Fopp is selling the Woody Allen back catalogue at £3 a pop. While it would be tempting to get the lot, I'm not feeling so flush and think it would be sensible to limit myself to 5 films.

Annie Hall is a dead cert, I'm pretty keen to get Crimes and Misdemeanours but... there are so many. So which 5 should it be?

In tribute (or perhaps parallel) to the first line of a novel thread, how about the best final lines from films?

My favourite, is the thread title taken from Back to the Future.

Other contenders...

"Well, nobody's perfect" from Some Like It Hot

"Hang on lads, I've got a great idea" from The Italian Job

"You Maniacs, you blew it up! Ah, damn you! God damn you all to hell!" from Planet of the Apes

Any more...?

An odd one this, but I thought one of the massive might be able to put my mind at ease.

Yesterday afternoon, one of my neighbours knocked on the door to let my wife know that a traffic warden had been noting down the details of our car and taking photos of our house. Has anyone any idea why this might be? We have resident-only parking in our street, but the permit is valid and the car was neatly parked in the right area. Also, the traffic warden has no way of knowing whether the car is actually parked next to the owner's house, so the photo of our house seems rather strange.

Anyway, over to the hive mind.

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DISCLAIMER: I'm not trying to be deliberately controversial here, but I should warn you in advance that this post will contain graphic descriptions of enthusiasm for Stewart Lee which some viewers may find offensive.
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The phrase 'the word "genius" is applied all too freely these days' is applied all too freely these days, and it's hard to know who we're allowed to call geniuses (genii?) and who we're not. I know people who claim footballers to be genius; I've also heard Maggie Thatcher described as such. I think the description may have become diluted, but i'm going to almost use it anyway.

I'm not certain if Stewart Lee actually is a genius but, for me, he's the closest thing to it in the world of stand-up. A live set from him is simply dazzling - not necessarily in terms of showmanship or glitz, but in the way he puts together a seemingly rambling, repetitive sequence of stories and observations in such a way that he can skewer his subjects precisely and hilariously. He purposefuly aims to lose his audience and win them back, playing on their sense of shock and moral certainty to provoke a reaction that goes beyond just 'having a laugh', often under the guise of deconstructing the process of telling a joke.

It's a highwire act that inevitably loses people - I think that's what he probably means to do. It might be tempting to think that those who stay with him, who 'get him' are somehow better than those he loses, that they have a more refined sense of humour. But that way lies daft arguments about what is/isn't funny - the endless SL vs Michael McIntyre debates, as if they were two polar opposites; the deluded 'how can he say such things about Richard Hammond and his children' rants. The people who like him are the people who are simply willing to enjoy the repetition, the non sequiturs, the .... gaps, and trust that he has a point to make if he starts by saying something shocking. As a result, a Stewart Lee gig will inevitably have periods where the laughter is occasional and nervous; where everyone wonders where he's going with this; and a big explosion of laughter (possibly relief?) as we get there.

All this relies on carefully calculated delivery - every word, every subtlety of intonation, is carefully nuanced to manipulate the audience, and sometimes mess with their heads. And it's this combination of thoughtfulness, craftmanship, risk and wilful belligerence that puts me in awe of him.

I'm seeing him live tomorrow, and I genuinely cannot wait. I have no idea if he's a genius, and maybe tomorrow he'll let me down, but he's my designated almost-genius for today. Who is yours?

I'm currently immersed in Michael Palin's second set of published diaries - Halfway to Hollywood, which covers the post-Brian period from Time Bandits to, I believe, heading off on his 80 days around the world.

I've not really read anyone's diaries before, but I have to say I'm fascinated by these, and very much enjoying this trawl through the 80s. I'm not entirely certain what makes them so enjoyable. In part it's obviously the fact that I'm a huge fan of Palin's; in part it's also fascinating to see the events from a period I dimly remember myself being lived through by someone who doesn't know what's to come: the Brixton riots provide a strange parallel with this summer's events; Reagan rattles sabres at the Russians; Scorsese chats about his upcoming movie starring De Niro as a boxer. I particularly enjoyed his amazement at the new Sony Walkman and his musings on where technology might go next.

