Wednesday 5th February

OK i admit it :), Ive been hit by the Harry Potter bug quite badly hense this rather long rant..
The reason for this sudden obsention is I quite simply due to revising for my CAL (Computer Aided Learning) exam whilst listening to all 4 unabridged books on CD. (the ones read by Jim Dale in case you are wondering).
I was quite surpised to find that the books are actually quite good, so good that i've pre-order the 5th book and bought the 4 book set already even though i've listen to all 4 twice already. (if that not a sign of exam stress i don't know what is.)
I can now safely say that the books are a darn sight better than the movies which after listen to the books don't do them justice for example Hermione is a lot cuter in the books and no where near as annoying as in the films or maybe thats just me.

Of course after getting hooked on Harry Potter I've had to find more of the same until book 5 comes out, thank good for http://www.sugarquill.net/ which has loads of very good and touching fan fictions especially for fans of Ron/Hermione and Harry/Ginny match ups :)
Fan fictions of note i've read so far include all the ones by Imogen (link to authors stories) especially one called Carpe Diem which i though was so good I read it from start to finish only to find it was now 8am and I had been reading all night.

Red Dwarf stuff
Its only a few more days before Red Dwarf Series 2 turns up on DVD for our viewing pleasure.

Saturday 11th January 2003

Its total up the votes time again, firstly i should explain why there is two lists, The first list was started many years ago before the release of series 7so includes votes cast before any episodes of series 7 or 8 were broadcast and therefor will be skewed where those two season are concerned hence the second list which only shows votes cast after the final episode of season 8 was shown on UK TV.
Overall the top ten is quite consistance with the only major different being the replacment at position 10 of Future Echoes with Krytie TV

Thursday 9th January 2003

First, Happy new year to everyone.
Now down to business, I'm still studing and working in Nottingham and have just started to getting back into things after the christmas break.
As all students know, school, colleges and university all take delight in setting loads of work to be done over christmas just to spoli a otherwise peaceful holiday.
Some such as mine also like to set exams the first week back too...... so over christmas i've been doing coursework and revising for exams, O what fun plus a bit of working to help pay the bills but thats quite intresting as its nice a varied work.

Much more interesting that coursework and revision
2003 has so far been good, 1st Jan was a day at the cinema "Lord of the Rings: The two towers" was well worth the money to see at 3h20m, I can't wait to see the next one only 300 more days to wait.
Star Trek: Nemsis was better than i was expecting after the quite negative press I had been seeing. Although not perfect as the ending didn't seem to work for me, it passed my standard test of "did I look at my watch during the film".

I got a chance to read my discworld book during the hols, Nightwatch if you havn't already read it sees the return on the city watch, sam vimes, and the time traveling monks.

10th February - sees the return of RD to our DVD screens with the release of series 2 of Red Dwarf on DVD (link to offical site) (Buy from sendit.com)

Wednesday 20th November

Thursday 7th November 2002

Red Dwarf News
By now everyone should have finished watching their Red Dwarf DVD's for the nth time, so heres my verdict for what it is worth...
Packaging: Normal BBC standard ie. Bright, clear and good quality
Booklet: Nicely illistrated and some nice nuggets of infomation
DVD Extras: All decent enough except for the The End commentary featuring Rob Grant, Doug Naylor and Ed Bye which was a major let down, as it just the stuff off the CD that came with "Best of the Six" VHS box set.
Special mention: "Drunk" Featurette - nice touch

Movies, VHS and those lovly shiny DVD's plus a Computer game or so
First up is Medieval: Total War (Amazon ID embeded) (Review) - It can be quickly summed up with the phrase "This game has stolen my life".
Set between 1087 and 1453 MTW allows you to fight and conquor Europe during the time of crusades, holy roman emperors and inquisitors (which can be quite useful).
Plus you can attack and elimitate the French, Germans, Turks and English plus many others should you wish.
The basic idea is you control 1 of 12 nations and fight for control through a mixture of War, Trade, Dipomacy (+wise mariages), dynastic entanglements and quite a lot of good old fashion dirty tactics.
And of course when push comes to shouve you can command your armies from the battle fields with their and your survival down to tactics, skill and in my case quite a lot of luck.
Rating: 9/10

Now for some films
Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones - Released 11th November - Ok i admit it I really really liked Attack of the Clones, not enough to one of those camping infront of a cinema but out of Spiderman and AOTC, Attack of the Clones wins hands down.
Seeing Yoda fight is worth the price alone :), and the young Anakin/Vadar looks to be progressing nicely. (Star Wars: Episode 1 - The Phantom Menace / Episode 2 - Attack Of The Clones boxset also available)

Monday 26th August 2002

First Red Dwarf News
Just in case you have missed it, Series One of Red Dwarf on DVD is due out on around the 4th Novermber 2002.
The box set includeds: The orginal episodes in all their restored glory (Thats restored not remastered :) )
Commentries from the Cast, deleted scenes and much more and all for the price of a normal DVD ie. around the £15.99 mark.
More details can be found on the offical Red Dwarf site.
Red Dwarf - Series 1 DVD From sendit.com.co.uk (site ID embeded in link)
Red Dwarf - Series 1 DVD from Amazon.co.uk (site ID embeded in link)

Red Dwarf Fan Fictions
DespairMorph - PolyMorph III (Part 1) by David Spence - Synopsis: Lister, Cat, Kryten and Kockanski return from a Canary mission, but something has got to Red Dwarf before them, and it’s really mad…

DespairMorph - PolyMorph III (Part 2) by David Spence - Synopsis: Holly battles to save the crew from their greatest terrors, armed only with his I.Q. of 8, Kryten’s spare parts, the skutters, Talkie Toaster, and everything in Red Dwarf his allies can use. But if they pull it off, can Lister make Kryten see that him getting together with Kochanski may be a good thing in the long run?

Then Babylon 5 stuff
It look like series 1 of Babylon 5 will soon be hitting out wallets with the release of the whole of series one on those lovely shiny discs.
Which is about right as I was just about to start capturing my VHS versions onto my computer. :)

Movies, VHS and those lovly shiny DVD's
I'm nearing my final paycheck, well my last decent sized paycheck so it time to spend that hard earned (well earned) cash on something useful.

Allo Allo - Series 1 and 2 in one DVD boxset :) - From sendit.com / Amazon.co.uk
Welcome to the Café René, in the French village of Nouvion, where you can get fine wines, paintings by Van Clomp (not all originals) and a selection of German and British officers. The owner, René Artois (Gorden Kaye), who may have his mind on other things ­ like his waitresses, Yvette and Maria ­ will look after you. Just don¹t tell his wife Edith (Carmen Silvera)! First broadcast in 1984, this release features every episode from Series One and Two of 'Allo 'Allo.

Monsters Inc - From Amazon.co.uk / sendit.com.co.uk
This summer hit from Pixar is out to own soon.

