Pistachio Magazine

Valentine’s Day? Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn.

An extra special Valentines article from Sam Quarton

Nature abhors a vacuum and so, it appears, do large scale retailers. With the excess of Christmas fading into hazy memory, shops around the country are crying out for a new cash cow to get behind. And so, with wearying inevitability, the shelves that not so long ago were stacked high with life-sized neon reindeer and ‘Make-your-own-igloo’ sets, are starting to fill with weird heart shaped cushions and fluffy bears embroidered with putrefyingly insipid messages of ‘love’. I’ve even seen ice-cream sold in couple-sized tubs. (Tesco, if you’re reading this, I eat that much in a single sitting on my own). Yes ladies and gentlemen, Valentine’s Day is nearly upon us - conveniently plugging the gap between the January sales and the build-up to Easter. For 2 weeks in early February our world becomes pastel, because as everyone knows, nothing says ‘I love you’ quite like enough pink and purple tissue paper to decorate a Barbie convention. Those people lucky enough to be in a happy relationship become pressured into purchasing a card, or flowers for 20 times the standard price, while single people are made to feel somehow inadequate.

Even worse it provides an excuse for the kind of behaviour that at any other time of year would simply not be socially acceptable and which should, in my opinion, be punishable with the full force of the law. I don’t care how much you ‘wuv your darling baby waby’ – any more announcing it on facebook, any more myspace-style kissing pictures or (worst of all) sitting on laps when there are perfectly decent empty chairs available, and I will be forced to throw a sickly model of Cupid at your face.

  Some of you may be thinking I’m being too cynical. After all, what is wrong with having a time reserved for showing someone how much you care for them? One day each year where you take time and effort to show that one special multinational corporati – sorry, person just how much they really mean to you?  But I am not a dried up cynic, and this is not an attack on romance in general. I have a soft spot for romance - when Colin Firth proposes to his Portuguese maid in ‘Love Actually’, it gets to me embarrassingly deeply. I do however resent ‘doing romance’ on order, when corporations tell me to. If you don’t book a meal or buy a large bouquet of flowers then the insinuation is that your relationship clearly means less to you, that you love your partner less. Clinton’s, Tesco, and restaurants everywhere want to cultivate this sense of obligation, and I hate it. Why should we be told when we should demonstrate love, in an orchestrated national outpouring of vapid rhyming cards, and anatomically incorrect hearts? It reminds me of the scene in Life of Brian when the crowd all chant ‘Yes! We are all individuals!’
    Imagine if we allowed other feelings to be dictated to us in the same way. After all, the gap between Mothering Sunday and the ‘Back to School’ rush is far too big. How about an annual ‘Malcolm Tucker day’, when the nation vents it’s collective spleen at one another, or a ‘Grief day’, when you show how sad you are by purchasing cards showing various suitably mournful pictures and spend the evening in hour-long sessions of group wailing. Not buying a ‘Fountain of tears’, sir? Clearly not missing your deceased mother very much, are you, you heartless bastard? By the way, that will be £12.

Love is a personal, intense feeling, and one that is cheapened by being turned into a commodity. This Valentine’s Day, let’s all stage a strike. Refuse to buy all the inane tat surrounding you, and they will stop stocking it. Spend the night with friends, and have a special night with your partner on another night - not only will this be cheaper, but also more genuine and personal. Alternatively, if friends are a commodity you find hard to come by, join me in front if the TV. Who knows – we could even share a couple-sized tub of ice-cream.

Morgan Explains: SOPA/PIPA Day aka Piracy Isn’t a Problem

So you’ve probably heard something today about a thing called “SOPA” or “PIPA” or maybe you’ve tried to go on Wikipedia for your primary Dissertation research to discover that it’s all dark. Well that’s because there’s some filthy SQUARE politicians in the America that want to control the internets. And their excuse is essentially, corporations are more important than freedom of speech. WOW GUYS GREAT IDEA EVERYONE WILL BE FINE WITH THAT YOU SHOULD TOTALLY RUSH THAT BILL THROUGH WITHOUT THINKING ABOUT IT OR ANYTHING.

