I've been thinking a lot over the past few months about this column, and how the hits to it have diminished dramatically since the days of X Factor 2007, and I realise it's because it completely lacks direction. It's just an unmitigated bunch of drivel from my mind.

So I'm going to regroup. I'm going to leave this column entirely devoted to writing, to give people an insight into my thought processes and where I am with things, and I'm going to start a new column dedicated to all things that I love, like movies, games, and reviews (I miss the reviews).

So, I'll be back soon with a new style column here. I might even use a completely new blogging program. I have a great name for my new column, so I'll announce it soon.

But I really DO need to focus, and the vast array of unconnected posts here just isn't appealing to anyone.

How naughty - and yet so amusing...

Look ma, cute bunnies!!!

It's impossible not to talk about the inauguration of Barack Obama, the 44th President of the United States.

The African American has an awful lot of work ahead of him. With expectations so high for this new world of promised change, I wonder how he can possibly live up to expectations.

In his inauguration speech he said a lot of things about changing the world, about denying terrorism, and I hope he makes some great changes to the most powerful nation in the world.

Mind you, whatever he does, even if he sits on his ass and does absolutely bugger all for his tenure, he can't possibly be a worse President than George W Bush.

The world needed a new, fresh President and we have that.

Obama offered hope and sacrifice in his first speech; we can only see what he will do next. I've never seen anything that has polarised the world quite as much as this election has, and with a global recession and so many problems, can the new President ever meet the challenges ahead of him? With the Bush tenure behind us, the next few months are going to be exceptionally interesting indeed.

I wish the new President all the best in this most difficult of times.

I'm hard at work finishing Diary of a Murderer, although I'm considering changing the book's title to Memoirs of a Murderer (as Diary sounds like something from Sue Townsend's Adrian Mole). I originally wanted to write the book as a series of diary pages, but a retrospective on the life of the main character is flowing much more nicely (nicelier?).

So, Memoirs it is, and aside from putting myself off food with some truly grotesque parts (even in the early chapters), things are going quite smoothly.

I've also discovered that my spelling while writing is appalling; I make no attempt to get it right the first time - I just want to get it all down on paper. That might not be of interest to anyone, but I thought I'd mention it as a part of my own creative process. I need to go back and spell check every page before I even start the editing process. Again, with this novel, I'm going to get it all written first before I go back and edit it all. I usually leave it to stand for a month or two after the first pass, and I end up writing whole sections again anyway (apparently that's very common for writers).

Anyway, there you go. I'll come back in a day or two and update you again. But what do you think, Diary or Memoirs?

Which has the better ring to it?

I vaguely remember when this column was about my writing (remember that? Yeah, me neither).

Well, now 2008 (AKA the Year of Hell) is over, I can concentrate on new (and some old) stuff.

I am now hard at work finishing Diary of a Murderer - which I want to complete as quickly as possible as it's giving me nightmares (no, really). It's a grisly piece of fiction which I'm sure will push all kinds of buttons in the more reprehensible of my readers.

I've also been back to revisit Summoner Chronicles. I've been holding off doing anything with it because I felt something was missing. It wasn't quite right. It didn't read right or flow properly. So, after the nightmare realisation that the opening page was utter <censored> I'm going to go back and rewrite some of the key scenes to give it better pacing and to make it the creepy kids' story it was supposed to be.

Once I've done that I'm going to finally complete The Great War. I've now written both the opening and closing chapters, so there's only another 48 to go! Hey, that's one chapter per year! Result! I'm struggling with it, mainly because I know once it's over that's it. But it'll be done this year - unless something major happens which requires my attention elsewhere.

I also found two boxes of books that mysteriously appeared out of nowhere, so I'm going to sell a few of them online (look for link here soon) - making it easier for people to get hold of them in those hard to reach places (like Europe and America).

