The genius that came up with biofuels must be patting himself on the back now... as the USA grudgingly starts dragging itself toward lowering carbon emissions - except Al Gore, he's just renewed his hypocrite license with his astronomical number of air miles and hilariously high electricity bill - the demand for biodiesel and similar increases.

What people only just seem to be working out is that... biodiesel is made from stuff that is edible. So, in other words - we're trading a significant percentage of arable crops to make a fuel which is of questionable benefit in the "fight" against carbon emissions. I suppose no one remembers the basic economics of supply and demand... increase the demand for wheat, the price goes up.

On the bright side - that's a double whammy for CO2 emissions. Lower the output of the developed world with biofuels and starve people in the less developed world because dead people don't need electricity... Let's just hope they don't burn the bodies, eh? Still, this could be an example of joined up thinking.

Thanks climate changeologists - for saving the planet and killing the poor. Ace.

300 seems to have been described by many as nigh pornographic.

Why? Because it's just money shot after money shot. There is scant plot - but then, there doesn't need to be. 300 Spartan warriors fending a mountain pass against an army of hundreds of thousands of Persians - in what is possibly the best known last stand of history - doesn't exactly need a great deal of plot or characterisation for that matter.

Few films - and one gets the impression that this is probably the level of visual impact that Quentin Tarantino will strive for his entire life and never get within a mile of - can claim to so regularly deliver such a punch. Not just with the battle but in most aspects of the film. Clearly, Frank Millar's influence here was by no means titular and given the propensity of Hollywood to screw over writers - in the sense of either doing a horrible job of adapting their work or actually weasling their way out of handing over money - who have their worked adapted for the silver screen, you can't blame the man for making sure he didn't get shafted.

And - aside from getting some Iranians to whinge about how Frank Miller was making a propaganda piece - it seems that the proles are happy... and rightly so, there is wrong with this film. It does not pretend to be anything more than it is - a rollicking action film that hits the ground running and doesn't stop until the end credits roll. Naturally, some will criticise the historical accuracy or try and attribute some kind of messages about freedom and the fighting of tyranny etc. but the film doesn't really attempt to elaborate on any of these... it's just some Greeks (with Scottish accents) slaughtering Xerxes' hordes in an apologetically bloody, stylish and awesome way... if only more films could be like this.

Isn't it jolly nice to have non-ebrities and politicians - who most likely would struggle to scrape together enough credits for a weeks worth of a BSc - telling us how CLIMATE CHANGE IS THE GREATEST THREAT WE HAVE EVER FACED. That's nice of them. Also interesting, in January 2005 5% of people in the UK thought that the environment was a priority... by the same time in 2007 this had jumped to 20%...

Proles, pseudo-intellectuals and the more discerning of you should all realise that there is one REAL reason that politicians are so keen to talk about climate change - various unqualified non-ebrities are doing it because they're publicity hungry self-serving hypocrites - and it is this. It allows politicians to spout endlessly about something that is unlikely to happen any time soon.

Britain is apparently "foremost" in the fight against climate change... yeah. The real reason for this is the following - Gordon Brown and David Cameron know it's easy political brownie points. Something happening in a decade or two is a million miles away. A grand diversionary tactic with little substance or sincerity. After all, it's a lot easier to talk rubbish about the inevitable devastation than it is to tackle the very real, very pressing problems of crime, poverty, social inequality and so on.

So, 40 or more days until Heroes allows us to bask once more in its radiance - time to look back on eighteen episodes of excellence.

It's often been said that it takes a while to start a show. To establish characters, plots and so on... in fact, Star Trek fans are used to giving a show three seasons to approach being good... a rule TNG/DS9/VOY/ENT ALL seem to adhere to and it's really not that uncommon for a show some time to hit its pace... naturally, there are exceptions. 24 - perhaps by its nature - had to hit the ground running... Lost, lost the plot before the end of the first season but still had a strong start and so on... but I don't think I've seen anything since Oz, that manage to so effectively propel itself.

