A Public Service Announcment

I'm going to say it while it's fresh in my mind. Whatever you do, do not go to see Destino Oculto or The Adjustment Bureau as it is known to some. Yes, it's based on a Philip K. Dick short story. Yes it attempts to tackle profound questions of free will and reality. Yes, it is the most tremendous pile of bullshit in existence. There might be some forgotten movie gathering dirt at the bottom of a very deep ditch that can top the disappointment level of this film, but it's not likely. Two hours of grey paint drying to the sound of a neverending high pitched squeal might do it. Might.

If you're still reading you might be wondering why I'm being so nasty. After all, I'm usually so nice, and Matt Damon hasn't really done me any wrong. Maybe you're right, perhaps I'm being too hasty a judge. Different people have different tastes and perhaps you're the sort of person that enjoys a bit of love story tacked on to their action. There's nothing wrong with that, everyone needs an occasional whiff of sloppy romantic cheese. Even Billy Builder and Kevin the Cage Fighter. Sometimes you just want to curl up with a hot chocolate and watch two unsettlingly good looking people decide whether or not they're going to spend a prolonged chunk of their lives fucking each other. It's sweet when you think about it. Even when they're the most despicably carefree and hence hateable people in existence, blithely stumbling from dance studio to luxury restaurant to apartments built entirely from lobster bisque and pretty thoughts about the environment. Ok, I made the last one up, but the concept is basically the same. Aside from constantly legging it from the behatted manipulators of destiny that are The Bureau, Matt Damon's only real dillemma throughout the film is whether he's going to hook up with a beautiful woman he doesn't know or choose become the future president of the United States. The poor thing. You can tell that deep down he's just like you or me though, because he gets the bus and thinks that politicians are tools.

The Bureau itself is a divine collection of suits whose sole objective is upholding the divine 'plan' of the 'chairman'. They're obviously not doing a great job otherwise they wouldn't have let the film exist in the first place. It's not too surprising when you consider that their powers include briefly stopping time, wearing hats and being allergic to water. Kind of like angels, except really, really, really shit. Throughout the endless navel gazing you're never really sure whether they're being nazi or nice, one minute preaching the word of the lord, the next threatening to suck Matty boy's brains out through his ear. They've got to be good though, because love conquers all and love is God and God is good? Right? This is the kind of logic we're working with here.

Anyway, between the stilted dialogue, endless staring into each other's eyes, gut wrenching boredom and poncy monologues about the nature of authenticity, there's... Well there's not much. There's some running, some dancing, some sailing the sea. Unfortuantely it's done by someone who thinks dropping phones in coffee is a sign of a free spirit, the only black person in heaven and an American version of Nick Clegg. Avoid.

HAHAHAHA FUNNY LOL

Pouring billions into a black hole of perpetual human suffering alleviated only by an unproffessional rabble of self-important aid workers who will never change as long as people continue to inexplicably throw wads of cash at their feet. Tuning in much to the glee of innumerable monolithic organisations whose very existence relies on the poverty and inequality they apparently seek to eliminate, dancing a little jig with every image of heartbreak and misery that reels in another unsuspecting wallet courtesy of its owner's moral susceptibility. Milked dry in the name of liberty, equality and Lenny Henry. Do something pointless and/or humiliating for a good cause! Join Comic Relief!

Armageddon. With Cheetos.

Please do not panic. Upon the conclusion of this announcment please return to your homes in a calm and orderly fashion. I'm sorry to announce that we are on the verge of an epidemic. Mayan soothsayers and American film makers might try to convince you that the end of the world is kicking off in 2012, but we have to be realistic. Student protests, spiralling unemployment and an economy you wouldn't trade a dead horse for. The apocalypse is right around the corner. November to be precise. I don't know about you but a small dribble of urine is currently making its way down the inside my leg. In the time before, I might have been reluctant to admit any such weakness of the bladder, but all that has changed. I am literally pissing myself in excitment and fear.

If your own clothes aren't now drenched in an assortment of bodily fluids, I have to say I'm very dissapointed. Perhaps this will whet your fancy. Still nothing? Not even a trickle? Perhaps you don't fully understand.

