Plissken

Absolutely. But one approach will have much more effect that the other.

Fatuous? Fuck off. You don't trim 5% of the branches off a tree, you trim the branches that are dying.

Yes, but as JPickford alluded to - why 5%? Why not 4%, 6%? If there are too many employees, why not cut the ones that matter and if it turns out to be 1% or 10%, then present them as "efficiency savings". Why not keep the employees, but cut everyones salary by 5%? Sure, some will leave in protest, but hey, that works, right? JPickford is right, cutting 5% won't actually help anything except the bottom line for the next quarter becuase it is quite clearly an arbitrary number made up by some faceless accountant who doesn't understand the company.. After that, then what? I know (and generally support) the shareholder/all about the bottom line arguments. Its capitalism. But running a business - any business - on a three month cycle is utter madness.* Especially one that relies on products that take between months or years to develop and mature. The US is mad for this sort of thing, and then wonders why stuff like Enron happens.

See. If you repeat the same thing three times, it doesn't get funnier.

The few women comics who are genuinely funny don't seem to get a chance. Jo Caulfield writes for Graham Norton (and most of the putdowns on Weakest Link) and has completely failed to get the recognition she deserved. Similarly Janey Godley, who is - and she won't like me for saying this - a female Billy Connolly, back when he was good, right down to the tough Glaswegian childhood. The problem seems to be that TV likes "male comedians" and "female comedy actresses". Hence the overabundance of shite like French and Saunders, Tate and Mel and Sue.

John Fash-ar-noo completely stole that from Craig Charles. (He coined it during the virtual reality game, Cyberzone on BBC2.)

Without getting too analytical about it, it was because the catchphrase wasn't the punchline. The joke was the different ways of getting there. Like the "which was nice" bloke or Jessies Diets - there were a million ways of getting to the catchphrase and all of them were funny. The catchphrase was the structure - you weren't laughing at "Today oi 'ave mostly bin eatin'", you were laughing at "...pop tarts!" With LB and Tate, they simply don't understand this. "Yeah, I know" isn't funny. "Want that one" is not funny. Seeing Andy climb up a diving board and jump off it is funny.

Well, having finally sat through all of this film... its good. Very good. For all the wrong reasons. I was just like "No fucking way were they serious making this." And Arnies performance was astonishing.

I knew it! I knew I'd seen Sully in summat else. T-Bird in The Crow.

I wasn't a fan, but bits of it were very amusing. Kind of hard to explain, but it was like Trigger Happy TV with added violence. Had an occasionally surreal edge (the one I remember is rolling someone up in a carpet, and then unrolling it at the top of a hill). The imitators just seem to be about hurting each other.

Didn't mean anything, it was just a screenshot of Russell Brand.

Bought it ages ago for 20 quid. Crap transfer, mind. Anyway, best get into this now, because then when the characters are established in your mind, they hit you with "Victorias Secret", which is one of the best season finales ever. The soundtrack is largely Sarah McLachlans "Fumbling Towards Ecstacy".

Fantastic band. Never got the popularity they deserved.

Guns and Roses made two fantastic albums, Appetite for Destruction and if you cut out the crap ones from Use Your Illusion I and II, then you'd have a killer second album.

She really is a money slut, isn't she? No principles, apart from taking the money. If it was that important to her, then surely she has earned enough in her life to go "fuck that for a game of soldiers"? I mean, its not as if she is getting a million for it. I suppose lorryloads of fake tan cost a lot of money.

Yes, its amazing how many people fail to get through racking up those 60ps, and then those that do get through get it wrong. A staggeringly high number, beyond the realms of probability. Suckers, each and every one.

Bomber got the wrong contradiction: But wait!

Actually, it reads like a list of "look who I know".

Rowan Atkinson is a comedian in the way Ronnie Barker is. A fine, fine comic actor - however Atkinson did tour (I saw him live, a long time ago) and he was funny as fuck. Johnny Vegas is utterly hilarious when in the mood - one of the few comedians I've seen live where it physically hurt to laugh after a while. Noone is as good at bouncing off an audience as he is. Problem for Vegas is that TV doesn't like that kind of thing too much. You can't expect him to go off on one and then worry about overrunning. Carrott was excellent in the mid-to late 80s, and did as much as any to evolve from being a mainstream club comic to showing an alternative edge.

FIve, last night. Though its a repeat from about a year ago. And the poster who say Richard Ayoade for Best Comedy Character is fucking mental. I mean Darkplace was good, but hardly a classic.

Couple of points: The "daughter" bit. It reinforces the relationship with Newt, but it also provides motivation for Ripley to go back. From memory, Burke has a conversation with Ripley that suggests she's stuck in a dead end job, instead of being out in space. (For some reason "you can get your ships licence back" sticks in my head. Probably wrong.) Anyway, Ripley realises that with her daughter long gone, shes got nothing to stick around for and maybe the nightmares will go away. Sentry guns: The first attack beats the Aliens. But they avoid them for the second attack, which shows that the Aliens don't just kill, they learn.

[to Cyrus, while holding a gun] Pinball: You didn't mean that "two-bit negro crackhead" shit, did you? Cyrus Grissom: Give me that gun. [takes the gun] Cyrus Grissom: Hell yes, I meant it. Wonderfully silly film, for all the right reasons.

Thats true, he's promoted Asian cinema for a long time, certainly early 90s (he did an anime thing that I briefly was in the background of). Not sure how he got into it though. I mean, the only route he will have had to discover the delights of Asian cinema would be the same as the rest of us, through badly copied subtitled pirate videos. Good job he doesn't appear on adverts warning us of the evils of copyright theft...

The whole point is that she is supposed to be a bit dispy and bumbling, but generally (end of Xmas Invasion apart) doing The Right Thing. Like the way she always introduces herself. Bumbles a lot, but utterly convinced when she has decided upon a course of action. I think it is an excellent character.