And the award for the crappiest film of the century so far goes to …..

‘The Core’ A hideous drama about some hippie scientists, a megalomaniac American General and a mad, arrogant power obsessed fruit-cake. The improbable plot concerns our band of dysfunctional heroes building a ship capable of travelling straight through solid rock to ‘the core’ of the planet. Once there, the crew light the blue touch paper to several thermo-nooclear devices, thereby starting up the Earth’s stalled Electro-magnetic field….. and thus save mankind.

Well that was the plan. The only fun in the film was working out who was going to die – and in which order. The fruit-cake gets it obviously - but discovers a bit of nobility on the way out. Predictably, the young, chisel-jawed hero survives – along with the sexy babe navigator. The best character in the film is the geeky computer nerd, parked at a desk in Mission Control. His role is ….. look suitably nerdy, whilst eating lots of ‘Pop-Tarts.’ And because he is a geek, they made him up to look just like Alfred E. Neuman, star of ‘Mad’ Comics.

Alfie the Barry Norman’s in depth critique has pulled out this gem from a dire script.

Scene synopsis: The ship is breaking up under the huge pressure of Earth’s core. The ever-diminishing crew suddenly discover that the nukes on board just will not do the job. The hero decides he can build a separate H-bomb with a bit of sticky tape, some matches and a can of petrol. He checks his bomb making ingredients list – just to make sure he’s got everything he needs.
Hero to heroine "Christ it’s no good! We need 8 pounds of weapons grade plooooootonium to make the bomb"

Well there you go, you should’ve nipped into Spar to stock up before you left, shouldn’t you? They’ve got a wide range of plutonium enriched goods for the discerning savers of mankind to buy. You’ll find them on aisle B, just underneath the bags of botulism cultures, cunningly disguised as packs of faggots in gravy.

Talking about Electro-magnetic fields…..
Last week, whilst watching a programme about a supposed tour of the Planets by a crew of virtual space people, I was amazed to learn that Jupiter’s EMF is the biggest thing in the Solar System by miles. It far outstrips the size of the Sun, This fact has now been stored on the back burner of my brain, to be brought out at a suitably appropriate time in the future. The Christmas day trip to the pub seems favourite.

Talking about thick Divas…..
Rod Liddle’s column in yesterday’s Sunday Times, quotes Mariah Carey’s bleeding heart outburst about all the poor children starving to death in Africa…..
"Whenever I watch TV and see those poor starving kids all over the World, I can’t help but cry. I mean, I’d love to be skinny like that, but not with all those flies and death and stuff"….

I really do need to send Mariah something through the post – I’ve got some sticky tape, matches and some petrol – I’m just nipping down to Spar to buy some faggots and a couple of pounds of weapons grade……