Let’s step back a moment, because these new-fangled laws they’re trying to pass are essentially to try and combat a thing they call ‘Online Piracy’. Remember in the 90s when you used to copy a CD for a friend and it was fine and nobody cared? Or when you made a mixtape for the car? Yeah, it’s basically like that but on the internet. But it seems with certain people who earn A LOT of money and wear really fancy suits seem to confuse this with, say, punching an old lady to nick her handbag. I’m sure we all remember those adverts at the start of DVDs, hell, a lot of old ones still have it. DUM DUUU DUDUDDUDUDU YOU WOULDNT STEAL A HANDBAG DUDUDUDUDU YOU WOULDNT STEAL A CAR yeah, all that rubbish. I think there’s been a bit of confusion here.

You know when you get mugged, that stuff you have is gone. Your phone is gone, your cash is gone. You won’t get it back. Now THAT’S theft. If I download the Season Finale of Game of Thrones because I missed it on the telly, then nobody is losing money. They still own that show. No REAL thing has been lost. I just own a virtual copy of it. (One day I might buy the DVD boxset for like £60 because I want it in good quality and not munching my hard drive space) And that’s the difference between theft and piracy. With theft, something is lost. In ‘piracy’ nothing is lost. It’s just duplicated. THERE IS A DIFFERENCE.

Now some may say that profits are lost. No. If the person is pirating media, chances are they can’t afford to buy it in the first place. You haven’t LOST money have you? It just wasn’t earned. And that doesn’t give you the right to sue people for thousands of moneys, which has happened. To ordinary people.

These laws that are today being protested support that kind of thinking. Corporations that earn millions, nay, billions of dollars every year are moaning that their money’s being ‘stolen’. And the Government’s saying “Oh yeah, of course you’re right. Let’s just fuck everyone over to make you happy.”

ON A SIDE NOTE do you know what the most pirated movie of all time is? AVATAR. Which, in total, has made close to Three BILLION dollars from cinema and home media takings. Let me write that in numbers for you $3,000,000,000. That’s ten million times all the money I have in the world. And that’s forgetting about my student loan. And these companies have the AUDACITY to claim they’re losing profits from piracy?!? I AM NOT HAVING IT.

That’s why Wikipedia is blacked out. So you all know what utter bullshit this business is. The Internet is bloody brilliant. It’s up there with the greatest inventions EVER. An entire generation would be lost without it. And to take that, and cripple it just because some billionaires aren’t billionaires-and-a-bit is the biggest joke ever.

2012: A Cultural Review Of The Year Nibiru Hits

Greetings fellow humans. As we all know, there are in fact less than 365 days left for our meagre and completely forgettable rock to continue to orbit what is a less than average sized and completely unimportant star in a minor solar system – you can read all about why on December 21^st we will in fact be sucked in to a black hole/hit by a passing planetoid/engulfed by a supernova/raptured a new one. Basically, things are looking pretty bleak, and you can read up on that here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012_phenomenon

The planet X/Nibiru theory is probably my favourite of our options, particularly because there’s a great new band from Ireland called Nibiru (www.planetnibiru.bandcamp.com).

So, we come to the crux of the matter – since we’re all going to be too busy losing our fucking minds looting (personally I will be going after Selfridges, Waitrose, Oi Polloi and Games Workshop (if I don’t steal a plane first)) throughout December 2012 to write our end of year lists, here is an advanced cultural and current affairs review of all the shit that’s gonna happen in 2012. Don’t say Pistachio Mag 2.0 never did anything for you when the cannibalism in the streets starts OKAY GUYS.

BIG EVENTS IN 2012 and how they went down:

London 2012 Olympics

Millions upon millions of disposable income rich suburban families spend upwards of £50 a ticket for their double barrelled surnamed children to watch the 3^rd leg of the Women’s Handball; corporate parties take place in boxes throughout the Olympic Stadium (with the attendees missing most of the actual athletics), and the rest of Britain watches on in a bemused state of ill-informed patriotism with the niggling ever present thought that the tax system actually paid for this event. I, on the other hand, live the raw life in a cave for a month eating nothing but freshly caught deer and beating anyone to death who comes within a mile of my lair. #SPORTSMANSHIP

