Watching too much telly

Watching Too Much Telly R.I.P.

The end of an era. Blah, blah blah. Anyway, I hope you enjoyed my occasional ramblings over the last 18 months but it's time to move on.

But never fear - one window closes and (in this case especially) loads of new ones open up.

You can open all of these exciting, new windows by heading posthaste to the Tachyon TV Hub. Here you'll find a launching pad to a whole new universe of time-wasting.

We have:

Tachyon TV: the satirical sci-fi news feed. Still going strong after nearly 5 years. I'm as baffled as you are.

Behind the Sofa Again: the collaborative 'Doctor Who' weblog. It's having a bit of a holiday at the moment but it will return in force on September 19th with the beginning of another epic, stripped down session of "classic" Who

MST3UK: the only British Mystery Science Theater website that bothers to explain the American-centric riffs. Returning any day now...

Telly Belch: my brand new TV review blog which will be a) more regular and b) far more pithy. In fact, don't expect more than a couple of sentences for every show I watch. And I'll be chronically *every* show I watch, Mondays to Fridays. Look at for some extra regular features in the near future. This blog launches September 4th, 2005.

Tachyon Images: a pictorial blog that will chronicle the Barn conversion (amongst other things) with daily images (Mon-Fri)

Bad Ads: I've been threatening this for a while and here it is; when an advert drives me insane to the point of despair, you'll read it all there. Updated once a week.

Watching Too Much Telly: this blog will remain where is is, so feel free to continue the fight against Quiz Nation in my absence.

Running Commentaries: assuming I have any time left at all, this DVD commentary review blog will open in early 2006. With any luck it will evolve into a collaborative effort.

You can access all of the above at the Tachyon TV Hub

I'm off to New York now for a few days now. Take care and I'll see you on the other blogs!

Neil

Update

First of all, thanks to all of you who have written to me with your Quiz Nation horror stories. Unfortunately, I'm not really in a position to spearhead a campaign against them at the present time (mainly because I'm up to my neck in the 'Hold-the-Mayo' assault on sandwich manufacturers at the moment), but I wish you all the best of luck in getting your phone bills rescinded. However, I have noticed that these abominations are currently breeding at a ferocious rate, with new, even cheaper knock-offs appearing on an almost daily basis. It's almost scary.

As you can see, after a very close encounter with a combine harvester, I'm back online. Touch wood. I'm still debating about which direction to take this blog in, and I'm about to head to New York for a few days R n R, but when I return in early September I should be in a position to kick some life into it. Until then, take care and stop calling the quiz lines!

Blog Interrupted

Yeah, yeah, I know. My promises to update this blog on a regular basis has come to nowt - again.

While my other blogs are starting to reach something perilously close to regular updates I've let this one slide again. So I've come with an idea and I'm going to relaunch my TV journal in a couple of days time in a slightly different format, and with a challenge to myself that will hopefully result in small - but very, very regular - updates. I should have more news at the weekend. All the Barns stuff is also going to move to its own pictorial blog too (after all, I don't know what the hell is going on so I'll let the pictures speak for themselves).

Thanks for your patience.

Neil

Hiatus

Just to let you know that I'm currently swamped with marking and other work-related stuff and as a result this blog probably won't be seeing that much action for the next 2-3 weeks. I'll be back in July.

Tachyon TV - The Blog

The new Tachyon TV site is almost ready to be unleashed on the world. I'm just fiddling with a couple of things, and a banner.

But here's a special sneak-peak before it goes live tomorrow.

Changes

You may have noticed that I've been quiet of late. This is due to the usual factors (work, laziness, a creeping sense of ennui) but it's also due to the fact that I'll be changing things around here over the next few days.

First of all, Tachyon TV, the satirical sci-fi website is no more.

Pause for dramatic effect.

The good news is that it will come back as a blog. Well, a blog that will act like a traditional website, if that makes any sense.

The reasons are simple:

Topicality: I've been sitting on loads of Pope/Eccleston/Norton Effect/Tennant gags for the next issue, and it only takes a day or two for some of them to go rapidly out of date. By creating a format where I can update as quickly as possible it should be funnier (I hope).

There won't be a facility for comments, and I will still be the only poster, BUT all the posts I do use from anyone else will be credited. Each report will finish with the words "reported by Tachyon TV and ______". I think that's fairer for any potential contributors.

We can also categorise stories by show (so if you want Trek satire it's only a click away).

Anyway, that's the plan.

My other blogs will remain in action, but I will have to change the name of this blog so people don't get confused. I'm leaning towards "Watching Too Much Telly" but I'm open to suggestions.

I expect the changes to kick in over the weekend.

Tachyon TV Call for Submissions

I'm hoping to publish a new issue of Tachyon TV by the end of this month. If you'd like to submit anything the deadline is next Monday April 18th. Just send them via email, thanks. I've still got some stuff I've held over from last issue but we're always on the lookout for news stories or graphics if you fancy it. I can't offer a bribe of a DVD anymore as my mortgage has kicked in and builders cost a small fortune, so you'll have to do it for the glory instead ;-)

Tachyon TV Who Hype Special

Yet another publication which has hitched a ride on the Doctor Who bandwagon - a new Who Hype Special Edition of Tachyon TV is now online.

Waiting for Christopher...

I've been busy.

I've made a couple of decisions.

The first one is this: the Doctor Who Stripped Down sessions will now commence on Tuesday March 1st. This means the 1996 TV Movie will end on Friday 25th for maximum impact. It will also create maximum disruption for Corrie fans.

But the blogging won't take place here.

Oh no, I've come up with a much better idea.

Having recently upgraded my Typepad account (so I can screw around with the raw html and css files) I discovered that not only can I run multiple blogs, but I can run blogs with multiple authors. How cool is that?

That means I can give some of you a blog  - for free!

With this in mind I've come up with Waiting for Christopher - a collaborative blog which anyone can join. I've already sent invitations out to some of you, but if for some reason your spam filter ate it or I haven't got your "real' email address, simply send me an email asking to join and I'll sort it out. Am I kind to you lot, or what?

Authors get full posting rights and they can edit their own posts at any time. If you contact me as a new poster I can set you up as a Junior Author which means I have to check that you aren't a chav before your stuff gets published.

Of course, if this all sounds like too much like hard work, you can always come and lurk or post the usual comments. Full details about this new community-based real-time split-screen blog experience can be found on the brand new Waiting for Christopher blog right now.

Come on, what are you waiting for?

Hardcore Parkour

Right, I did it. All the evidence can be found by clicking here  or by looking under 'Photo Albums' on the left.

Just a couple of things before you go though:

1) It's called satire. Please feel free to look it up.

2) No, I didn't use Photoshop

and

3) Yes, it hurts. My right ankle is seriously swollen.

I would also like to point out the following to my fellow Parkourers:

1) I'm in my mid-thirties and up until 6 weeks ago I was a 20 tabs a day man. I'm reasonably fit but I'm not in my teens anymore!

2) I am so hardcore I Parkoured in blizzard conditions!

3) I've invented rural free-running. You can keep your Urban style, it's so yesterday.

Now feel free to flame me. It can't hurt worse than my back does right now...

Oh, and the new issue of Tachyon TV is now out. It could have been the last...

And finally, to those of you who have come to my blog late and haven't got a clue why I'd put myself through that, please feel free to check out the post that started it all.