Ice Age - From Amazon.co.uk / sendit.com
Another summer hit (You can tell I like animations can't you :) )

24 - from Amazon / sendit.com (Link to BBC's 24 Site)
The hit show which was shown on BBC 2 is available on DVD (18 solid hours of suspence) for all those who didn't manage to record the episodes as they went along. (I'm not sure if the DVD's are stil availble because of the recall due to disc 5 and 6 which contain the US Edit rather than the UK edit - UK version was editted less in case you are wondering)

"Lord of the Rings: The fellowship of the Ring" is also on my shopping list but i'm waitting for the 4 disc version to see if it worth getting that rather than the 2 disc version. Hopfully its a case of good things come to those that wait. :)

Friday 10th May 2002 (Always a bad sign when you have to mark site updates with a year :(

Very Good Red Dwarf News - Swiped/condensed  from www.reddwarf.co.uk ( direct link)

The much-demanded Red Dwarf DVDs officially enter development.,  BBC Worldwide will be releasing every series individually from November 4th, 2002
The episode will be the orginal un-remastered ones in a Two discs per series. Six episodes, with commentaries, "There will be photo galleries, outtakes, deleted scenes, filmed interviews - everything you could imagine would go onto a Hollywood motion picture [DVD] and more! We'll be doing a commentary track with the cast, and a separate commentary track with Doug and - hopefully - Rob, directors and other crew members."

I don't know what else we could wish for, someone at Grant Naylor Production/BBC Worldwide has been reading RD fans wish lists :)

General Blah!
OnDigital / ITV Digital goes under (well administrationj)  -  Old news i know but I've only just got back home from Uni,  I have to admit I dislike BskyB  but it now looks like they are the only choice if I want to watch Uk Gold, Cartoon Network, Sky 1 and E4  (E4 is still been broadcast on ITVDigital but for an unknown amount of time) .
I can't help but think that  can only be a bad thing when quite a major part of the competition in such a vast possible maket as Digital TV goes under in such a major way, it can only lead to a monopoly from the likes of BskyB.

Reason Article on the BBC News site under: Free way of stopping Sky (Link)

Part of ITV digital downfall was due to bad managment and the use of technology which was easily cracked, Poor Recption also played a part as dispite the goverment  publicly saying the wanted everyone to move to Digital by 2010 they didn't seem to want to help the process by allowing stronger digital broadcasting  (current anology signal strength is much higher than the digital signal strength).
I know you can get Digital Tv through Cable (Adminittly not in my area until the year 3000, but thats another matter) but even the big Cable companies arn't exactly making money.
Rant Over

Red Dwarf Fan Fictions
After Apocylpse by Miss Hyde
Red To the Future By Richard Snashall ( html version) ( Word Doc version

Saturday 10th November

Wednesday 12th September

America under attack - Well what can you say..........

Nero, one of my favourite CD-writter software is currently on sale at a decent price (22quid) from Amazon. (Its £41 from dabs.com)
Nero 5.5 Burning Rom CD Writing Software

Saturday 25th August

Farscape News
The 27th is going to be good, Farscape series 3 on BBC2 Monday afternoon and the next DVD volume coming to shelves near you the same day (a quick trip to Woolworths is in order i think).

Farscape - Season 2 - Vol. 4 (Two Discs) (DVD) - 27th August 2001 - (only 4 episodes this time) Won't Get Fooled Again, The Locket, The Ugly Truth, A Clockwork Nebari

Red Dwarf News - Swiped from www.reddwarf.co.uk

The latest Red Dwarf TV screenings in the US and UK.
Fans in the UK have no doubt been tuning in to UK Gold every Saturday night for a season-by-season run of Red Dwarf. Saturday, August 25th sees series V hit the screens once more. Want to see the Dwarfers erased from history? Rimmer fall in love? Lister eat a tarantula? (You do? What's wrong with you?!) Tune in from 9pm.

General Blah!
I can not decide if to go see Planet of the Apes, it seem reasonable (IMDB: 6.5/10 ) BUT given the amount of hyping that been on Tv the last few weeks it make me think i'll be disappointed as any film needing that amount of hype must be bad. I've been over satuatuated with adverts :(

Monday 4th June to 25th August

Ummmm.... Sorry..

Movies, Life and doing very little
Since finishing the second year of my Uni course I've done very little.
Results: CIP2031 73cw *PGC1011 Credit * CCM2231 62cw* CGR2021 58cw* CSD2021 61cw* CSW20211 39cw 56ex* CVP2031 58cw* CIM2011 Credit* PGC1021 Credit *AGG. 58.9
Which isn't too bad apart from the 39cw, which was due to me not doing a bit of coursework :(

I'm currently on my placement year (The Uni find someone willing to employ me for a year), started July 2nd and nearly 2 months later I'm still unsure what I'm suppose to be really doing, at the minute its mostly web programming with the odd bit of web design.
I do content and basic layout, then someone who's a wizard with dream weaver and a decent web designer smartens it up and makes it good.
I'm happy at the minute as they recently gave me a Dual PIII 866mhz server to play with.. I mean develop using :) and access to a another same spec machine to run the application SQL databases off.

Movie Stuff
As I'm near a decent (+expensive) cinema I'm back to watching stuff on the big screen as well as on DVD
Cats & Dogs - I liked it as I'm a big kid at heart, bit short some very funny stuff, I've always though our cats were up to something (Probably buy on DVD 16/10/2001)
Shrek - Too short, not as funny as I expected, average (out on DVD 02/11/2001)
Swordfish - Good action, decent car chases, nice twists, worth the £3.90 (out on DVD 30/10/2001)
Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within - I was look forward to seeing this and I happily wasn't disappointed, brilliant effects, very realistic and a decent length (Probably buy on DVD 23/10/2001)
Jurassic Park III - First one good, second average, third.. average, I didn't care for it much but I was bored and Final Fantasy was on for another 2h:30m

I haven't had a chance to see Tomb Raider yet (remember Chris Barrie is in it), No doubt I see it eventually.

Monday 4th June

Red Dwarf News
5th June: 7.30pm There is going to be a Red dwarf web chat on the BBC web site cult TV section

Saturday 12th May

Author Douglas Adams dies
Author Douglas Adams, who wrote The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, has died suddenly aged 49. Mr Adams died on Friday morning in Santa Barbara, California, following a heart attack, said his spokeswoman Sophie Astin.
(..More from BBC News..)

Wednesday 18th April

Website News
The Multiplayer Hell dynamic site is kind of up and running, kind of because some times everything will be nice and quick, and othertimes it will just throw up errors.
The games list is more update and the jargon sections (which should work) is also a bit more accurate.

The top ten Red Dwarf episode's vote is still running with Backwards in 1st place, Back To Reality 2nd, Quarantine 3rd, Gunmen of the Apocalypse 4th and Polymorph in 5th place according to the votes collected since series 8 was shown. (..full tables..)