Perhaps the most surprising aspect of these diaries is that they contain little in the way of emotion. Children are mentioned, but rarely dwelled upon; the death of his father in the previous volume seemed almost clinical in the way it described the events but not the feelings. I'm not certain if this is a result of editing or not, but it makes them highly readable if somewhat unexpected from such an affable man.

It's made me think I should keep a diary myself, or at least try. But I'm not convinced I'd manage it every day; I don't know if that matters or not. I also don't know if I'd ever read them back. But maybe that's not the point.

Are any of you diarists, and do you have any advice on how to keep going? Have you ever read back your entries? Would you ever publish them? Or...most tantalisingly, would any of you care to publish a sneaky titbit from a day of note that you diarised?

An interesting opinion piece in the Guardian today favourably comparing Gordon Brown to the current inhabitants of Downing Street: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/nov/08/eurosceptic-hero-mag...

I have to say that on balance I think the article is right: although clearly a PM who was not easy to love, I never quite understood why he was subject to such vitriol. And he got some stuff dead right. What I've found interesting, not to say frustrating, since the new government came in is their insistence for blaming him personally for pretty much all the current problems. I wonder how long they can keep that up for? Nonetheless, it's fascinating that a man with apparently little trace of personality can arouse such ire, to the extent that the anger can still be relied upon 18 months later.

I'm probably in the minority on this though. And I'm well aware that politicians somehow seem nicer once they're powerless - even Portillo seems vaguely palatable since becoming just another pundit - so feel free to correct me...

I've been umming and aahing for a while about getting my wife a tablet computer, but have ben put off by the price as it's only intended to be a handy tool for her to have instant access to mail and web, and little else.

I wandered into Fopp yesterday and saw a stack of tablets they are selling at half price: Archos 101s to be precise. I've obviously checked a few reviews online, which are actually pretty positive, but I thought that I should also consult the Massive HiveMind. I know many of you are Apple fans and would fart in the general direction of such a copycat device, but I'd really appreciate any thoughts/experiences you have of the Archos 101.

Did anyone catch this on BBC4? (I believe it's repeated tonight if not.)

It was a very loose reconstruction of the furore surrounding the release of Life of Brian in 1979, structured in a very Pythonesque way: brief animated sequences, anachronistic detail, addressing the camera, female characters played by men etc.

I thought it was interesting and fun in parts, but I couldn't help feeling it didn't quite work. The cast were spot on in terms of look and they had a lot of fun playing with the public image of each, so Cleese was essentially Basil Fawlty, Idol was obsessed with money and Palin was constantly being told he was the Nicest Man In The World. They also played around with the debate around offensiveness, throwing in nods to Mock the Week and to modern-day criticism that 'you wouldn't make fun of Islam'.

Yet for some reason I didn't feel it gelled. This may, in part, have been to do with the non-sequiturs that petered out in an authentically Python style, or perhaps the general hamminess of some of the cast (not least the guy running the TV programme), or maybe I just found it a little too willfully wacky.

It was followed by the Friday Night, Saturday Morning programme in which Cleese and Palin attempted to defend the film against an unending and sanctimonious torrent of drivel from Malcolm Muggeridge and a Bishop. It was interesting to see how slavishly this had been reproduced in the preceding show (down to a seemingly impossibly wispy and badly dressed Tim Rice). More surprising was the appalling moderation of the debate, which essentially allowed the anti-Brian duo to drone on and on and on, wagging fingers and sermonising about a film that they had blatantly (in retrospect) not seen in full. Palin looks furious, and with good reason. Sadly, Cleese loses his way a little and simply atacks religion, which was never going to work in these circumstances. I'm not convinced they 'won' as suggested in HFC, but it's hard to tell all these years later.

We've got rats. They're bloody horrible.

They first appeared a couple of years ago, we got the rat people in who put poison down and that worked, but we had to put up with them crawling off into hidden nooks, rotting and creating an unbelievable stench. And after that, we had the fly invasion. A remember a visitor wrinkling their nose at the smell and looking in bafflement at the flies and asking - only half-jokingly - if we had a body in the cellar. Well...sort of. I eventually found and disposed of it, which was a fun job. And that was that.

