Chindie

If you like mint booze, try and get hold of some Minttu. A mate at uni spent some time in Svalbard in our finla year and brought some of that stuff back with him. I hate mint so to me it tasted like the devils boiled piss, but everyone else liked it.

One thing to bear in mind with skittle vodka is to remove that left over bits of skittle before you serve it. You get left with a little... pellet really, that is absolutely tooth breakingly hard. A friend of mine made Maltesers vodka. Foul.

More spoiler-y discussion I'm not saying they're going to completely do Knightfall - it'd take too long and would have people utterly pissing themselves in the aisles because it's very a 'comic-y' story. Theres not a chance in hell they'll do Azrael. What they will do is pinch bits of it, mainly Batman getting broken at some point. I, like you, think they'll have Bane **** over Batman badly fairly early into the film, he'll have a period of recovery and will return to kick righteous vengeful ass by the end. I would have a little speculative bet that the end is the end of this Batman in this mythos though. I wouldn't be too surprised if Batmans return from getting **** by Bane proves to be some sort of end for him too, whether that be that they actually kill him off (maybe be a bit much for the audience), or leave him so ruined by the effort to take out Bane once and for all that his caped crusadering is done. I think Gordon-Levitt may come in there though. I think he might play a role in Batmans return to beat Bane, and Bruce will 'pass on the cowl' to him, the film ending with Bruce retiring/getting buried, and Levitts character preparing to carry on the Bats role in Gotham. So, if I'm right, and I am going on a limb with some of it, you'd pick up a few nods and elements from Knightfall arc - Bane **** up Batman, Batman has to fight back to strength to return and beat down Bane, but the effort from that ends Bruce Waynes time as Batman, and in a nod to Azrael, someone else takes up the costume. I think Nolan would be tempted to underline that it's end of his Batman and Bruce Wayne with this film, and having him give up at the end somehow would put a full stop on the story he wants to tell and let him walk away.

I'm quite cynical about ME3 review scores currently. The last week has seen a lot of negative feeling start to roll out about it and, after that demo, I ain't convinced it's wrong. It was never going to stand up to 2, but I've been hearing a lot people being a bit nonplussed by it, complaining it's become increasingly streamlined from RPG to straight up cover shooter, even when played in the full Role-Play option for gameplay.

Possibly spoiler-y talk, musings on exactly what might be coming I think they'll pick elements up from Knightfall. There are hints in the trailers thus far that Bane **** Batman up at some point, to the point that a lot of the marketing is focusing on Batman getting battered (so theres a nod to 'breaking the Bat'), including a suggestion he needs a walking stick at some point in the story. I think the idea that they'll take the idea of Bane wearing Batman down and then destroying him (cutting a lot of the other crap from Knightfall) is probably on the money. They've spoken about Bane being a brutal character, focusing on them portraying him as just... **** people up seems to be the suggestion, so it looks like it'll all tie in. I'm actually excited by what they've said about Bane's presence in the film, they want him to be this violent, carnage inducing presence, someone who really can batter Batman, which we've not seen in Nolans films at all. And I say that as someone who thinks Bane is a dumb character normally. Theres a lot of talk about quite how they're going to end it all, and one theme has caught peoples imagination and I would not be surprised to see it be true. I'm interested in how they're going to tie it into Begins. We know Neeson has filmed some scenes, but I think it's fair to accept that Nolan is not going to follow the comics with his character (Ra's al Ghul is immortal effectively in the comics), so he's dead. That then leads to the rumours that the film is going to set up Bane as an agent for the League of Shadows, basically making Bane into what they wanted Bruce Wayne to be when they trained him in Begins. I think that might have some merit. Lending a bit more mystery to that though, is Marion Cottilard. She's a fairly well known name now and is, allegedly, playing an original character who doesn't appear to be that important to all this on the face of things. She's apparently a Wayne Enterprises board member who is allied to Bruce and his aims. Just a new love interest? Maybe. But she was spotted on set in a very non board member-y costume, quite Eastern looking... with some blokes dressed up like they meant business. All the talk has been that she's actually playing a double role as Talia al Ghul, Neeson's character's daughter, who has in the comics jumped around from being an enemy to an ally of Batman (and back again), and usually with a love interest angle. Cottilard has denied that of course, at every turn, but no-one quite believes her and the pictures of her on set just added to that a little. I would put money on Cottilard playing Talia in a mole like capacity in Wayne Enterprises, getting to Bruce and infiltrating Gotham for the League of Shadows, while Bane does the dirty work, causing chaos, and removing Batman from the equation entirely. Then you've got Joseph Gordon Levitt. Apparently he's also just playing a pretty minor sounding role, but again you have to wonder why a rising property in Hollywood is going to play what appears to be a fairly minor role in the supporting cast. I'm sure theres going to be more to his 'beat cop assigned to a special task for Gordon', but quite what I'm unsure. And then you've got the fit Catwoman into all of it. It's going to be a good ride. I still don't think it's going to stand up to TDK, but little could (even with it's problems, it's a superb film), and I still think it might be the weakest of the films, but it's still going to be a good ride.