The Diamond Jubilee of Queen Elizabeth II

Well received because we all get a day off of work/school to sit outside, eating BBQ’d steaks and drinking glass bottled cokes. Thanks Liz! In local news, I attend Norton Lindsey’s Got Talent II as a judge on the panel and make 6 children cry. #DIAMONDSARENTFOREVER

Global Recession

So 2011. #MORELIKEGLOBALBORECESSIONAMIRITE

Mars Rover Curiosity Landing

Wait, this thing is the size of a Mini? Am I the only person who thought these Rovers were about a foot wide? No one realises the Mars Rover has taken off, let alone landed. Results of the $2.5 Billion expedition are of no interest to most of the Sun reading population who are still shocked by photographs from Hubble which appeared to depict a shadowy figure on the surface of the Red planet – in fact, the shadow of a weird shaped rock. $2.5 Billion well spent, YOUR MOVE, ALIENS.

18^th National Congress of the Communist Party of China

This conference is reported in the news as a merely symbolic event that is key to the morale of the Chinese people being uplifted as they see their glorious leadership united. In reality, we are all stupid if we don’t recognise China as one (if not the) most powerful nation in the world who probably have machines that can change the weather and shit. #RECOGNISECOMMUNISM

Birth of Skynet

“Pleiades, a proposed supercomputer built by Intel and SGI for NASA’s Ames Research Center, will be completed, reaching a peak performance of 10 Petaflops (10 quadrillion floating point operations per second)”

#T1000

[EDITOR’S NOTE: This computer sux in comparison to “Sequoia, a proposed super computer built by IBM for the National Nuclear Security Administration will be completed, reaching a peak performance of 20 Petaflops.”]

MUSIC:

The world of music is this year dominated by the birth of a crap load of new genres that will burn brightly and briefly before being wiped out – QUITE LITERALLY THIS YEAR AMIRITE U GUIZE.

2011 was marked by some pretty embarrassing shit, even outside of pop music – I mean, rock & roll music had LETLIVE (LOLLIVE) & BLACK VEIL BRIDES (props on the make-up, shame about the whack ass music), Pitchfork championed a genre known as RAPEGAZE, and Mumford & Sons continued to exist.

2012 will reflect everything bad about music in 2011 I imagine, but since we are coming to the end of a b’ak’tun, all the stars of greed and poor taste will fall in to place to create some incredibly disgusting media output. Here are some releases that came out/will come out in 2012 (I have by this point lost all desire to be consistent in the viewpoint I am writing this from, dealwithit.gif):

Enter Shikari – Flood of Colour

My respect for this band ends with the fact that they hired out the Astoria for 2 nights and spent all potential profit on their stage show – DIVA O CLOCK. This, their latest dub-trance-offensive-core opus is what actually causes the Planet X/Nibiru to adjust its course for collision with Earth. It transpires that the Mayan Calendar was actually predicting the cataclysmic arrival of an album THIS HORRIFYING that causes the native inhabitants of Nibiru to deem the human race unfit for existence.

Sleigh Bells – Reign of Terror

A confusing one for critics – too popular for Pitchfork et al to now champion, still slightly too ‘cool’ for the NME, so, do Q or someone love this band now? I predict a lukewarm reception and maybe one video with the lead singer looking foxy.

Buckethead – Electric Sea

Former guitarist of the Axl Rose Guns n Roses Experience. 35^th studio album. There are no words.

Black Sabbath – Reunion Album

I have total faith that the sheer power of a reformed Black Sabbath with Rick Rubin at the helm will be the only thing that diverts Nibiru from collision. On December 21^st the human race will gather on the frozen nuclear wasteland that was once Siberia, and every amp/speaker still in existence will be put to the task of sending the dulcet tones of Tony Iommi’s riff on Sweet Leaf in to space. Take that, aliens.

Guns n Roses – tbc

Hehehheheheeheheh good one axl

Keane – TBC

Wait, what.

Lindsey Lohan – Spirit in the Dark (Reborn)

Wait, WHAT.

Selena Gomez & The Scene – 4^TH ALBUM

Okay, this is just getting ridiculous, apocalypse now pls.

