Jump Around

After the undeniable success of last time, I decided that another colourless Jump Leads page would mean another unsolicited colouring from me.

Page 15 (although this page has now been coloured by an expert):



Page 16:

Jumped

Kris Carter, colourist for Jump Leads is currently recuperating in hospital and so the latest pages have been posted, sans colour.

In order to reassure Kris that his job is safe, this is my attempt at colouring in Jjar's artwork.

Page 12:


Page 13:


Get well soon, Kris.

"To Take One Breath In 2007..."

"...and the next in 1920 is a strange way to start a new life, but a new life is exactly what I've always wanted" so says Kathy in Doctor Who's Blink (see below). Continuing my countdown: on to 2007...

This is the year that former prime minister of Pakistan Benazir Bhutto was assassinated, the Writer's Guild of America went on strike and a 2,100-year-old melon was discovered by archaeologists in western Japan.

Workwise I was in General Strike 1926, the Autism ads, Dickens Of A Christmas 2007 and wrote and appeared in the first of the Behind The Bike Shed shows and Train Of Thought.

Film
There Will Be Blood
Epic. A film about conmen. The oil man, the evangelical preacher and the long lost half brother are three men all trying to blag their way into money, with mixed success. Here's the trailer.





Juno
I was not expecting to love a film about teenage pregnancy. I was expecting a movie-of-the-week-style cautionary tale, but this film is different. It sets up a set of characters you assume you've seen countless times elsewhere: the disapproving stepmother, the quirky best friend, the apparently ineffectual boyfriend. You then assume you know how they'll react. You are wrong. Here's the trailer.

Sicko
Following the Great Fire of London, several insurance companies set up their own fire brigades to mitigate future losses. Naturally they would only put out fires that affected buildings that they insured, presumably watching many a structure burn to the ground. So it is with the US Healthcare system. To the outside eye, it's terrifying. I should point out that there have been many criticisms of the information presented in this film, but even if only 10% of it were true, you would still have a problem. Universal healthcare can't come to the USA quickly enough. Here's the trailer.

Hot Fuzz
After the success of Shaun Of The Dead, Edgar Wright and Simon Pegg could have simply given us a sequel, but instead we have a police procedural in which Britain's best kept village meets The Wicker Man with very funny results. Here's the trailer.




The Darjeeling Limited (and Hotel Chevalier)
Hotel Chevalier is a short film which precedes the main feature, a vignette of relationship awkwardness. Followed by The Darjeeling Limited, Wes Anderson's tale of three brothers on a journey of forced spirituality across India which references the former throughout. Colours are heightened, the soundtrack is fantastic and the use of Anderson's 'repertory' company is oddly reassuring. Here's the trailer.

This Is England
With a uniformly great cast and soundtrack, Shane Meadows' portrait of skinhead culture in Thatcher's Britain is fantastic. Here's the trailer.


World Of Wrestling
Despite never having seen old school Big Daddy versus Giant Haystacks-style wrestling, Tim Plester's short film tribute to professional wrestling (and night buses) still had me in stitches. Here's a trailer.

TV
The Sarah Jane Adventures: Invasion Of The Bane; Revenge Of The Slitheen; Eye Of The Gorgon; Warriors Of Kudlak; Whatever Happened To Sarah Jane?; The Lost Boy
Sarah Jane Smith gets her own TV show. Again. This first series is the most consistent yet. Invasion Of The Bane shows the series arriving with a bang, the relationships between the characters are almost fully formed already and features great performances from Elisabeth Sladen, Yasmin Paige, Thomas Knight, Joseph Millson and Juliet Cowan. It takes the arrival of Daniel Anthony as Clyde in Revenge Of The Slitheen to give us the series proper. Slitheen in school and a wonderful turn from Ian Midlane. On the face of it, Eye Of The Gorgon and Warriors Of Kudlak are slight tales about killer nuns and aliens using children in to fight their war respectively. Both deal with the consequences of some adult themes in the perfect way for the target audience, namely Alzheimer's syndrome in the former, and the Iraq war and the families left behind in the latter. As the series gets better it gets darker, with the first appearance of the Trickster in Whatever Happened To Sarah Jane? The story deals with an alternate reality in which Sarah died at 13 year old and the chaos that ensues without her to protect the Earth. Crucially the price of getting Sarah back is still the death of a 13 year old girl, something that seems unlikely in Doctor Who itself. The season finale, The Lost Boy, systematically takes the Bannerman Road gang apart and makes their world a little bleaker. The TV appeal of Luke's real parents is a horrific sight on children's television, but with Alan wanting to move Maria out of harms way, Chrissie informing on Sarah, Mr Smith turning on Sarah and imprisoning Clyde, it seems like just as they are on the verge divided they fall K9 saves the day. I cheered.

