Here’s an interesting story about the influence of fans on the film industry:

The audio bit uses a Jackson sound-alike shouting, “I want these mother******* snakes off the mother******* plane!” Soon, the growing legion of fans added their voices as they demanded that that phrase also appear in the movie.

Apparently, the studio got the hint. When Ellis assembled Jackson and others for the recent shoot, the filmmakers added more gore, more death, more nudity, more snakes and more death scenes. And they shot a scene where Jackson does utter the line that fans have demanded.

Those involved with the film said the reshoots weren’t prompted by fans but rather by the existing footage that already was a hairline into R territory. Within the studio, the thinking was, “We’re already going to get an R, why not go all the way?” But the filmmakers do concede that the Jackson line will be in the movie for the sake of the fans.

It reminds me of the pressure put on just about anyone who’d listen to create a movie of Firefly. The DVD release of Serenity covers the issue, including a phrase from an episode of the series that, for all its corniness, still makes me smile…”We have done the impossible, and that makes us mighty.”

While I’m on the subject, I’ll mention in passing that…wait, first, I shouldn’t have to tell you this because you should have seen the movie already. If you haven’t, and you’re short on cash, go cancel the order you just placed for a Mac (you did order one, right?) and use the money to buy the DVD instead.

Anyway, in the movie something shocking happens. The movie was previewed for months before it was released, from working cuts up to a near-finished film. Literally tens of thousands of people saw these previews. I regularly read the main gathering sites for such fans, so was clearly exposed to way more information that the man on the street. I heard not one mention of the surprise, and in fact to this day I’ve not stumbled upon a spoiler outside of places like Wikipedia. That’s how much people love Serenity.

Why didn’t I think of this?

How to explain Marmite? It’s a very thick, viscous fluid, somewhere on the order of treacle perhaps. It’s very dark brown, almost black. It is made from yeast. It is exceptionally good for you, if a little high in salt. But most important is that, depending on your viewpoint, it either tastes gorgeous, especially on toast, or it’s like eating heavily salted rotting beer.

I used to live in the town where it is made, a town that also hosts a number of breweries that have lots of spare yeast (this is known as synergy. Or is it leverage? Anyway, it was definitely a win-win). Sometimes the entire town would smell like a brewery. You might think, in your beer-addled way, that this would be a not unpleasant sensation. You would be wrong. Even I, an admirer of both beer and Marmite, could find it overwhelming.

Anyway, I sense that I’ve fallen into a Popesque meander, so back to the point. A report from the Grauniad informs a trembling populace that we will soon be able to buy Marmite in tubes. Tubes have their place – I would certainly never apply preparation H from a chapstick-like device, for example – but there is a line that shouldn’t be crossed. Marmite comes from pots shaped not unlike the pot from which it draws its name (I know that’s a bit confusing, check Wikipedia for details). At a push, if you buy industrial quantities as I do then a plastic tub akin to a margarine container is permissible. But I will have betubed Marmite in my house when you insert it in my cold, dead hands.

It’s a cliche to say that a parent would do anything for their child, and it’s still a cliche even when you become a parent and learn that it’s actually true. Nonetheless, it’s striking to be reminded of just how true it is:

In the Hudson Bay village of Ivujivik, Lydia Angyiou, a slight woman of 41, was walking in front of her 7-year-old boy last month when she turned to see a polar bear stalking the child. To save him, she charged with her fists into the 700-pound bear, which slapped her twice to the ground before a hunter shot it.