Movies, VHS and those lovely shiny DVD's
Some DVD/VHS titles which will be burning a hole in my student loan / savings :)
Farscape - Season 2 - Vol. 2 (Two Discs) (DVD) - 7th May 2001 (Pre-ordering) - episodes 2.06-2.09: Picture If You Will, Home On The Remains, Dream a Little Dream, Out Of Their Minds

Stargate S.G.1 - Series 3 - Vol. 11 - Episodes 13-16 (DVD) (2001) - released 23rd Apr 2001 - The Devil You Know,Foothold, Pretense, Urgo

The Tenth Kingdom - The Entire Series (Box Set), I've been wanting to get this set for quite a while but have been hoping to get it on DVD Luckly I didn't buy the VHS version of this today (Not enough cash :( ), as guess what.. I find its out very soon on DVD.
The Tenth Kingdom - The Entire Series (Box Set) (DVD) - is released on 30th Apr 2001 and is the same price as the VHS version (645 mins of pure strangeness) - Journey through lands inhabited by Trolls, Fairies, Magic Mirrors, Goblins and some of your favourite Grimm Fairy Tale characters. This will delight all who have the ability to believe in magic. DVD features include Production notes, 'The Making of the 10th Kingdom', Cast and crew information , About the characters, Search for the Hidden 10th Kingdom.

Sunday 15th April

Red Dwarf News (Links to www.reddwarf.co.uk)
New Poster in the shops now/soon. (Have a look.)
Holly and Lister in LEXX. confused? Have a look here and all shall be clear(er)...
MOVIE NEWS - The Red Dwarf movie script is given the out-loud test at the first official read-through (more....).

Fan fictions - Section update
Fate by K.Betzler ( .doc format / html format )
After Dark by K.Betzler - Not a typical fan fic, more a creative story ( .doc format / html format )
Hero Of The Hour by Adrian Ogden ( HTML format)

Saturday 14th April

Red Dwarf is back- UK Gold are showing all of series 4 on Monday (16th) Night and part of series 5 on Monday (23rd) from 10.15pm
21:00 Red Dwarf IV (Camille)
Kryten experiences love at first byte when he rescues a fellow 4000-series mechanoid from a crashed vessel. Camille is everything a female mechanoid should be - she even has realistic toes and a slide-back sunroof head. But Kryten soon discovers that the course of true, advanced mutual compatibility never runs in a non-glitch bug-free way.

21:35 Red Dwarf IV (DNA)
Lister's curry assumes near-human form when it finds its way into a machine that can re-write the DNA of any living thing.

22:15 Red Dwarf IV (Justice)
The crew of the Red Dwarf find themselves on Justice World, an abandoned penal colony equipped with a 'justice field' which inflicts the consequences of a crime on its perpetrator. The innocent have nothing to fear, but Rimmer is in big trouble.

22:55 Red Dwarf IV (White Hole)
Will Rimmer sacrifice his own life to save the others from a white hole?

23:35 Red Dwarf IV (Dimension Jump)
In a universe like our own, another Arnold Rimmer exists. He is a charming, popular and brave test-pilot in the Space Corps. But after his test craft breaks the speed of reality, he finds himself face to face with his less than exceptional counterpart aboard Red Dwarf.

24:15 Red Dwarf IV (Meltdown)
A matter transporter whisks the crew to Waxworld, a giant theme park where the waxdroids are running amok. Hitler, Caligula and the Boston Strangler lead an army of darkness against the forces of Elvis, Gandhi and Stan Laurel.

Saturday 17th March

If like me you enjoyed Comic Relief , once again this year
- - - MAKE SURE YOU DONATE SOME MONEY (goto the Comic Relief website to see how to donate) - - - -
In my case I admit it was only £25, but Its better than nought.

General bits and bobs
Recommended site this week is: H2G2 - The real-life Hitch Hitchers Guide to Earth
To see why, check out the entry for students

Friday 23rd February

General bits and bobs
I've finally got my nice new Athlon system (Abit KT7-Raid + 900 Socket A) up and running after having some fun with stability, most likely due to a bad stick of ram (replaced it with some Crucial memory).
Overwise a good system, but it doesn't seem to like my TNT2 Ultra card, so i'm using my plain TNT2.
I've also got around to installing Windows 2000 on one of my harddrive so i can mess around with something new, I was going to install it a while back but the 6.4 gig harddrive I was going to install it upon went totally silence, which meant returning it too Western Digital again (It was the replacement drive from the last time my Western digital HD went wrong).
Thats two drives turned faulty within 3 years, both times it was the western digital drive, very stange.

At the moment I'm enjoying a few peaceful weeks where I have no Assignments to do, this is good as I spent the last few weeks doing 6 decent sized assignments, i really should remember to do them earlier :)

Movies, VHS and those lovly shiny DVD's
Firstly, DVDReviewer.co.uk have updated their database of DVD region hacks which can be found here.

Independence Day (Special Edition) (2 x DVD) (1996) - 26th Feb 2001
Farscape - Season 2 - Vol. 1 (Two Discs) (DVD) - 12th Mar 2001
X-Men (DVD) (2000) - 12th Mar 2001
Titan A.E. (DVD)(2000) - 9th Apr 2001 (The Region 1 version was out ages and ages ago) - Well worth buying
The year is 3028. Alien invaders have destroyed Earth. Only a few human beings have managed to survive, scattered throughout the universe. A young man - Cale - holds a secret that could be mankind's salvation. He knows of the existence of a space station called Titan, built as a last ditch attempt to save mankind from the extra-terrestrial tyrants. Cale and his friends set out in search of Titan...

Gattaca (1997) - £6.39 decent film, worth watching if you get a chance (Sky Premier show it every month or so)
Vincent is an outsider, a natural birth or “In-valid”, living in a world in which “designer people” – forged in test tubes – rule society. Determined to break out of his imperfect genetic destiny and fulfil his dreams, Vincent meets Jerome, a “Valid” willing to sell his prime genetic material for cash.

Friday 5th January

Red Dwarf is back!, UK GOLD seem to be getting ready to show all the orginal epiosodes details below

Mon 8th Jan
UK Gold 01:55 Red Dwarf (The End)
The first series of the cult space comedy by Rob Grant and Doug Naylor. The mining ship 'Red Dwarf' is an old tramp steamer, working around the moons of Saturn. It is five miles long and three miles wide, with a crew of 169. Within 24 hours, 168 of them will be dead. (40mins) Episode 1.1

UK Gold 02:35 Red Dwarf (Future Echoes)
The cult space comedy series by Rob Grant and Doug Naylor, following the escapades of the crew of the Red Dwarf. Having accelerated for three million years, Red Dwarf breaks the light barrier and Rimmer sees a death in the future. (35mins) Episode 1.2

UK Gold 22:15 Red Dwarf (The End)
The first series of the cult space comedy by Rob Grant and Doug Naylor. The mining ship 'Red Dwarf' is an old tramp steamer, working around the moons of Saturn. It is five miles long and three miles wide, with a crew of 169. Within 24 hours, 168 of them will be dead. (40mins) Episode 1.1