Shoe in for Mercury Prize/Critics Boners

The XX – Album No. 2

Without a shadow of a doubt, this will be THE album/band that critics at the nme/the guardian/everywhere in between jump on the dick of to look smart and oh so out there. I imagine this band can only get sparser and dubbier (hahahh), such that by album 3 we are faced with what is essentially finely tuned silence. Let me just get it out of the way for us all and put it at the top of my CRITICS CHOICE LIST 2012.

FILM:

Film is, in comparison to music, actually looking pretty good this year, if you’re a total sci fi/fantasy geek. And let’s face it, we’re all going to have to be to overcome the crippling existential fear that will grip our hearts in the end days.

- The Amazing Spiderman

Emma Stone is a stone cold (c wot I did thur) hotty and Andrew Garfield is one skinny motherfucker a la Peter Parker of yore. I have faith in this reboot.

- THE AVENGERS

We are all stoked for this, although I have to admit my excitement is largely fuelled by wanting to see Thor and Iron Man sass each other.

- The Dark Knight Rises

Coolest effing Batman franchise thus far, SHOCK ENDING SPOILER ALERT – Nolan kills Bruce Wayne… (let’s see how right I am this summer).

- The Hobbit

The film of the year and we’re not even going to get to see it, FUCK U NIBIRU.

Okay, those are the films I enjoyed this year, here are the ones I am going to write about for cheap comic value:

- HANSEL AND GRETEL – WITCH HUNTERS

I am a big fan of crossover films, but this really takes the biscuit. Are H & G cold blooded killers in this new exciting incarnation? I can’t wait to find out.

- SNOW WHITE AND THE HUNTSMAN

2012 is clearly characterised by embarrassing remakes of classic childhood fairytales. Look, THOR is a guy with an axe!! The evil queen is a vain bitch!!!!! Snow White is…….. a moody Kristen Stewart??????????

- PROJECT X

Unconfirmed reports that this film is as straight as the line that you sniff up your nose (kudos to you if you a. read this far and b. enjoyed that jokette)

-WRATH OF THE TITANS

Someone in Hollywood is getting rich as all hell out of films like this, whilst you and I sit at home and resent them. If you steal one movie from the internet this year to spite an exec, make it this one.

- AMERICAN REUNION

On second thoughts…………………………

- TITANIC 3D

Okay, if you steal THREE movies this year…

- ROCK OF AGES

Something we’re all excited to see – Tom Cruise in spandex, receives poor box office ratings and zero critical acclaim prompting Tom to write himself a further 6 world saving Mission Impossible adventures to satisfy his ever growing ego (wait, is Tom Cruise’s ego actually creating an orbit that will result in Nibiru landing????? RESULTS TO FOLLOW)

- ABRAHAM LINCOLN, VAMPIRE KILLER.

2012: one not to scrapbook.

These have been the extensive words and musings of Luke McGuire.

Anonymous asked: Dear PIstachio, I hope you can help. There was this online magazine that I used to read, but recently I feel it's been blanking me. I've tried to think whether there was anything I did, but can't put my finger on it. I want to stay friends, but it just wont reply to my texts, and has not been returning my calls. What should I do?

man up

SEIN LANGUAGE - sitcoms; an analysis

NAH JUST KIDDING, this is LM back in the game, the title was just to throw you, and the pun was to draw you in. I was in fact initially intending this article to be about what I really like about sitcoms and why I think they are a perfectly valid form of comedy, even if they are the equivalent of soap opera – although what’s wrong with soap opera? What both forms share is an equally valid expression of artistic talent, albeit in a way which is often cast aside due to its popularity. However what I realised when contemplating how to get that point across is that it would be boring and I wouldn’t be able to get people to finish the article.
If you got this far you’re about to get to the good stuff.
»»»»If you skipped this far you made a wise decision.

Anyway I’m gonna hammer home the point above, that sitcoms can be artistically valid, intelligent AND goddam hilarious (HA! If you skipped you still have to read that) by using clips and telling you how great my favourite sitcom SEINFELD is. Nah for real though, you can ignore all the shit about me trying to make this a valid article and just watch the clips cos that was all I wanted an excuse to do – scour youtube for my favourite moments.

