Targets to be dropped

Gordon Brown's people continue to say things I want to hear, the latest being a suggestion that they'll drop most of the targets public services have to meet. Is this all just a con? I can't believe he might actually be so different from Blair.

'Harry Potter & The Order of The Phoenix' - Film review

8 out of 10

I always think it's hard to give a balanced review of these films because I'm a fan of the books. I got the impression that somebody who wasn't might not enjoy this much but I thought it was very good.

The book that this is based on is the most bloated of the series and could have done with some heavy editing, so in some ways it works pretty well when chopped down into a film. There are still many things skipped over or squeezed into very little time but most of it works fine. There are changes from the book as well, some of them very interesting.

I'm not going to explain the film in great detail because if you've read the book you'll know the score and can rest assured you'll enjoy this. The new characters are generally extremely well done, which is really the only place where it could have gone wrong. If you don't know the books or don't really care for Harry then there's nothing here to change your mind.

It's also worth noting that this was directed by a relatively unknown director, David Yates, but he does a great job so I'm pleased to see he has kept his job for the next film.

Brown sugar

I don't know about you but I'm feeling cautiously optimistic about our new Prime Minister, Gordon Brown. He's been very quick to signal changes in some important areas. He's not such an impressive speaker as Blair but already in his short time in the job he has signalled some subtle but important changes of emphasis. He's dropped a lot of the Blair rhetoric about the so-called "war on terror" - in fact, so far I don't think he's used that phrase at all, or mentioned Muslims. He just talks about criminals and criminal acts. Now it looks like his team are distancing themselves from Bush.

I'll wait and see, this could all just be sugar-coating designed to lure people like me into thinking he's great. But as I say, I'm cautiously optimistic.

'The Host' - Film review

7 out of 10

I rarely get a chance to watch films these days so I'm glad that this one was pretty good. A Korean film in the same spirit as Tremors, it's a slightly daft monster film with people running and falling over and getting eaten. It's only ever mildly amusing or mildly scary but the overall package works, mostly because of some charismatic lead actors. The other main star is the creature, which is an interesting design but hampered slightly by sub-Hollywood special effects.

This film will never set the world alight but it should entertain most reasonable people, especially those who've always wondered what happens when fish drink formaldehyde.

'Marvel Ultimate Alliance' - Game review

6 out of 10

Somewhat fun in multi-player, though hampered by the usual camera problems typical in a game like this, MUA is a dungeon crawl in the style of Diablo (itself an evolution of Gauntlet). It replaces warriors and wizards with Marvel super heroes like Spider-Man, Wolverine and Captain America.

Clearly a game developed for easy porting to every platform imaginable, its technology is designed for the lowest common denominator. This wouldn't be a problem if the limited technology wasn't accompanied by some truly appalling artwork and voice-overs. The point of this game (I assume) is to appeal to Marvel comics geeks and while it sticks fairly well to the canon, the characters are often drawn and voiced so badly it is a real turn off.

However, if you want to do everything in the game it will take a long time, so it offers good value for money. On Xbox 360 the achievements are nicely spread in difficulty and grind, so most players will get a reasonable number of them but the last few hundred require persistence.

It will be easier to persist with this if: a) you love nothing better than spending hours levelling up characters, as is the case with my wife; or b) you play in multi-player. The single-player game is easier (because of changes in the AI behaviour) but also quite a trudge.

On balance, I would say if you have someone you can play the whole game with and enjoy super heroes a little bit then this is a good game to get. If you're a real comic geek and have no friends, it's probably best not to bother.

Smoke free England

It's here! Not completely smoke free obviously. People can still smoke outside and blow it in my face but nearly all enclosed spaces are now smoke free. Ironically, this includes the special smoking hut near my office, built specially alongside our building for smokers to use when it's raining but now covered by the anti-smoking legislation. Ha ha!