Torchwood: Captain Jack Harkness; End Of Days
The first season draws to a close with this double bill. You might expect an episode called Captain Jack Harkness to enlighten us about Jack's past. Instead it sees Jack and Tosh travel back to 1941 where they meet the real Captain Jack Harkness, the man whose identity our Jack has appropriated. They have more in common than a name and there is a touching romantic encounter between the Jacks. Back in the present all hell breaks loose in End Of Days as the Rift splinters, Cardiff is the epicentre of the apocalypse and everything but the kitchen sink attacks. Murray Melvin's Bilis Manger is the making of these two episodes and it is bizarre that we haven't seen him since.

Doctor Who: Smith And Jones; The Shakespeare Code; Gridlock; Human Nature & The Family Of Blood; Blink; Utopia; The Sound Of Drums & Last Of The Time Lords; The Infinite Quest; Time Crash
David Tennant's second season begins with a trio of what could justifiably be described as brilliant romps. Smith And Jones ably introduces Freema Agyeman as Martha as very quickly asserts her as the new companion, The Shakespeare Code features some great Shakespearean references without excluding a mainstream audience and Gridlock eases us into more thoughtful territory. A run of six of the best episodes of television ever made begins with Human Nature and The Family Of Blood, Tennant, Agyeman, Harry Lloyd, Thomas Sangster and Jessica Hynes née Stevenson are fantastic in these beautiful Paul Cornell scripts about the Doctor living the life he could never have. Blink is a locked room mystery and a Chinese puzzle box of an episode with a great script from Steven Moffat, a lovely central performance from Carey Mulligan and capitalises brilliantly on something kids can be scared of in everyday life. Derek Jacobi is captivating in Utopia as Professor Yana and as...I did not see that coming. After fleeting mentions, Mr Saxon finally steps onto the world stage in The Sound Of Drums and Last Of The Time Lords and it brings out the best in Martha. Another season finale, another epic, but "the year that never was" is replete with great moments, from the reveal of the identity of the Toclafane to John Simm's absolutely priceless first reaction to the wizened old Doctor with his regenerations suspended. Fantastic. Meanwhile The Infinite Quest is a lovely animated treasure hunt/road movie. Time Crash is a gift to the fans, a multi-Doctor story with paradoxy wibbly-wobbly-timey-wimeyness.

The Thick Of It: The Rise Of The Nutters; Spinners And Losers
No one knows what's going on but no one wants to admit it. People position and reposition themselves as the political winds blow them around. The Rise Of The Nutters sees the espionage between the parties at its height and Malcolm Tucker risks becoming the story, but he finds himself usurped by the events of the cliffhanger ending. Spinners And Losers sees the posturing reach its height in the wake of the Prime Minister's resignation.

Life On Mars
To get the job done Sam Tyler finds himself acting a lot more like Gene Hunt than he did in series one, the will they, won't they? romance between Tyler and Annie Cartwright and Tyler's training of Chris continue, while the 'real' world impinges on Tyler in more surreal ways than before, Camberwick Green, and the test card girl. The last episode is nothing short of spectacular.

QI
The 'E' Series takes in Eating, Espionage, and Everything, Etc and sees panellists searching for the Elephant-In-The-Room.


Family Guy: Blue Harvest
Now this was a really great idea. Recasting Star Wars, Episode IV: A New Hope with the Family Guy characters and somehow managing to ably tell the story of a two hour movie that I have seen several times in 45 minutes without me noticing any omissions.