Science fiction and fantasy engages with audiences through a juxtaposition of cognition and estrangement, betraying the mythical structures which construct our own society by developing new ones from scratch. At least, that's the argument that has developed over a period of millenia to disguise the fact that some people just want to dress up as elves, jedi and batmen. Awww, well everyone needs some escapism sometimes, don't they? That's probably why nine out the ten top grossing films of all time are fantasy, with the exception of the voyeuristic fuck-fest that is Titanic. Escapism only becomes sinister when you realise that the happy-go-lucky gang of convention-dwelling fancy-dressers are secretly blood-hungry psychopaths who want nothing more than to parade about with an assortment of the most inhumane weapons imaginable, wantonly murdering trolls, sith lords and Heath Ledger. All in preparation for the moment they finally turn on the school bully, unreasonable family member or local hobo. This is the true face of fantasy. A sexist, racist, homophobic and socially backwards gorefest specifically designed to exploit the most vulnerable and sexually repressed adolescents of the world.

Still, don't knock it until you've tried it. Like cheap alcohol, it may be rotting the very foundations of our society, but it's also affordable and far less boring than real life.

A good place to begin your magical journey into brain numbing addiction is a book, or series of books. Choose one that's got lots of pages, so that even if you spend every nanosecond of the remaining years of your waking life flicking from page to page in a desperate hurry to reach the end, you'll still never pass the halfway mark. Nobody really knows why they bothered to publish Robert Jordan's fifty-millionth The Wheel of Time novel, since nobody will ever get the chance to read it. Unless you're still a quick off the mark fetus who has nothing better to do in those nine long months in the womb. Even if you're a fast reader and reach the grand old age of four hundred, you'll never reach the end. You'd have to be reincarnated. Twice. At which point you'll have forgotten what has happened in the first book and have to start over. That's why they call it The Wheel of Time.

Thankfully you needn't do that, since the wonders of modern technology have rendered the need to use actual words obselete. I'm not just talking about written words, or even the speaky ones. While we're sat slap bang in the center of the greatest technological gaming revolution of all time, we no longer need simple thoughts and basic instructions such as: 'time to eat now' or 'better make sure the baby isn't dead'. Why bother when we have an efficient and eloquent new language that consists solely of swording wild boar to death and kitting out characters with as much overweight sexy gear as possible. There's no need to worry about completing anything either, as content is developed at a faster rate than it can ever be played. Authors are mortal, meaning that The Wheel of Time is technically finite. The end of an MMO on the other hand is a receding speck on the horizon, an experience bar that expands faster than you can level up. One trip to the fridge for that final slice of decaying pizza and you've fallen behind in the rat race forever.

You'll only realise that things have gotten out of hand when you can't physically drag your eyes from the game, even when people start to insert random objects into you for laughs. If you want to kick the habit, it's too late, you've invested too much time and too much soul to give up now. Five more hours and you might even reach level 34! There is no cold turkey, and if there was you'd probably skin it to make a Tribal Headdress of Agility. This is what the Elder Scrolls series does to people. If we don't act fast, Skyrim will be an unsurpassed sucess and we'll all be reduced to drinking tins of cold beans through a straw. Cos that's what Dragonslayers do.

And as if one world shattering shot of electronic morphine wasn't enough, the final installment of the hit series Mass Effect is being released at around the same time.

We've already been given a teaser trailer which closely resembles a mashed together selection of Eastenders soundbites and failed Jason Statham impressions. For some obscure reason, give a cheeky Londener a gun and he'll instantaneously transform from a mischeivous shoeshine boy to a battle hardened Cockney guerilla, taking down enemy after enemy from the comfortable confides of Big Ben. Of course, Bioware are taking some necessary liberties translating the original dialect. The unedited script just read: 'Shepard you slaaaag, get the shooters, it's them bloody Reapers innit.'

While we're on the topic of things I'm not qualified to talk about and as of yet don't even exist, it would be wrong not to mention the new adaptation of George RR Martin's A Game of Thrones, soon to be transported to the new fangled medium of television. Being completely untrue to the original text, they've renamed it Game of Thrones. Is nothing sacred?

Since honesty is the best policy, it's probably best to admit that I haven't actually read the book. It's one of those things which has been rotting away on my bookshelf since the dawn of time, pleading to be read in exchange for sexual favours. I don't take bribes though, even from books. My interest remains fully piqued however, for two reasons:

1. According to everyone who has read it, the book is supposed to be incredible. Inspired by Shakespeare's Plantagenet plays, which in turn went on to inspire the real life events of the War of the Roses, Martin's book is filled with enough romance, sex, political intrigue and fighting to satisfy even the most jaded of fantasy readers. Apparently.