UK Gold 22:55 Red Dwarf (Future Echoes)
The cult space comedy series by Rob Grant and Doug Naylor, following the escapades of the crew of the Red Dwarf. Having accelerated for three million years, Red Dwarf breaks the light barrier and Rimmer sees a death in the future. (40mins) Episode 1.2

Mon 15th Jan

UK Gold 01:55 Red Dwarf (Balance of Power)
Space sitcom. Lister wants to go on a date - with a dead console officer, and Rimmer wakes up with someone else's arm. (40mins) Episode 1.3

UK Gold 02:35 Red Dwarf (Waiting for God)
The cult space comedy series by Rob Grant and Doug Naylor following the escapades of the crew of the 'Red Dwarf'. Lister `learns' Cat writing and discovers some startling facts. (35mins) Episode 1.4

UK Gold 22:20 Red Dwarf (Balance of Power)
Space sitcom. Lister wants to go on a date - with a dead console officer, and Rimmer wakes up with someone else's arm. (40mins) Episode 1.3

UK Gold 23:00 Red Dwarf (Waiting for God)
The cult space comedy series by Rob Grant and Doug Naylor following the escapades of the crew of the 'Red Dwarf'. Lister `learns' Cat writing and discovers some startling facts. (40mins) Episode 1.4

Sunday 3rd December

Web news: I finally finished my internet programming Assignment and the nasty 5 page report, leaving only the other 4 report/assignments to do :(
The final version can be seen at www.PolysWorld.co.uk (Just need to upload the updated order.asp) Comments welcome.

Farscape is finally back this week, its being shown at 6:25pm on BBC2 - "Liars, Guns and Money"

Red Dwarf news bit
The first two episodes of Series 8 are showing on UK GOLD on Monday night at: 22:20 (Red Dwarf VIII (Back in the Red)) and
23:00 (Red Dwarf VIII (Back in the Red II))
With the next two being shown next sunday at the same time.

Movies, VHS and those lovly shiny DVD's
Buffy The Vampire Slayer - Season One Collection (DVD) - 4th Dec
Chicken Run (DVD) and also VHS - 4th Dec
The Complete Thin Blue Line (DVD) - Features all the fourteen episodes from the television series. - Released 11th Dec
Star Wars: Episode 1 - The Phantom Menace (Pan And Scan) as at £6.99

Saturday 18th November

Its taken a few months (or 54 days) but I have finally got my loan check paid into my account (and this time it didn't bounce), I had to travel to Lincoln to get my check again, as they still can't seem to find Nottingham (Whine mode cancel)

Website updates
I've managed to get my Web programming assignment up on the web,
It can be seen at: www.polysworld.co.uk or http://jawa.doc.ntu.ac.uk/cc004910/shop/index.htm
Any suggestion for features or stuff I should add or change are very welcome. (email me)
Everything should work correctly, even the ordering processing
NOTE: It is a purely experiemntal site and therefore nothing can be bought in reallity, hence no way to enter a method of payment :)

Fan Fiction updates
I have two new fan fictions for your enjoyment, Hero Of the Hour by Adrian Ogden and Red Dwarf 9 - The next Smegeration

Movie News
Pitch Black - We all went to see it on Monday, overall the verdit was "a reasonable film", nothing special, nothing bad.

Friday 9th November

For what ever reason, that nice loan check from the student loan company bounced when I paid it into my account, So yet again I'm nearly out of money.
I even got the Student finance office to help me find out why it had bounced but even they couldn't get a straight answer out of them ie.
Call 1: It will be 7 days and go to Nottingham.
Call 2, made 60 secs later: It will be 2 weeks and go to Lincoln.

Latest news on the Red Dwarf movie - Swipped from www.llew.co.uk
But for those of you who don't have time, it's happening. To be filmed from May 2001, released Easter 2002, starring the original cast and to be released worldwide! Yes, even in America and Australia and New Zealand and Canada.... not that I've had a lot of e-mails asking me this, but here it is, right up front, where everyone can see it ( ..More...)

Friday 27th October

Finally my loan check has arrrived :), according to the loan company it should of gone to Nottingham but I found it in Lincoln, a mere 30 miles off target.

Movie News
Blair Witch 2: The Book of Shadows - 4 of us went to see It on Thursday, I say "IT" because i'm still recovering from the shock.
Out of 4 of us, no one liked, 1 person wouldn't wish it onto their worse enemy they hated it so much, I didn't really like it at all, mostly because it made very little sense and didn't clear up any plot holes left over from the first film.
Out of the two films, the first one made a lot more sense and was much more distubing and scary (and no I never thought I would ever say the "Blair Witch project" made sense).

Monday 23rd October

Yikes, a slight update and my adventures in Nottingham
As some may know i've jetted off to Nottingham Trent University which has seriously restrcited both my money and my time plus its killed off my computers internet connection.
Now i've got most things sorted I can try again to keep everything semi-uptodate.

A quick Moan, how long does it take to send a check, if you are Nottingham trent Uni or Student loans company then the answer is around two months, as that is how long it has taken then to get my student loan check to me (assuming its their on Monday when i try to collect it), ive also found that NTU have difficult with the idea of 2nd year direct entry students in that they do sod all to help them.
Ok Rant over, Now back to the plot.

Other stuff
www.betterthanlife.co.uk - The updated network pages are back up and should be available
Terry Prachett's - "The Truth" is out on the 2nd November (Amazon.co.uk ID link embeded)
Buffy returns to our screen again after a short break on BBC2 at 6:45pm on Thursday
Still no sigh of Farscape returning for another 2 weeks :(

Release Schedule - I can see my DVD collection expanding rapidly
Farscape 5 (DVD) (Two Discs) - The drama continues... with "Nerve", "The Hidden Memory", "Born To Be Wild", and "Family Ties" - released 30th October
Blackadder - Blackadder II - Series 2 (DVD) - released 6 November - England 1558-1603. The filthy genes of the Blackadders reassert themselves as Lord Edmund seeks grace and favour from Good Queen Bess
Fight Club (2 Disc Set) - Released 6th November - I have to admit I have the US version of these DVDs - A clever and strange film
Final Destination (DVD) (2000) - Released 6th November
Wyrd Sisters From Terry Pratchett's DiscWorld (Animated) (DVD) - Released 6th November - This is a tale of spells, witches and warts and the theater.
Saving Private Ryan (DVD) (1998) - Released 6th November (US version was available much earlier, Dam region Codes :))
X Files, The - Season 1 (Box Set) (DVD) - Released 6th November (US version was available much earlier again)
Buffy The Vampire Slayer - Season 1 (Box Set) (3 X DVD) - Released 27th November - All of Series 1 of Buffy (I wish they had released them at the same time as the VHS sets)

Tuesday 12th September

Red Dwarf News
BBC2 is starting to reshow Series 4 of Red Dwarf on Friday 15th 9:00pm starting with "Camille".

