Beato! To be perfectly honest, I’d feared Pat might have hung up the pedalmobile, but here he comes again just in time with a worthy opponent… and, to be honest again, I’d almost forgotten the fuss about Jason Aldean from a few months ago, but that seems to be the way the world in general works these days, there’s always something new happening that makes us forget what happened not that long ago… I mean, remember the Titan sub? Good times…
Anyway, when Aldean was having his 15 minutes, I noticed the controversy surrounding him but somehow I managed to avoid actually hearing the song or seeing the video… and I now know that it’s pretty fucking awful, and Pat goes into quite some detail about how and why it is, trying to understand the possible reasons for its appeal and finding none. There’s an amazing bit of live footage where Aldean just cannot hit the note he’s supposed to, and I’ve never been very good at actually telling when something’s off-key… but in Aldean’s case even I couldn’t miss the fact that he was missing the mark. Yikes. So good to see this today in my YT subscriptions, it was just the sort of thing I was needing.
Well, there goes yet another bit of my childhood, with the Galaxy’s Greatest Comic announcing the passing of Ian Gibson. One of the defining artists at 2000AD, though he seems to have had a catastrophic falling-out with them later in life and… then THIS happened, which I don’t think I’d heard anything about before. Ian leaves a slightly more… complicated legacy than I realised…
A teenager accused of saluting as neo-Nazis marched through a regional Victorian city has been given an official warning by police.
Officers in Ballarat interviewed the 15-year-old boy, who has had no previous dealings with police, after the demonstration in the Victorian regional city on 3 December.
The officers issued him an official warning after determining his actions were not racially motivated.
“The decision was made to use the opportunity to educate the youth on the recent change in legislation regarding the Nazi salute, along with the potential harm that may be caused within the community,” Victoria police said in a statement.
So this comes after a march by a Nazi mob—the same one that rocked up to Posie Parker’s bullshit in Melbourne earlier this year, apparently—through Ballarat on the 3rd, which the Graun previously described thus:
Social media footage shows a group of men, dressed in black and wearing balaclavas, holding a banner reading “Australia for the white man” and chanting “hail victory” on Sunday.
So this kid saluting these cunts was also saluting a flag saying “Australia for the white man”… but somehow his actions weren’t racially motivated. I mean, these are Nazis we’re talking about; unless you’re being deeply sarcastic or ironic, saluting Nazis is an inherent racist act, especially when they’re packing white supremacist banners. I’d love to know how they decided this kid wasn’t being racist…
You may recall that dickhead clutching his pearls about Taylor Swift a few days ago? Well, I had my attention drawn to a part of the conversation that ensued from that which I hadn’t noticed earlier:
WOOF! Why do I feel like this is not only harsh but fair, but also not harsh enough somehow?
A sentiment of perfect nobility, obviously, except for the fact that it didn’t happen that way, according to his by then ex-wife:
OOF. And it now turns out he was lying about not letting Jones back on Shitter; I don’t believe for a second that he only did it because he posted a poll on there that ended up in favour of Jones’ return, he wouldn’t have posted the poll if he weren’t already thinking of doing it, this just made it look like “the will of the people” or some shit. From that BBC article:
After Musk posted the poll, Jones shared a video online in which he called on his supporters to vote in favour of his ban being overturned.
Jones’s old account was reinstated hours after the poll ended.
Responding to one user on Saturday, Musk said he “vehemently” disagreed with Jones’s statements about Sandy Hook, adding: “but are we a platform that believes in freedom of speech or are we not?”
He said the move would be “bad for X financially” but “principles matter more than money”.
I mean, the answer to his question is “no, don’t be so fucking stupid“. And there’s no principle involved here; Musk was right about hating people profiting from the deaths of children, but somewhere along the way that principle’s fallen by the wayside. I don’t know whether he or Jones is the bigger moral vacuum in this situation.
HOLY SHIT but the people who wet themselves over the Timeless Child are really going to lose the plot over the end of the third Doctor Who special, aren’t they? That’s if their heads haven’t already exploded by the fact that this guy…
…isn’t wearing any pants on the show. But, of course, it’s the people screaming about Ruth Madeley crossing her legs a couple of weeks ago who’ll REALLY shit the bed this week when she STANDS UP. It’s almost like Russell knew exactly how people would respond to that bit of business and so decided to really rub it in their faces this time round…
So, yeah. The Toymaker’s back and instead of being a Chinese stereotype he’s packing a “wacky” German accent cos apparently he needs to be racist towards someone, it’s a nice bit of continuity I suppose… Neil Patrick Harris is very good, I imagine his line about turning God into a jack in the box will raise certain eyebrows, and there’s some weirdly disturbing stuff when our dynamic duo get stuck in his realm (really, some of the creepiest shit I’ve ever seen in the show). And isn’t it kind of delightful to see Mel again? Even if it does rather complicate the timeline (given that when she leaves with Sabalom Glitz in “Dragonfire” it’s about two million years in the future, how does she return to Earth in the 21st century?), but it wouldn’t be Doctor Who without details like that being hand-waved away…
They are, of course, not going to be able to do that with the whole “bigeneration” thing…
“Well, fancy seeing ME here…” “Where are your pants?”
I did see a spoiler a few days ago that this was how Tennant would turn into Gatwa, i.e. by frankly pushing him out of himself, which is basically what happens (I’ve seen a number of fan “theories” about the 60th specials and I think this is the only one that was right)… I know Russell promised us canon-breaking developments and I suppose this fits that bill, but at the same it’s actually a throwback to Tennant’s beginnings and how his dismembered hand from “The Christmas Invasion” later becomes a full clone of himself… it’s just that this time he pops out his actual next incarnation. Who, it should be noted, is the most immediately fully functional newly regenerated Doctor in the show’s history, which I suppose is another canon-breaking detail; he’s ready to go as soon as he’s been pulled out, even if he’s… casually dressed. I must say I’m actually glad I read that spoiler, though, cos I’m not sure the show itself actually explains what happened too clearly. Also, I’m sure people will complain about how you can’t have multiple Doctors roaming around time and space as if they haven’t crossed paths multiple times…
Anyway—on the whole, a satisfying episode, satisfying end to the specials (and technically to the series itself; I understand now why they’re calling the next series “series 1” now), and I’m less bothered about RTD coming back to the show than I was before I saw any of them. I think this show might go far once Ncuti puts some pants on…
Well, there goes yet another bit of my childhood, with the Galaxy’s Greatest Comic announcing 
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