Rob has always been, shall we say, quite “into” flying and planes and stuff. So it is quite good news that he has not only passed all his exams and things that let him call himself a Proper Airplane Flying Type Person, but he’s also got himself a job at Flybe as a First Officer, based in Belfast. So, yay Rob!

The good thing about birthdays is that everyone is usually nice to you and some even give you presents; the down side is you’re a tad older
than you were yesterday. Hope you have a really good day. Dad.

I dunno, that just seemed to chime perfectly with the mood of wistful melancholy I’ve been in for the last couple of days. I blame Neil sticking several days worth of Daniel Kitson bootleg MP3s on the network.

So, yes, I’m 28, which is the last perfect age I will ever be, unless medical science really, dramatically improves within the next half-century or so. Lots of people have wished me happy birthday on my facebook, which on one hand is quite cheery; on the other, you know that it’s just because on their facebook it’s popped up a little thing to say “Birthdays today: Chris” and they were bored at work or something, and that sort of cheapens the whole thing slightly.

In case you missed it, you really, really need to see this video. It’s from ITV’s latest tedious Simon Cowell-fronted derivative talent-show thing, “Britain’s Got Talent”. Except it’s actually brilliant, and totally unexpected. I watched this along with Naomi and her family on saturday night whilst waiting for the result of the Joseph thing on BBC1, and we were all gobsmacked.

In other news, I will be 28 in seven minutes, and I’m not looking forward to it. Boo.

Scene: A corner shop. “Tiger Feet” by Mud is playing.

HARRY ENFIELD enters. His appearance suggests someone who hasn’t been informed that the 1970s – specifically, the Glam Rock era – hasn’t ended yet. He approaches the counter, behind which stands PAUL WHITEHOUSE.

HARRY: Do you have any copies of Barbican Gran Turismo 4? It’s just like normal Gran Turismo, only with all the boring shit about getting licenses and passing pointless tests and having to tweak your car to an astonishingly minute level taken out?

PAUL: Why yes, sir, we do. It’s called Forza Motorsport 2, and it’s for the XBox 360.

…and that about sums it up, really. It’s like Gran Turismo, except you don’t have to pass tests before it’ll let you out on the racetrack. Also, you don’t have to endlessly tweak baffling numbers to improve the setup of your car in order to stand a chance in the races. Sure, all that stuff is there if you want it, but if you don’t care about that sort of stuff and just want to get on with the actual racing part of things, you can, and with minimal impact; in fact, the most amazing part of the thing is the way it caters for both the hardcore uber-tweaker style racer, who will turn all the assists off straight away and spend days in the setup menu – and yet is still accessible to heathen like me who don’t really know the difference between a ride height of 5cm and 5.1cm.

Graphically – well, it does the job. The cars are recognisable, as are the tracks. It’s not going to win any awards for graphical innovation or anything, but it’s pretty enough. But it does run at a steady 60fps, nearly all the time – and that’s more important – you never feel like you’ve been punished by the game not quite running fast enough, and I’d rather have that than silly HDR bloom effects or whatever.

So yeah, I like it. There is the nagging feeling that it’s lacking in any kind of personality – there’s no human face to the game in any way, no “story” as such, no ultimate goal or anything; but I don’t know if it really needs any of that anyway. It’s pretty damned good as it stands, I reckon. Recommended.

So, after protracted negotiations with Orange, I got myself a shiny new N95 to play with. It’s Nokia’s new flagship phone and it pretty much Does Everything – it’s got a 5 megapixel camera, WiFi, GPS, high speed mobile internet, video and music player and more – oh, and apparently it makes phone calls and sends text messages too, should you care about that. The question is, though, with such a multifunctional device, is it jack of all trades and master of none?

Well – yes. But that needs unpacking a bit. The N95 is clearly meant to represent a new generation of mobile device, and Nokia have thrown pretty much everything they have at it. Inevitably, some stuff sticks and some stuff, well, doesn’t so well.

So, the good: everything that is advertised is there and does fulfil at least basic functionality: the camera is a full 5 megapixel job with a full range of settings that you’d expect to see on a consumer compact digital; the GPS tells you where you are and how to get where you’re going; the WiFi detects wireless networks simply and the built in web browser is a massive improvement over anything Nokia have ever done before; the media player is good and the screen is excellent so video playback is lovely, and finally there’s a standard 3.5mm headphone jack so you can use your own headphones rather than the shitty Nokia ones. Additionally, the Series 60 software is mature and works well – the active standby screen is as good as any other PDA’s home screen with appointments, messages, to-do lists and other information cleanly and clearly displayed.