Other stuff
Stargate SG1 series 4 is currently be shown on Sky One on Wednesday at 8pm.
Robot Wars - The international League Championship is on at 6:25pm on Friday 15th on BBC2. (Friday is going to be quite good for decent TV :))
Angel (Buffy the vampire slayer spin-off) also starts on Friday at 6:00pm on Channel 4.
Channel 4 also should be good with the last two episodes of "Big Brother", the first episode is on at 8:30pm and the grand final episode at 10:30pm.

Quick DVD Release Schedule
Farscape 5 (DVD)(Two Discs) - 30th October(According to sendit.com) or 5th of November(according to Kult TV website)

Monday 14th August 1:38am

Lets see, Saturday I spent riding around Louth on Two wheels trying not to kill myself and learning the true face of fear doing myCBT (Conpulsary Basic Trainning) so all I need now is a Mototcycle :)
Work on my little project to create my own protype E-commerce site so I can understandhow everything works is (very) slowly gainning speed again after I found my notes and again become interested in the idea.

For anyone who doesn't regualarly visit www.reddwarf.co.uk, you may want to have a look at new improved site (and it does look like its going to be good)

Site updates
The whole site is slowly having its HTML code cleaned up, the reason, many pages were orginally created back at the dawn of time and over the years have picked up odd bit of code which do nothing, I aim to fix this.

The Voting pages should finally get some validation to help prevent people voting for 11+ episodes.

The Red Dwarf ship pages have been updated with new and updated infomation mostly about series 8 stuff.

A new section call "My Gallery of Life" is currently beginning existance, over time I hope to have loads of strange pictures showing a ligher side of life, but at the minute it just some pictures taken from my latest toy "Nice Digital Camera".

Release Schedule
Farscape 4 (DVD) (Two Discs) - Durka Returns, A Human Reaction, Through The Looking Glass, A Bug's Life - released 4th September
Star Wars: Episode 1 - The Phantom Menace (Pan And Scan) (1999) - for £5.99
Stargate S.G. 1 - Series 2 - Vol. 7 - Episodes 21 And 22 - Series 1 - Episodes 9 And 13 (DVD) - Released (28th August)

Thurday 3rd August 2:28am

Happy times are here again: UK Gold are showing all of series 7 of Red Dwarf this weekend,the first four episodes are to be shown starting at 1:05am Sunday morning with the final four being shown later on Sunday at 11:30pm.

Web site relaunches
MyMovies is now reborn - Loads of Movie stuff from interviews to easily viewable movie trailers.
Rick Mason has recently relauched his two websites:
The Song Site has become Groovetown, and lives atgroovetown.co.uk and Crapola, Inc. is returning to Cyberspace section-by-section atcrapolainc.co.uk. Both Sites are well worth a visit as they are truely unique.

YET More "FREE" Robot Wars tickets
This appeared in my Inbox today from the Robotwars.co.uk site, so I have no reason to belive it isn't genuine:
WATCH THE ROBOTS BATTLE FOR SUPREMACY IN THE
MECHANISED MOTHER OF ALL TV SHOWS!
FOR FREE AUDIENCE TICKETS CALL:
(.....Click for More infomation...)

Friday 21th July 3:11am

On Digital box (aka my latest new toy) from QXL.com arrived yesterday (Invoice was recieved on the 4th)
So I spent yesterday morning getting everything working, suprisingly all but 8 channels were found straight away and the rest appeared once I found a signal booster.
All I need now is for UK Gold to start re-showing some RD episodes and it will all be worth it.

Rumor Mill
There are rumors floating around the alt.tv.red-dwarf newsgroup that maybe we could see RD on DVD,
I'm hoping that one the rumour is true and two that they use the "Orginal episodes" on the DVD's.

"FREE" Robot Wars tickets
This appeared in my Inbox today, I have no reason to belive it isn't genuine:
FREE AUDIENCE TICKETS FOR AN MTV AMERICA ROBOT WARS SPECIALWe are recording this special event the night before robot mayhem starts.
On: This Sunday the 23rd of July @ 4pm
At: Park Street Studios
St Albans
Hertfordshire
(.....Click for More infomation...)

TV and DVD releases
Star Trek : First Contact (DVD) - Released 31 July (Not very many extras apart from the standard menus, trailer and short "Making of", still a decent film)

Thursday Morning 22nd Of June

After two years of hard work (Stopping laughing:)) doing a HND in Computer Studies it is finally over, at least until Sep/Oct when I "might" start a BSc at Nottingham Trent.

All that is now left is the process of trying to find someone silly enough to actually give me money for doing what I love.
Current victims could be the poor students of Earl of Scarbourgh in Skegness, Sir William Robertson High School near Lincoln or a company in Spilsby that have already offered me an interview.
When you consider it will be my first ever interview, it should be quite scary/funny.

Ok, now the general news is over onto internet stuff
I've signed up for Freeserve's Unlimited Time thing and am just waiting for it to be enabled so I can reduce my part of the telephone bill a tad.
It couldn't come a better time as I've recently discovered Allegiance from Microsoft which can be best described as a very decent shootemup in space thats been crossed with Command and Conquer or Total Annihilation
ie. One player or many can take the role of the commander and direct players into combat as well as to construct new bases and develop new weapons. (The commander is also free to grab a craft and to go kick arse as well)
The thing that in my opinion makes it so much fun is that all craft within the game except the miners are humans.

The Drawback: Requires a connection to the internet or a LAN to play anything other than the training missions :(
I haven't persuaded enough people yet to play the game to make a LAN event possible as at least 10 people would be needed for a decent game, I hope to be able to get to a large Lanmeet some time soon.

Release Schedule
Babylon 5 Crusade - Vol. 6 - released (10th Jul)
Stargate S.G. 1 - Series 2 - Vol. 6 - Released (24th Jul)
* * Farscape 3 (DVD) (Two Disks) - Released (10th Jul)
Stargate S.G. 1 - Series 2 - Vol. 5 - Released (26th Jun)

Saturday Morning 20th May

I've just finished watching my set of Alien films which turned out to be quite scary.
There I was laying in bed watching Aliens when "Sooty" (Grey and white putty cat) decided to jump onto my bed at about the same time the facehuggers were after Ripley and Newt,
Ok that may not sound scary but at the time it was quite disturbing :)

Work on the updated Multiplayer Hell pages which I am doing for part of my Computer Studies is going well and can be seen at www.betterthanlife.co.uk, Mostly it just a rehashed version of the old stuff using a database and a bit of ASP to provide some dynamic pages and stuff. But at least the pages are slowly getting updated.
Suggestion for stuff I could add/remove/improve/etc are of course always welcome Send here

>New DVD/VHS releases:
Farscape 3 (DVD) (Two Disks) - released 12th of June
Babylon 5 Crusade - Vol. 5 - Released 5th of June

Friday the 21th April 2000 - Good Friday

Congratulation to Chaos II on winning the UK Robot War's Championship with a exciting final two matches.
Chaos II threw Firestorm out of the arena to win the first match and flipped Hipnodisc over to secure the win, after of course doing a bit of house robot tipping

26th March 2000

You may have noticed that some links to www.sendit.com have appeared recently, (Yes there is an ID number in that link).
The reason I decided to join up with sendit.com is that they are reasonably priced and also seem to be reliable, they also offer a 20% discount on pre-order titles as well as stocking a good range of Videos and more importantly DVD's.

