Show us yer stash

We should all take a moment to reflect upon the true meaning of Christmas, to put aside all the trappings of the festive season that distract us from that which is most important, that which should truly be uppermost in our thoughts at this festive time of year.

So let's forget about family, Jesus and all that shit: let's talk pressies.

As I never want anything but books, CDs or DVDs - and because my family have long since given up trying to fathom my tastes in such things - they simply ask for a list from which they can pick a couple of items. It's a good system that avoids all that unpleasant business of pretending to look pleased about the Jeffrey Archer novel your granny bought you because "you like books".

Hence, I was the lucky recipient of the following stash:

CDs...

• 76.14 by Global Communication (the nice 10th Anniversary edition with a second disc of remixes and b-sides
• Soup by Bola
• Live '04 by Mouse On Mars

DVDs...

• Sideways
• Napoleon Dynamite
• Doctor Who: City Of Death

I was especially pleased about the Doctor Who DVD as City Of Death is the first story I specifically remember seeing on television. I must have been only four and a half years old but I clearly remember Julian Glover ripping off his rubber human face to reveal his true seaweed-like cycloptic alien face beneath. That scared the shit out of me at the time (c'mon, I was only four) but, even though it looks exactly like what it is to my thirty year-old eyes - a funny rubber head - it is still an smart and very funny story (based on a story by David Fisher but completely re-written by Douglas Adams).

I also watched the Doctor Who special on Christmas Day, The Christmas Invasion. Most enjoyable. I think David Tennant will make a fine Doctor (despite being asleep for most of the story) although the story did have that air of being but a taster for the next series in the same way that Christopher Eccleston's first episode did. Eccleston was great in many ways as the Doctor but his attempts at being quirky always seemed a little forced. Tennant, on the other hand, is more naturally eccentric. Like Eccleston, it will probably take a couple of episodes for his Doctor to properly settle in. There are, however, reasons to look forward to the next series of Who:

1. The return of former companion, Sarah Jane Smith (Elizabeth Sladen) and a rusty, beat up old K-9
2. The return of the Cybermen
3. The return of director Graeme Harper who gave us two of the best stories from the 1980s: The Caves Of Androzani and Revelation Of The Daleks

But... um... enough of the fanboy guff.

As New Year's Eve approaches, I am trying to be at least a little hopeful about what 2006 may bring rather than harbouring my usual thoughts of, "Oh God, not another year of this shit."

Look, blind optimism doesn't come naturally to me, OK?