Now Showing - "Thank God You're Here"

The premise is simple: take an actor, put them in an odd costume, then let them walk through a door into a scene about which they have no foreknowledge, where they will be forced to improvise in front of a live studio audience for 5 minutes. For them, it must be excruciating, and occasionally for us it is as well. But when it works it's hilarious.

It's an Australian show, so I have no idea who any of these people are.

(I also learned that there's no Burger King in Australia; it's called Hungry Jacks there. Too right!)

My Greatest Challenge Yet

I know I should be blogging, but the sun is out and my neighbourhood is full of men in shorts. You should see the parade of fuzzy stems passing my window.

Come to think of it, I'm better off inside. Best to leave the ankle-biting and shin-humping to dogs, I say.

On top of that, (in case you couldn't tell by the tone of this post) this is what's officially known as "the silly season". Summertime, when the living is easy, fish are jumping, cotton is high, and all that hoo-hah, plus trying to drag news out of anyone is like trying to drag a cogent argument out of Elisabeth Hasselbeck.

The problem seems to have two solutions: a) more photo essays (because they've always proven popular, I keep taking photos, and I'm pretty good at writing them), and b) more movie and book reviews. These prove a little more difficult, because it's hard to review a thing and not be judgemental.

Why the sudden reticence with regards to being judgemental, you might ask, if you know me? To which I would answer, in the proud history of reasonable debate here at the Pop Culture Institute, "Shut up".

I like to try and do different things here, as well as trying to do things differently. I don't mind a bad review if it's accurate, but I've read alot of hatchet jobs that were just filthy with someone's opinion, and the criticism was entirely unwarranted. You know the kind I mean. "Adam Sandler's Happy Gilmore is hardly Citizen Kane." Well, duh!

So I guess it's more screenings and more "Books Wormed" for the time being. Now if only I had a book to read around here somewhere...

(turns around, trips over a pile of books, falls headlong into a larger pile, which causes a third, even larger pile to fall on him)

Trafalgar Square Becomes Trafalgar Park

This weekend, at least, going down to Trafalgar Square for grass won't necessarily involve breaking the law.

As part of a promotion attempting to draw people out of the congested heart of London and into its green spaces, more than 2000 square metres of turf were laid in the iconic plaza. After two days, the turf will be reused at Bishop's Park in Hammersmith and Fulham.

I love the idea of this promotion. I have long been a supporter of intra-city tourism, not that such a thing is that easy to do in a city as small as Vancouver. But for London the idea is dead brilliant.

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