Author: Dave Franklin

There’s a famous old Peter Cook and Dudley Moore sketch in which a one-legged actor auditions for Tarzan. The casting agent can’t believe what he’s being confronted with (“I’ve got nothing against your right leg. The trouble is, neither have you”) while the disabled actor remains oblivious to his chances of snagging the athletic role.…

Being an ex-teacher, I naturally hate kids. For almost four years I had to endure their relentless energy, selfishness, demands, spite and mediocrity, leaving me with the impression that the average child shares a lot in common with a small, intoxicated, unruly visitor from outer space.

Do you ever do that thing, perhaps while life hasn’t been treating you too brilliantly, when you start reading up on sicko Nazi and serial killer shit? You don’t mean to (perhaps you’ve got a spare half-hour between charity commitments) but somehow you’re disappearing into the bowels of the internet consuming blood-drenched pages about medieval…

There’s a terrific scene in The Terminator when Arnie strides into a nightclub looking for Sarah Connor. A bouncer tries to stop him by slapping a hand on his shoulder, but our futuristic hit man doesn’t even bother looking around. Instead, he grabs the offending limb and gives the fool a taste of his cybernetic…

Most people are annoying. It doesn’t matter whether they’re a droning colleague, that snarky online twat who just won’t see sense, some random queue jumper, a younger sibling, the halitosis-afflicted taxi driver taking the long way round, a right wing foreign president, a neighbor loudly playing music or that hotty in the supermarket who looks…