections have been made on the net between this show and Steven Moffat’s other flagship BBC offering ‘Doctor Who’ Mimicking the ‘get out of death free’ card played by the Doctor last autumn, perhaps the Sherlock on the roof wasn’t in fact Sherlock but a robot Sherlock controlled by a tiny Sherlock inside it, so the mini Sherlock suffers no pain when the Teselecta replica crashes to the ground – complete with synthesised blood – allowing the miniaturised Holmes to dash off to be returned to full size.

Perhaps, in a further twist, it was Sherlock – when his amazing mind and ability to think out of the box – that created the Teselecta technology, thus not only saving himself and his three friends but the Doctor too many centuries later. Elementary.

2. Take the red bill, the blue pill, or any drugs he can get hold of



Whilst exploring the mystery of the Hounds of Baskerville, Sherlock experienced déjà vu when seeing the hound, thus experiencing a glitch in the Matrix but with a dog rather than a cat, realising with his amazing mind that he is inside a computer program.

One quick search for Agent Smith on the Matrix equivalent on Facebook and Smith was more than happy to absord Sherlock and his amazing intellect and quite enjoying punching the annoying know-it-all in the chest, becomes part of the clone army that is Agent Sherlock, allowing one nameless look-a-like drone to perish on the London streets whilst Holmes continues to live.

Expect series three to feature a dozen Sherlock Holmes all playing the violin at the same time, replacing the police forces all over the country, and generally breaking the fire rules when it comes to the capacity of 221B Baker Street. Oh, and it be called ‘Sherlock Reloaded’ featuring more mythology behind the character, a man with lots of keys and an orgy set to music featuring lots of half-naked men and women.

3. It’s a miracle!



It is an established fact that series two of Sherlock was supposed to be shown before Christmas but extra filming and contractual obligations for the lead actors meant this wasn’t possible and the episodes were delayed to the new year. Perhaps the BBC haven’t been entirely truthful and that the three TV films were supposed to come out in the summer.

When Moriarty killed himself on the roof he didn’t die and Sherlock saw this and realised that it was impossible for his enemy to survive such an injury. Using his intelligence and perhaps Twitter he realised it was some form of Miracle Day where no one was dying and it had just started.

With Moriarty unable to remember why he was on the roof – he had just gravely injured himself after all – Sherlock realised he would survive the fall to the floor with perhaps just some bruising and broken bones and jumped, only to recover later.

Expect series three to star John Barrowman, joining Cumberbatch and Freeman as a crime fighting threesome. You can imagine the innuendo already.

And it will probably also feature an orgy set to music featuring lots of half-naked men and women like explanation two if Russell T. Davies writes it.

4. It was a gas!



In the second episode of this series we saw the power of the hallucinogenic gas created as part of the H.O.U.N.D. project in Liberty, Indiana. What would be easier than for Sherlock to gas Watson so he imagined the whole suicide thing, along with Molly infecting all the doctors, nurses and bystanders that would rush to his body. Nothing is more powerful than the power of suggestion, of course.

But what about the assassins you may ask? Well if Moriarty could make contacts and influence them then sure could Sherlock, also gassing the three to imagine his death and therefore saving his friends.

Or, more scarily, perhaps in a turn of events that would get the Daily Mail fuming about the waste of tax payers money, the BBC using its incredible reach, created similar gas and pumped it out of the television of everyone who watched it so we only imagined Sherlock appearing at the end of the episode and he is actually dead.

Expect series three to therefore either feature Mycroft teaming up with Watson to solve crimes or the series to be rebranded Son of Sherlock with a protégé appearing Indiana-Jones like out of the woodwork and continuing his good work.

5. Inspiration from the moving picture



It is established in ‘The Reichenbach Fall’ that Holmes has become a minor celebrity and famous with the public and tabloids. So, it’s only natural to assume that, amongst the invitations onto ‘Celebrity Big Brother’ and ‘I’m A Celebrity, Get Me Out Of Here’, there would be interest in making a biopic of the celebrated gentleman in his lifetime, much like Margaret Thatcher has been in ‘The Iron Lady’, only with fewer upset miners.

And, of course, with a mind like Sherlock’s, it would only be natural for him to want to occasionally take a break from all his thinking and what better way to relax than to grab a bucket of popcorn and a Slush Puppie and sit down for a film at his local Multiplex.