I was watching the news today, and the media loves to manipulate us. It's worse than it's bigoted and has its priorities all wrong! Example: the story of the murdered son of a postmaster, Craig Hodson-Walker, is terrible, and while our hearts go out to the victims of this ridiculous and pointless crime, the amount of emphasis placed on this story was remarkable, especially when you conside that at least 777 Palestinians have been killed in the Israeli / Gaza war - currently ongoing in a place far far away (that, apparently, no one cares about). Anyway, that story might be top billing but it's way down in the importance of things compared to one sensense killing in the UK.

Also taking top billing in the insane news headline: young Tory campaigner Matthew Lewis, has been kicked out of the Conservative Party for dressing up as Madeleine McCann at the new year's eve party. While incredibly foolish, this is not newsworthy. It's just another target for the already hysterical media which seems willing to pounce on any story that could even remotely incense the public.

To summarise: this was a poorly thought out attempt at humour by a brainless idiot - and that's all it was. If we continue to get outraged by stupid people, we're just victims of the media who continue to manipulate us on a weekly basis with their stories of mindless idiots doing even more mindless things.

We were offended by the brainless Jade Goody; we were outraged by Jonathan Ross; and now we're insulted by hapless Matthew who dressed in pink pyjamas, blonde wig and carried a teddy bear to a party. It's NOT newsworthy; there's a war in Israel. That's news!

This is just a dumbass kid who needs to vanish from the face off the earth and never be seen again.

It's not exactly high brow TV, but Knight Rider 2008 really has sunk to an all time low. Back for the last few episodes of season 1, the show (cut down to just 17 episodes) has stumbled from bad to worse.

The latest episode, Don't Stop the Knight, is the latest in a long string of pointless and
extremely dull storylines, devoid of style, character or excitement.

I hate the fact that every episode has Knight in the title; I hate the superfluous characters with their cutesy storylines; I loathe the one-story-only script that has permeated every episode. The show is just so formulaic: Michael has to stop a terrorist / group of rebels / someone with a large explosive / hi-tech device - and that's about it. There's really not a lot more going on here.

Is there hope on the horizon? Well, maybe... The producers have promised a reboot (yes kids, another) for the last few episodes, but the fact remains that, like the ailing Heroes, not a lot can stop this show from falling into oblivion. It's a shining example of the lack of vision and writing talent employed on many American shows.

Just how hard would it be to get Knight Rider right? You follow the basic formula of the '80's show and you can't go far wrong, right?

That's clearly not the case, as the new show has all the style, wit and excitement of Sinclair C5 racing. 

Now, there's a show we'd ALL pay to see: C5 Rider! With a top speed of 15 miles per hour, it'd be high-octane thrills the whole 45 minutes.

I'm incensed beyond reason today, as abusive dog owner, Joy Batison of Northampton, was sentenced yesterday in Northampton County Court for the gross neglect of her dog, Hobo.

You can see pictures and the full story by clicking here, but be warned, the pictures are horribly disturbing.

Hobo suffered months of abuse, and thankfully, the RSPCA was finally called. They were going to put Hobo to sleep, but he amazingly made a full recovery...

This disgusting woman showed little remorse for her crime received a ban from owning pets for 25 years and ordered to pay just two hundred and fifty pounds in Court costs.

I find that a shameful and unacceptable sentence that in no way reflects the cruelty, abuse and neglect this poor defenseless pooch suffered at the hands of this wicked woman. I wonder if the results had been different, had Hobo been a child, but the thinking seems very different for animals.

Well, the bitch got away with it, and this sentence did nothing to deter others. A pitiful fine basically says: do as you will to animals, all you'll get is a crappy slap on the wrist.

Until the system is changed, animals will continue to be farmed and abused. This case could have been a major precedent and awakening in animal cruelty; instead it's been brushed under the carpet.

Well, Joy, I sincerely hope you get what you deserve, as if the justice system can't deliver (and we know only too well that it can't), then I truly hope karma can.