The reason I say "seem to be reliable", is that the best test of a company is how they deal with problems and any mistakes, as I've yet to have any problems with them I cannot say for sure.

So far I have got Farscape 1 (DVD) (Two Disks) - If you have not heard of Farscape, head over to the Offical Site.
I also decided to get Babylon 5 Crusade - Vol. 1 & Volume 2, I've seen and read a bit about crusade, some good some bad so I got 4 episodes so I could decide for myself.
After 4 episodes, I still cannot decide about the show as some episode are good, some are bad and some are werid.

sendit.com - Babylon 5 Crusade - Vol. 3- Due out 10th April
sendit.com - Alien (Box Set) (DVD) - Due out 15th May - As I havn't got any of the alien films on video I think I'll end up getting them on DVD :).
Farscape 2 (DVD) (TWO DISKS) - Due out 17th Apr

1st February 2000

There is no stopping Taralys, here is the latest episode from the Crews adventures, I just want to read the next installment.
'The Date' (23.8k, TXT format) - By Taralys Sardon - Lister gets his chance to impress Kochanski, but can Kryten overcome his paranoia and what's up with the Cat? (Part 1 of ?)

21th Janruary 2000

Taralys Sardon does it again, another episode in the adventures of the Red Dwarf Crew
'Characteristics' (29.3k, TXT format) - By Taralys Sardon - The crew come across a derelict with a maddening virus that takes
your psyche apart piece by piece.

11th Janruary 2000

Added a new Red dwarf fan fiction:
'Luck Be A Lady' (24k, TXT format) By Taralys Sardon. - The crew of the StarBug find out what happens when they enjoy too much of a good thing!

Its been a While

The Series 8 Red Dwarf episodes are now available on two (yes, 4 episodes per tape :) ), priced around £13. The tapes include Smeg outs from the series, the Star Wars type trailer but not any extended episodes :(.

The new Terry Pratchett book is now out, "The Fifth Elephant" in hardback RRP. £16.99, most places are offering around 4 quid off.

A new Red Dwarf book is also out now!, "The official Red Dwarf VIII guide" includes the scripts from all the RD8 episodes complete with the parts that were scrapped due to time etc. along with lots of extra info.

I recently bought myself a DVD drive for my computer (Did you know: Babylon 5 will soon be released on DVD in wide screen format:) ), after playing around with the DVD software provided with my graphics card I finally got everything running smoothly and clearly on my monitor (17" job).
So far I've seen "Out of sight" - Good film, "Mercury Rising" - Good Film and I'm going to finish watching "The Mask of Zorro" once I've finished this update.
So far I've been pleasantly surprised at the quality of the films and the extras provided by DVD, the prices I've found so far have been about right (VHS price + a bit).
I've noticed that certain f ilms (ie. FOX films) are around the 25 quid mark, I'm not sure why fox's think their DVD films should cost so much more than the VHS version as many titles have limited extras. To read more visit here.

Note: If I mark anything soon to be updated, it means that everything will conspire to stop me updating :(

23th September 1999

Rd stuff:In case you didn't already know, series 8 of Red Dwarf in currently being re-shown on Thursdays on BBC2 at 9:00pm.
Tonight's was "Back in the Red - III".
Crew bio's and stuff resulting from series 8 are being updated so expect the character BIO's to be updated soon....

Other Stuff: Dabs delivered my new motherboard about 3 days after ordering and it works fine . (The board I had being waitting for, finally was delievered to my local computer shop about 30mins after I got my money back(and it worked), such a Pity :) )
I've had to move Sabrina Online to geocities as I was using more than my my webspace limit. (BTW. the Sabrina Files occupied nearly 10meg)

7th September 1999

Nothing too much going on..... Not many updates going on either due to me working a fair bit (44 hrs a week, it may not sound much but I'm just not use to work :) ).

semi-RD related: Scrapheap Challenge is back on (Sundays at 6:30pm on Channel 4) with Robert Llewellyn.
Computer Related: I ordered a new M/board from DABS tonight after finally giving up on my local computer shop ever getting me a working M/board.
I still don't know what was wrong with the board but I'm glad to finally get total rid of it.
QDI (the board's makers) told me just to buy a new board even though there board had failed after only 3 days of use. (Don't you just love warranties).
I decided to go for an old reliable classic as a replacement, the Abit Bx6 ver 2 rather than the newer BE6 due to the reported problems many people have had with the BE6.

I've spent much of my time recently playing Alien Vs Predator (I'm slowly making progress), Sim City 3000 (Nice city called Silicon) and Alpha Centauri (Must read the manual again).

10th August 1999

Sabrina Online strips 97 - 102 now uploaded.

Top 10 Red Dwarf episode tables updated - Old Full Table (2800+ votes)- New Full Table (850+ votes).

23rd July 1999

I finally got my result for my first year, I ended up with 7 Merits and 3 Distinctions which ain't at all bad (Better than I expected anyhow).
The surprise was the distinction in Computer Technology 2 & in Software Implemention 2.

I finally managed to go see Star Wars: Episode 1 on Wednesday nite, I had been looking forward to it and had been avoiding anything that would spoil it ie. already knowing the plot :)
The result: I think i'll go see it again sometime, a good movie, not the best ever but good. (I wanna see Episode 2 Now!)

Hopefully I should have my new computer rebuilt soon, it worked nicely until the M/board decided that it just didn't want to live any longer and died :(. The replacement board should arrive soon........(I hope)

More Sabrina Online - Strips 94 -97

Top 10 Red Dwarf Episodes results updated - Old Full Table (2680+ votes)- New Full Table (720+ votes)

Craig Charles online Chat on 27th JULY at 6:00pm GMT (Info from Arron Hawke from the Red Dwarf Mailling list) goto http://www.virgin.net/chat/celebrity/index_craigcharles.html for more details.

Two new Rd Fan fictions: The Old and the New by James Naylor (16.4k) & The Last Temptation Of Kryten by Richard Street (7.85k)

24th June 1999

More Sabrina Online - Strips 90 - 93

Top 10 Red Dwarf Episodes Majorly updated - Old Full Table - New Full Table

I have now finsihed the first year of my HND Computer Studies course :)

My old hard drive (1.2gig Quantum Fireball ) recently gave up the ghost taking with it all my C++ stuff and web files as well as windows etc. :(., the werid thing was it happened within a week of the installation of my nice 8.4gig UDMA 66 drive.

10th May 1999

Lets see..... Sabrina Online has been updated, now on strips 85 - 89 (Sabrina's First week at the Adult film studio)

The 10 Ten Red Dwarf episodes tables have been filling up with votes, with series 8 episodes doing very well. (Krytie TV in 6th place and Cassandra in 7th).

