The Dark Badger Returns

Mes Amis

Miss me?

Okay, so there's the sound of tumbleweeds there. But yes, your eyes do not deceive you: I'm back, baby!

There've been a few things here that needed sorting out so I had to take time out to deal with all that. No need to go into details but a few things have changed and you'll probably figure those out as posts etc return to normal. And I suspect there's more than a few of you know the reasons I felt the need to take a break and sort out life. All the same, its really not that exciting so no need to go into details here.

So, you may well ask, has anything exciting happened during my brief absence?

Well, CSS has had a mini update to the last issue:

Fantastic fiction from Bryon Quertermous
Ray Banks and Russel have a caffiene fuelled conversation about everything under the sun...
And you can win lots of books by Ms Patricia Cornwell: for you or for someone you love!

Which is great and we're planning the next issue even as we speak.

I've also been doing lots more reviews.

I loved Shakedown by Charlie Stella

I laughed heartily at the lovely Donna Moore's Go To Helena Handbasket

and I was chilled by the violence in Adrian McKinty's The Dead Yard.

In between that I've been just generally living life. Listening to Johnny Cash's American Recordings album and realising that nobody told it like Cash. That he can make love a Neil Diamond song is a miracle and moreso that he can take a U2's really rather dull One and make it breathe with an energy and intensity hitherto unimaginable just marks out what an incredible talent the man was.

I'm booked and ready for Madison and this year's Bouchercon. Oh yeah, folks, its gonna be fun.

Other things?

Silent Hill was a wasted opporunity of a film: what should have been an intense kind of psychological horror got the fucked up visuals just right but forgot about story, theme or acting.

Doctor Who is still fantastic although the season opener was shite. But the Madame De Pompadour love story thing was heartbreaking (Kudos to Tennant who finally just owned the screen entirely and proved just why he got the part) and, even though the Doctor seemed rather sidelined by a scriptwriter who didn't seem overly familiar with the show, the Cyberman two parter was breathelessly energetic if a little preachy. That and the Cybermen themselves were just freaky.

Speaking of evil robots, the Battlestar Galactica season closer can only be described as fucking with the audience. But what a fuck it was: I need more. How could the Godawful original show (which I loved as a child, admittedly) spawn such an incredible and gripping reimagining?

Channel fucking Four have sneaked NYPD Blue back into the schedules three years later and on their tiny little specialist More4 channel. At least no Big Brother interruptions and they are screening it four nights a week. Still pissing about with the time slot which mean when I set my video to record it last week I didn't record it because they pissed about with the schedules again. Dammit! All the same, ten years on and its still a great show. But we all know Andy Sipowicz... um, I mean Dennis Franz... will never ever escape the legacy of such an iconic role.

The Wire is amazing. Even if it got shunted to a channel no one actually gets on their cable and at an obscure time slot. Buy the DVD's because this is the best cop show in many a year. Just amazing...

So I'm back, I'm bigger and badder than ever. And I just know that right now you're all shaking in your little boots...

Au revoir

Russel