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Last night saw the return of Channel4's excellent Misfits. This year is make or break for the series as a whole, in my opinion. Fans knew they were losing two original cast members last season, but were shocked to learn that Kelly wouldn't be returning either. This original cast member loss is compounded by the fact that the show shipped Nathan between seasons 2 and 3. One might suspect that Misfits is becoming the Sugababes of the TV world, but fear not; Channel4 have already made a success a show with a high cast turnover. Skins iteratively reinvents itself and remains fresher for it. Judging from last night episode, Misfits looks set to repeat the feat. The episode has two new characters to introduce. Instead of gradually weaving them into the fabric of the series, Misfits puts them front and centre, relegating the stalwarts to the background. This is a pretty ballsy move, but it's almost necessary. The show has one original cast member, and he's the least interesting of those. Rudy is fantastic, but he is not a one man show. So yep, a solid opener which was about as good as it could be considering cast factors, and it really comes down to this; deal with a bit of upheaval or have no more Misfits. Upheaval is fine, thanks.

Got to say, I hoped Nigel would raise his interview game after promotion to the Premiership. He still does not interview well, but then, perhaps we need to put that in the context of the defeats and the tight-lipped policy at the club. The repetition of several key phrases doesn't inspire confidence, don't give an indication of how he feels results might be improved, makes Nige look like a bit of a throwback and us look like a team managed by a cliche factory. I've always assumed that Nige is some genius at remaining opaque in the glare of the media spotlight, and kept the good stuff for the boys during training. If he relies on similar tropes during training, that'd be worrying. It's not the bloke is incapable of speaking his mind; I've seen him in more candid, less Saints related interviews. In a more official capacity, he too often fills time with the worst kind of nothing; the kind you can't ignore.

Like provide evidence, like the police are currently collecting?

The iPhone5 is a fantastic machine, TDD - just as with a lot of Apple stuff, difficult to justify on price. Sounds like you got yourself a good deal on that, and as a previous owner of an iPhone, I can tell you that you'll be happy with that phone until you upgrade. Yes, that's right. I don't even have the iPhone4 anymore. Juvenile unit #2's relentless campaign of guilt trip logic and eyelid fluttering was predictably effective. The Apple device is now hers. That puts me in the position of being a one brand phone owner. Now, if I were to follow the example of Essruu, I'd be rolling up on the iPhone5 thread about now trying to make people feel bad about their phone upgrades. Indeed, if this were 1986, I might even be behaving like Essruu. The amount of crap I spouted about the relative merits of the C64 over the Spectrum was legendary. Might even have gotten into a few scraps over it, but then, I was eleven at the time. As someone who works in tech, I'm genuinely interested in everything that's going on. There are a number of competing platforms out there and that is a fantastic thing. I do not get why people spend their time rubbishing one tech over another when all of it was confined to science fiction 30 years ago. Seriously Essruu, take that brushed aluminium stick out your arse.

Thanks for the link, btf (and by extension ESB). Amazingly, still feels like this is the tip of a very large iceberg. Divided as this little island can be, a very common sentiment is the almost universal condemnation of nonces, with perhaps the only support coming from other nonces. Going to be interesting to see how far this goes. Not entirely convinced that there were not higher powers involved in actively pulling Newsnight's expose. Some of the off-the-cuff remarks made about "bringing them all down" if he is "got" suggest something a lot bigger than one odd-looking perv.

Compared to nymphs, yes. Humans? No.

Yeah, but you thought it should all be let go on account of his death at one point. Still think that?

Fk sake Delldays. How big are your hands? I'm roughly the size of a hobbit and I manage!

Android has games too. iOS has got a better range though. I can play all of them. Isn't that magnificent? Besides, anyone who is serious about playing games right now is doing so on a PC. It's about more than sliding your finger, y'see.

I always assumed that Nige had a wider variety of catchphrases behind the scenes. You reckon that's a flawed assumption? Looking a little bit ragged today. Steve 'Interesting' Davis is not impressing me, giving the ball away a bit too much. Spurs are often all over us. Rickie looks wound up. Think this game is going to be pivotal to the rest of the season, whatever the result. If we end up getting hammered, questions are naturally going to be raised over Nige's ability for us to beat the "easier" teams coming up. We haven't done too well on that front so far.

The S3 is grand, thanks very much. Juvenile unit #2 has been petitioning for the use of the iPhone4. I'm close to cracking.

Incorrect. That was Verbal, who had obviously never seen the League of Gentlemen. I pulled Turkish up for snickering like a schoolkid, is all. I will certainly cop to that one. Dunno if you've noticed, chaps - but I do actually admit when I'm wrong. None of this "slime your way out of it", call people rude things or "just not talk about it" boll*cks. Better to occasionally be wrong than be a full-time nob, wouldn't you say, lads? Returning to topic, the quality of trolling has gone massively downhill since dune was banned. People are trying to fill the void with repetitive boll*cks or one-liners freed from the tyranny of punctuation, but it's just not the same.

I'm enjoying everything about it at the moment. The only thing I didn't like was the way it was initially setup, in terms of a lot of Vodafone sh!te up on screen in Widget form. That disappeared quickly. Does make me laugh that one of the biggest selling points of the iPhone5 was an "extra row of icons". I wish I had the option to release my own hardware and make a packet off it every time my users ask for more icons. I've typically just changed the design and/or make the icons slightly smaller Maybe that's where I'm going wrong, bletch!

That's because registered users are peasants.