2. It's not a film. Since Lord of the Rings first graced our screens back in 2001, attempts to crowbar high-fantasy onto blockbuster screens have been hitty-missy. Generally, missy. I'm looking at you, Eragon. Attempting to jam so much worldbuilding into the space of an hour or two is a risky business, especially when a large portion of that time is devoted to making things seem as visually and aesthetically 'awesome' as possible. A fully fledged series on the other hand, gives epic fantasy some room to breathe, meaning that all the subtelties and subtexts that make books so rich and rewarding are less likely to be lost amongst the dross.

3. I know I didn't mention a third reason, but it really needs mentioning. HBO. The series is being done by HBO. Creators of The Sopranos. Dexter. True Blood. The Wire. Deadwood. Six Feet Under. They can do no wrong. If HBO pulls this off it could potentially spark a renaissance of quality fantasy filmmaking geared towards actual content rather than flashy effects and repeated use of the word 'thee.'

Kiss your social lives goodbye my friends, we don't stand a chance.

One Week Later

So it’s been just over seven days (give or take) which means it’s time for bloggy blog updatey happy time. Already I’ve been inundated with emails begging me to post something early. Anything, they beg, even a couple of misspelled racist slogans carved into the back of Hitler’s haircut to satisfy that insatiable need to read. I know, impatient or what? I mean, I’ve only been gone… Oh.

Well, bygones being bygones and deadlines being a concept I haven’t yet fully grasped, I feel I have a duty to my totally-real-and-not-made-up-at-all readership. After all, critics are only there to enhance the already rich cultural jungle that has provided them with so much narrative sustenance over the years. They just hide it really well by doing the opposite. It’s far easier to slag something off than try to figure out why you actually enjoyed it. That’s why it’s so rare to find anything you can praise without leaving yourself open to the jibes of some joyless human-beret complaining about anything written in the past thousand years in a language that more than five people in the world can understand.

Enter The Greatest TV Drama of All Time, one of those uncommon exceptions that turns sneers into smiles and brings people together from all walks of life. I’m going to give you three guesses what it is, and if you so much as think the words ‘big’ and ‘brother’, even as a consequence of reading them in this sentence, I’ll be very disappointed. Not so disappointed that I’ll feel the need to fire a remote mind-control dart into your brain in order to coerce you into participating in a nationally televised knife orgy, but not far off. The Greatest TV Drama of All Time, according to my sources, is:

Now normally I would dismiss comments like this with a hearty ‘Pah!’, maybe even the good old ‘greatness is subjective’ tactic, the sort of thing that a real writer would say right up to the point that they start talking about themselves. When you sit down and think about it though, The Sopranos probably is the greatest drama of all time, which is actually a little bit depressing. If someone, for example, tells you that Eminem is the greatest rapper of all time, you’ll stop, try to think of someone better and nothing springs to mind. All of a sudden you’re convinced that Eminem isn’t just an angry lyric-slinger pretending to be superman, he’s actually the best angry lyric-slinger pretending to be superman there ever was. This is a conclusion often followed by a feeling of emptiness and a realisation that maybe rap isn’t all that good.

Another suitable comparison are shows like The Hundred Greatest Cartoons of All Time, where you wait until the ungodly hour of five in the morning only to find that The Simpsons is still the best thing life has to offer. Why watch anything else? Why not just sit in your underwear all day with a bottomless tub of Ben and Jerry’s, gazing in infantile glee as Homer says ‘Doh’ over and over again and your insides gradually turn into Phish Food? While many will respond that they would if they could afford it (bottomless tubs of Ben and Jerry‘s are even more expensive than the normal sized ones), the truth of the matter is that this situation is likely to lead to a bad case of self-inflicted scissors in eye.

So, the first thing that I thought when I heard that The Sopranos was the Greatest TV Drama of All Time was that it would be pretty dull. Not only this, it would be so seeped in pretension that it would actually have to sprout an arse in the middle of the screen as a visual metaphor of how far up itself it was. It would be dry, convoluted and more incomprehensible than a renaissance poetry collection recited by Scooby Doo.