The problem is, though, that whilst it’s all there, there’s quite a lot of rough edges. The GPS takes quite a long time to get a lock, especially around tall buildings, and the accuracy can suffer if there are dense trees or big buildings around – and it basically doesn’t work at all unless the keypad is open; the camera – whilst clearly better than pretty much any other phone cam out there – is still not that good compared to most mid-range compacts, and compared to my PowerShot A710, it’s pretty useless – the images have too much noise reduction applied and there’s quite a lot of fringing; the web browser is much better than previous incarnations, but the Opera for Mobile is still streets ahead; the WiFi detection works, until you want to try and assign an IP manually, in which case you’re digging through menus and fighting a total lack of documentation; the media player is good but won’t replace my iPod and there’s quite an annoying hiss in the background if you’re listening to anything quiet. In addition, whilst the thing looks great, and the dual-slide is a neat trick, the build quality doesn’t seem to be as good as it could be – my slide is quite wobbly, and this appears to be a common fault. And the battery life is short – very short – even for a smartphone: you’ll be charging it every day – at least.

All that said though, there’s nothing deal-breaking here – everything works, and mostly works pretty well. The trouble is that it’s being pitched as a top-end device and, unless you’re in a position to argue a free one out of your service provider like I was, it’s fairly pricey too – and the rough edges takes a bit of the shine off. Overall, I’m happy with it – but with a few bits polished and tidied up, I could be even happier.

Oh, and this post was entirely written on it, with minimal pain, so it can’t be that bad 🙂

Daniel Kitson loves fireworks. I mean, he really loves them, and he tells us as much, several times, during this stage show. He loves fireworks, and paddling, and stars, and his parents, and those little acts of heroism that ordinary people do, every single day. He has no time for people who dismiss the wonder of everyday things, and he really doesn’t like bad parents, or people who aren’t considerate to other people. Over the course of his new show, he talks about all those things, and more. He draws the audience in and paints pictures with his words (which he loves: on one occasion he veers off on a tangent on the joys of the word “tabbard”) and invites us to see the stars and fireworks with him.

The philosophy espoused in his show is perhaps best encapsulated by his description of the two ways of entering the sea when you know it’s going to be really, really cold: the first is to walk in, inch by inch, slowly acclimatising as you go, until you’re used to the cold; the second is to psyche yourself up, take a deep breath and a big run-up and launch yourself bodily into the water. Kitson, obviously, chooses the latter, and knows that, secretly, we would all really do the same. In a world where cynicism and sarcasm are easy currency and where we’re constantly told that the key to happiness is to consume more and more and more, Kitson is taking a step back and defiantly saying: “Hey, you know what? Fireworks and stars and snow and paddling in the sea are fucking great“. And we all need a bit of that.

You know, I’d swear the sun is shining a little brighter this morning.

So, I was watching Any Dream Will Do* and I was astonished to hear Graham Norton introduce Andrew Lloyd-Webber by saying:

“And now, running on his last reserves of phantom power, it’s Andrew Lloyd Webber!”

Who, other than sound engineers, actually knows what phantom power actually is?

I can’t make any excuses. I have a weakness for camp. I also love Eurovision. Blame my wife-to-be, if necessary.

Dear Scottish Catholics,

I’ll be quite happy with you saying “you can’t take communion if you’re not anti-abortion” thing once we’ve eliminated rape and, in fact, all unwanted pregnancy, got healthcare to such a degree that a woman’s life is never endangered through becoming pregnant, got basic living standards for all people to the level whereby every child can be given a life worth living and created a 100% reliable method of contraception that your church is also prepared to endorse.

Until then, please stop taking such an absurd black-and-white stance on a complicated, deeply emotional and difficult issue. It’s not like people have an abortion for fun, for goodness sake.

Love, Chris

So, last night we went round Debenhams with a little scanner thingy and made our wedding list. I never knew there were such a huge array of things that I had so little opinion about.

Okay, so I care about saucepans and chopping boards and a good pestle and mortar, but whether our bedsheets and towels are the same shade of brown or not? This is not the sort of thing that keeps me awake at night. Of course, I’m not allowed to not have an opinion, because it’s going to be my house too, so I’ve got to make some sort of decision, apparently, even if I really actually don’t care.

Anyway, we’ve now got a big list of things that Naomi is very excited about and that I can sort of give or take but would mostly be happy to trade all of for a 50″ plasma telly. But apparently, that’s not “practical” or “necessary”, and replacing all our saucepans and having a matching 24-piece cutlery set is. I think it’s probably best if I just admit that by getting married, I am signing away any right to be a man I might have mistakenly thought I previously had.

I still think the green plates are nicer than the white ones, though.

I’m not kidding. This is why the internet exists.

For best results, listen to something off the Lost In Translation soundtrack at the same time.