Retreat, Earthmen! Horror awaits you!

The most accurate account of a First Contact scenario ever made.

This one has potential

As if they don't have enough problems

Things haven't been the same in Dubai since the Empire invaded.

Snow time

Dark Roasted Blend looks at snow–lots and lots of snow.

Snow Dalek attack

Now we know what's behind the record snowfalls.

Treebeardgate

Another breaking scandal on the global warming front:

Trees will not uproot themselves and embark on blood-soaked killing sprees by 2035, global warming experts have admitted.

The International Panel on Climate Change confirmed the evidence had not been peer-reviewed and will now amend the section of its 2007 report devoted to 'killer trees'.

A spokesman said: "It appears the claim was not based on new data or field research but on that bit with the angry, talking trees in Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers."

However, they still stand by their claims about global warming causing hordes of slavering orcs to descend upon us.

Copy editing corner

Strangely, I didn't notice the irony until I'd read it through four times. Too many years with the blue pencil. Too many years.

The Great Office War

This is why I work from home.

Mind you,my family does on occasion use Nerf guns to recreate the climactic gun battle from Hot Fuzz.

Seriously Strong

Cannot be explained; only experienced.

Okeh Laughing Record

We could all do with a bit of this.

Concrete evidence

There's something fundamentally satisfying about this image.

Cool guys don't look at explosions

Hasn't anyone ever heard of shrapnel?

Cream of Tartar

In the words of P G Wodehouse, Christmas almost has us by the throat, so yesterday I decided that there was nothing else for it but to sally forth and buy what we needed for Christmas dinner. Actually, it was for Christmas Eve dinner because we're spending Christmas day driving all over the Pacific Northwest, or a fair fraction of it, visiting friends and relatives. I know that sounds a bit odd, but this is because, despite their reputation for being big eaters, Americans are positively dainty around the holidays. Even their Thanksgiving meals would be scarcely a entrée at an English Christmas. And I've never seen a crate of milk stout rolled out in America after the cheese course–maybe because they don't have one. Not for them gorging on rafts of appetisers, three meat courses, meat pies, smoked salmon, mince pies, savoury courses, desserts, nuts, and then washing the entire lot with an eclectic mix of wine, beer and spirits like Mr Creosote on a binge. Leave it at the turkey and stuffing and call it good, says your average American. The means that they are something the British are not on Christmas day: Mobile.

The upshot of all this is that Christmas dinner at Chez Szondy is put forward to the night before so we can drive up and down the Puget Sound area to watch friends and relatives not eating and drinking. It also means that a) I have to cut down on my traditional caloric and alcoholic intake at our family dinner because b) I am not going to be allowed to sleep through Boxing Day like a civilised human being and c) I have to take my seven-year old daughter to the supermarket on Sunday to pick up the viands.

Normally, I rather enjoy doing the grocery shopping. It allows me to indulge in one of my favourite activities of not spending money. Do we need butter this week? No, I bought a pallet load at the wholesale place last month. Name brand macaroni and cheese or the store brand that's a fourth of the price? The store brand's a little chewy, but you can still swallow it, so let's get that. 2006 Mouton Rothschild at $999.99 a bottle or half a dozen of the "two-buck chuck"? Don't even ask; just pass the corkscrew. This is not a normal Sunday, however. It's five days before Christmas and not only are the crowds insane, but the Salvation Army bell ringer has gone over to the Dark Side and is rolling on the floor in an eye-gouging match with a Buddhist monk over the last Zhu Zhu Pets Hamster. Since I'm staying in the food section, except for a detour to pick up some sporks out of the camping department (long story), I figure I'm relatively safe aside from the day-release patients who think the shopping trolleys are bumper cars.

For the most part, we're doing okay. We get the ham, the bread, the stuffing, and the rest without much incident. Even my daughter is relatively quiet because a few more synapses have linked up in her young brain and she's discovered that reading isn't that hard after all, so she's sitting in the child seat quietly reading a book about vampire squids. We're home free, I think. That is, until I got to the bottom of the list where lurked the Cream of Tartar that my wife wanted.

Now I'm not entirely sure what Cream of Tartar is, except that it's a fancy name for potassium bitartrate, and I have no idea as to what it's used for, but I do know that it's in the spice section and that's easy enough to find. It's where over a dozen people are milling around, hunting up and down the shelves like there's been a massive coincidence and everyone has simultaneously lost their ferrets there. I manage to squeeze myself, daughter and trolley into the throng and join them as I look for the Cream of Tartar. Pretty soon, I'm completely lost. Cream of Tartar is nowhere to be found despite there being 582,612 varieties of salt. Then I overhear the other shoppers talking to each other. I discover two things. First, there is no Cream of Tartar on the shelves and second, that every one there was also looking for the same, albeit absent, C of T.

Soon, a young shop assistant appears and in calm tones suggesting someone who is trying to take a caribou away from a hungry polar bear announces that there is no Cream of Tartar left. The crowd begins to turn ugly in that way that Eisenstein tried so hard to capture on film and the beleaguered young shop assistant keeps one eye on the nearest exit while his right hand gropes among the fish boil packets for a suitable weapon to defend himself with. Any second now., I think, something is going to set them off and there'll be a pram rolling down the steps in no time.

But before the the scalpel of Fate can reach the frisky puppy of Destiny, I jump on top of a crate of marshmallow fluff and with hands in the air shout, "Listen to me! Listen to me! You can use white vinegar! In equal proportions!"

