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I had word from a schoolfriend a while back, telling me that he was going to be moving to work in San Francisco, and wondering if I wanted his comic books. Obviously I said yes. We were both into Marvel Comics for a couple of years in the mid eighties, and I figured he would have a pretty consistent run of X-Men, if nothing else.

I’d forgotten about Classic X-Men though. Back when I was 15, I think I gave it a couple of issues before deciding it wasn’t for me. My mate gave it nineteen issues, and I’ve started reading them tonight. Its a great little book, combining retellings of the original (and at that point, very expensive) ‘New’ X-Men issues, with additional material by Chris Claremont and John Bolton. At this point, Claremont had become rather wordy – it’s fascinating to see the old material next to the new material, and see how much more verbose he’d become. But that’s not the real delight.

John Bolton’s work is gorgeous. It’s completely wasted in a crappy newsprint superhero comic of course, but his delicate linework of real people is an elegant contrast to Dave Cockrum’s more traditional superheroics. It’s a different Marvel that, in 1985, didn’t see the opportunity to slap this book out at a premium. 32 pages, no ads, new material, covers by Art Adams. Cover price – 1 dollar. Granted, it was too much for me, but in the days of the $3.99 standard comic book, it’s a bargain.

So yeah, 19 issues of Classic X-Men. I’ve got a week to get through them cos I’m passing them off to Rad this weekend. I’m going to enjoy them.

As my sampling continues, there are two distinct rootbeer subdivisions emerging. First of all you have the standard rootbeer. You find it in cans, dispensed by corner stores and vending machines. It tastes good, it will quench your thirst, and it has no pretensions.

Secondly, you have the premium rootbeer. This comes in a bottle, has a slightly more refined taste, makes claims about the recipe, and costs a bit more. Over here, that translates to about a pound more.

Stewart’s, as you can tell from the picture falls firmly into the second category. Not only does it come in a bottle, it claims that it’s a ‘Fountain Classic’ and that Stewart’s has been going since 1924. This may well be true, although a quick glance at wikipedia shows that the ‘Stewart’s Fountain Classics’ range are bottled by the Dr Pepper Corp so its not as small a business as you might have thought.

The proof of the pudding, however, is in the drinking, and on this measure, Stewart’s scores highly. There’s a strong vanilla bouquet when you open the bottle, and the beer tastes cool and refreshing. However, there’s a fresh wintergreen aftertaste that lifts the drink into the premier league. Regardless of its provenance, its a fantastic drink.

Around £2.50 a bottle from american soda

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When I visited New York in 1997, there were a lot of things that I wanted to do. Go to some comic shops, see some sights, watch some US telly (ahead of everybody in the UK!!!), and drink some rootbeer. Oh, and not get killed, although that was mainly for my father who was convinced that I was going to meet a messy end on those mean streets.

I digress. Rootbeer. All I knew about rootbeer were those fond memories of the days when it was available in the Abington Street McDonalds – I presumed that America was a rootbeer guzzling nirvana, but I had no idea about brands or where you would buy the stuff.  Luckily, my TV habit worked in my favour.  American TV had lots of adverts with a gecko in them. I don’t recall what he was advertising. However, it also had lots of adverts proclaiming that ‘Barq’s has bite’.  After seeing this advert several hundred times in the first day I was there, I realised that Barq’s was a rootbeer, and, as per Adrian Pasdar in ‘Profit’, television had saved my life, again.

Which is a long and convoluted way of saying that I have a lot of time for Barq’s. Yes, the front of the can does say that it’s a ‘Famous Olde Tyme Root Beer’ at the same time as the back of the can proclaims that it is ‘Canned by a member of the Coca-Cola Bottlers Association’. I’m not sure that it does actually have bite, but I do know that if I lived in a place that had rootbeer widely available (for instance, in the soft drinks aisle of a supermarket), Barq’s is the brand that I would be filling up my fridge with. It’s got that slightly off-kilter vanilla flavour that is the mark of a good rootbeer, and its superbly fizzy as well. The true glory of Barq’s however, is just how good it tastes straight from the fridge. Just like heaven.

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(Rootbeer purchased from American Soda – highly recommended)

It’s Immaterial – Song

The first It’s Immaterial album came out whilst I was in the lower sixth. It was one of those albums that helped me make the jump towards indie music. They were on Top of the Pops and in the Top 20, but they were much more difficult than a pop band. I devoured that album and its associated singles. And then they went quiet.

Four years later, their second album was released with little fanfare. I remember coming across it in Spinadisc and buying the tape. As I walked home from town I eagerly scanned the sleevenotes, wondering why they’d filled the inlay with loads of little stories. At least, that’s what I thought they were because they certainly didn’t read like lyrics.

News in the paper, well it must have the names wrong. The car in the picture has the right registration. Fished out of Pickmere, cold and abandoned. ‘Youthful disillusion’ – the Inspector’s opinion. – Missing

These were little vignettes of suburban minutiae. Its a claustrophobic album, John Campbell’s part spoken, part sung lyrics accompanied mainly by Jarvis Whitehead on keyboards. The songs sound so close and personal that even listening to it can seem like an intrusion.

It had a couple of singles. ‘New Brighton’ and ‘Heaven Knows’, but the record company backing was anything but fulsome, the record and the band drifting into obscurity.

I know what its like when you come round to thinking on how you missed the gravy train, on which your family’s depending. – Heaven Knows.

Naturally, it was an album I fell in love with, although unlike much of the music I listened to at the time, this wasn’t an album that I’d play on the nightshift stereo. This was a personal delight, an album to listen to on headphones. Maybe that was part of its problem.

