Around my first year of university, I noticed that people would go out of their way to avoid sitting next to me on the bus. Only once every other seat on the bus, including the few that face backwards that everyone hates, were filled would I be graced with human company. At first, this was great. I’m not much of a morning person so this afforded me the luxury of stretching out a bit more and getting some sleep on the way in.

After a while, though, it makes I got curious as to why people were avoiding me. Maybe I looked deranged (no jokes, please, we’re all above that), maybe I smelled (again… grow up), maybe it was something else. What had changed since I went to university? It didn’t take long to figure out that I now had long hair when previously I did not.

A few years later, I cut my hair right down and, sure enough, I seemed to be treated like everyone else on the bus. Maybe I’m not the first person people sit next to, that honour usually goes to someone prettier and more female than myself, crazy as that may sound, but I’m usually not the last either. Hooray.

Recently, however, I’ve noticed that it’s happening again and I don’t have long hhair as an excuse. In fact, it’s worse: they’ve started standing instead of sitting down. That’s quite worrying.

I figured out exactly what the problem is though by watching when it happens. It only happens when I’m watching an episode of Family Guy or listening to the Ricky Gervais podcast. Aha! The seemingly random laughter and, on one occassion, crying (from said laughter) of a stranger makes them not want to sit down: they think I am a lunatic, when in fact I am just well entertained. Not that there’s much difference.

Take from that what you will, maybe the same is happening to you, maybe you just want the seat next to you to be empty in the morning. Now you know how.

Since Channel 4 seem incapable of advertising anything I’ve ever been waiting for them to screen (for example, the American Gothic re-runs), I shall take it upon myself to point out that the newest Derren Brown special is on in 20 minutes. Only spotted because of sheer fluke.

It’s called The Heist, and the boy wonder is planning on convincing people to rob a bank. You just know he’ll succeed, but it’s the frightening ease with which he does things that makes him so entertaining.

Go! Watch!

Update: Terrifying. Definitely worth a watch on the next repeat, or when the torrents appear in about an hours time.

Update 2: Might I suggest that the huge number of people arriving on this post looking for a torrent try somewhere else that might have it like UKNova

Yes, it’s time for the Solitude 2005 awards! We’ve already covered the best film of 2005 but there are plenty of other awards going:

• Best album of 2005 – Being the first year for a while that Biffy haven’t released anything and The Mars Volta album being good but not great, I think there is only one clear choice for best album: “Very Fast, Very Dangerous” by the excellent Reuben. Mixing some chunky British rock with some tight lyrics and sprinklings of pop mentality, this album has everything any fan of modern rock needs. Each of the singles showed off a different part of the band, and the album as a whole is just brilliantly pitched.
• Best new band – This means the best band I heard for the first time last year and is pretty tricky. I think the best band I heard last year were the impossibly tight Caretaker, a band with some incredible dynamics and transitions. I highly recommend their “Signs Of Four EP” (incidentally the best EP of 2005). That said, the industry being what it is, they won’t make it big. That’s not what this is about, mind, but another great band (who I actually heard first in November 2004) who you should be watching are Amplifico. A lot folkier and poppier than my usual leanings, but an excellent band nonetheless.
• Worst split – Although Ikara Colt were a sad loss and Degrassi showed a lot of promise, I think the worst loss of 2005 was the very early break up of the rather good Mclusky. After three albums of the kind of lyrical genius not seen outside of this band, musical differences forced them apart. Keep an eye out for the two new bands that will form from the ashes (one being the reasonably decent Shooting At Unarmed Men).
• Best Underuse Of A Great Actor – In any other year, March Of The Penguins would have gotten this for having Morgan Freeman narrate, but it has been beaten. Batman Begins beats all comers by not only putting Mr Freeman in a marginal role, but did the same to Michael Caine. It takes a certain amount of genius to do that and still be a pretty damn good film. Kudos to Christopher Nolan.
• Best use of William Fichtner – For anyone who had to follow that IMDB link to figure out who I mean, shame on you! Fichtner is an excellent actor who does not get the credit he deserves. Winner of the award this year goes to Crash, a terrible film with one or two good roles; Fichtner was as marginal as always, but still damn good.

I realise now that it would probably be best not to publish some of the other awards (such as Best Pub Quiz Teamname), so as to avoid incriminating myself. Any other awards people deserved?

While, like any knock-out tournament, the film fight format cannot create a ranking for the films I’ve seen this year, it can show one thing (and only one thing): my favourite film of the year. Here are the finalists:

• Team America: World Police
• Million Dollar Baby
• The Life Aquatic
• The Assassination Of Richard Nixon
• Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy
• Sin City
• War Of The Worlds
• The Wedding Crashers
• Land Of The Dead
• A History Of Violence
• Saw 2
• Kiss Kiss Bang Bang

Wow, those are some fairly excellent films (except Hitchhiker’s and War Of The Worlds, which won by default), and that’s leaving aside stuff that would have shined elsewhere (Batman Begins was out the same month as Sin City and there was little in it, for example, or pretty much everything in October).

So from the list of finalists, remembering that some better films never made it to the final twelve, the best film of this year is…

The Life Aquatic. While both Sin City and Million Dollar Baby nearly had it, the performances and perfect comic moments in the Bill Murray film take it into the lead. Quirky, but brilliantly so. Every scene adds a little more to the overall charm. A good winner.

Given that a new year is almost upon us, I figured it is a good time to get rid of the feeds I do not read any more. Before this cull, I had 218 feeds in Bloglines. That’s a fair number to keep up with and I don’t think my unread items count has dropped below a thousand in months now. Here’s what has been removed:

• Scary Duck – It’s not gone any worse, it just hasn’t changed at all. I just don’t read it any more.
• Query Letters I Love – Not entertaining enough any more for the throughput.
• New Urban Legends – Debunking urban legends. Good reference, but not feed worthy.
• World Wide Words – Why I ever subscribed to this is beyond me. Resolutely dull.
• Code Snippets – When most of the examples are so out of context and badly done, I don’t want to sift through them in a feed reader for the few gems.
• The Religious Policeman – A well meaning site on the situation in Saudia Arabia, but one whose jaded writing has become more and more stilted.
• Creative Commons – A signal to noise problem: not consistently interesting enough to read.
• Astronomy Picture Of The Day – Although some of the pictures can be quite stunning, there are only so many nebulas I can find interesting. That number was reached some time ago.
• Guardian Unlimited – Again, a signal to noise issue. Of the several hundred items a week, I read maybe 2. Time for it to go.

Far more than that shall be going, but it’s a good start.