"Working with a baby had its problems, but then I tried directing chickens..."

Their president is being booed off the streets of London, an effigy of the man is being torn down in a pastiche of what the Americans did to Saddam Hussein's statue, terrorists hold their own, far less peaceful protest, and what does CNN have as its top story? Michael Jackson being arrested on child molestation charges. Sheesh...

Watched Labyrinth today, for the first time in years. I'd forgotten how good a film it really is. David Bowie's performance as the Goblin King was a lot better, and nowhere near as camp and kitsch, as I'd been led to believe, and I wouldn't be surprised if Neil Gaiman got a lot of his Sandman character from Bowie. That would certainly be fittingly ironic considering that Gaiman wrote the upcoming "sequel".
There was a pretty good "making of" feature on the DVD, but it was from the year of the film's release. I would have liked to have seen a more recent feature on there too, perhaps spliced in with the older footage. Jennifer Connelly, for instance, was a pretty useless interviewee as she was just a kid back then and as such was annoyingly polite and restrained. I'd have liked to have seen her speak about what the film means to her now, and an interview with the Henson people on how Labyrinth affected cinema, and so on. As I was watching the behind the scenes stuff, I spotted someone who looked just like Beverley Crusher. A quick check on the IMDB showed that before she flew to fame on the Enterprise, Gates McFadden was a choreographer for Jim Henson's production company. It's just a little strange to see her before she was famous, but still very active in the public eye.

My memories of the other non-Muppet Henson extravaganza, The Dark Crystal, are more favourable than my memories of Labyrinth were, so I shall pick that one up next, I think.

And finally:

Discworld: Which Ankh-Morpork City Watch Character are YOU?
brought to you by Quizilla

Which is handy, as I hadn't heard of 70% of the alternatives. Last Pratchett book I read was probably Soul Music. Actually, a quick check reveals that it was in fact Interesting Times I read most recently, if you discount The Last Hero. Anyway, I don't recognise most of these characters. So there.
Incidentally, I spotted this test on a blog I read regularly, but a quick search for that blog turned up nothing, so I Googled the test. I'd love to give you credit, whoever you are, for pointing me towards this, but I can't, sorry.