Why politics is like Doctor Who

Everybody makes mistakes; its one of life's certainties like death, taxation and pretending to like Scandinavian crime dramas.
Some mistakes are bigger than others, some are further reaching than others and some are better remembered.
The ones that are best remembered are usually those by made by people of influence as they are usually carted out to prove said person is either a hypocrite or they are flip-flopping.
In that sense, politics is like writing for Doctor Who.
Doctor Who writers have to contend with a myriad of rules and ideas laid down by their predecessors and somehow plot a course through them all to create some kind of viable plot and Heaven forfend if they get something wrong, lest the internet explode with extremist Whovian bile.
One imagines the show writers have an old file with the word 'Rules' crudely inscribed on the front it, packed to bursting point with every single restriction they have to consider with each law also containing sub-sections on how to get around them. Finally, the file has an ultimate checklist - the result of years of hard graft and shrill abuse - full of hoops which every episode must leap through without touching the sides before storyboarding let alone filming can begin.
In a similar way, politicians have to contend with often unworkable parameters set down by their forebears (or indeed, their own younger, immature, incorrect selves) and when they inevitably have to go back on them, Twitter users find every modicum of hypocrisy in the form of Twitpics and YouTube videos while old fusty people with too many surnames write to the Daily Telegraph complaining about them selling their souls for pragmatism.
Unlike Doctor Who writers, politicians and their aides lurch day-to-day, finding ways to get out of previous policy pledges and they inevitably crash and burn but survive more often - pretty much every day in fact.
Yes, not answering in the 50th anniversary episode how the Doctor and Clara are still alive when they jumped into the Doctor's time stream, scattering themselves across time and space, at the end of the last series is a tiny bit different to a policy of Nelson Mandela being a terrorist - which is less of a mistake and more of a monumental fuck up of gargantuan proportions - but that is another similarity between TV and politics.
You can be completely under-qualified to comment on it but the magic of the internet means you can.

Jimmy Kébé: how will he be remembered?

There are players that split fans' opinions and then there is Jimmy Kébé, the kind of footballer who makes an out-of-date yogurt look like the model of consistency.
In an odd kind of way, the very reason for his popularity with certain sections of the Reading support is the same fodder for his detractors to lob bombs.
To his supporters, Kébé has been our most naturally talented and devastating player for the last half a decade, capable of tearing defences apart and winning games single-handedly.
To his detractors, Kébé has been our most naturally talented and devastating player for the last half a decade, capable of tearing defences apart and winning games single-handedly - just he didn't do it often enough as his talent suggests he should.
Reading's history has been littered with players who have been maddeningly inconsistent despite - or perhaps because of - being blessed with huge natural talent, but the Kébé situation always had another factor to it.
Say what you like about how often the talented likes of Michael Gilkes, Jamie Lambert and John Salako delivered, they didn't shrink from a physical challenge.
Even players unfairly seen as having far more talent than bottle such as John Oster and Seol Ki-Hyeon still played when called upon.
And this is why the Kébé situation has been different as there was always the nagging feeling he only really played when he was 100% physically and mentally and didn't fancy it if he wasn't.
He certainly does not lack for bravery as player - headers against West Brom and Sunderland at home last year attest to that - but the feeling always was that he wasn't prepared to play if he was nursing an injury.
Its the old dilemma of either having a brave, committed footballer or a talented one - not that they are mutually exclusive, just more so the lower down the league ladder you go.
Ultimately, Reading will miss him as he was one of our most talented players we have had in the last six years, but his time has probably gone now.
There is usually only room for one 9/10 in one game 5/10 for the next six kind of player and with Royston Drenthe taking that particular role of maddeningly inconsistent talent, Kébé looked likely to be restricted to less regular football unless Nigel Adkins was feeling particularly confident/reckless.
In essence, going back to the start of this blog, in the same way Kébé's supporters and detractors can point to the same reason for their respective arguments, they can also acknowledge the same memories of him to back their points.
He will be remembered for frighteningly good performances against the likes of Leicester in 2010/11 and Sunderland last season (and pulling up his socks of course).
Whether you choose to remember those performances as stand-outs or frustration they didn't happen more often sums up your view on the man who does what he wants.

