The Bishop on the Surrealist's Advertising Slogan Generator

I'm only here for the Surrealist's Advertising Slogan Generator.

Get more from the Surrealist's Advertising Slogan Generator.

That'll be the Surrealist's Advertising Slogan Generator.

The Surrealist's Advertising Slogan Generator prevents that sinking feeling.

Put the Surrealist's Advertising Slogan Generator in your tank.

The Surrealist's Advertising Slogan Generator Bars are on me!

Why can't everything orange be the Surrealist's Advertising Slogan Generator?

(Okay, now you’re just being silly.)

The Bishop on 2:46pm, Wednesday July 26th 2006

Eh, but whadaya gonna do?

The Bishop on misplaced priorities

In presenting a fellow contestant—balls ’n’ all, as it were—with the contents of the front of his pants, a certain nameless (and faceless) Australian Big Brother housemate appears to has got it—like the media and public at large ‘in the face’ of the issue—thoroughly arse backwards. For while his knowledge of what went on is, admittedly—and deliberately—limited, the Bishop can only wonder—as he sits back and enjoys a few cocksucking cowgirls in honour of the ado—why the hoopla has all been about whether Big Brother should remain on the air, and not whether at least two of its participants should now be in jail.

Of the first question, your otherwise thoroughly un-conservative commentator concedes that perhaps this sort of prick teasing is something small children shouldn’t see—at least so’s they don’t think it’s how the human mating ritual actually works (and thus preventing much confusion when they become—as children always have, despite the collective amnesia of our modern age—sexually active at twelve). Yet, at the same time, one hates to buy into that particular line of thinking, so common is it among certain evangelical sectors of the community, who obviously believe that if we simply stopped introducing sex to people as youngsters, they’d be less likely to practice it as adults. Regards the concomitant—and considerably more concerning—conundrum, the Bishop can only wonder why, having already locked up these Soylent sociopaths in a house away from the rest of us, they are ever let out again in the first place.

Your pontificating pontiff was also somewhat disturbed to hear that the 'face' of Big Brother, Gretel Killeen—half Vulcan, half scrubber, and a 'handsome' woman if ever there was one—apologised to the victim of what could only be described as sexual assault by calling her no fun. But given our erstwhile hostess comes across as the sort of rough trade who could get her kicks by straddling a fire hydrant, what else did the Bishop expect?

The Bishop on Doctor Who: 'The Girl in the Fireplace'

The Bishop could probably spell out ten reasons why the Doctor should not be getting it on with historical personages; or, indeed, with anyone else. But what's the point, eh? Your canonical commentator is all too aware that the effort is futile; and will only earn him the scorn of those who praise the Time Lord’s newly awakened sex-drive in the vague hope their enthusiasm for the Doctor’s ‘bedside manner’ makes it look as though they’re getting some themselves. Let the Bishop merely say that, like father and daughter sharing the shower in an effort to save hot water, it somehow doesn’t feel right, and leave it at that. What, then, to make of ‘The Girl in the Fireplace’?

It’s pretty good. The concept is original, and one only has to put this next to Russell T. Davies’s painful ‘Tooth and Claw’ to realise who’s the real adulte terrible of modern British TV. Steven Moffat knows character when he writes it, has big ideas, crafts innovative plots blending surreal science fiction and iconic horror, and, in contradistinction to his hot-and-very-cold editor-in-chief, actually thinks them through. Yet, given the choice between a re-viewing of this and a fifth of cheap hooch, it’s bourbon and bloodshot eyes all the way.

The problem, the Doctor’s new-found interest in being Michael Chamberlain aside, is that the romantic core of ‘The Girl in the Fireplace’ is simply not something Doctor Who does terribly well. Yes, it’s a polished script with some tender touches (possibly to Madame de Pompadour’s right breast), but by the standards of good boy-meets-girl TV—to which Moffat himself is a renowned contributor—it’s nothing more than Men and Women 101.* Yes, from the point of view of your average sexless nine year old (and the below average sexless thirty-nine year old he’ll probably turn into), this is deep stuff; but then, you have to remember, these are some of the people who thought Ace’s season twenty-six line, ‘I’m not a little girl any more’, represented a crescendo of character development. Of course, Moffat’s in a different league (and possibly a different phenotype) to anyone writing for that horrible era of Who, but the whole thing just doesn’t really float the Bishop’s boat—and certainly not to the extent it’s floating the Doctor’s. Like the unforgiving malaise of an absinthe hangover, it’s all just a bit bleugh.

David Tennant is enjoyable in this when he’s not being a prat, which pretty much sums up his tenure so far (the Bishop having now seen his first eight stories). Billie Piper is sidelined for most of the episode—if only coach Davies could have kept her on the bench for the rest of the season. Noel Clarke is too good for his role and, possibly, this show. Sophia Myles, as the girl in the fireplace, is appropriately wooden, but not, unfortunately, either warm or hot; she grates like a more intelligent, but equally insipid, English Ashley Judd. When Tompall Glaser was writing his yokel-inspired country music classic, ‘Put Another Log on the Fire’, he may have had her performance in mind.

*See The Office for a much better example of requited, but unrequitable, love.