Until...

We were sitting watching TV the other day when 2 of the things raced into the room, got a shock that the legal inhabitants were still about and ran off again. Not wishing to go down the poison route again, especially now we have kids, we've gone for the traps. I bagged my first one yesterday, and while I shudder to think these horrible creatures are racing about somewhere underneath my house, I felt quite satisfied when I emptied the trap.

I always thought I was a nice peaceful guy, but it turns out I have a lust for vengeance. The idea of trapping them 'humanely' and then making them someone else's problem once they're released is ridiculous. Especially living in London. It's an 'us or them' situation surely?

What I feel really aggrieved by is that I don't feel we deserve it. The house is spotless, food is never left around, we don't have mounds of rubbish or rotting furniture in the front garden. We do, however, live in a Victorian terrace in London, near a canal. The rat guy tells me that most houses like this have them, and the trick is to make sure they pass through your place on the way somewhere else - make sure they have no desire to come back. Which is horrible when you think about it - presumably someone on the street must have a dreadful problem.

Anyway, has anyone out there beaten the rodents? Any advice for a novice ratbasher?

I’d never really watched X Factor until the birth of my son a few weeks back. It was, bizarrely, the background to my wife’s early contractions in the (surprisingly plush) birth centre and we’ve since hit the point where even reaching for the remote can be too exhausting, so for the first time ever we haven’t changed channels when X Factor comes on. So I’m a latecomer to the whole phenomenon, and these are some (probably naïve) observations:

1) It can be genuinely unpleasant: I don’t know when laughing at deluded/borderline mentally ill people became acceptable telly, but putting them on an arena stage for thousands to laugh at in the flesh is shocking. A sad indication of our sense of community, or perhaps just a modern update of taunting the village idiot?
2) It can also be rather lovely: watching someone who can sing arouse the enthusiasm of an arena-ful of people is pretty uplifting. Couldn’t they just do those bits?
3) The search for a suitably poignant back-story is horribly transparent. Do we need to know about all the dead relatives and troubled personal lives to appreciate their singing?
4) There seems to be a general move towards powerful voices, rather than stupid wobble-voiced Mariah Carey-isms. Which is a good thing.
5) Kelly Rowland must be one of the most beautiful women in the world. Louis Walsh looks like he was created by Jim Henson for the Dark Crystal. Gary Barlow seems like a fine fellow, and has a voice that would be perfect for a kids' cartoon show. The other one seems alright too.
6) Am I right in thinking that anyone over 25 is considered dead old?
7) There’s an awful lot of crying isn’t there?

I can’t see me becoming a regular viewer, but it is simultaneously better and worse than I expected, and there are clearly some incredibly talented kids out there. Obviously, all this will result in a deluge of dreadful singles at some point, but for the first time I feel vaguely sympathetic towards these wannabe pop-stars.

In case you're interested - the Guardian appears to be offering free John Le Carre audiobooks every day this week.

Today's is the Constant Gardener (the only book of his I've read, and very good it was too), but there have been Tinker Tailor..., Smiley's People and others. You need to sign up to the aduiobook service, but it's easy and free, and I guess will give you something like 100 hours of spy heaven for those long car/train journeys.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/competition/2011/sep/22/free-audiobook-d...

As one might expect from the digital editor of a music magazine, Fraser Lewry is off moonlighting as an insect and arachnid taster for the Guardian: http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/wordofmouth/2011/sep/16/insects-a...

I have to say I've not tried quite so many creepy crawlies as Fraser does in this article, though I have tried bamboo worms -essentially maggots- in Thailand (like soggy chips), Grasshoppers (like soggy, salty grasshoppers) and scorpions (can't remember - too much tequila had been taken) in Mexico and I've licked ants in Australia (lemony).