None of this is to say that it’s dour. It’s a beautiful album. The instrumentation may be simple but the arrangements are lush and Campbell’s voice has a maturity that wasn’t evident on the earlier album. And whilst the subject matter – urban decay, marital breakdowns, missing persons, may not sound cheery, there’s a humour that lifts the songs above the mundane.

He brought out a photograph that he believed was evidence of us both having the same mother. I kind of gulped at first and then had a second look. Well, I said ‘Yes it definitely looks like her. She was pretty in her younger days. How is she now? I remember her leaving.’” – Life On The Hill

One of my occasional dreams is to start up a record label, re-releasing the odd unavailable gem that I have in my collection. I imagined that I was the only person who loved this album and so this would have been the centrepiece of such an endeavour. As it turns out, I’m not the only person. It was re-released last year on Cherry Red Records and I encourage everybody reading this to treat themselves.

Things I expected to hate : Pretty much the whole thing.

Things I liked : Pretty much the whole thing.

I hated this episode from the moment I heard about it. I’ve been underwhelmed by everything Who that Gareth Roberts has penned, and James Corden has irritated me in everything, even Gavin & Stacey. Lastly, it was the comedy filler episode before the big finale. Seriously, if I hadn’t loved this series so much, I would probably have skipped it.

I’d have missed something rather wonderful.

As Craig, we see that when James Corden-the actor isn’t playing James Corden-the character, he’s actually rather good. Craig is sympathetic and likable, never boorish. It’s a winning turn. And the script is genuinely funny, with Matt Smith demonstrating that not only can he do the funny, but that it doesn’t sell his Doctor short. He’s funny in the way that Tom Baker is funny.

Finally, is it inconsequential? I said that about a few of the stories this season, but that taken together they illustrate the breadth of the show. As I write this, we’re halfway through the series finale, and, along with hundreds of Who-nerds, I’m wondering if maybe these episodes were far more crucial to the whole jigsaw than we previously thought.

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I was probably about five miles away from home, at a roundabout with two lanes from my direction, and two other exits. There was nobody on the roundabout, although there was a white van approaching the entrance on the right. But the car to the right of me decided it was safe to go, so I followed his lead.

Mistake.

As I exited the roundabout, I was conscious of some shouting behind me. At the next set of traffic lights, the driver of the white van was leaning out of his window, bellowing abuse. I waved my hand as an apology. I hadn’t realised quite how fast he was approaching the roundabout, nor that he was a nutter. If I’d known either of those two things, I would have waited.

As we went over the next set of lights, he cut in front of me. He stopped into the queue of traffic, as if to reverse into me. He leant out of the window and shouted at me.

“Not so fucking clever now are you?”

I said I was sorry.

He got out of the car, all skinhead and football shirt and idiot rage. He shouted something else at me.

I said I was sorry.

“Get out,” he yelled.

“Why?” I replied.

“I want to kick your fucking head in, that’s why,” he replied, clearly a man not in the mood for an apology.

I have to confess, I snorted when he said this. He got back in his van and moved forward. Conscious that we had a mile or two of stop-start traffic in front of us and that I couldn’t see this ending in anything other than me getting a fat lip, I took my opportunity, did a u-turn, and hopped onto the other road home.

I just hope I don’t meet him again. But if I do, this time I’m going to make sure I get his registration number.

Things I Liked : The bit where Van Gogh invites the Doctor and Amy to see what he sees, the sensitive side to the Doctor, the acting-its all about the acting. I even quite liked Bill Nighy.

Things I didn’t like : Did it really need the Athlete song at the end? We get it, we’re meant to be sad.

I’ve seen a lot of wise people saying that this episode really struck an emotional chord with them. Whilst I can see why it would do that, it didn’t have that effect upon me. But, every now and then Doctor Who demonstrates that the show doesn’t really have confines, and I think the trifecta that is this episode, Amy’s Choice, and The Lodger demonstrate the strength of the show when it thinks outside the box. I wouldn’t argue that any of those three are the best that Doctor Who can offer, but taken together, I think they are a fantastic example of its versatility.

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Things I Liked : The timey-wimey stuff, Stephen Jones as the Silurian boss, the similarities to the Pertwee era (the bubble, the Silurians), it wasn’t as bad as I expected for Chris Chibnall.

Things I didn’t like : The new Silurians lost a lot of their unique-ness.

As I said, it felt like a Pertwee story, even down to the fact that it seemed a bit stretched out to fill two episodes. In 1970, we’d have said the same about the 7 episodes. I was worried that every Silurian story is basically the same, almost as though thats the only story you can tell with them, and to be honest, I don’t think this one avoided that trap. The memorable parts of the story were the last ten minutes, with Rory, and the crack, and Amy forgetting, and those are the minutes that lift this one above the pedestrian for me.

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Ah, if only the fine people at Beverages Direct would ship to the UK – 24 different rootbeers for $34!

“Host a root beer float party that will talked about for years!” That’s exactly what E said when I told her about it.

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Ahhh. This is a finely packaged root beer. It comes in a tall dark bottle, with the words ‘Boylan Vintage Soda Pop’ embossed upon it, and other fine enticements such as ‘100% Natural’ and ‘From Earth’ painted on.

It’s from the Boylan Bottling Company, in Moonachie, a few miles from Manhattan. Judging by their website, they’re a manufacture of gourmet soft drinks. I’ve not seen them in the UK before until I found this in Selfridges a couple of weeks ago.

It’s lovely. The vanilla taste is subtle instead of overwhelming, and the drink leaves you with a fine wintergreen note. Of the rootbeers that I’ve tasted since I started this test, this is easily the best. The only downside is the cost (£2.49 a bottle from Selfridges)

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