scrabbled

There are red flags up about Facebook (FB), recently demonised by the likes of Tom Hodgkinson for no good reason (a moral panic amidst worries for FB users' social welfare?), other than the G2 journo being disgruntled with FB as timesink for users, and a big moneyspinner for the 'geeks' who created it. But who's exploiting who? Seems to me that FB is becoming a major player in the global village experiment (e.g. I can play umpteen simultaneous games of 'Scrabulous' - an online version of popular word game Scrabble - with other FB users from around the world), and - as with FB applications in general - all we really have to put up with is sundry targeted adverts (which, like the animated banners on many other commercial sites, are easy to ignore).

The virtual community of FB is a good thing, relatively, and I don't view it as some malevolent commercial entity undermining our personal freedoms. Other businesses have played the 'connecting people' card in promoting their products, before, but without offering so much potential for mindless, distracting fun. Okay, FB and Scrabulous are potentially addictive... but neither compare to the genuinely destructive power of drugs or even alcohol, right..?

Now, corporate johnnies at Hasbro and Mattel have called for Scrabulous to be removed from FB, and fans of the online game are fearing the worst. I wonder how the lawyers have regarded Scrabulous' creators (brothers, Rajat and Jayant Agarwalla, based in Calcutta)? On FB, fans of both Scrabble and Scrabulous are wondering if their fun is about to end, or whether a licensing deal can be worked out. I suspect there will have to be a close-down of the Scrab online servers, even if that's just for re-branding purposes.

Boston Legal

Although the second DVD boxset of Boston Legal lacks the verve and sheer freshness of the 1st season, the eccentric-lawyers partnership of Denny Crane and Alan Shore (a brilliant double-act by William Shatner and James Spader) continues to appeal, with much savagely absurdist humour (including the postmodern use of in-jokes, usually aimed star-wards), crazily unrestrained courtroom antics, and incisively constructed speeches (thinly veiled social and political commentary on various burning issues and current affairs of today). Although this season sees the exit of supporting actress Rhona Mitra (as Tara), replacement starlet Julie Bowen (as Denise) is instantly likeable, even though she's challenged by the late arrival of Parker Posey (as Marlene).

If the lively arrogant banter of Crane and Shore now becomes rather subdued in those end-of-day balcony-scene codas, the script-writers maintain Shore's unique propensity for acid-tongued yet often deeply compassionate trial closures, while Crane ('Denny Crane'), still gets plenty of great, pithy comedy lines for before, during, and after his brief marriage to Bev (Joanna Cassidy). Other guest stars include Tom Selleck (rather smug and irritating) and Michael J. Fox (too obviously sympathetic).

Perhaps the biggest surprise this season is that Brad (Mark Valley) is promoted to full partner in the company, and the actor manages to leave behind his wooden charm, becoming a major asset to the main cast, especially in his dramatic if not always his comedy scenes. The best and cleverest moment is when Wes Craven is called to testify as an expert witness about a porn video! Needless to say, I have ordered the season 3 boxset. If you like a bit of honest drama with your TV comedy, this show has excellent production values, and is quietly superior to every other law-firm series I've yet seen... although I wonder how it compares to James Woods' vehicle Shark?

on/offline

Had a lot of problems with broadband over the last fortnight, with only a couple of days Virgin.net service, that meant I struggled to cope with the slowness of a using - for the first time in years - a standard 56kbps (actually not more than 42) dial-up modem. Obviously, being accustomed to 10x that speed, it proved to be a lot of hassle just shifting and sorting through seasonal avalanche of spam emails, never mind essential FTP work for my publishing updates, or using various websites clearly designed for a minimum 1mbps download speeds.

At last, there's a solution in sight, but my online troubles probably won't be over until I can get the BT phone line moved around the house so the main socket is in the back room instead of the front hallway.

Travel

They say 'travel broadens the mind' but that proverb is about 100 years old now and it's no longer true. Back then, if you wanted to see the world you had to go around it. Nowadays, though, you can watch the world go by from your armchair.

Of course, the old saying predates the Internet and the 'global village'. It even predates modern cinema with colour and sound. The idea that 'travel broadens the mind' has been nixed by the advent of gadget culture, with technologies like cell phones, digital photography, home video, satellite communications, and television. Since wartime, generations have grown up with the whole wide world on their doorstep, in their living rooms, at their fingertips and in their pockets. Today's children are leaving school having already seen and heard - via look and learn education and online experience - more about the Earth's wonders and treasures than all their great-grandparents and most of their ancestors put together.

As Dr Johnson said about Giant's Causeway: "worth seeing, yes; but not worth going to see."

The tourist industry and package holidays are simply a way of taking money from uneducated working class folks with middle-class aspirations, and middle-class families with little or no common sense. So, the living planet has become simply another consumer product. Obviously, 'travel broadens the mind' predates space flight (such online gadgetry as 'Google Earth' demonstrate how orbital perspectives are shaping the un-blinkered outlook of 21st century societies) and, most importantly, the Apollo missions that landed astronauts on the Moon. Now that's travelling!

"A wise man can see more from the bottom of a well than a fool can from a mountaintop."

Thoughtless tourists often claim they are exploring foreign lands, but they often look quite silly doing it while using a guidebook or cheap map. When it comes to all those frequently aimless sightseers carelessly burning up our precious natural resources for plainly frivolous adventures, it's really not a big step from asking 'is your journey really necessary?' to the more pointed question, 'is your life really necessary?'

Black Static

The first issue of horror magazine Black Static: Transmissions From Beyond (Sept. 2007) is out now. Technically, this isn't a brand new publication, it's a re-titling of TTA Press' genre quarterly The 3rd Alternative, which stopped appearing a couple of years ago. The design work is not unlike that of its sister mag Interzone, but the unusual cover artwork (readers can no doubt amuse themselves wondering if the giant-size fly actually means anything!) fronts a strictly black & white interior.

Black Static includes my new column 'Blood Spectrum', which has DVD reviews of The Return, Dark Corners, Karla, The Thirst, Dead And Deader, Dark Water, 28 Weeks Later, and The Butcher.

Elsewhere, in the online world, I started playing chess on the FaceBook site.