Recently in Things not to watch Category

Censorship is always good for a giggle and no more so than the following example from Star Trek: The Next Generation. The episode is called 'Higher Ground' and caused paroxysms of outrage when first broadcast, so much so that the BBFC banned the episode outright in the UK.

Watch and you'll see why.

It appears that the episode will finally get a UK screening this year at the 2007 Cathedral Quarter Arts Festival, in Belfast, which runs from Thursday 3 May until Sunday 13 May.

Visit here for more information the festival.

Read the BBC Article on the banned episode.

Louis Theroux made a welcome return to our screens this week, with another show documenting his ingratiation into yet another extremist cult.

This time up it was the turn of the most amusing Westboro Baptist Church - the all-screaming, all-roaring, homo-hating, fire and brimstone preaching brain-child of the apocalyptically angry Reverend Fred Phelps.

And yet, despite the church's best attempts to stoke up as much hatred and venom as they could, you couldn't help notice just how embarrassingly funny they were.

A long time ago, in a country far, far away, a young, American film maker had a novel idea. 'What,' he said to himself, 'if we did away with this 'Christmas' thing and replaced it with a multi-cultural, multi-faith winter festival where all communities could come together in a celebration of family and birth? And maybe I could flog a few toys? Ha? HA?' (Art by Nat King Coleslaw)

We finally got to see Casino Royale. With apologies to Eamonn Dunphy, it was 'a good movie not a great movie'. It's the best Bond movie in twenty years but there are still problems. With it's heady mix of no frills service, bruised nads and dodgy drinks it all adds up to one thing: the Ryanair of Bond movies.

First thing first: Danel Craig is good. Very good. He's believable physically, displays a thuggish brutality that Fleming would have recognised and he resists the urge to act with his eyebrows. So far so good. There's a great opening scene - a moody black & white prologue which sets an edgy dark tone for the unfolding story. But then the song starts.

Last Friday, at a family wedding, I was introduced to one of the editors on the new James Bond movie 'Casino Royale'. Being quite a Bond fan, I was very keen to hear his thoughts on the new flick. This isn't the first one that he's worked on, so he was a mine of fascinating stories. What got me most excited was that he told me about a scene from the upcoming movie, which if it makes it to the final cut, might just be the most extreme thing seen yet in any Bond movie. And it's pure Ian Fleming.

More Bond than Bond

The Brosnan era was a curious thing: whilst the Irishman's performances got better and better, the scripts got worse and worse. Die Another Day was possibly the worst of all the twenty Bond movies. It was truly execrable stuff, worse even than A View to a Kill. As if this wasn't bad enough, Matt Damon's Bourne movies shat all over Bond. They were cleverer, grittier, cooler. And they had that key ingredient that the Brosnan movies didn't have: a decent score. John Barry's signature music has been badly missed since The Living Daylights.

I can't speak to the score of the new Bond flick (worryingly they've persisted with David Arnold again) but it does seem that they've made a decent, honest effort to make an Ian Fleming movie. The key to this, for me at least, is that Casino Royale contains a scene from Fleming's original novel which I never thought would make it to the big screen.

Now don't get me wrong. I love football. I love it so much that I have forgone sex in preference to watching football. I have turned down orgies to watch football. Ok, well not so much with the orgies, but the point stands: I love football.

So, it pains me to say that there have been a number of instances at the current world cup which have prompted an almost overwhelming urge within me to put my boot through the tv screen. There's been some shambolic refereeing. Despite hammering the Serbs 6-0 today, Argentina had a perfectly good goal disallowed and then saw the man who scored it, Crespo, get a yellow card for having the temerity to point out to the linesman and ref that they were, in point of fact, a pair of myopic twats.

But my largest gripe comes not from the predictable cack-handed officialdom, but from the disgustingly unprofessional behaviour of some players, in what can only be described as bare-faced play-acting in an effort to get an opponent booked. Van Persie did it tonight against the Ivorians (Drogba must have loved that) and I'm sure that you've spotted many examples yourself. But by far the worst offenders have been, of course, the Italians.

Diving, cheating, play-acting, moaning, nazi-saluting, bung-taking whining bitches. I truly, deeply hate Italian footballers. Why, can someone please explain to me, does every Italian footballer go to ground writhing and screaming in simulated agony, every time that an opponent challenges him? Watching the Italy vs. Ghana game I lost count of the number of times that I saw Italians hit the deck like they'd been shot when Essien and the lads tackled them. It was utterly embarrasing. Are these guys not ashamed of themselves? Do their countrymen not feel disgusted that their football team are cementing their international reputation as flagrant cheats? Never mind the fact that they behave (and look) like a bunch of mincing, moaning metrosexual shirt-lifters. I don't know why they don't just get it over and done with and put the fucking dresses on.

I hope Italy get through their group. And then I hope they get a team of quality who rip them to shreds and send them home crying to Moma, exposed for what they are: the biggest fannies in the world of football.

Jesus wept. Proof, my dear friends, if ever it were needed, that Hollywood is utterly, totally intellectually redundant.

The Star Trek franchise will get a shot in the arm following last year's cancellation of spin-off TV series Enterprise with an eleventh cinema outing for the Starfleet chaps and chappesses.

According to the BBC, citing New Variety, the new movie will centre on the early days of Spock and Kirk at the Starfleet Academy.

For the love of all that is holy, can someone, anyone, please, you know just once, come up with an idea that doesn't involve flogging another hackneyed sci-fi franchise to death with a feeble, pathetic prequel cash-in?

Is it too much to ask? Is it really? I mean come on - what's next? Star Trek 12: Picard with hair. Star Trek 13: The Voyage of Kirk's dad's sperm up his owl one's gooter. Star Trek 14: Spock's old man gets a twitch in his buttocks.

You bunch of uninventive, gormless twats.

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