(UK) The Remastered Series III of Red Dwarf is starting to be shown on BBC2 on Wednesday at 9:00pm , so make sure those videos are set ready if you can't be there.
 

17th April 1999

Whoops, the episode shown on Friday wasn't the last episode but was instead Pete - part II. Only the Good will be shown on Wednesday at 9:00pm on BBC2.

Robert Llewellyn and Chloë Annett did a online on the beeb.com website (here).

15th April 1999

I've fixed the Top Ten RD episode vote forms and added the series 8 episodes to the result tables etc.

The Last episode of Red Dwarf 8 is to be re-broadcast this Friday (16th April) at 9:30pm on BBC2, so make sure you are ready if you missed it the first time :).

7th April 1999

The day has now been and gone: The last episode of Red Dwarf 8 has now been broadcast in most of the UK.
Personal Thoughts on the ending: Disappointing End to a reasonable Episode (The ending of Series 6 & 7 were much better).

The Random(funnyish) Picture section is now dead, killed by Geocities for Multiple Addresses/Hidden Files - I have to admit I can't be sure exactly what files were on my geocities account but as far as I know only the Random Picture files were stored there along with an old version of Sabrina Online which I had partly deleted.
I'll rehome the files soon...........

1st April 1999

As many will already know, us in the UK are faced now with spoilers from the USA where Red Dwarf 8 has already been shown in full by some Tv stations as part of their beg-a-thons. I'm not too sure why Red Dwarf was shown abroad first rather than first on the BBC. Just as long as Red Dwarf keeps on going I don't really care. (But it is is nice to see stuff that you have helped pay for, first).

Nearly Easter holidays again, it doesn't seem that long since our last uni holidays (probably because it isn't) so I should have a chance to get some serious game playing... I mean serious course work finished.

The 2nd Part of Pete is broadcast tonight with the repeat on Sunday. The final episode (doesn't time fly) is to be broadcast on Easter Monday on BBC2 at 9:00pm.

11th March 1999

Red Dwarf Top Ten Episodes has been updated, now has 1700+ votes (View Table), Polymorph is still in 1st with 103,Quarantine is 2nd with 91, 3rd is Gunmen Of the Apocalypse, Back to Reality(79) is 4th with Backwards and Queeg in joint 5th.

More pictures and sounds and maybe the odd Vid clip should be coming soon.

Only 1:30 before episode 4 of Red Dwarf 8 is shown, this is going to be extra special as it was the episode I was lucky enough to see being filmed down at Shepperton Studios last October.

5th March 1999

Added Till Dwarf Do Us Part by Irene Sabian (158k) - to the RD Fan-fiction section

Updated Sabrina Online - Strips 77 - 80

RD News updated - Details of when Red Dwarf 8 is being shown outside the UK

Transcript of Craig Charles interview on www.beeb.com is now available

25th Feb 1999

Craig Charles aka Dave Lister from Red Dwarf is doing a web chat on www.beeb.com website from 1pm until 2pm GMT tomorrow(26th).

I've just watched Episode 2 of Red Dwarf 8 and have a pain in my side from laughing, I thought tonight's episode was very funny but perhaps it just appealed to my warped sense of humour.

Revenge of PC World - I got a letter back from PC World in Lincoln, it basically says it was a misunderstanding, I would of thought that when a security guard approaches you and tells your are not welcome and have been BANNED from the premise, the meaning is very clear and the room for misunderstanding is zero, just as when you are told that you are not being asked to leave not because of suspicion of shoplifting
(..More..)

21st Feb 1999 - 9:34pm

RT Guide: Red Dwarf - The long Red Dwarf 8 trailer is now available from the Official RD website and from Radio Times web site.

A few new Red Dwarf web sites to mention:
http://myspace.virgin.net/jane.allen/index.html - new but growing
StarBug One - a new very slickly presented site.
and finally http://welcome.to/webdwarf - which has loads of pics and sound bites from the 1st episode of series 8.

I start back at Uni tomorrow, which is good and bad as I can't remember how bad the new Timetable is, I have a feeling its quite nasty this semester.

And finally, I got a reply back from Pc World head office a few days ago saying that the manager of Lincoln Pc World will write to me blah blah blah, we shall see.

Update done to Red Dwarf Fan fiction section

18th Feb 1999 - 8:20pm - 40 mins to go

Bits and bobs updated ie. Ive been correcting some of my silly errors again :)

I've been playing around with some very basic C++, and the first version of my RD quiz (selfmarking, fully plug-in-ably) is more of less finished. ie.It now works which is an improvement on yesterday. The idea is have a program capable of accepting new questions just by switching the text file and marking the questions as it goes along. At the minute it can only handle a few types of questions ie. Variable Multiply choice, duel answer, multiply answer, the scoring is now fully working and the Quote handling will be working soon.
But the best thing is that the Q/A txt file will work on any computer because its just plain text, and the program is in basic C++ so it only needs to be complied for a fully functional program to be available and as C++ is a quite standard language so the program will be usable on nearly ever type of computer.

Why am I doing this? - Mostly because I'm learning C++ at Uni from scratch as I have no previous programming experience and I need the practice and doing something like this is more fun than just doing examples from a book.

Red Dwarf 8 : I'm just going to upload the web page updates and Top Ten Vote table and then try and find a Video to record the first episode of series 8.

11th Feb 1999 - Only one week to go until RD8

I've finally seen the first bit of the RD series 8 trailer, I get the impression from various sources that there is a 2.5 minute version (..see here for more info ...).

New Settlers 3 patch available from http://www.settlers3.com
Babylon 5 fans might also want to have a look at Babylon 5 Combat Simulator: News Menu as it has new information and screen shots of the forthcoming Babylon 5 game.

9th Feb 1999 - 9 days to go until RD8

BBC2 have started showing trailers for Series 8 of Red Dwarf, I've yet to see all of it but I caught the end bit. The best description of it is: RD mets StarWars. The bit with the tap dancing looks quite good.

It possible that the trailer will be shown again on:
Saturday 13th Feb '99 at 2345hrs after 'If I Ruled The World'
Sunday 14th Feb '99 at 2400hrs after 'Never Mind The Buzzcocks'
Monday 15th at 2130hrs after 'Ep 6 Red Dwarf II Remastered'
Thanks to (Lord MooseHammer) for the info, The World of Moose, the Red Dwarf page

5th Feb 1999 - 13 days to go until RD8

Ok, now the frames conversion is done (unless I've missed a page or two some where, its time to start fixing all the links that no longer point to anything other than "The page you requested has moved, or is no longer available. "

Top Ten Red Dwarf results table has been updated, now over 1400 votes - head over to see where your favourite episodes are currently ranked.
If you havn't already voted head to Vote for Favourite RD Episode and cast your votes.

