Nixta Sinks

Rufus Cartwright	Austin Cornhusker

Is Rufus moonlighting as a maize-inspired fashion fagonista when he's not a doctor? We all know that the man doesn't sleep, but now that Concorde's gone, does he really have time to hang out at Bravo TV and Parson's School of Design?

To be fair, Austin looks more like Rufus' and Jarvis' love-child, but since (as I found out today at the gym when filling in my death-acceptance and disblamation forms) men can't get preggers, that's unlikely, so I'll leave old Cocker out of this and lay the blame flatly on Cartwright.

Ru: Conratulations - that was a fantastic design (and as Dani noted early on in the show, you displayed singular initiative in buying something as imaginative as whole corn when others were getting tights, bin-liners (loser! fuck off!), deck-chairs and tin-foil), but remember when you're working with organic materials that they will deteriorate overnight.

I *HATE* reality television. As one Comedy Central chap (no, it's not John Stewart for once) said recently, "We've filmed it all; there's no reality left" (I may be paraphrasing), but I have to admit begrudging admiration for two series: The Apprentice, and the aforementioned Project Runway.

The Apprentice can be viewed in two parts. Watch the first 10 minutes, get the gist of the episode, go away and read a book or make and drink a soothing cup of tea, then come back and watch Donald Trump fire people. It's fantastic viewing, and unlike other reality TV shows in that Mr. Trump is actually working towards hiring one of these people to run one of his companies and although many of them are out of their depth, it's not the usual run of the mill road-rules/survivor morons there: Some of these people are genuinely smart. I haven't yet seen any of the Richard Branson thing of Fox, but since it's Fox it must be shit. That and the fact that Mr. Branson (for whom I have long had great admiration, a kind of successful Andy) was the most uninspiring point-missing confusekin I've ever seen when interviewed recently.

Project Runway ought to be watched all the way through though I base that solely on the first episode where the tension mounted to such a degree that you didn't know whether of the final three left on the catwalk, cowering in front of the judges, Austin was going to be the one to be shot down or lauded to immunity. And neither did the three. In fact, the loser was one of the most self-confident cock-suckers I've ever seen (and I've met a few - if you know me you'll know who I mean), and that moment of Schadenfreude was worth all my principles on the matter. It's no doubt because of the subjectivity of something so creative as opposed to the damned obvious It's A Knockoutness of survivor's put these coloured sticks in a pile or their your eyes are the closest together competitions, but I like it. What you didn't see during the episode was how Austin rescued the dress - a travesty of editing if you ask me, which I'm sure none of you will.

I'm off to read Part 2 of Rambo, First Blood (Part 1 was not bad - excellent dialog, but very (though not unexpectedly) trashy narrative).

Good night.

[ P.S. Bravo Bravo for making your website so link-toable ]