Alan Bradburne

Since I have a 14 hour flight coming up, I thought it might be a good chance to do a bit of Go study. I’ve recently started learning & playing and desperately need to do some study to even stand a chance of getting better. Not time for an Amazon order, So I dodged the mad Christmas shoppers in town and nipped to the bookshop. Nothing. More books than you could imagine about something called Texas Hold’em, a handful on Chess, nothing on Go.

Next bookshop - a bit of a nerd hangout. Role playing games galore, a fair few on this mysterious Texas Hold’em (whoever he is) and a couple on chess. No Go.

Final attempt, the big bookshop. Of course they’ll have a few. Nothing. I even got a helpful lass to check on their system (funny, big queue for the tills at the front of the store, bored staff at an empty till at the back of the store). Gal had never heard of Go, but they have one book listed. One book. And apparently it’s never stocked and would have to be a special order that would take weeks.

Go, the older, second most popular board game in the entire world and there are absolutely *no* books available in the entire town of Reading. :(

Wii!

Not quite an Apple unboxing experience, but very enjoyable all the same.

One word review: Awesome.

The Wiimote is a stroke of genius. Works exactly as you expect.. Wii Sports is an absolute blast, especially boxing. Yet to play Zelda, waiting until I have a few hours spare (yeah, right! Don't these people know I have a book to write?!)

BTW, My Wii number : 0052 6732 2403 2232

Technorati Tags: nintendo, wii, zelda

Can you even imagine how embarrassed this woman must have been? The headline says it all: Flatulence leads US jet to divert

Basically, she farted then lit a match to try to conceal the smell. Other passengers got a whiff of sulphur and the flight made an emergency landing. I guess her plan backfired a little.

Either that was one really smelly fart or she is just a bloody idiot.

Later... with Jools Holland is consistently far and away the best music program on TV. It feels very informal, very personal and it's great to see damn good musicians just perform without any bells or whistles. Last night's program (which it seems like you can still watch from the Beebs web page) was just fantastic. The Chill Peppers are better than ever (and put on a phenomenal live performance), Thom Yorke's performance (sadly only one song) was amazing. Kean, Bellowhead, Klaxons, The Be Good Tanyas and Anthony David - such varied genres but all fantastic. Great great stuff.

In other great-TV news, the awesome new Jack Dee series, Lead Balloon has been given another series. If you've not seen it, you should really track it down. Basically it's the UK Curb Your Enthusiasm, except better. It's great to see Jack Dee back and as dead-pan as ever. It sounds like it's been a bit of a success for the Beeb, starting life on BBC Four then being quickly moved to BBC Two after a few episodes. The new series will be 8 episodes instead of 6 too. I can't wait!

And of course, Battlestar Galactica just keeps getting better and better. Best sci-fi series ever. Episode 9 will be watched later ;)

Technorati Tags: BBC, Lead Balloon, TV