The Worst Journey In The World
Mark Gatiss wrote and starred in this outstanding adaptation of Apsley Cherry-Garrard's memoirs of the Terra Nova expedition to the South Pole. As part of the scientific remit of the expedition, they collect penguin's eggs for the Natural History Museum. The tone of Barry Lett's narration is beautiful. The cost proves so high, that the epilogue is heartbreaking.

Parallel Worlds, Parallel Lives
E's documentary about the many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics of his father, Hugh Everett. His theories were unappreciated in life, but are now almost universally accepted by physicists.

Party Animals
Andrew Buchan, Raquel Cassidy, Shelley Conn & Matt Smith are fantastic in this story of the grubby business of oiling the wheels of government.


Summer Heights High
Chris Lilley's controversial mockumentary follows him playing a trio of characters throughout a year in high school.


Radio
Doctor Who: Blood Of The Daleks, Part Two; Horror Of Glam Rock; Human Resources
The Eighth Doctor and Lucie's adventures continue apace. The Daleks show that they make even deadlier friends than they do enemies in the second part of Blood Of The Daleks. They endure the Horror Of Glam Rock in a 1974 motorway service station on the M62 with Aunty Pat. The Headhunter follows them through time and space giving the season an overarching storyline which culminates in the two part finale to the season, Human Resources. It shows the strengths of juxtaposing the mundane with the extraordinary with fantastic success. It turns out that there is nothing scarier to the listener than the Doctor with a job. The real strength of this season has been the chemistry between Paul McGann and Sheridan Smith.

Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency,
The 'other' character from the pen of Douglas Adams makes it to radio for the first time here and Harry Enfield, Olivia Colman, Andrew Sachs, Felicity Montagu, Jim Carter and Toby Longworth all give great performances in a story featuring electric monks, missing cats and almost prevents the beginnings of life on Earth.

Toby Hadoke's Moths Ate My Doctor Who Scarf
The story of my childhood, written and narrated by Toby Hadoke, but set a few years earlier, featuring things that may not have happened to me in the future and swapping my name for his own in an attempt to protect the innocent. Featuring Louise Jameson, a very literal minded continuity announcer and no less than five Doctors, but sadly not John Abineri.

The Chain Gang: Picture This
Rob Shearman wrote the first and last episodes with listeners encouraged to resolve the cliffhangers and write the next episode themselves in about 300 words. To say this took surprising twists and turns does not do it justice.

Music
The Hoosiers: The Trick To Life
The public perception of this band probably comes from the jaunty nature of their singles, but tracks like 'Everything Goes Dark' and 'The Trick To Life' reveal a level of depth and complexity which sets them apart.
Stand out tracks: 'Worried About Ray', 'Goodbye Mr A', 'Cops And Robbers', 'Everything Goes Dark', 'The Trick To Life'

The Polyphonic Spree: The Fragile Army
The life affirming choir shun their robes and don black militaristic uniforms. The sound is a little darker but the core message of the Polyphonic Sprites remains the same.
Stand out tracks: 'Together We're Heavy', 'The Fragile Army', 'Younger Yesterday', 'We Crawl', 'Mental Cabaret'

Books
Charlie Brooker's Dawn Of The Dumb
The second collection of The Guardian's Screen Burn column by Charlie Brooker is wonderfully acerbic and takes in a great many TV shows I didn't see at the time and it doesn't matter in the slightest. Brooker's style more than makes up for my missing out on Big Brother or Celebrity Love Island, but it's great to read his palpable joy at the 2005 return of Doctor Who.

Comics
Buffy The Vampire Slayer: The Long Way Home, The Chain Season Eight picks up after the TV show. The Long Way Home acts as a pilot episode setting up the new premise. Xander is co-ordinating an army of Slayers, Dawn is a giant, Willow is forced to use dark magic, Giles is one Watcher among hundreds of Slayers and Buffy needs decoys to protect her identity. Not afraid of referencing the continuity of the TV series and featuring many of its great supporting cast. This is epic in its scope as forces of evil gather in the name of something ironically called 'Twilight'. The Chain concerns the fate of one of Buffy's unnamed decoys and features a beautiful script from Joss Whedon.