They claim to in public, to avoid elements of ridicule, adding to their inherent Catholic guilt, but privately are sure of a divine potter, and rib women. ..possibly.

July 20th. I'm considering going to an IMAX for it. I'm not sure between this and the Avengers. Both have question marks for me. Looking forward immensely to both though.

He went and became the head of the Roman Catholic Church in Scotland (apologies BOF, couldn't resist. Twice )

Putting on my pedant hat, there is air inside the walls of a vacuum flask, just not very much. The walls don't contain a complete vacuum (because they can't).

YEah as the show opened I saw the Atom and knew they were doing track cars so assumed they were going to go with 'The best track car that wasn't an Atom' and go from there. Admittedly I watched the lot with that in the back of my mind. I took Hammonds choice as the comedic effect option, and I actually think despite not being something to fly round Silverstone with, would probably be a huge laugh to chuck around on a track day, so let it slip. What was the car Clarkson was supposed to have, actually? I missed what he said as he pulled up the KTM monstrosity.

I thought last nights was decent. Not the best episode but nowhere near a bad one. Track cars was a decent watch for a car fan, news was thankfully pretty straight (notwithstanding Hammond), aero engined cars was interesting enough (it had explosions!), and Alex James is entirely bland. Decent episode.

Pardew is a prick. I'm not entirely sure why either. This Newcastle side aside, he's hardly covered his career in glory. But you can really tell he's absolutely full of himself.

One for the gamers out there - on disc DLC. Street Fighter x Tekken comes out this Friday, made by Capcom who are terrible offenders on DLC profiteering. This is a company that charge people for character palette swaps. SFxT however, commits a cardinal sin. They're going to release extra characters for download. Fair enough. The characters are on the disc that you'll buy on Friday. The information is already there, they've just locked them out. So when you buy the characters from the Xbox Marketplace, or from the PSN store, the download will be a 100kb unlock code for information on the disc you've already paid for. As little difference as it would actually make, I'd have less problem if the extra characters actually were proper downloads, a few hundred meg files to add to the stuff on the disc (I say less, because day 1 paid DLC is bullshit). But making me pay for something actually already stored on the item I've bought is like a kick in the teeth. It's made a little worse for the fact it's a fighting game too. The characters are important, because they're the balance to it, or the different approaches and playstyles. It's a bit like playing poker but being told if you want to play with the 7s (or aces, or whatever) you got in the deck, you'll need to buy the option to use them.

