Tom Lennon • Freelance Writer: comedy and pop culture

Freelance writer specializing in comedy and the geekier end of the pop culture spectrum.

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Paul Newman, 1925-2008

Sad news in the papers this morning. Paul Newman was that rare combination - a monumental movie icon, a brilliant character actor and - to the best of my knowledge - a thoroughly decent human being. This was, after all, a Hollywood A-Lister who remained happily married to the same woman for over 50 years. I always loved that line he used when a Playboy reporter asked him if he'd ever been tempted to stray. "Why go out for hamburger," said Newman, "when you can have steak at home?"Many of his films have become cinematic classics and many of his [...]

Moby Dickheads

From Variety: Universal Pictures has made a splashy preemptive buy of "Moby Dick", a reimagining of the Herman Mellville whale tale that Timur Bekmambetov ("Wanted") will direct. Studio paid high six figures to Adam Cooper and Bill Collage to pen the screenplay. The writers revere Melville’s original text, but their graphic novel-style version will change the structure. Gone is the first-person narration by the young seaman Ishmael, who observes how Ahab’s obsession with killing the great white whale overwhelms his good judgment as captain. This change will allow them to depict the whale’s decimation of other ships prior to its [...]

Roadkill

I was sitting at my desk today, doing some work and trying to mind my own business. Some colleagues sitting across from me were talking about Roman roads. I don't know why, they just were. Against my better judgement, I decided to elbow my way into their conversation: "Is that Roman roads you're talking about?" I asked, rhetorically. "Do you know that substantial parts of one of Birmingham's major 'A' roads - the A38 - follow the course of a famous Roman road? Between Worcester and Birmingham - and again between Lichfield and Derby - the A38 follows a route [...]

You have been watching

Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon is regarded by many as one of the greatest rock albums ever. I'm not here to defend, deny or debunk its status. I'm very fond of it, many people I know are very fond of it, but there's one thing about it that has always niggled me ever so slightly:Is it just me, or do other people find that the first few seconds of the classic intro to B-side opener 'Money' bears a remarkable similarity to the first few seconds of the classic theme to saucy 70s sitcom 'Are You Being Served'?Oh, it [...]

Danse Macabre

"Sometime in mid-July 1518, in the city of Strasbourg, a woman stepped into the street and started to dance." There was a fascinating piece on this morning's Today Programme about a historical curiosity I'd never heard of before. This dancing woman was soon joined by others - men, women and children - and by the end of August 1518 there was more than four hundred of them. This was no lavish, Busby Berkeley production number, however: these people were in the grip of some mad, uncontrollable compulsion. They danced all day and all night and they danced against their will. [...]

When life turns into a Robert Anton Wilson novel

It was 8am and I was driving to work, listening to Radio 4's Today Programme as John Humpreys served me a hearty breakfast of headlines. He told me that Republican Presidential candidate John McCain had promised to transform Washington and win back public trust. He said something about research indicating that some food prices had risen by as much as 40% this year. Finally, he reassured me that scientists working on CERN's Large Hadron Collider had insisted that their research into the start of the universe will not create a black hole that will swallow the planet next Wednesday.Thanks for [...]

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