Jump Leads: Training Day
The webcomic hits the ground running as Meaney and Llewellyn's journey starts here. Ben Paddon's script sets out the stall well with just the right amount of exposition and the style of Jjar's artwork is already confident. The use of diagrams within speech bubbles is a lovely device.

Doctor Who: The Warkeeper's Crown; The First
It's wonderful to see the Doctor and the Brigadier reunited in the comic strip in The Warkeeper's Crown. The Brig's characterisation is absolutely spot on, pairing him with the Tenth Doctor changes their dynamic as they are both old soldiers, the strip sees them both save the day and ends with a last panel that has taken on a new poignance since the death of Nicholas Courtney. The First sees the Doctor and Martha meet Ernest Shackleton during an Antarctic expedition and encounter the crystalline Skith. The Skith are both beautiful and hideous, complex and simple. They also succeed in feeling starkly alien in a way that many attempts in comics do not and the panels of the 'Skithself' Doctor are terrifying.

Sugarshock!: Battle Royale With Cheeses
Joss Whedon and Fábio Moon's first strip about a band sets up a great premise. Plus the robot wears jeans.




Online
The Thick Of It: Opposition Extra
The events of Spinners And Losers (see above) as seen from the perspective of the opposition. Peter Mannion's contempt for his situation is wonderful and Roger Allam is fantastic.

Somegreybloke
The YouTubings of Graham Murkett on a myriad of subjects are always worth watching:



Recommendations welcome.

"You Don't Think It's Time Somebody Had A Dream Again?"

So asks a desparate Freeman Lowell in 1971's Silent Running of the then-futuristic year of 2008. And so for no reason other than because I enjoyed doing one for 2010 and then resurrected a version of what I had written about 2009, here's one for 2008. I'm counting down...

2008 was the year that Northern Rock was nationalised, Barack Obama was elected as the President of the USA and the Large Hadron Collidor was opened for business leading to speculation that it would cause the apocalypse. According to the first episode of Futurama, Stop 'N' Drop suicide booths in use in the 31st Century have been 'America's favourite since 2008'.

It was a busy year for me with three Behind The Bike Shed shows: An Evening With Mr Caruthers (sic), Sugarcoat This and One Flew Over The Looking Glass. The first of these cemented our plans for Mr Carruthers Presents and lead to Peel This, the first show (of one) that we produced ourselves. I started the Carruthers blog. I wrote for Thinking Aloud at the ICA, went to Edinburgh with The White Rose and The Poisoner's Tale and rounded out the year caught up in the Dickens Of A Chrismas 2008 debacle.

Film
Synecdoche NY
Philip Seymour Hoffman and Samantha Morton are fantastic in Charlie Kaufman's extraordinary exploration of narrative itself. Just when you think you understand the rules of this film, they change. Here's the trailer.

Son Of Rambow
This film feels as good as those school summer holidays that would go on forever and ever and ever in cinematic form (except of course it's actually set during term time). Calling it Rambo's First Blood as seen through a corpseless Stand By Me with a dash of Witness, doesn't do it justice, so I don't know why I have. Here's the trailer.

Wall-E
The tale of Pixar's post-apocalyptic little litter picker awaiting mankind's return to Earth is both touching and poignant. Here's the trailer.






The Visitor
A chance encounter sees a lonely widower forging a friendship with some illegal immigrants, which gives him a new lease on life and then causes him to be embroiled in the immovable US immigration system. Tom McCarthy gives us a stark picture of people who find themselves caught between borders and yet still succeed in finding moments of beauty. Here's the trailer.

TV
Time Team
Highlights this year included excavations of ancient burial sites in sand dunes on the Isle of Barra, the last line of defence against a potential Nazi invasion on Shooter's Hill in South London and the grave of Paintpot the cat which revealed a discredited Cistercian nunnery, Phil Harding And The Wimple Of Doom, if you will.