And with an ego like Sherlock there would only be one film he’d want to see, and that would be part two of his Guy Ritchie-directed biopic ‘Sherlock 2’ (naturally using artistic licence to transpose the 21st Century Sherlock into a more Victorian setting) where his arch enemy Moriarty plans an assassination using a man with a transplanted face.

Upon leaving the cinema Sherlock would know that face transplants are much more professional in 2012 and so all he needs to do is find a willing victim, transplant a replica of his face on them and, using words and commands through an earpiece to them, get him to jump off the building and convince everyone it was in fact Sherlock that jumped off the hospital roof. Whereas it’s in fact, John Smith, with Benedict Cumberbatch’s face sewn on.

6. The Power of Re-commissioning



Perhaps Sherlock did jump after all and land on the pavement. But instead of a doctor or nurse first reaching his dying body it was in fact a BBC executive who whispered into his ear: “We’ve commissioned a third series. You can’t die now.” Thinking of the wage packet and the need to keep the BBC Board of Directors in biscuits, Sherlock waited until the coast was clear and awoke, allowing a new series to be made and the viewing figures to roll in.

7. Behind the Curtain…



Series three opens with Watson going for a much needed shower, only to find Sherlock in there already, having a wash, or trying to figure out a murder, or something. After all, ‘The Reichenbach Fall’ was all a dream…

8. It’s in his Genes…



Baskerville gets up to all sorts of weird experiments, including transplanting jellyfish genes into rabbits to make them glow in the dark. But that’s nothing compared to what they did to Sherlock. Transplanting cat genes into him on his request, not only did it make him more isolated than before, sleepy and able to lick parts of his body than in previous episodes, it gave him the ability to land on all fours when jumping off buildings. All he needed to do was then play dead, get Molly to put some blood around his head and then bobs your uncle, he could scuttle off out of the morgue for a bowl of milk and a quick surf around LolCats.

9. It’s all a trick…



OK, we’ve heard the weird possibilities but how about a “realistic” escape attempt. Sherlock jumps off the building into the relatively soft landing of the garbage van parked up outside the building that Molly or his band of homeless network peeps have arranged. Meanwhile a corpse in a similar costume is dropped for John to see. Then, in the time that Watson is getting up from the floor after being knocked over be a cyclist, Sherlock jumps out of the van, hides the corpse, lies on the floor, puts fake blood on the tarmac and pretends to be dead, perhaps using some clever technique to appear dying.

In his confusion and disbelief Watson thinks he’s dead but when Sherlock goes to the morgue he escapes.

Or perhaps it’s something even more inventive. We’ll have to wait and see!

10. But, the final questions is… was that Sherlock that jumped off the building?



Nope. It’s just Chuck Testa. Possibly.

Let’s just hope he hasn’t made a lifelike taxidermised Sherlock Holmes.

Wednesday 11 January 2012

Letter Box (3DS) Review

When I upgraded from the DSi up to the 3DS there were two things I missed and couldn’t transfer over to my new console. The first was ‘Flipnote Studio’, the excellent piece of animation software, which should be getting a new version soon if rumours at to be believed, and the pre-loaded software program ‘PictoChat’.

OK. If I’m being honest ‘PictoChat’ was never that good and was too ahead of its time for the capabilities of Nintendo’s flagship touch-screen console. For those who have not experienced it ‘PictoChat’ was a tool that allowed you to enter one of four sixteen-capacity chatrooms where you could type or draw messages or illustrations and send them to other DS users. Unfortunately, to receive messages you had to have your DS on, be in the same chat room, be friends with the other DS user(s) and, of course, be within the distance of the wireless signal. Back then, I was at University, and the only use for it was to send notes to friends across the lecture theatre and even then I never did it because my friends didn’t have a DS console so it was pretty much pointless aside from messing around with friends in the pub for a laugh.

Six years on and another firmware update later and the free ‘Letter Box’ on the 3DS is everything that ‘PictoChat’ should have been if the DS had been as versatile and connectable as the new 3DS.

Available to download for free from the 3DS eShop, and presented, naturally because it’s Nintendo, by a friendly Mii avatar called Nikki who takes you simply and relatively quickly through the features of the program using a series of hand-drawn notes, it’s a cracking piece of software that makes the 3DS much more of a connected console.