I've read a few. Year One is a decent read but very, very short. You could read it in an hour if you wanted to. It's also derogatorily sometimes referred to as 'Jim Gordon: Year One' as it focuses rather a lot on his character after he arrives in a new job in Gotham. It's an interesting take on the Batman Origin though and follows in Millers trademark footsteps with Batman - That he's a very, very messed up human being. Year One influenced Begins a fair amount. Others worth a look are The Dark Knight Returns, which is often held as the best Batman graphic novel and also often considered the work that kickstarted the idea of 'a graphic novel'. It's a great read but feels a little old now and it's story is just... well, if you like Nolan's take on Batman, you'll feel a little unsure with how TDKR is. It tells the story of a Gotham City that Batman has retired from, and subsequently has descended into widespread crime and gang dominance, the main offenders being an odd 'futurist' gang calling themselves the Mutants. An older, bulkier Bruce Wayne is haunted by his allowing this to happen, and chooses to bring back the Bat, but with a new wrath. The Long Halloween is probably worth a look too, its allegedly one of the inspirations for Nolan with The Dark Knight. It deals with a mysterious murderer who kills on the dates of major holidays, and only 1 man seems to know who it is, the Calendar Man, but he isn't about to tell Batman who it is. Along the way, pretty much every member of Batman's rogue gallery turns up. It's one of the most popular stories in the Batman back catalogue, and serves as a sort of semi sequel to Year One. And the Killing Joke is definitely a good read. Written by Alan Moore (he of Watchmen, V for Vendetta fame, as well as making Constantine and Swamp Thing into decent creations), it's effectively an origin story for the Joker crossed with a story of one of the Jokers most despicable plots. It deals with how the Joker came to be, how Batman was involved, and in an idea that Nolan would borrow for TDK, how the Joker sets out to prove any good man can be broken by one bad moment. If you wanted to get some grounding for the inspiration for the new film, the Knightfall arc is probably worth investigating, its the origin of Bane and seems to have, if little hints in what we've seen of the new film are correct, had big plot lines lifted from it. Knightfall basically sums up Bane's character, they're inextricably linked and always will be, so if you want to have some background on him for the film's interpretation, worth a look. Hush is a good modern arc to look into too. Nothing to do with the films, introduces a new enemy for Batman that you've probably not heard of, has appearances by all the characters you know and love (and in the case of Nightwing, probably don't love, since nobody likes emo Batman), it's main failing is that it's becomes a bit convoluted as it goes on. Still a decent read though. The thing to remember with the graphic novels and 'one shots' and comic arcs is that they're different beasts to the films. Nolan, smartly really, chopped loads of chaff from the stories he chose as inspiration. If you take something like The Dark Knight, Nolan has looked at things like the Long Halloween, and the Killing Joke, and taken 1 idea from them and dumped the rest. Long Halloween gave TDK the Two-Face origin, but the comic is a huge sprawling mystery story with appearances from pretty much every character ever to appear in a Batman comic, for example. Only Year One has much of a resemblance to the films themselves, Begins in particular, largely because it is an intensely simple story - theres not a villain, even. All you get is Bruce Wayne returning to Gotham and taking up the costume to clear up the city. Which he does, though not without fault. It's a good read but the combination of it's short length, and the plot feeling a little slight, means you can read it and think 'is that it?'. But equally the other big hitters in the Batman catalogue go other way and can feel a little silly. The Dark Knight Returns, as good as it is (mainly because it portrays Batman as a vicious, brutal, obsessed with justice verging on mental badass), is silly as ****.

That story about Catherine the Great is just about worthy of the tabloids, largely because it isn't true.

At university I was friends with someone who had a facebook page for their rabbit. The rabbit was friends with a dog.

3 takes the 'wacky' stuff in 2 and turns them up to 11. 3 is all about just doing crazy stuff, about making the game as just straight dumb as possible. It's another step away from the idea of a GTA clone that the series started with.

I can't think of any games or series that I particularly feel like I've missed out on, most things I've had the inclination to play I have at some point or another. But perhaps on a slight tangent, I do feel like I've missed out by not being a good fighting game player. I've played loads over the years and always loved them, but I've never been especially good. Or even that decent, really. I kinda feel like if I were a good player, I'd have gotten so much more out of them, got so much more depth from them and maybe just enjoyed them more, especially if I had a group of friends at the same level.

I can't help it, I'm getting hyped for SFxT. Damn you Capcom, damn you - you **** us all in the arse and we love you for it. I'm not sure it's a day and date purchase mind - ME3 clash.

I didn't actually watch the show (it was clearly Channel 4 doing it's 'controversial but posturing as intelligent' that I can't be doing with), but I'm glad I wasn't wrong when I thought the exact same thing watching the ads for it. I'd go so far as to suggest you'd get the same result if you whacked a bunch of average joes into the same situation, with similar backgrounds and statuses. People who don't know each other terribly well don't tend to spark well often. Shock horror. Game of Thrones season 1 is out on bluray on Monday, and apparently it's a corker of a set on the audiovisual front. I'll pick it up in good time, I got to episode 7 a while back and lost my way with it.

Nah, he's not in the public eye enough to ritually throw him under a bus. QT loves having him on in weeks where something 'politically correct' is going to be discussed, because he's so Tory he simply don't give a ****, which leads to good TV, on QTs standards. I **** hate him. A week were the panel featured Starkey, Warsi, Melanie 'hateful skeletal witch' Phillips, the hateful bitch from 'the Tax Payers Alliance' from a few weeks ago, and some hardnosed Labour/Lib Dem contrary-ite would have my arteries popping inside 10 minutes I think.

I'm not sure but I think there's been a crackdown on names for McLeish, so wouldn't be surprised if it clashes with a website name or something. Anyway... I was a bit annoyed I wasn't able to pick up a Mass Effect 3 CE at our store, because our allocation was filled. I guess it doesn't matter now.

It's fairly obvious were we both stand, so I'll not indulge a debate on it.

^ Word filter. Preowned isn't necessarily a bad thing for the industry. Especially in a industry that increasingly is supplemented and served by DLC and the like. The amount of sales that I put through the till for a weeks big releases that come about because someone has been able to trade in far outweighs those that come in to deal purely in cash.

David Starkey on QT. Heres hoping Dimbleby's got a muzzle under the table. And perhaps a leash.