Torchwood: Kiss Kiss Bang Bang; To The Last Man; Meat; Adam; Reset; A Day In The Death; Something Borrowed; Adrift; Fragments
Bloody Torchwood. Captain Jack's back in Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, but all eyes are on Captain John as James Marsters steals the show. Tosh missed out on a story in last season's Out Of Time but she gets caught up in To The Last Man which sees a World War I soldier solve a paradox and save the world, but it's his reactions to 2008 and the Torchwood regulars that make this episode. Kai Owen is always great as Rhys and it's lovely to see him take centre stage in Meat. The memory-manipulating Adam worms his way into the Torchwood team and leaves each of them scarred in a different way: Ianto's breakdown is wonderfully performed by Gareth David-Lloyd, Kai Owen and Eve Myles are fantastic in the scenes dealing with Gwen's amnesia and the flashback to Jack's childhood strikes just the right balance. Adam jarred with the team and had to force his way in, but Freema Agyeman's Martha Jones joins them in Reset and fits in perfectly. Over the course of these three episodes she seems indispensable and brings out the best in everyone else. Especially after Owen's death and subsequent resurrection. Joe Lidster's fantastic script for A Day In The Death shows us that although he could cheat death before, he only manages to beat death by accepting it. Gwen and Rhys's wedding in Something Borrowed is a great ensemble piece that could have been riddled with clichés and yet somehow rises above them. Screaming aside, Adrift is a triumph for Myles, Tom Price and Ruth Jones. The portmanteau-style Fragments reveals how Jack, Tosh, Ianto and Owen each found themselves working for Torchwood Three. Some much needed back story, just in time for some of those stories to end…

Doctor Who: Partners In Crime; The Fires Of Pompeii; The Unicorn And The Wasp, Silence In The Library & Forest Of The Dead, Midnight, Turn Left, The Stolen Earth & Journey's End; The Next Doctor
The rehabilitation of Donna Noble. Partners In Crime reunites the Doctor and Donna as partners in crime in an episode that is part farce, part misdirection and with a really great dumb show scene. Things really get going with The Fires Of Pompeii as Donna chooses to share in the Doctor's moral dilemma. The Unicorn And The Wasp is a great fun murder mystery with a great cast. Silence In The Library & Forest Of The Dead casts a long shadow in more ways than one, the introduction of the excellent Alex Kingston as the excellent River Song, a heartbreaking glimpse at Donna's perfect life and it features the best concept monsters ever, until Midnight. A psychological horror aboard a tense and claustrophobic 'bus-under-siege'. Turn Left is a tale of the road less travelled, glimpses of what might have been had the Doctor died, revisiting the events of previous episodes through the eyes of a Doctorless Donna, and it ends with another really great cliffhanger. The Stolen Earth and Journey's End is an epic bombastic three-way crossover with Torchwood and The Sarah Jane Adventures that raises the stakes to their highest in Russell T Davies' final season finale. Not just the culmination of this season but also its three predecessors. Seemingly featuring a cast of thousands, but Catherine Tate deserves a special mention for her performance here as Donna. Molto Bene! Brilliantly exploiting the manner in which David Tennant's departure from the role of the Doctor was announced, The Next Doctor unveils his apparent successor and David Morrissey is fantastic in the part. Dervla Kirwan, the graveyard massacre, the Cyber-King, the next Doctor's TARDIS and all the scenes featuring both Doctors are wonderful.

The Sarah Jane Adventures: The Last Sontaran; The Day Of The Clown; Secrets Of The Stars; The Temptation Of Sarah Jane Smith
The best children's show on TV returns. Since Sarah Jane Smith got her own show the return of the Sontarans seemed deserved, but Kaargh isn't just The Last Sontaran, he's one of the best. Maria Jackson's bond with Sarah has been vital to the show so far and so when it ends here it's a brave choice to have Sarah be so petulant and Maria so grownup. The Day Of The Clown is very creepy stuff that gives us a replacement for Maria in Anjli Mohindra as Rani and Bradley Walsh is astounding in his three-in-one role of Elijah Spellman, Oddbob and the Pied Piper. Similarly a large factor for the success of Secrets Of The Stars is Russ Abbott's performance, that and the concept that astrology and destiny could be abused for a sinister end. This season peaks with The Temptation Of Sarah Jane Smith which sees the return of the show's best villain the Trickster and once again he wants to change history around Sarah, sending her back to 1951, to tempt her into preventing the death of her parents. The fifties period detail is wonderful and Elisabeth Sladen's performance of Sarah's dilemma is fantastic.