Using ‘Letter Box’ what you can do is send message to other friends you have on your console list via SpotPass, or to strangers by StreetPass. Now for Nintendo, a company that always seem to fear that console owners will be corrupted by strangers sending rude messages and images to other people, this is a definite relaxing of their tight rules. I am now free to send anything out as a message to be picked up by other console users and, aside from a polite request asking me not to send anything rude or illegal out, there is no check on swearing or whatever. Phew, I’ve come out in a cold sweat.

The full features of the program only come out after you send half-a-dozen messages so you really need to find a friend that is willing to let you spam them to unlock it all.

Once you have unlocked everything you’ll end up with a powerful set of tools, if limited in certain respects in their power, to send free messages to your chums which will appear on their console on their notification menu.

Clicking ‘Write Letter’ sends you to the edit screen, which allows you to write letters of up to four pages. You have one pen which you can draw or write in either 2D or 3D, which means you can do two layered notes if you wish, with notes popping impressively out of the screen. You can also erase in 2D or 3D as well as using one of six stationery themes which vary from, erm, stationary stationery, to ones featuring your Mii on it, to some with moving parts. There is also the option to add one of your photos onto the page even if you can only include images already taking, with no connection to the camera. If you want to take a new photo it’s back out to the camera app then back in I’m afraid.

Though those tools are great there are some questionable limits such as no coloured pens or different thicknesses or stamps which, considering the variety of tools in the old ‘PictoChat’ software seems weird.

Graphically the 3D of the menus is as great as you need on a menu and the till-ready music just dances on the right side of the annoying line.

Messages are all stored in a paper chain with a creation date stamp, and can be re-sent at any time. You can also, if you wish, set up a slide show which slowly cycles through all your letters showing also how you drew them.

Once you’ve composed your letter you can do one of two things with it. You can either send it to a friend in your friend list using SpotPass or add it onto StreetPass which means anyone passing by your 3DS with their wireless option on will see your message. You can cancel this at any time but it’s a great way to interact with other 3DS users who can, using a photo, put a face to a console and shows, as mentioned, that Nintendo are less afraid now to give users more freedom to what they send out. Whether it’ll become misused is another thing but there are a series of parent-friendly privacy options available on it which come up when you first load the app and from the in-app menu. You can even select whether you want 3DS users to have the ability to save your messages or not to their console.

‘Letter Box’ is a fantastic piece of software and, coming hot on the heels of some A+ games and eShop apps, is helping the 3DS become great after its stuttered release back in March. Though the tools could have more options what is there is powerful and the way of getting messages to friends as perfect as you’d need.

There is just one major problem I have with the software. Coming on the same day as a firmware update I think Nintendo missed a trick in automatically installing it to every user’s dashboard. Though I’m sure the majority of users will trundle over to the eShop to download the free app, software like this can only work to the best it can if everyone has it. Every DS owner had ‘PictoChat’ so every 3DS owner should have ‘Letter Box’. Come on, Nintendo, get it automatically installed!

That aside it’s a must-have app that works really well. All I need now is for someone to reply back to my messages so I actually have someone to talk to, which is of course the flaw in a social app!

[4 out of 5 stars]

Saturday 7 January 2012

City Park: Actually Quite Good

Last night I was walking through Bradford in the dark - you know, sometime after 3pm, and was impressed by what they've actually done with the City Park, the new water-feature development in Centenary Square, featuring a large oval dip in which a series of fountains have been put in, from small ones around the edge to some massive jets in the centre.

At night the ones on the edge light up and change colour every few minutes, with the jets taking turns in a circular fashion to jet higher.

Plus, it seems it's not deep enough for people to drown in, thankfully, as there's little standing water.

I couldn't get a photo unfortunately as it was dark and I only had my camera phone but it was really nice to see and the wooden walking area, seating and general atmosphere will make it nice in the summer.

It's far from complete yet with the visitor's centre still under construction (er, they said it would be finished in January, I don't think it will be) but it looks very promising.

Now all we need to really confuse everyone and make the council seem actually, you know, intelligent, is for them to sort out the Odeon and give it to BORG to transform into the new state of the art concert venue.

Hmm... we'll see!