As this chart not-so-clearly illustrates, the Sun will ascend into the tropic of Ubiquity around this time in 3 years. We will fly into the black hole at the centre of the galaxy, which will crush us down to less than the size of a satsuma. The whole process will take about two hours, twenty minutes.

Everyone loves a happy ending. Just yesterday, researchers unveiled that the end of makeshift cancer treatments is in sight. And on Friday 18 December 2009, Terry Wogan’s reign of breakfast radio terror came to an end as he was overthrown by employment law and common sense.

Oh, what’s that? Some people love peril and confusion to dominate the human psyche? One such person is Roland Emmerich?

Update: most cinema goers have a hard on for disaster.

Thejamtart saw 2012 ages ago, and although the plot, script, cast and premise left much to be desired she recommended it for a December cinema outing. Having seen a trailer for 2012, I was enthralled by the prospect of seeing (in modern cinema crikey-vision™ no less) the dome of the Sistine Chapel steamroll over a bunch of Catholics on Saint Peter’s square holding a doomed vigil, including a fictional Italian president. Reduced to the heretic subatomic particles of which they so readily and vehemently discredit the existence, I can’t help but guffaw at the irony like an inexcusable expenses-claiming Labour MP.

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Donkey Kong: jump barrel, jump barrel, jump monkey.

Last weekend, someone said to me – while, I might add, they were sitting in my living room, on my sofa – that video games had no story.

I’m a calm and collected kind of guy. I respect the fact that other people have opinions that are nearly as valid as my own. So it was only when this person went on to say the following that I was forced to beat them to death with their leg.

“Look at the typical video game story,” this person said, “There’s nothing to it. I mean… what’s the story in Donkey Kong? Jump barrel, jump barrel, jump monkey.”

Donkey Kong. Which was first released in 1981, back when Willy Gates was allegedly telling us 640k was plenty for everyone and when people in the UK were starting to wonder whether or not Thatcherism was a good idea. Donkey Kong: a groundbreaking game in many ways, not least for introducing Mario and the concept of characterisation to gaming. Donkey Kong: not a fantastic story. Not in 1981. They didn’t have room for a story.

It’s a bit like saying, “Sci-fi films have rubbish special effects. Look at Logan’s Run.” Jump barrel, jump barrel, jump monkey indeed.

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It's over, I'm sorry. It's not me. It's you.

Because I have an iPod, I use iTunes on my computer. And it regularly pisses me off, to the point where I’m giving up on it.

I mean, doesn’t Apple have a reputation for creating user-friendly stuff that’s free of bugs when they release it to the public? Where does that reputation come from? Because it sure isn’t from iTunes.

Here are all the stupid things it does to me…

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He's all class.

Some celebrities will do anything for money.

They must get a taste for it — having a bank account so far in the black that it’s a scientific phenomenon studied by astronomers, closing down entire boulevards on a whim because they feel like shopping without the pesky plebs around, owning garages stuffed to the hilt with ridiculously expensive gleaming gold-plated automobiles… Well, I’m sure that one gets accustomed to such a lavish lifestyle.

But then the recession comes along and wipes out chunks of celebrity fortunes, and suddenly, terrifying normality is knocking at the door.

So what do they do? They sell out.

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The cat ate my NaNoWriMo, I swear.

Someone not at all famous but should or maybe one day will be once said “NaNoWriMo? They should just call it inevitable disappointment delivered straight to your soul on December 1st”, obviously allowing a month or so either way for industrial action in the UK.

So, without much ado and, in fact, without much pride either, here is an update from the team on how we managed our ‘mini’ challenge this year….

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Soo cute that I couldn’t wait until tomorrow to post this! Apparently this wee kitteh has been doing the rounds for a while but I only just discovered it. Travesty!

I’d like to apologise to our readers and my blogging colleagues for the unannounced and prolonged downtime experienced over the last couple of weeks. I have resigned from the finance department and a chimp equipped with basic numeracy and organisation skills has been found to usurp me.

Ostentatious debutantes eviscerated for your year-round delectation

Somehow we have entered December, after what feels like only a few months into 2009.

Tesco and all the despotic UK retailers have been ready for Christmas since minutes after Halloween fizzled out, merchandising decorations and the like everywhere you turn.

Marketers love spinning sales off the back of the seasonal festivities that pepper the calendar year. September is the ideal time to buy back-to-school home and contents cover. DFS love to drive home the importance of getting a brand new sofa every December, “the ideal family Christmas present”. (That of course relies on you having not already bought one every bank holiday so far this year. But make sure to leave room under the stairs for just one more settee which you’ll inevitably rush out to get at 12:01am on Boxing Day!)

One thing you’ll find in nearly every shop around now is 2010 calendars. There’s a calendar for the usual tastes out there, from cute West Yorkshire terriers to marine life photography. Yay! Dolphins frolicking about in enclosures in the Dominican Republic, secretly plotting our demise…

For all the hormonally addled teenster there’s calendars of Hollyoaks hunks or The Bill babes. Mm, Roberta Taylor in a negligee in January.

But that’s all a bit run of the mill. For more select tastes, you can gawp at goats that’ve climbed trees to gain a better picture of the surrounding pastures.

Or, if you’re a loathsome sadist, there are 12 captivating photographs of non-descript beasts with their viscera caulked all over the highways of America.

Have you got a hilarious idea for a calendar? Are you set to appear in one, in a reputation-shattering compromising situation? Let us know!

Rage against the X-Factor

The latest batch of manufactured X-Factor pop-a-nonnies are trundling inevitably closer to the turgid, overcooked and overhyped grande finale. I’ve been lucky enough to avoid a lot of television recently, so have escaped the show’s grasping and vampiric embrace of my brain. Yes. I have not been sucked in.

I thought I might expound on my disbelief at the 2009 crop of finalists – seriously, I just don’t get Jedward, but I’ve realised it’s useless. Anybody who has not joined the cult cannot understand its inner workings. It’s probably like how, to Scientologists, it’s completely awesome that they have little aliens living inside them but to anybody else, it’s insane.

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I bought my shiny, shiny teeth with the money of fools.

Imagine putting “self help guru” when you have to enter your job title on a form. How embarrassing would that be?

Self help gurus are widely lampooned in the mass media, often depicted as deranged, criminal, sad, pathetic, or all of the above. Some of my personal favourites are:

• Greg Kinnear as Richard Hoover in Little Miss Sunshine, a desperate, clutching man whose pathetic quotes fail to inspire his small, yawning audience.
• Patrick Swayze as Jim Cunningham in Donnie Darko, a seedy and despicable man.
• Tom Cruise as Frank T.J. Mackey in Magnolia, see above.

It’s only if you’re Tony Robbins that the job actually rocks…

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They say money can’t buy happiness, but really it can if you have any imagination. However, money can’t, and never will be able to, buy class: the more money you throw around trying to surround yourself with pricey wares, the worse everything starts to look.

Middle Eastern interior design doesn’t follow trends. Instead the attitude appears to be “write a cheque and get one of everything, and then get a couple of spares, and then buy the companies that made them”.

Have you been contemplating converting your diesel motor, so that it runs on Crisp’n'Dry? This will help you come to a decision.

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