It hit the ground at super speed... and it has yet to stop. With many shows, you can expect some lapses... Even 24 tends to have some more problematic episodes. Heroes hasn't had any "flat" episodes... there have been ones where we've had less action but they more than compensated with more revelations and the show so often delivers a gratifying cliffhanger... Something that has probably been absent from the screen since the hey day of Dr. Who.

Not only that but for a show which has so much in common with comic book superheroes, it has managed to - almost studiously avoid the generic cliches... Though, admittedly it's early days. For all we know, people could be donning spandex, going to alternate universes and people repeatedly being killed and coming back to life... just because they're too popular to die. The real risk though, is that Heroes has set the bar too high. That once the first storyline is wrapped up, that it will struggle to meet the high standards it set itself. This is, of course, a danger for any show of quality. That it will struggle to remain good. Let's just hope Heroes can continue to be one of the best shows - if not the best - on TV.

One has to wonder why Star Trek enjoys such a substantial and loyal fan base. Naturally, when originally conceived it was rather radical. The idea of a ship where people of all colours, creeds and nations worked together represented something totally inconceivable at a point in time when equality was still a long way off and the Cold War was decades.

Not only that but - and it's hard to believe these days - but the effects were something akin to cutting edge at the time. Understandably, this and the raunchy antics of Kirk made it popular. Then of course it got cancelled and wouldn't grace the small screen again until Patrick Stewart et al donned their pyjamas in The Next Generation.

Inherently, these spin-offs tended toward the original format of the original series - with the exception of DS9 and even it followed many of the conventions. There wasn't anything particularly earth shattering about any of the new shows... the effects were no longer cutting edge, the stories may have been at times interesting but they were seldom controversial or original. In fact, it would be fair to say that as time progressed, the show became even more standardised under the auspices of Berman.

Ignoring DS9 - which didn't come under Berman's control - one can see the Star Trek "product" become more and more refined. While one could lay many criticisms at the door of Enterprise and Voyager, their episodes were all incredibly polished and refined... to the level of almost mathematical precision. Of course, that tended to trap the shows in their own rut... where they just churned out episodes with no soul, just 40 minutes of life filler.

Enterprise finally managed to change with its third season and the Xindi war but - as with DS9 - there were regular breaks from the story arc for relatively unrelated stories and it had a somewhat improbable ending. At least it actually had an ending though, in stark contrast to the ill-fated Temporal Cold War which didn't really end, so much as just stop - making as little sense as it ever did.

As to DS9... well, it was the first attempt by Star Trek at long term story arcs - The Emissary one and the Dominion War - but really, the Emissary element was far more understated and the Domion War didn't really even get under way until the end of the season 2 and really, it was only season 7 that had consistent arcs... and they only bookended the season. We had a pretty grim and gritty start, followed by some of the most insipid episodes - Take Me To The Holodeck is an abomination - and then the closing arc... which managed to end with something akin to a clip show (with Terry Farrel notable by her absence).

Even if the quality of DS9 was on the wane after season 5, at least it could occasionally throw off the feeling that each episode could happen independent of the other. Voyager regularly threw its characters episodes which would probably scar most people but consistently hit the reset button to make sure they never remembered... shame they didn't use it on the Borg kids or Naomi Wildman. The problem being that you never really got a feeling that the characters were progressing.

Obviously, Data and The Doctor both undergo a degree of humanisation but fundamentally they're still the same people seven years on, somewhat less irritating to their crew mates but not really much else. Tom Paris is a cock any season you view. Sisko might shave off his hair, grow a goatee, get a promotion and change uniform but he's still prone to shouting. The format just didn't encourage writers to do anything permanent to characters... hell, it actively DISCOURAGED any change to the status quo... it was almost like the perma-stasis of a sitcom, everyone frozen in a moment in time for years on end.

Not only were the characters unchanging... but so were the episodes. Aliens of the week, random energy anomaly, ship malfunction (including everyone's favourite - the holodeck!) or "personal" episode - the ones where people undergo a life changing event... and then promptly forget pretty much sum up the staple of episodes. Naturally, with some time travel or season finales thrown in for good measure. Things were getting pretty repetitive by the time we got to the Xindi war... which offered only some relief.