It’s actually fantastic. Even if I wanted to, there’s not one thing I can complain about. The Sopranos is genuinely, well… great. If you haven’t seen it, see it. If you have seen it, see it again. It’s really that good.

If you’re still in the dark, this is how it goes down. Mafioso Tony Soprano is having some trouble dividing his time between work and family. Except he works for the mob, which in a way is also his family, which kind of makes him a bigamist, which causes all sorts of problems at Christmas dinner. These conflicting (and at times agreeing) interests of the two parties make for a big headache and eventually Tony goes all emo and winds up seeing a psychiatrist. In other words, the audience is invited to share a voyeuristic glimpse into the inner workings of a man who commits atrocity after atrocity while somehow managing to convince himself of his own innocence, like some sort of serial rapist who firmly believes that the taxman is the greatest evil imaginable.

The rest of the show is divided up into violence and shooting, followed by Tony moaning about how violent and shooty he is. Shoot, moan, shoot, moan, shoot, moan. You would think that the simple answer would just be to stop shooting people, but that doesn’t quite stretch into six series. Instead you get offered a rich medley of characters contributing to Tony’s continuously fluctuating perceptions of reality. Is he really a cold blooded killer or just a little lost boy? A lamb in a lion’s clothing? A moray eel with a heart of gold? A sabre-toothed chihuahua? Who knows.

If there is any moral to be drawn out of this post (which there isn‘t), it’s that sometimes you have to set all scepticism aside and just buy all six box sets from play.com. Then tell me what happens. I'm still on season two.

Excuse Me Sir, Is this Your Child...?

Actually, no. That child has no legal parent / guardian. That child belongs to no one and is born of no one. It is the child that has witnessed the rise and fall of nations and empires, all the while calculating with mechanical precision its triumphant return. You don’t even know what you’re dealing with do you? That is no ordinary child. It’s the BACK IN BUSINESS BABY!

That’s right, after months and months of sheer negligence, I’ve realised that sooner or later social services are going to be on my back wanting to know why my bloggish brainchild is wriggling around on the floor in a pile of its own shit, smoking thirty a day and living off bits of peanut it’s picked out of the carpet. My only excuse is that babies are quite hard work and I’m quite a lazy person.

For those of you reaching for the phone in self-important outrage, calm down and read the last paragraph again. Done? That’s right, I was talking about my creative output, silly. I don’t have any children. Not living ones anyway. Just bloggish ones!

All in all, I’m feeling bigger, better and more hygienic than ever. You probably don’t care about the last bit too much, on account of you being tucked safely behind that glass screen that is my prison. Once I get out though, those initial reactions of ‘What the hell just dragged itself kicking and screaming from the monitor in a slurry of broken glass???’ will be counterbalanced by the realisation that ‘That is a fine smelling aftershave.’ Unfortunately that just makes the process all the more painful.

Digression aside for the moment, I’d like to announce my final descent into mainstream music. I’ve held out for a long time, locking myself in R&B-proof rooms, humming rock ballads to myself over and over again until my hair turns black and I start naturally sprouting nose-rings. It’s about as much good as thinking about dry land in an attempt to escape a sinking ship. Wishful thinking doesn’t work. Especially not when every radio station is pumping saltwater into your veins on a twenty-four hour basis. Resistance is futile. You might as well just give up and hope that the boat hasn’t gone down next to a sewage pipe or a nuclear waste dump. Or 50 Cent.

To cut a long story short I’ve been listening to B.O.B. To cut a long story short but be a bit more specific, I’ve been listening to Airplanes (or Aeroplanes if we’re being pedantic) with Paramore’s Haley Williams. It’s one of those songs that gets played continuously for a couple of weeks before being forcibly erased from public consciousness like a drunken night out you’d rather not remember. During those couple of weeks, lots and lots of people became very depressed. Relationships failed, businesses crashed headlong into the earth, and a small child found out that Santa isn’t real. (That’s right brats, he’s really called St. Nicholas!) It was all the bad feeling of a unwanted erection and an uncomfortably hot day mixed into one. Of course it could be a coincidence. It could be that Haley Williams is perfectly innocent and genuinely isn’t trying to take over the world by turning all radio listeners into glum blobs of disinterested paste. Or it could be... she is!