Seinfeld is a key example of my point, it brings a group of characters to the fore in truly ridiculous situations which are at the same time smattered with things we all experience on a day to day basis, more so than any other television I have watched can I empathise with George Costanza and his misery every episode. Now THATS acting. I’m gonna stop rambling now and present 5 of my favourite episodes w. accompanying clip. I reckon this is the basis of a good zine ya know………………………………………….. (watch this space)

1. THE CHINESE RESTAURANT

   
   In this episode Jerry, George and Elaine are trying to get a table at a chinese restaurant before they go to a movie – 20 minutes and that is the entire premise, but bare with me, cos it’s hilar. Am I the only person who finds 90s Elaine strangely attractive?
   
   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bbOqpNr_U2M
   
   
   

2. THE PARKING GARAGE
   
   Again, the entire premise here is Jerry, Elaine, George and Kramer (aka best character ever) trying to find their car in a car park, they foolishly split up and get up to all sorts of hijinks.
   
   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OG6b7KJ1Ah0
   
   
   

3. THE CIGAR STORE INDIAN
   
   This episode is amazing, Kramer comes up with the idea of a Coffee Table book about Coffee Tables.
   
   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7KuDPfTfw6w
   
   
   

4. THE SOUP NAZI
   
   A seinfeld classic, the soup nazi is a guy who opens an amazing soup store but if you don’t order in his highly specific manner there will be no soup for you.
   
   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M2lfZg-apSA
   
   

5. THE INVITATIONS
   
   This is kind of a dark episode but it is a prime example of why this show is so funny to me. George is here engaged to marry Susan Ross (which he doesn’t want to do btwwww), but since he is such a cheapskate he scrimps on the invitations and she eventually ends up dying from poisoning from the glue in the envelopes. George is stoked but has to hide this. Cue hilarity.

   Also in this episode Kramer tries to scam a bank out of some money and that’s equally hilarious (plus I couldn’t find a clip of the former)
   
   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AMbDiP6ILik
   
   
   

I’m kinda reluctant to end there cos this list could have gone on to about 50 or 60 favourite episodes. Get involved and get watching, you will not regret your decision. If you need further convincing there are a couple of clips shows in series 9 (http://watchseries.eu/episode/seinfeld_s9_e21-564.html )

CONCLUSION: Seinfeld is the greatest show to ever have graced our screens, and sitcoms should be gloriously celebrated. Look out for season one of The 10’O Clock Moose coming to HBO soon………………

LUKE MCG.

TEENAGE KICKS (am I) RIGHT (thru the night)?: Disillusioned on the eve of my 20th Birthday

Firstly, let’s not even talk about the title of this article, it’s a mute point that it is poorly constructed, but I love saying amirite and that was the only way I could think to do it.
Secondly, in the past when I have written an article I have made playlists to go with it, this is the reverse of that - I made a kick ass playlist and wanted an excuse to share it with the world.

Okay, so we’re all getting to that age now (well some of us) where we’re leaving behind the sunrise years (COPYRIGHT LM) of our lives in order to jump aboard the train I like to call ‘get up every day at 7am and work until you die’ express. In case you hadn’t guessed tomorrow I turn 20 and I’m taking it pretty well. Anyway, I was being nostalgic and shit and I realised that I had basically been lied to my entire life - mainly up until the age of 13 when people (TV) kept implying being a teenager was gonna be full of adventures and shit. Fingers crossed everyone’s been lying to me about how depressing being an adult is. Anyway, here’s some shit that never happened to me as a teenager:

1. Become a teen wizard/witch
   
   

   Okay so this is a pretty big one if you grew up in the 90’s/early 00’s like I did – Harry Potter erupted, sabrina was big on the scene and loads of other spin offs of that variety happened. I have spent 7 years wondering when my plucky talking cat was gonna emerge/a homicidal maniac was gonna try and kill me. Thankfully the latter hasn’t really been a big worry but the former has haunted me for years. I could write a whole other article about the misadventures of Salem (if you didn’t watch Sabrina, firstly, what’s wrong with you? And secondly you need to up your game) but I’ll save that for a day when I have time to screencap some of his better moments.