Five talking points from Reading 3-3 Watford

1) The striker conundrum

On the face of it, two league goals in two league starts should guarantee you a starting place as a striker in any team, but things never seem to go to their obvious conclusion with Adam Le Fondre and his best role; starter or super sub.
The argument goes that he has neither the physical strength, nor the blinding pace to play the lone man role in a 4-5-1/4-3-3 system as a starter. This ignores the fact he can hold up the ball, link play as well as anyone and is by far an away our best finisher (notwithstanding two golden chances he had yesterday).
Nick Blackman seems more suited to the lone striker role being very mobile, having a good touch to take down long balls and having a Jason Roberts-esque knack of winning free-kicks. However, he has only scored one goal in a Reading shirt and never looked like scoring yesterday.
With Pavel Pogrebnyak our striker best suited to a lone-man role out of favour and Roberts still working his way back to fitness, Le Fondre remains our best bet as first choice striker at this stage and he has every right to feel aggrieved if he doesn't start.

2) Full back worries

An interesting development as come over the summer from Nigel Adkins and that is squad rotation, particularly in the attacking department with all of our wingers or strikers, baring the injured and Pogrebnyak, getting a start in the first three games of the season.
Yesterday saw two strikers (Le Fondre and Blackman), a winger (Jobi McAnuff) and a no. 10 (Royston Drenthe) start in a very loose 4-3-3 formation.
When it worked, especially going forward, it was fantastic to watch, particularly the interplay between Le Fondre and Drenthe, but defensively, it is always looked rickety with our full backs being particularly exposed with no cover in front of them. This was particularly true on the right with Chris Gunter being overmanned on many an occasion with Le Fondre, McAnuff, Drenthe, Blackman and Jem Karacan all taking up residence in the right winger role during the first 60 minutes.
The players are still clearly learning Adkins' system, but the number of times Gunter and Wayne Bridge were up against two or even three attackers with not much in the way of cover must be a particular worry.

3) The calculated long ball

When does a long ball become a hoof? Yesterday, the most obvious feature of our play was the clearance from the full back position up the channels or to Le Fondre or Blackman in the attacking third.
Everytime this happened, the Watford fans would shout "hoof", but this is far from the hoofball we used to see last season under Brian McDermott when players had no confidence and launched the ball in the direction of the opposition corner flag due to fear they might make a mistake.
This was a deliberate ploy to either get one of the front four in behind the Watford defence or use Le Fondre and Blackman's underrated skills as hold-up men to either win the ball and play in an advancing midfielder or to win a free kick.
The problem was, as the second half wore on, Watford got wise to the tactic. They pressurised the full backs so the ball ended up with Alex Pearce or Sean Morrison, neither of whom's passing is their greatest asset, and the long ball became less accurate. Thus, Watford got more possession and gradually overwhelmed us to earn a deserved point.

4) Bridge of quality

Matt Robinson, Nicky Shorey, Chris Armstrong, Ryan Bertrand, Ian Harte. For a decade or more now, we have always had a left-back who has been one of the best in the division we are playing in (last year excluded of course).
However, of all of them, Wayne Bridge may well be the best. He simply exudes quality and experience, defensively and going forward.
On countless occasions yesterday, he did the Shorey circa 2005-7 trick of winning himself a moment's time when he was backed up into a corner, looking up and picking out a pass to a teammate.
He occasionally found himself overmanned due to the constant changing in wingers in front of him (see point 2), but hardly put a foot wrong and was a danger pushing forward.
To to top it all off, he used all of his experience in the last minute to win a free-kick for no apparent reason when he went down in our penalty box with Watford threatening to break through once again.

5) A new Danny

Last year was a strange one for Danny Guthrie; in the eyes of many Reading fans he went from being starter, to primma donna to hopeful saviour to just plain old occasional starter.
What was clear was that Guthrie played best when he was the main man and this is the role Adkins has given him this year as the base and focal point for the starting of our attacks when we are in passing and not long-ball mode.
The centre halves spilt and Guthrie goes back to pick up the ball from the keeper and picks a pass. His game is all about keeping the ball moving and keeping possession which is probably why Adkins thinks so highly of him.
He rarely loses the ball, his long passes are a joy to behold (one in the closing minutes from the left back spot fully 70 yards across pitch to Garath McCleary was gorgeous) and he seems to be playing with confidence shown by his drag back played in his own penalty box to set up a counter attack yesterday.