Ashes To Ashes
When a bullet sent Alex Drake back to 1981 it fascinated me. The series builds towards Episode 8 which begins on the day I was born. This self-aware sequel to Life On Mars features great performances from the likes of Philip Glenister and Amelia Bullmore, some great period detail and a story arc following a Bowie-esque clown that had me fooled.

Terry Pratchett's The Colour Of Magic
The Mob's largely faithful adaptation of the first two Discworld books is an enjoyable romp. Pratchett himself dubbed it “a road movie, before anyone had made any proper roads.” David Jason and Sean Astin are great as Rincewind and Twofower respectively, roll on Interesting Times.

Futurama: Bender's Big Score; The Beast With A Billion Backs
Futurama makes a triumphant return to our screens with the time travelling epic Bender's Big Score. While It was never a children's show it is certainly lewder now than before, not least the race of alien nudists and their sprungers. The Beast With A Billion Backs picks up on the previous story's cliffhanger ending and deals with it in a refreshing way. This story even more epic than the last involves the entire population of our universe moving to another as a result of an alien orgy. The show is as funny as ever.

QI
Only two episodes of the impossible panel show were broadcast this year, both were specials. Not that every episode of QI isn't in some way special, but the first was Children In Need special concerning Families, followed by a Christmas special about Fire & Freezing.

Wallace & Gromit: A Matter Of Loaf And Death
Everybody's favourite plasticine pals face up to the 'cereal killer' at 62 West Wallaby Street. More fantastically realised film homages and humdrum activities given Thunderbirds-style launching sequences.

Radio
Nebulous: Genesis Of The Aftermath; The Past Must Be Destroyed; The Girl With The Liquid Face; We, Nebulous; Rebel Without A Cortex; Us And Phlegm
One half parody and two halves homage. Professor Nebulous and the Key Environmental Non-Judgemental Taskforce return for a third series with Genesis Of The Aftermath, in which the oft-mentioned but never seen destruction of the Isle of Wight is now seen. And by seen I mean heard. The flashback scenes are a delight, particularly Paul Putner's pre-accident (and agonyless) Harry. Nebulous adapts the tropes of science fiction to suit its own style. Time going missing in The Past Must Be Destroyed is history being deleted by a teacher in the hope it'll make it easier to teach, the 'alien' prodigal child in the wonderfully named The Girl With The Liquid Face as Rosie Cavalerio's Paula Breeze discovers she is half-Atlantean, the evil twin of We, Nebulous is the Professor's evil twin brother Spiffo, killer of his other brother Mofo, an alien who can control how you see it in Rebel Without A Cortex and everyone except the Professor contracts all diseases in Us And Phlegm. This series is criminally unavailable on CD, seek it out. With thanks to Graeme Neil Reid for the illustration.

Torchwood: Lost Souls
In the summer of 2008, the world was more than a little obsessed with CERN's particle-smashing large hadron collider and Torchwood was no exception. The Torchwood team are reunited with Martha Jones to investigate disappearances in Switzerland, but more importantly this episode sees the trio of survivors from Exit Wounds in mourning and cements Martha as a part of the team.

Dirk Gently: The Long Dark Tea-Time Of The Soul
This convoluted tale of holistic detection takes in Norse gods, theological brand management, a locked-door murder mystery, contractual small print and the financial speculation of soothsayers with uncertain mental health, it also gleefully pulls Dirk Gently firmly into the world of The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy.

Doctor Who: Max Warp, Brave New Town; Grand Theft Cosmos; The Zygon Who Fell To Earth
It doesn't take a genius to see that Max Warp is Top Gear in space, but what it lacks in subtlety it more than makes up for in fun. The script by Jonathan Morris sees the Eighth Doctor and Lucie spark off each other beautifully and Graeme Garden clearly had a ball parodying Jeremy Clarkson. This is followed by a visit to a Brave New Town in which every day for the last seventeen years has been the 1st of September 1991. The villagers turn out to be a group of plastic people that have forgotten they are plastic at all. Grand Theft Cosmos is a great train robbery tale that combines some high concept SF with some knockabout comedy and sees the welcome return of The Headhunter played by Katarina Olsson. Another great character from last season returns in The Zygon Who Fell To Earth, namely Lucie's Aunty Pat. While the title acknowledges one of its inspirations, the episode takes the hallmarks of the TV story Terror Of The Zygons, rearranges them with its tongue in its cheek and then gives us an astonishing ending.