   
   

2. Be amazed by my idols
   
   I got into metal when I was about 14 and realised that cos no girls liked me that was realistically what I had to do. Plus Metallica rule you drool. SO yeah I went to a lot of shows and did what all teenagers do – hang around after/before the show in order to meet members of the band that you have idolised/learnt all the words to/put posters up of. And let me tell you something, I was consistently disappointed by these people. Lesson learnt: never meet members of metal bands cos they’re all jerks.
   
   (would insert picture here of me with oli sykes but alas I don’t have it on my hard drive, so have more salem)
   
   

   

   
   
   

3. Go to loads of rocking parties.
   
   As previously mentioned, I got into metalllll in a big way so didn’t get invited to the sorts of parties that US Teen comedies tell me I should be going to. Nor were my friends jerks enough to throw what is now commonly known as a ‘Skins’ party. I have seen a total of 2 episodes of skins and both involved the whinings of rich urbanites with petty drugs problems, something I could definitely not empathise with cos I’m not a twat and I didn’t get into hard drugs at the age of 16. I instead spent most of my youth hanging out in a sunny park/going to battle of the bands at coxes yard (u kno wot im sayin stratford) so that was pretty sweet.
   
   
   

4. Have an endless stream of gurls.
   
   Again we return to me being a dweeb, oh, messy life. Yeah, let’s take a look at some dudes in teen dramas who got a lot of chicks –
   - Drake from Drake and Josh: this dude was in a band, had a goofy haircut, and a rebellious streak Josh just could not knock out of him. Girls loved it.
   - Will, The Fresh Prince: Was there an episode of that show where Will didn’t flip his blazer and score some slamming private school hotty? A: No.
   Okay I could only think of two but that pretty much counts for conclusive evidence. Don’t get me wrong, I eventually realised getting a haircut would make me more attractive to the opposite sex (eventually), but there was a time there where things were looking bleak. Fucking TV leading me astray.
   
   

5. Have THE BEST NIGHT OF MY LIFE at prom (x2)
   
   Just to wrap this up we can focus on PROM. Prom is the special night in a girl’s life where she gets to dress up and do her hair and get her nails did and all that shit so that we (boys) can swoon and dance the night away together and eventually walk home hand in hand and kiss on the doorstep and then get married or some shit. Our survey says – NO. Both proms I went too were overpriced, I ate some buffet or something, sat outside cos the music was shit (no jazz or anything wtf) and then michael jackson died at the second one. Well, not at it, although I would look back on the event more fondly had it occurred at that crazy place he lived.
   
   

TV is the source of all those problems really, so the lesson here is, when you have kids, just read to them. They’ll turn out to be clever, less disillusioned and way more likely to get a university place which by then, I assume, will be reduced to 3 students on the entire face of the earth. Take it easy kids,

your friendly neighbourhood psychologist and old timer,

Luke M

DISCLAIMER: despite all that I actually have had a great teen life/am not hung up on prom or girls or any of that shit and all my friends rockkk so here’s a playlist to remind us all that we’re still young at heart. YOUTH GONE WILD.

TEENAGE DIRTBAG

The Complete Lad Failure that is Doctor Who, and What We Can Learn From It.

Allow me, if I may, to vent some of my annoyance on here. It can’t have escaped everyone’s notice that the popular BBC programme ‘Doctor Who’ has just started a new series. Indeed, it has been hard to miss the constant barrage of trailers, teasers and adverts announcing the fact. Apparently we’re supposed to all be glad and excited about this. Well I‘m not. So the Beeb has yet again blown a massive amount of its budget on what is essentially a kids programme. Whoopdy freakin’ doo. It’s a bad programme and what’s even worse for us Pistachio readers is that the lead character, ‘The Doctor’, is an awful role model. He runs away from most situations, and his arch-est of enemies are essentially giant pepper pots who have only just learned how to climb up stairs. This guy is in no way a lad.

That in itself isn’t so bad. I don’t want you to think I look unkindly on those of you not blessed with the chick scoring talents of yours truly. Some of us are luckier than others, and I for one will never hold that against anyone. But the Doctor has it in him to be a real player. He has the potential, but he wastes it, and that is what’s so infuriating. He does get a lot of the basics right however, and so I want to use him as a template to aid your skirt-pulling abilities – highlighting what he does well, and pointing out where he goes wrong, so you can avoid doing so yourself.