Let’s think about it for a second. The song revolves around a single image of a person desperately wishing for something, later revealed as a desire to return to more innocent and complete state of being. Back before things sucked. Except she can’t wish for any of this because in order to do so she needs some sort of rare atmospheric phenomenon (already a dubious object of faith) and there aren’t any going on at the moment so she’s going to have to kid herself into thinking that a Boeing 747 can do the same job. First off though, she’s got to ask permission from some unseen dictator of what can and can’t be wished upon. She could be talking to Bobby Ray. Hell, she could even be asking you, the listener! What are you going to do? Let Haley Williams delude herself into thinking she can return to some idyllic life of wanton bliss, back before she actually had to work for her piles and piles of money? Then what, you’re going to watch as the dream fails to manifest itself, gradually replaced by the realisation that all those ‘better times’ never really happened? Watch as the days turn into months and the months turn into years and she realises in one cold moment that she’s wasted her life away chasing a unachievable fantasy? Are you? No, you’re not. You’re going to turn around and say: ‘You can’t wish on that plane. It doesn’t even look like a shooting star. It looks like a plane.’

In all, the song is bursting at the seams with nostalgia, even as it exposes the feeling as inherently fallacious. Airplanes Part Two even features Eminem reminding everyone that you can’t achieve success by crossing your fingers and waiting for a miracle. Apparently you’ve just got to take a few risks and be completely fucked up to begin with. Sound advice if ever there was some. But who is Eminem to criticise childhood nostalgia when he’s responsible for half of that nostalgia in the first place? All that’s missing is a cameo from Buzz Lightyear and we’ll have anyone under the age of twenty-five in tears. The lyrics will just be ‘YOUR CHILDHOOD IS A LIE AND IT ISN’T COMING BACK,’ over and over again.

So really it isn’t any wonder that everyone was so depressed when the song first got so big. Thankfully there was an upside. Nostalgia gets old pretty quickly and once it’s gone, it’s gone. You can get nostalgic about just about anything except being nostalgic, which is probably why the song’s popularity dropped substantially and nobody really cared.

See y’all next week.

If you're feeling low...

Nerds have a thing, where in order to either deny or super-confirm their own status as nerdites, they must undergo the ritual of putting down other nerds. If, for example, you attend a comic convention, you must make a point of noticing how many nerds are actually there. “That’s a lot of nerds” you may say to an acquaintance “Don’t they smell. Haw haw haw.” You may think this makes people believe you stand apart from the smelly masses yourself. Allow me to explain something to you nerdkind. You are mistaken. Horribly mistaken.

First off, if people are going to brand you a nerd, they’re going to do it whether or not you brand other people. This is because they also don’t want to be called nerds. In the end, all we end up with is a big group of people calling each other names before whining themselves to sleep in the pitiful hope that other people don’t say the same thing about them.

Thinking about it though, what is so bad about actually being a nerd? The ability to endlessly appreciate outdated humour? The blithely positive attitude towards all problems and all situations? A blissful obliviousness to restrictive social etiquette? What’s not to love? It’s only when nerds start getting big ideas about breaking free from the hive mind that the problems start. That's where the self-deprecating, all consuming system of circular alienation begins.

I call on you all today to make a stand, for it is impossible to deny your heritage any longer. The very act of reading this piece of text makes you one of us, meaning that for you the time has come to act. The next time you exercise one of your petty attempts to hide your true identity through taking a steamer on someone else’s: think again. They’re going to do exactly the same to you. It’s not like smoking either. You can’t call yourself a casual, social or only-when-I’m-drunk nerd. This is who you are. Get used to it.

Right, I’m going to go do some press ups and socialise with my myriad of friends about topics unrelated to space travel or magic. Or books. Night, losers!

My Name's Katie and I Hate Icebreakers

It's not by the way. But I do. First day back at uni and you've got a wild eyed psychopath who would eat her own eyes to make a good impression on the first people she's been allowed to talk to in three years. Here's a tip: if you ever find yourself in this situation, please don't go around the room asking people their names and hobbies. It's icky. People don't like it.

I mean, what is the point of icebreakers anyway? They don't break the ice. They don't even thaw the tension. You don't know me and I don't know you. Nice and simple. The only function of breaking this unspoken agreement is to make everyone feel so awkward that they feel obliged to retreat into their own private inner well of despair. 'What are your hobbies?' she shrieks in cackling fits of madness. 'I haven't got any hobbies' you scream silently to yourself while those who have gone before you lie foaming on the floor.