Imagine you're a member of the commissioning board at ITV. You're trying to compete with top BBC shows like Sarah Jane Adventures, Merlin, and Doctor Who. So, what do you do? Do you gather together the best, brightest and freshest talent from the UK and brew up something wonderful, exciting and new?

Nope, you rehash the worst bits of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Sky 1 crapathon Hex to make Demons, the new six part Saturday night fantasy series that's set to compete with the likes of prime time shows on the other channels.

Although, someone needs to look up the the word 'compete', as Demons is the most badly written, paced, and acted piece of nonsense to hit our TV screens in quite some time.

If you were fortunate enough to miss it, the premise of Demons is pretty weak. Luke, an average kid (who spends the first half of his episode shirtless - thus ITV shallowly try to tick the teen girl / gay boxes) finds out from his mysterious mentor Rupert Giles - I mean Galvin (Philip (Life on Mars) Glenister) that he is the son of legendary vampire hunter Van Helsing. Yawn.

What's My Line? It should be pointed out that Glenister's hokey American accent is so bad it literally deserves its own paragraph. So dire and unconvincing is this accent that it tears apart any semblance of credibility the show has every time he opens his mouth. Quite why the producers didn't shift him back to his normal gravelly tones after the first day of shooting is incredulous.

The story revolves around Luke discovering he has powers (heightened reflexes and strength) *cough Buffy*, and meeting some of most poorly acted vampire monsters that clearly came from Big Bads R Us. If the main characters weren't bad enough the secondary ones are truly terrible, with Luke's maybe girlfriend, Ruby, particularly grating on the nerves.

Overall, an abysmal start to a series that should never have been commissioned - at least not like this. Right now there are no redeeming features to this series. Richard (Gaius) Wilson from Merlin is in next week's episode, but I doubt even he will be able to brew a poultice strong enough to sweeten this show's pot.

The greatest battle this pile of fetid demon poop will have to face is abysmal ratings. In the same quarter as you have spellbinding TV like Dead Set, you've got the abysmal trying-to-appeal-to-every-audience mishmash of utter drivel as Demons.

Overall: 2/10. Avoid.

Here is my top movies / games / TV of 2008, but as it was really a poor year, there's not much to write about.

For me, the pickings were slim. In fact, I've barely got anything to write about. I've barely seen any movies (I've not even seen that vampire travesty Twilight yet).

It was a year of remakes, with everything imaginable being remade in an industry devoid of ideas, and a year of books being made into movies. Clearly, the American Writers's salaries are inversely proportional to their creativity.

Anyway, here's my top things of 2008.

TELEVISION

• Dead Set (zombies on the lot of Big Brother)
• Merlin (wasn't as bad as anyone made out, but the scripts are still a bit lackluster)
• Doctor Who (but only for Catherine Tate - who was fantastic as Donna)

MOVIES

• The Incredible Hulk (way more exciting than Iron Man)
• Mama Mia (feel good movie of the year) 
• Wall-E (wonderful cartoon adventures with the super cute robot).

GAMES

• Super Space Invaders on the DS
• Dead Space on the XBOX 360
• Little Big Planet on the PS3
• Spore on the PC
• God of War on the PSP

FAILURES

• Heroes - it tried so very hard, but it's gone off my radar for being so - well - so very dreary.
• Disaster Movie - the first movie I've ever given a 1 to. These movies are generally so very bad (Epic Movie, Date Movie), but this one has NO redeeming qualities. It's just THAT awful. Don't even watch expecting to be vaguely entertained. Because you just won't be.
• Cloverfield - sorry but it was VASTLY overhyped nonsense. The handheld cam was dire, the story was dreary and the characters - well - who cared whether they lived or died? I have no expectations for Star Trek. I'm so tired of remakes I can't muster any feelings for another.
• The Happening - another nail in the coffin for the one-hit-wonder (The Sixth Sense) M Knight Shyamalan.