I Have Found a New Hero

I am not the kind of person that usually looks up to anyone. I hate our celebrity culture and if someone asked me who my hero was, I would rally struggle for an answer, possibly citing Tim Flannery of some ageing rock god.

I have found a new hero. He is a little short, overweight, as silly hair and is a complete geek. Not general hero material. But I agree with absolutely everything he says.

David Mitchell is one half of the comedy duo that wrote Peep Show. In my opinion the funniest comedy show EVER written. I am struggling to find a video that I can embed, but I have linked a you-tube clip here.

Recently I have discovered that David Mitchell is extremely funny, but also that he shares almost all of my opinions too. Surprisingly left wing and Tory hating for a Cambridge graduate, he now blogs regularly on 'Comment is Free' on the Guardian / Observer website and his articles are just about the only thing I laugh out loud at in this age of over-stimulation. Witty and clever - the only problem being that some of the commenters cant quite keep up with his point.

Here are some favourites on wheelie bins and Alan Sugar. 

What got me laughing today:

"They say a sneeze is like a mini-orgasm. Well, if my cock went off six times in a row every couple of minutes for hours on end I'd cut the blasted thing off"

Cosgrove Hall

Recently my brother over at Allthatcomeswithit has been reviewing his top 10 TV shows of a time, and one of the ones that came up was the Muppet Show, the Jim Henson classic.

I don't know a great deal about Henson as I was pretty young when he was in his heyday, but I used to love the Muppets. I also loved Fraggle Rock, Dinosaurs and The Storyteller. I recently obtained a Storyteller disk and it really reminds me of the times I had in front of the open fire at our old house on a sunday evening. This got me thinking about all of the other shows I used to watch with my dad.

I have very fond, but very hazy memories of being around 8 year old and my dad taking me to a magical mystical place called Cosgrove Hall. This was a brilliant trip for me as this was the place that they made some all time classic viewing; Dangermouse, The Wind in the Willows (of which we got to see the set), and Count Duckula.

Dangermouse

Dangermouse and his loyal sidekick Penfold lived in a post box somewhere in London. They trevelled around in their flying car fighting crime in the form of Baron Greenback. According to Wikipedia it was some kind of parody of Bond films. Of course all of this was lost on me.

Classic viewing.

The Wind in the Willows

The Wind in the Willows I am talking about here is the stop motion puppet version. Apparently they made a film and a subsequent 52 episodes. This was must see childhood viewing for me. I absolutely loved this show.

Wikipedia has told me something else I didn't know here. Stone roses guitarist John Squire apparently worked on this series!

Count Duckula

This one has to be my absolute favourite of the three and probably the latest one, so its the one of which I have the best memories. Count Duckula is awesomely funny, even now I can still laugh at Nanny and Igor.

Count Duckula was a spin off from Dangermouse. It was a parody of Count Drackula (as you might guess), and due to an accident in the Count's re-incarnation - in which tomato ketchup wa s substituted for blood - duckula was a vegetarian (much to the distress of Igor).

Anyway, enough talk. Here it is.

Debunking Third World Myths

My new flat mate showed me this link to a site called Ted which is really cool. It gives an interesting insight into Global Economics (which is something I am prone to ranting about now and again). I recommend you check it out, even if you're not interested - the graphics are pretty cool. 

It also gives a link to a site called GapMinder on which you can create your own charts using UN information and see some pretty interesting trends for global CO2 emissions per capita.