Or maybe icebreakers are little chunks of necessary evil for our own good, disguised as awkward time wasting rituals . Perhaps subliminally they help us delve into the deep set hidden emotions of our co-students. Perhaps by talking about crap that nobody really cares about (good preparation for a literature module) we're simply learning to open ourselves up to the group. Perhaps it's 'rapport.' Perhaps it's just a good way for our demented overmistress to learn names.

Bull, bull, bull and bull. Nobody's listening to anything anyone else is saying. We don't care that Paul can ride a motorbike or that Jelly-Legs-Jimbo is doing a PGCE next year. We're too busy either bricking ourselves over what we're going to say next or regretting what we've already said. As if anyone could learn anything from a person's hobbies. 'I sew uncooked brussel sprouts into the eyes of dead animals so that the stalks look like pupils...' Nobody cares.


It's not rapport either and it's certainly not a good way of learning names. Rapport is when you say something and someone says something back. Icebreakers are when you say something and your words are swallowed into a void of ambivalence. As for name-learning, it's not as if you can look at someone and immediately associate them with whatever self-commending toss they've spouted earlier in the year. You've got your own little prejudices for that haven't you? It's not Jeremy the fun loving rascal who spends his time at the hospital singing to terminally ill puppies, it's Jeremy the blatant ket addict who pours jugs of peanut oil over himself for twenty minutes every day in an attempt to get it up. That's you Jeremy and don't you forget it.


My point (I think) is that people shouldn't be pressured into formulating a public image for themselves when they don't really want one. Don't be fooled, this is exactly the sort of brainwashing that icebreakers foster. If you don't have a hobby besides drinking and reading (again prerequisites for an English degree) you had better get one soon. And you can't choose horse riding because that's already taken.


The same goes for blogging. It's apparently impossible to create and maintain a blog without some sort of public image manifesting. Which is why I want to take this moment to apologise. I'm sorry world but this isn't me. This is merely a reflection of me mediated through the distorting lens of the written word. In real life I'm actually quite a nice person. Except when I'm drunk. Then I'm a tyrant.


You'll forgive me then (I'm sure) for criticising Seth Rogan's Zak and Miri Make a Porno because I actually quite like it.

If you haven't seen it, here's the craic. Zak and Miri are flatmates who always forget to pay their bills. They're grown up together around a completely platonic relationship with seemingly zero tension, giving an impression of the ideal no strings friendship. When they finally run out of money however, Zak's zany scheme to make a porno flick forces the pair's repressed emotions to surface, culminating in bizarre romance all round.

So far so good. The strengths of the comedy lie in pornography's innate inability to depict meaningful sex. That, some metacommentary about Rogan directing himself acting directing himself acting, and some good old fashioned poo humour. Hilarious.


There are some weak parts though. Don't get me wrong, I respect Seth Rogan. I respect the way he takes hard hitting contemporary issues and deals with them as delicately as a baboon with a jackhammer. I'm not being sarcastic, I think it's integral not only to the comedy but to dispelling all those nasty little taboos that any upstanding film producer wouldn't dare talk about. My problem with Zak and Miri isn't its disregard of taboo, it's that it doesn't go far enough. All the pornstars are depicted as happy-go-lucky scamps who seem genuinely interested in creating a work of art. I don't want that, I want soulless whores who participate only to fuel their hunger for cocaine. I suppose that would make for some pretty dreary comedy, but still, it's slightly more realistic than them all clubbing together to pay the bills at the flat.


Feeling reletively jolly all of a sudden, I also took it upon myself to read Shakespeare's The Merry Wives of Winsor. Yes, Shakespeare, yawn.
Actually, it's pretty hilarious, if not in language, certainly in plot. The trick to reading Shakespeare of course, is to replace the character's names with those of family members or celebrities, especially when said character is a fat, arrogrant, sweaty lecher with about as much chance of seducing a woman as an anthropomorphic dog turd. The entire play consists of two women playing tricks on poor old Falstaff, including burying him in dirty clothes and hitting him. Hilarious. Needless to say I was picturing Gordon Brown at the butt end of all this, failing miserably to bed Michelle Obama behind wacky old Barrack's back.

Perhaps that's unfair. I mean, Brown's a largely annoying political abomination, but he's probably not a First Lady stealer. Maybe you should have told us this in the icebreaker Gordon. Then we'd all be your friend.