Man of Steel - 12A - 5 out of 10

Superhero films in the 2000s are a bit like what I imagine grunge music was like in Seattle in 1990; a boom inspired by some stand out examples of the genre followed by a whole heap of underwhelming nothingness.

Every comic book hero seems to have been rebooted this decade. Hell, there is even a Hercules film pencilled in for next year with Dwayne Johnson starring. I'll leave you to make pre-judgements on that one yourselves.

However, Man of Steel is the reboot of the big guy. The man. Superman to be exact.

As such, there automatically comes with a hope it will deliver a standout alternative from the general dredge and with Christopher Nolan on production, the expectation rises.

The film explores the formative years of Kal-El/ Clark Kent/ Superman, all-American hero, played by Jersey's own Henry Cavill, who kind of resembles George Osborne's beefed up cousin, only with less laughs.

We see how he grew up from a boy blasted to Earth from his doomed home planet Krypton by parents ultra-British Russell Crowe and Ayelet Zurer where he grows from a shy, retiring child afraid of his powers to a bit of a boring man with arms the size of foundry chimneys.

Dubbing him boring is of course unfair on Cavill as the role demands that despite wearing a Zorro-style cape and a suit that totally isn't spandex but might as well be spandex, some base form of dull decorum is required, a bit like a hench Spock.

Its not that he plays the character badly, on the contrary, just the character itself is so boring.

This isn't the only character issue.

Amy Adams' Lois Lane veers from intrepid, gritty reporter for the Daily Planet in the opening half hour of the film to screaming damsel in distress in quicker time than you can say “comic book style cliché".

Superman's nemesis General Zod is, however, a perfect imagining of the villain by Michael Shannon; cold, calculating, but not necessarily evil, more a victim of his own circumstances.

Man of Steel suffers from the same problem every big budget action film now has in trying to outdo the previous big budget action film by adding more carnage and explosions until it resembles a clashing of a scrapheap and a fireworks factory inside a tumble dryer.

In a similar vein, the climatic fight scene between Superman and Zod resembles the long-running joke in Family Guy of Peter Griffin fighting the Giant Chicken in the sense it is scripted, extended and essentially a oneupmanship contest for who could throw their opponent through the most amount of skyscrapers.

Its not only the climatic scene which is like this, its every scene in which Superman fights a fellow Kryptonian just this was the final scene, the highlight of the movie. Mix it up a little bit!

In that sense I suppose it was a suitable ending for the film given what had gone before, but rather aptly given the content, its only suitable crashing right through the other side of pointless and gratuitous.

Another similar recurring course it follows is looking into the backstory of the hero to find out what makes him fight for justice and all that malarkey (turns out its Earth-dad Kevin Costner and a love for the glorious cornfields and other assorted attractions of Kansas).

Every superhero film now makes their champion into a broody, sullen, world-weary individual – as well they should be what with all the pressure they're presumably under for being the world's go-to-guy– but Superman is historically the cheesiest of all the comic book heroes so it basically feels like painting him with an emotion brush for the pure sake of it.

And then he's still dull and a bit of a drone. Some work.

All in all, Man of Steel isn't a bad film. Its an interesting if not riveting reboot of a classic story and so given the current state of superhero films which it essentially apes, it is something of a monotone retelling of a story in a format audiences are now tired and cynical of unless it is truly remarkable. Which it isn't.

In a way, its something of a triumph as it leaves the audience wanting it to be longer to add some more emotional meat to the bones of the plot, but also desperate for it to be shorter as to have less interminable fight scenes where characters are basically used as wrecking balls in an amateur attempt at city planning.

Oh, and don't fork out for 3D. You shouldn't anyway for any film, but Man of Steel has about as much use for it as one would wearing the ridiculous glasses out in the real world.