First. Wheels. I appreciate it will be hard for most of you to get transport that can visit anywhere in the whole of time and space, and be bigger inside than out, but it is essential you get yourself a good love-wagon. The first thing a girl will notice is what wheels you’re touting, and you should go to any lengths to ensure that they are impressive. If you can’t afford anything flash, buy basic and customise. Spoilers, alloys, blue neon lights. If you can’t even afford that, then I’m sorry to say you’ll just have to nick the car you need. This is actually even better (every girl loves a bad boy), so long as you don’t get caught. This is one area I have to say the Doctor gets completely right, from the theft to the stupidly noisy engine.

Second – Mystery. Don’t go telling a girl any more than absolute essentials about yourself. Enigmatic is the name of the game. Probably not necessary to go as far as the Doctor and not even tell anyone your name, but the less you tell her, the more she’ll fill in from her imagination, which is bound to be much cooler than reality. Remember, girls don’t care about the fact that you’ve got to go take your Aunt Lizzie’s pet retriever for a walk. Again, the Doctor is set for life here, being a 900 year old alien he’s bound to be mysterious and exciting, but you can capture some of this too. Just tell them less, and they’ll give you more, trust me.

Third – Danger. Scare a girl and you’ll pull her. It’s a scientific fact. The emotions of fear and arousal are closely linked and the body isn’t very good at distinguishing between them. Save her from something scary and dangerous and she’ll thank you the only way she knows how. Again, the doctor is at a natural advantage here – when you’re fighting evil alien invasions it’s easy to ‘accidentally’ let a girl get captured, and then rescue her. You’re going to have to work a little harder. Perhaps watch a horror film together or get your friend Tony to glare threateningly at her. Incidentally, this fear/arousal link doesn’t work the other way round. If a girl scares a guy, for example by driving him somewhere (4^th and 5th gear do exist you know girls – you don’t have to do 70 in 3rd), he will simply be scared.

Fourth (and most important) – If a girl comes on to you, go with it! This is sadly where the doctor falls down. He travels around with attractive young women and astounds them with his knowledge. He has them in a unique position, and has multiple opportunities to take advantage yet he never does. Last series his companion, a complete stunner, verbally offered him a one night stand and started kissing him, and HE PUSHED HER AWAY. This is inexcusable. He has the capability to be the biggest player in the universe. He pulled an engaged woman without even trying, all whilst wearing tweed and a bow tie. He puts all the groundwork in but never reaps the harvest, and as such is an affront to manhood.

There are many other reasons I hate Dr Who. The wobbly sets. The aliens that are just men in boiler suits and masks. Excessive use of deux ex machina. But all of that is forgivable compared to the Doctor’s complete rejection of his capabilities.

Of course we can’t say anything negative about the programme because it’s a ‘National Treasure’.  The show’s many supporters take pride in the fact that the show is, at 48 years old, the longest running science fiction show ever made. They conveniently forget the fact that it was off air for 16 of those years, is virtually unrecognisable from the original show, and can barely be called sci-fi due to its almost complete lack of plausible science.  Anyway what’s so great about lasting a few years? My Dad is 48 and at least when he dies I’ll get some kind of inheritance. When the Doctor finally crawls away to wither and die in some dark corner of Cardiff, the most I can expect is the kind of relief you get when the fawn you didn’t quite kill when you hit it with your car finally drags its lame, crippled body into the verge and takes its last sorry breath. You wish it could have ended sooner but couldn’t bring yourself to actually kill it. Well, if any BBC producers are reading – reverse back over Dr Who and put the show, and it’s complete and utter loser of a main character out of its misery.

[ed’s note: I would like to make it clear that the opinions expressed in this article are neither my opinion, nor that of it’s author; Mr Sam Quarton. All of us at Pistachio love Doctor Who. So much so, check out another blog what I run: fuckyeahthedoctor.]

lewisjelley asked: When Is DJ MORZILLATRON going to finish and publish his article about going out? I have been waiting with baited breath for literally a month!

Haha- well, to be honest, I lost my inspiration after going out! I will do it sometime. But don’t expect it yet Jelleyman.