Silicon Hell should break the 10,000 visitor barrier today, thanks to everyone who has visited - I'm currently on my Half-term type break so I'm slowly updating information etc., suggestions welcome.

27th Jan 1999

Update done to PC World story

Red Dwarf News: Press release for Red Dwarf Series VIII: The eighth series of the International Emmy and British Comedy Award winning series returns to our screens (UK.) on Thursday 18th February 1999 at 9.00pm and repeated on the Sunday.

I've also started on the process of creating alternative pages so you can either view Silicon Hell using FRAMES OR NO-FRAMES (but a few tables), tell me what you think. - someone suggested it might be a good step, so I've decided to give it a go :)
All the links will work but some links will be to the old (table formatted) pages. The whole lot will be converted soon I've also been playing with the background image again, I like the new background so far, but I'm not sure quite yet if it will stay.

22nd Jan 1999 - I'll cut it down and explain more later

Start time: 1:02pm 22nd Jan 99
Today I was chucked out of PC World in Lincoln because I had a bag with my school books in it with me.
First thing I noticed was this security guard stood at the end of the isle of PC software with he arms crossed watching me.
I walked up to him and asked him if there was a problem. ... More ...

19th January 1999

New Half-Life patch out -10061008.exe - D/l from either www.bluesnews.com or www.planethalflife.com

Looks Like Red Dwarf series 8 will most likely be broadcast on 5th of February

4th January 1999 - Babylon 5 has ended :(

Babylon 5 has finished, And 5 years of my life have now ended. I've watching from the Pilot episode and have seen every single episode (all in the right order except maybe 3).- Still River Of Soul to see when its released on Video.

New section under construction - Network Hell (your guide to setting up a multiplayer games network) - suggestion and comment welcome.

Sabrina Online & Top Ten Rd vote results updated

3/12/98

Expect to see more work done on the DiscWorld and Babylon 5 sections.
Channel 4 have annouced the dates when the last 5 episodes of Babylon 5 are to be shown, details in Babylon 5 section

Start time: 1:02pm 22nd Jan 99

Today I was chucked out of PC World in Lincoln because I had a bag with my school books in it with me.
First thing I noticed was this security guard stood at the end of the isle of PC software with he arms crossed watching me.
I walked up to him and asked him if there was a problem.
He then told me I had been banned from the store which was NEWS to me.

I was given the option of letting them look after my bag (NOT A CHANCE, are they being let near my bag or any of my property) or to leave because PC World have a NO BAGS POLICY, I asked the security guard to show me the sign indicating this and was told it was just inside the entrance I hadn't seen this so I asked the guard to show me the sign to clear up matters.

NO SIGN was found near the entrance, so he them looked behind the customer services desk, I pointed out I was Not quite sure how I was expected to see any sign behind a large counter :), it didn't matter the sign wasn't there either anyhow.

I was them told I could look around for 5 minutes while he found the sign so he could chuck me out :).

I them paced between the checkouts and the customer services counter for a while waiting for the guard to return as I didn't feel like buying anything at that point.

25 minutes latter I got tired of waiting and went to find a Store Supervisor to find out was going on, I found someone who looked like a supervisor in the computer sales section and asked her to help me sort out the problem..
She got on the store announcer and asked security to attend the computer sales department, the guard reappeared looking slightly annoyed (BTW. he didn't have the sign with him), during the 5 minute conversation I had between a slightly more annoyed Guard and the supervisor I tried to find out more about the bag policy and the sign plus the answer to weather I had been banned from the shop.

I asked why bags were not allowed and was told there ware several reasons, I suggested "to stop suspected shoplifters", upon this both became quite defence and the security guard told me he hadn't accused me of shoplifting, I them asked if its not because of suspected shoplifting what other reason could it be. His answer was quite a surprise, TERRORISM was his suggestion, I concluded that if it wasn't suspected shoplifting, that it must be because they think I'm a Terrorist that they asked me to leave :).
I also found that the sign couldn't be put up for some reason, I'm still unsure if it existed as I wasn't shown it.

End time: 1:30pm - headed off to the bus station to catch my bus home, its a fair distance to the bus station from PC world.

On the way home I completed the first draft of the letter I'm going to send to PC Worlds head office to find out more about their policies etc.

Update

I had to return to PC World the next monday beacause the Diamond Monster 3d card I had bought a while back became faulty, I got my money back easy enough even though I ended up having to wait a while while they did the required paperwork and got me my refund.

All is going well up until now, I can only assume that Mr Nasty guard had been sat for about 10mins watching me on the security monitors because before I had even walked the 10 steps from the customer service counter to the exit, he pounced.

I don't think I have ever seen a Guard smiling (the Cheshshire Cat would even of being jealous) quite so much when asking someone to leave, he was also was very happy to ask me if I liked the nice new signs.

What a GIT

p.s. A fellow student with a bag just as large as mine was also wandering around the store but he was left alone, I can only assume that the guard was paying me so much attention he failed to notice yet another terrorist (or should that be anyone with a bag) in the store or maybe the guard just doesn't like me :)

7/11/98 - silly me

I haven't blown up anymore CD drives and I now have both my computers networked together and it works.
More importantly Channel 4 are starting to re-run Babylon 5, starting with the first movie,. The Gathering on Monday early morning the 9th of November at 12:15am. Its not the last 5 episodes we have been looking forward too, but its a start.

Top Ten RD episode results have been updated.
Sabrina Online has been updated - Strips 63-34
Robot Wars with Craig Charles started yesterday, I only saw the end because it set the video wrong :(
New Babylon 5 Novel out in the shops, Dark Genesis charts the birth psi-corps.
If you play Unreal you maybe interested in this website, Gelfspace is a project to Cross unreal and RD.

3/11/98 - PII forever

Craig Charles is hosting Robot Wars which starts this Friday on the BBC.
My new computer is now up and running, and now has a faster Cd Drive after the other one decided to do an impression of a slice of burned toast by turning black with smoke coming from the sides :( - Congrates to Tandy for replacing it quickly.

10/10/98 - (3:55am) Hugs and kisses, The Inquisitor - (and that ain't the title)

I've just returned from watching the second episode of Series 8 of Red Dwarf being filmed and am/are still in shock, it was incredible, I don't think I've laughed so much for ages.
RD is very Funny and good to watch when you see it on TV, but when you see it being filmed its just that bit more funny and special.
The Smeg up's and other gaffs and extra bits from the actors just gives it that edge over what you see on the small or large screen (depends on how big your TV is) that tips RD over the boundary from Brilliant Show to a smegging incredible show.

IF/when they do another series, I very strongly suggest that everyone tries to go see at least an episode being filmed as it is just incredible,
You will always remember what you saw that day and every time you see the finished episode it will be that extra bit special.

Did I mention its incredible to see RD being filmed? and that I enjoyed it a lot?.

BTW. Any doubts I had about the quality of Series 8 are now completely gone, its going to be the best series yet from what I've seen, The New series should/might air around January 1999 in the UK and elsewhere shortly after.