I've also eaten fresh fruitbat, cobra, dog and frog in Indonesia, though I avoided the rats on sticks they were selling in China. For the record, nothing tasted like chicken, apart from frog which tasted how chicken ought to taste, if it was more froggy. I've been told I have 'no morals at all' for eating dog, which baffled me somewhat - out there it's just another animal.

So what are the weirdest, ickiest or even morally reprehensible things you've eaten?

Oh yes, and Fraser - what's the story with broccoli?

According to the statistics, 1 in 4 of you will be affected in some way by mental health issues, and that for many this will be related to depression. I’m going to tell a sad story, and I want to preface it with this: if you’re in a dark place, please, please do what it takes to find the shaft of light, because it will be there somewhere. And if you know anyone who’s depressed, or just down or even someone who’s had a rubbish day, go and give them a hug or a smile or just let them know you’re there.

I came home from work two days ago to find ambulances and the police outside the house next door. It turned out my neighbours had committed suicide. A couple in their mid-40s, they had gone out and bought a petrol-powered generator, closed the windows and turned it on until the fumes overcame them. For one person to die this way is incredibly sad; for a couple to agree that this is the only thing left for them is heartbreaking.

It happened in the room behind my bedroom wall. These two people lived just metres away, and I didn’t really know them. She was bubbly, friendly and bombed about on an undersize bike; he was moody and quiet and had taken to blanking me in the street. I liked her, but had only been saying earlier in the week that I hadn’t seen her for months; I’d gone right off him. It turns out she had a history of suicide attempts and had eventually become reclusive; he spent his days looking after her, rescuing her from self harm. He was the one keeping them both going, yet he was the one I had no time for and, in truth, had taken an active dislike to. And, I guess, he was the one who finally succumbed to her wishes and decided that he would join her too.

I can’t imagine what went through their minds; the sadness they must have felt as they organised themselves, the intense love that must have fuelled their decisions. Yet I can’t stop imagining it going on. Next door. Perhaps writing the sign ‘Danger – Carbon Monoxide’ to the soundtrack of my wife and I laughing at the antics of our daughter. And I can’t stop thinking how wrong I was about him too. And thinking that a good neighbour, a better neighbour than me, might have been able to say something that made a difference.

I doubt I would have made a difference, in reality. These people were tackling demons that were far beyond my reach. Don’t get me wrong – I’m not putting myself at the centre of this at all. I’m under no illusions that this is anything other than a very quiet tragedy that happened to some people I didn’t know. But I do know that being a better, more friendly neighbour would have cost me no effort, regardless of its effects.

So that’s what I hope to be from now on.

In this week of grim events, I apologise for adding to the sum total of sadness. But like I said at the start, if it makes any of you just smile at someone you wouldn’t normally smile at, or perhaps just refrain from judging someone by outward appearance, then maybe the world will be infinitesimally better.

This is one of the lowest, most cowardly acts I have seen. For those who can't see video, it shows a boy, sitting in the pavement bleeding, apparently caught up in the riots. People help him up, put their arms around him as though they are comforting him. And then, as he stands there dazed, they open his rucksack and take what they want.

I don't know if it's possible to catch the low-lives that did this, and maybe it's no more important than everything else that's going on, but let's spread this and see if they can be identified.

That these people live in my city, and are happy to behave like this makes me miserable. Never have I been so disgusted with my fellow city-dwellers.

I saw Captain America in 3D yesterday. The film was surprisingly entertaining, refreshingly free of the chest-beating patriotism one might expect and some good Indiana Jones-esque anti-Nazi derring-do.

But - and excuse me if I turn into Mark Kermode here - the 3D: it was pointless. I had to balance a pair of glasses over my normal glasses, solely for the purpose of 'enjoying' the occasional character pretending to chuck something straight at me every 10 minutes or so. Really I had paid an extra £3 for the privilege of a darker screen and knowing that some characters were slightly closer to me than others.

Surely this is just a pointless gimmick whose days are already numbered? Once everyone's seen a few 3D films we're all going to start turning back to normal films, unless it's a proper 3D event like Avatar, aren't we? And as for 3D TV's - a shocking waste of money. Or am I completely wrong on this?