A hush falls over the nascent mob. Then a murmuring starts as some shoppers start asking where the white vinegar is while others remain committed Cream of Tartar purists. A small, sharp-faced woman starts extolling the merits of white vinegar on teleological grounds. A large man with heavy red jowls bellows that Cream of Tartar was good enough for his father and it's good enough for him. A man in a jacket a size too large for him starts to ask if salad dressing will do, but is glared into silence. Soon the crowd starts arguing. A schism forms with the battle lines drawn between the Tartarists and the Vinegarites. Before you could say "two for one sale" a tin of Allspice strikes a man who looks remarkably like Keir Hardie clean in the face and a full-blown religious war erupts in Aisle 5. It was at this point that my daughter and I make our escape through Soft Toys.

By last reports, the violence has since spread to Produce, the Deli section has declared itself a free republic, Notions is ablaze, and the store manager has lashed himself and a Japanese friend to the lobster tank. State officials trying to restore order have not ruled out air strikes at this time.

As for the Szondy family, I think we'll do a Chinese takeaway this year.

Vectron

OCD

I'll bet there's a story behind this

The Death Ray

Forty years of Monty Python

Terry Jones is Welsh, and what Terry has never been able to accept is that the Welsh, a subject people, were put on earth to carry out menial tasks for the English. I think that’s why we had a few arguments.

John Cleese

Oh, dear

The Ballad of G I Joe

The Ballad of G.I. Joe from Olivia Wilde

Sometimes you just need to put down the laser rifle and kick back.

Animal hospital

As I always suspected.

Homeopathic lager

Takes me back to my medical school days.

Well, I feel safe

Gerald

Enough Trog. Now let's look at some serious anthropology.

The Antidote Returns

The baton is passed.

Men in Black

It appears that I Am Legend isn't the only crappy remake Wil Smith was involved in.

Miss Fire

Early Days of the Sith

Most people don't realise that in the early days Darth Vader wasn't all that cool.

On The Phone

As the wife calls this, "toxicly cute".

Iron

Keep your copybook ready.

Bring Out The Holy Hand Grenade!

Where Have I seen this before? Oh, yes:

Oneupsmanship

Apocryphal, but still funny as hell.

Drugs, Child Abuse, The Holocaust & Elmo

Back From Holiday

Some people come back refreshed from a holiday. And then there's Hancock.

Preparing for the Apocalypse

The Onion tackles the tough questions.

Obama's Elf

I guess the honeymoon is over when your elf wants out.

Norway: Home of Giants

Revisiting this classic documentary on Norway is particularly touching for me because, owing to a Norwegian grandmother, I have the subconscious ability to read and speak Norwegian without realising that I'm doing it, which tends to freak me and those around me out at regular intervals.

The Four Yorkshiremen

We had four old blokes who used to do this sketch in the pub with a straight face and freaked out the young people on a regular basis.

Luxury

Quatermass OBE

Be afraid. Be very afraid.

Okay, not that afraid.

Long Lost Uncle Abner Flywheel

One-Round Gombatz The Boxer

The awe and mystery of Flywheel, Shyster & Flywheel.

The Natural

Forget Obama, Cameron or whoever; get this kid on the ballot.

Compaq Portable 2 vs a Dead Fish

Who can argue with logic like that?

The Nairobi Trio

Punk Lives!

Foresight

The Sin of Harold Diddlebock

Cellphone Cinema

"My lord, the queen is not dead."

Ghosts

Another installment in our ongoing effort to provide our readers with the latest from the world of science.

The Wrong Door

It's happened to me a couple of times.

Monday

Looks like one of those days.

Gore-Al

Well, it's good to know that Gore had a Plan B.

Mile-High Update

As a follow up to the other day's post on skyscraper atrocities in London, a visitor has requested a posting of the Architect Sketch.

Yes, Cinders, you shall go to the ball.

Wise Advice

When you're in deep trouble, look straight ahead, say nothing, and pretend to know what you're doing.

The Four Yourkshiremen

I used to know blokes like this down the pub.

Vegetarian Dishes

The idea of a vegetarian survival manual is amusing to say the least. Not that I'd discourage that sort of thing. After all, the more vegetarians there are after the Apocalypse, the more meat there'll be for my pot.

Blue Plaque

Um...

Words of Wisdom

A Drama in Three Acts

A Suggestion

It's Thanksgiving in the States tomorrow and if you are still trying to sort out your menu, my friend here would like to make a suggestion.

Procrastination Flowchart

I'll get around to this one later.

The Brain

The Brain: Basically a wrinkled bag of skin filled with warm water, veins and thought muscles.

Alan Coren 1938-2007

Television is more interesting than people. If it were not, we should have people standing in the corners of our rooms.

Alan Coren

The humourist Alan Coren has died at the age of 69. Times columnist, editor of Punch for two decades and a regular on The News Quiz, Mr. Coren had a marvelous writing voice as the Cricklewood Middle-class Everyman and such an evenly balanced sense of humour that even when economic hard times brought the Great Purge to the library at Chez Szondy a book of his columns survived on the grounds that I was still trying to figure out how to crib his style.

A Hard Day's Night

And now your moment of high culture: Peter Sellers doing Lord Olivier doing Richard III doing A Hard Day's Night.

Introduced by a couple of blokes who did tunes.

Without a Leg to Stand On

I've had auditions like this.

Some producers are so bloody picky.

The Cat Came Back

Why I don't have a cat.

Midget Horn

Sometimes comment is simply not necessary

The Helvetica Scenario

Protect yourself. Learn the facts.

The Life of a Writer

Yes, this is pretty much how I handle my professional correspondence.

Germs

Germs come from Germany

Look Around You

Remember how god-awful educational films could be?

You will now.