I've just been looking at 64GB memory cards to put into my S3. 40 quid mate. xx

I'm not sure where Simon Blackwell comes into this, but I've just spent the evening designing my own phone. Damn, that's liberating! A home screen that actually has the things I want on it? Being able to put things other than icons on it. Very nice.

Just give dune his old account back. Things will pick up.

Essruu swapped his personality for a bizarre, but nonetheless quite common obsession with a fruit-monikered tech company recently. Lots of clever dicks on here said he'd regret it and look like an archetypal Macsturbator. Well let me tell you this: they were right; he needs an iTug.

Went into town to sort out three phone upgrades. I've been rocking with my iPhone4 for two years; did not get another Apple phone - got the S3 instead. Don't get me wrong, Apple does make some very nice stuff and I got a new SIM for the iPhone4. Car stereo is too integrated with the iPhone for me to entirely lose it, so I'll be keeping that going. I've been really put off Droid in the past. The missus had a crap time with her HTC Desire ( although tbf, think it was more the handset than the phone ) and I've got a mate who bores the sh!t out of me with his anti-Apple pro-Droid rhetoric. In fact, one of the things that made it so hard to come to a decision was finding any sort of balanced opinion on the subject. It seems the Internet is awash with people who'll mindlessly parrot a company's corporate line (along with their own rantings) for free. I wonder if any of them knew that's how they'd end up as adults. Anyways, it occurred to me that since getting my iPad, the iPhone's use is confined to making phone calls, sending messages and in-car entertainment system. I've got the original iPhone4, so it wasn't very good at making calls Paying a load of cash for something that is better than my current phone, but is a poor relation to my best iOS device and arguably not as good as the S3 seems a bit mental, especially with Chrimbo coming up. Going to have a proper play and report back.

You are of course, quite correct to pull me up on the Kirkland/Kirkman debacle. Watched this week's episode with my eldest daughter. Good episode, with a small swing back toward the drama and tension. There is a bit in the hospital where a potential zombie ( bitten, but limb amputated immediately ) is being watched over by loved ones. It's touch and go in places, and at one point, quite a vulnerable character performs CPR. Fecking bricking it. More about the genuine peril to the characters, than anything else. No-one is safe. But yep; corner turned for the group I think, especially Rick. Judging on this week's badassery, the man has his priorities set in stone.

As divided as people often like to make this little jumble of nations out to be, the US is on another level. Some of the people I work with are literally foaming with right-wing sentiment, and it's all the usual regurgitated guff from pretend news channels like Fox. Someone on another thread somewhere made a very good point about the relative detachment that many US citizens have from one another. Live in suburbs and live and work with those of similar mindsets - perhaps don't meet many people who challenge their views, by design in many cases. Then you've got the issue of race and national identity. Most Americans will self-identify as something-American. Dunno whether that's just a thing they do with foreigners; to me that suggests a lack of national identity that is underpinned by the division I've seen there. May be a horribly left-wing thing to suggest, but their lack of a safety net has some real nasty social consequences. Tons of Americans rely on their employers' health plan for the well-being of themselves and their families. Many move around a lot too, depriving them of the roots they might otherwise find strength in. The result is a country that, for all its optimism, is deeply insecure and adversarial. Their politics tends to reflect that. I'll leave you with one of my favourite quotes about US Politics:-

I'm not really that surprised. It's not like it isn't relevant to us. What would the world look like now if Al Gore had been elected in 2000?

It's that time again. By the end of November, our cousins over the pond will have selected their Executive Branch for the next four years. It seems like it has been going on forever; not only have we had news of the respective Republican primaries in the past, but recently, the live TV debates have been happening. I also have a few Americans on my Facebook feed who have updated about little else. Think it's fair to say that Obama has been underwhelming, and I wouldn't even say its his fault. So much symbolism was attached to his election that the day-to-day grind of the actual Presidency was never going to live up to that potential promise. Although a President's powers are far-reaching for crises, the US system of checks and balances can severely curtail a President's power to bring about lasting change. Romney seems to be doing the usual trick of divide and rule with his talk of the 47% of the population that supposedly doesn't pay income tax. Even so, it seems like a close race. What are your impressions of the candidates so far? Who do you want to win, and who do you think will win? With all the special interest lobbying and adversarial filibustering in the House and Senate, how relevant is the position of the Presidency?

I think it is now the longest war in US history.

I used to think this until I got one. First and foremost, it's an extra screen. That works on a number of levels, family have access to their own kit, don't have to bugger about unhooking wires, etc. I've just sussed out how to move files into apps on my iPad, and have thrown a load of electronic versions of my major reference materials onto it in PDF format. I stand the thing up next to my main coding monitor; it's a better way of working than any I've used before. Better than my Kindle, better than the original printed book. It's a HD video camera too. Video is something I'm not really up on, so a device that provides a nice abstraction over something like that for a relative thicky like me is immense, especially when you consider the portability factor. Most people want very little out of computing; a tablet addresses the majority of needs for those people, if not all. Tablet sales are already eating into laptop and desktop sales. I reckon the only people who'll have PCs of any kind in five years will be gamers and professionals. Tablets will cannibalise the casual consumer market in the same way that decent games consoles put paid to the bespoke and incompatible home computer brands of the past. There's a lot of evidence to suggest they are hurting dedicated handhelds like the 3DS and Vita. A tablet won't completely fulfil my needs, By way of illustration this entire last paragraph was dictated using the inbuilt microphone of the tablet. It is the sort of thing that you really have to try before you really get. I was a sceptic too.