Music
Supergrass: Diamond Hoo Ha
The Children of the Monkey Basket's final album (so far) is a return to rabble rousing form after the more contemplative Road To Rouen.
Stand Out Tracks: 'Diamond Hoo Ha Man', 'Bad Blood', 'Rebel In You', 'Whiskey & Green Tea'


Adam & Joe: Song Wars Volume One
The largely weekly song writing competition between BBC6Music's Adam Buxton and Joe Cornish has thrown up some great offerings. Each writes a song based on a particular subject, composes it with Garage Band and their own vocals before unveiling it live on air for listeners to choose a winner.
Stand out tracks: Joe's 'European Supermarket', Joe's 'Global Warming Song', Adam's 'Christmas Country Party Time', Joe's 'The Shining', Adam's 'The Hours', Adam's 'Loch Ness Song', Joe's 'Right And Wrong Song'

Books
Things The Grandchildren Should Know by Mark Oliver Everett
A book about family by a man without one. An autobiography of a life shaped by the deaths of his father, sister, mother and cousins leaves Everett as the last of his family line and vowing to skip having children and go straight to grandchildren. Better known to the world as E, lead singer of Eels, this is the life behind the lyrics and it is one told without seeking pity and with more humour than it would have seemed possible.

Theatre
The Balloon Debate
I saw a great many shows at the Edinburgh Festival this year and among the good, the bad and the downright abysmal was one show that really stood out as great. An idea for a romantic date in a hot air balloon backfires when Gary's girlfriend stands him up and he talks his best friend Dan into taking her place. The two friends and one pilot take an awkward balloon ride. Three men trapped in the basket of a hot air balloon 2000 feet above East Anglia, until one falls out... This play is very funny indeed and the best compliment I can pay it is that I wish I'd thought of it first.

Comics
Y: The Last Man: Whys And Wherefores, Part 6; Alas
Brian K. Vaughn and Pia Guerra's post-apocalyptic epic about a man and his monkey in a world full of women comes to an end. And after. I don't want to say any more. If you're going to read it, read it from the beginning.



Jump Leads: It Came From Space!; Trojan Horse; Just Dropping In
Always hoping that the next Lead will be the Lead home. Llew and Meaney's random trekking through alternating universes takes them to a reality in which they encounter aliens, another where one is possessed by a burrowing slug while the other wears a top hat and monocle and a third much like our own in which the Flurry does some demolition. The art and scripts are great throughout.

Serenity: Better Days
The crew of Serenity come into some money and debate how to spend it. Each telling the others what they would do if they had more money than God. The fantasies of River (left) and Mal are the most revealing. This being Serenity the money doesn't remain in their possession very long.

Doctor Who: Death To The Doctor!; The Widow's Curse; The Immortal Emperor; The Time Of My Life;
Death To The Doctor! sees six villains defeated by six Doctors all joining forces to get their revenge on him, but it doesn't go to plan, with some lovely misdirection and a great last line. Martha exits, Donna enters and she is forced to confront something she missed first time around. The Widow's Curse is excellent, both as a sequel to The Christmas Invasion on TV and as a comic with some genuine horror. The Immortal Emperor is a lovely business-as-usual type adventure with lovely artwork from Rob Davis. Donna's time aboard the comic strip is shortlived as events on TV catch up with her and The Time Of My Life does a very good job of redressing the balance, presented as a series of vignettes showing the variety of her travels with the Doctor each interrupting its predecessor until the beautiful last page. Magnificent.

Online
Dr Horrible's Sing-Along Blog
Joss Whedon's DIY internet musical starring Neil Patrick Harris, Felicia Day and Nathan Fillion is wonderful. Concerning a love triangle between a supervillain wannabe, a shallow and cheesy superhero and the idealistic woman they have in common. The dialogue is great, the songs are great and the world it creates of superheroes and villains who don't quite conform to expectations is very compelling.

Recommendations welcome.