To you and yours, a very good one.

Here’s a little something for fans of the outlandish and uncanny. BBC4’s documentary series on British science fiction, The Martians and Us, can now be viewed online. Part one, Apes to Aliens, takes evolution as its theme and traces a brief and entertaining history, from H.G. Wells’ anonymous time traveller to John Wyndham’s unearthly schoolchildren. The three-part series covers the obvious and the obscure, the inspired and the unhinged, and teases out what has often made British science fiction different from, and darker than, its American cousin.

Here’s a taste.

Online Videos by Veoh.com

Part 2, Trouble in Paradise, and part 3, The End of the World as We Know It, are also online. Well worth watching. (h/t, The Thin Man.) Related: The original 1960 trailer for Village of the Damned. And here’s George Sanders having trouble keeping secrets.   

Uniqlo Grid. Play on the grid. Go quietly insane. (h/t, Coudal.) // The worst fight scene in film history. // Originals versus remakes. Spartans, spooks, body snatchers. // Airplane prangs. // Cowscapes. (h/t, 1+1=3) // Supervillains of the Old West. // Jack Kirby on gods and monsters. // Could Thor kick Superman’s ass? Kryptonian do-gooder versus bombastic Viking with magic hammer. // Chris O’Shea’s X-ray torch. Video. // Via Norm, the hidden genitals of the NHS. // The 1907 Breguet-Richet gyroplane. (h/t, Things.) // Project Echo. // Apollo 17 panorama. (1972) // Biodegradable cutlery. Made from potatoes. // Dawkins, Dennett, Harris and Hitchens. // Michael Weiss on Ibn Warraq. // Norman Geras on John Pilger. // Julie Burchill on Tesco. // Aaiii!! It’s the Zionist earthquake machine. According to Hamas. // A map of this week’s earthquakes. Most not caused by Jews. // A map of the Lost island. // Virtual Lego. // Modelling the brain may take some time. // Arthur Benjamin and his feats of mental calculation. // Scared of Santa. He knows if you’ve been naughty. // A festive ensemble. // And, via The Thin Man, it’s Big Joe Turner.

Incidentally, TypePad now has a new, and more zealous, spam filter. If anyone has problems posting comments let me know by email. I may have to train the software not to bite everything that approaches. Bad dog.

A few weeks ago, I wrote,

The “dialogue” [Tariq] Ramadan forever alludes to, somewhat vaguely, is by implication a dialogue on strictly Islamic terms – which is to say, on terms that are censorious, often circular and profoundly unrealistic. In this, Ramadan is far from alone. I’ve lost count of how many people seem to imagine that it’s somehow possible to challenge jihadist ideology and related horrors without mentioning Muhammad’s rather central role in the origination, sanctioning and perpetuation of those horrors, and without offending an apparently endless menu of other ‘sensitivities’.

Robert Spencer – he of superhuman patience – also wonders why a debate in good faith is so hard to find.

It remains true that Islamic spokesmen, while denigrating and dismissing my work, have never actually refuted it… And this is a much larger issue than simply who will or will not debate me, because it highlights the fact that peaceful Muslims have never formulated an Islamic response to the jihadists’ claim to represent pure and true Islam – and as long as they do not and apparently cannot do so, the jihadists will continue to hold the intellectual initiative within Islamic communities worldwide. “Moderate” Muslim spokesmen such as those above have not just not answered me; they’ve done nothing to seize that intellectual initiative and blunt the force of jihadist recruitment among Muslims.

But funny, I think.

Men who look like old lesbians.

Among them, Tony Curtis, Roger Ebert, Kyle MacLachlan, Mick Hucknall and, of course, Mark Wallinger.    

It’s beneath me, I know. Yet I cannot look away.

Via.