When you think about it, Star Trek really hasn't done anything for its fans. Even the Xindi war was a kick in the teeth to fans - as if the whole Enterprise/prequel idea wasn't bad enough - as it meant the Earth/Romulan war (well known to many fans) was eschewed for something totally different that put in an entirely new race that - much like the Denobulans - were never seen or heard of in subsequent (chronological) shows... that and the Temporal Cold War was introduced

Of course, Voyager personified the problems with Star Trek - although, on the plus side... it so disgusted Ronald D. Moore that he went off and made BSG - unlike Enterprise, it never underwent a change of management... it might have been cancelled if not for the introduction of 7 of 9 and her slutty catsuits. Just as well fanboys saved the day, eh? Not really... Voyager just provided more of the Berman brand homogeneous product. If you want to waste 40 minutes (60 with ads) why bother with Star Trek... you could do it with anything and quite possibly better.

If anything, Star Trek actively kicked its fans in the nuts... Voyager, Enterprise, Star Trek: Insurrection, Star Trek: Nemesis... hardly delivering fans love. Berman and Braga made a good job of making substandard episodes. Generic and soul sucking. You'd go to anything for a franchise that fucked you over repeatedly? If you love it... it hates you.

As if it was needed there is confirmation that the next Star Trek film is to be a great step backward. Perhaps this isn't as dire as the original concept for Star Trek XI, which was to be - apparently - set in the very near future and to not really be about space but nuclear war... or something similarly half-baked.

Of course, this was to be expected. When a director/producer is given what is generally considered to be a beloved franchise, the last thing you ever want to hear out of their mouth is the confession that they're a "big fan" or "have a lot of respect for the films". This is code for either "never seen it" or "don't care", or most likely something that amounts to the fact that their vision must be paramount above all other considerations. Continuity, fans and logic are not considerations when it comes to this vision.

While it's easy to see why Abrahms wants to go back to Kirk et al - he's got no idea what to do, they're still probably the best known Trek characters, it lets him put in younger, edgier actors like MATT DAMON - it seems to be ill conceived. If a prequel didn't work before, it seems naive to think a prequel/remake combined is going to fair any better. Not just that but you're messing around with characters that are very much identified with specific actors. Shatner's OTT hamming up, Nimoy's indifference, DeForrest Kelly the drunk... Scotty the fat bastard - these are all images that are well engrained upon the collective consciousness of Western society.

So, really there are two options available. Either try and redo it, being as true to the original as possible... which is going to be - at best, hard - or just strike out in a new direction and thus, more or less invalidate the reason for using the characters again... except if you say "this will have Kirk in it!" you can guarantee that slavering fanboys will turn out just to see that - even if they have gone "BUT IT'S NOT SHATNER" for eighteen months solid.

Not to mention the issue of the set... will things be recreated verbatim from the 1960s show? Or will we have that perverse situation of things looking more hi-tech, despite it being set before the first show of the TV series? Enterprise still looked helluva better than TOS ever did... and there's also the most pertinent question for Trek fans...

Where will this put any potential TV show? Presumably, if the film is a success - and it could go either way - it will be an incentive for either further films or continuation of the television franchise... Given the likelihood that the film will have big name actors - its seems hard to imagine a TV show containing the same cast...

All in all, this selection of premise is poor - not as bad as the uber prequel idea - and if it's thrusting big name actors into the well established roles, it's going to take a feat of supremely good writing, acting and directing to make this film come close to being a fan pleaser. Of course, the proles are who will doubtless be targeted for the commercial success of the film because, even if there is a loyal Trek following, willing to see the film several times to make it "succeed" they pale to the demographics of the many. So, don't be too surprised if you get Matt Damon or similar hamming it up in a summer popcorn movie because this could be another great step back for Star Trek... and of course, if the film doesn't break even or just scrapes it - Star Trek might well not get parole from purgatory.