Finbar Saunders

My most enjoyable moment of the BBC's spaceathon Stargazing was when Prof Brian Cox - or 'The Sun's boffin' as he is also known - dropped his guard and instead of calling it yura nus (or the ridiculous Ooranus), went back to the good old schoolboy pronunciation of Your Anus when talking about everyone's favourite planet, Uranus.
At that point my 12-year-old and I sniggered like, well, 12-year-olds, and my wife simply rolled her eyes.
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RIP Pete Postlethwaite who was, I believe, great in a number of film and TV roles. But just because Spielberg loved him and just because he did a few right on roles and just because he's dead does not mean that everything he did was brilliant. And no doubt the forthcoming Clash of the Titans will confirm that.
As does Brassed Off. In my opinion one of a wave of 'It's Grim Up North' flicks that confirmed Britain's reputation as making films which are beloved of the Guardian and considered pessimistic crap by the rest of us. It was the usual condescending rubbish that everyone up north is poor but funny, hard working and honest and gritty sexists whose stone cold hearts can be turned thanks to a barnstorming speech by a veteran working class, granite faced elder.
And Pete's accent in The Usual Suspects was pretty dodgy too.
It's The Michael Caine effect. We remember Zulu and The Italian Job, Alfie and Get Carter but thankfully we quickly forget The Swarm and The Jaws sequel and Blame It On Rio and dozens more.
Robert de Niro has now done THREE Meet the Parents films for crying out loud. This is the guy who did Goodfellas and Taxi Driver - the latter a film so good that I saw it five times in a late night double bill with Midnight Express at The Swiss Centre in Leicester Square, once on my own.
Few films are SO good that they are worth going to see, on your own, late at night, in Soho, without having to sit next to someone in a dirty mac.
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A New Year and a new office. Tomorrow I begin my first new daily commute for 17 years when I will have to remember to change tubes at Stratford and go south of the river to work - the first time in my life that I have travelled to the dark side of the Thames to earn a living.
Wish me luck. It will be strange fitting in to all those strange South London ways. The odd accent, the way everyone speaks from the side of the mouth and holds their cigarette between their thumb and forefinger, unlike us North London sophisticates who have adopted the continental style of holding it between first and second fingers. I am expecting pubs with meat raffles and the description of 'up and coming' applied to a street where the cafe sells capuccino.
I'm not sure what to pack but I'll play it by ear.
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The boiler's fixed, the dog recovered and is back home and a very nice American man called Mike has refunded me the £14.76 that a Chinese hacker spent on my iTunes account.
So perhaps it won't be such a bad year after all. Cheers everyone, I hope this year brings you what you want...Solly