Pop Culture Nerd – Page 30 – Pop Culture Nerd

And the 2012 Stalker Award Winners Are…

To help celebrate May being Mystery Month, I accepted nominations from crime fiction readers at large for authors and books they’re obsessed about. The nominees were announced at the end of May, and 960 people stopped by to vote for their favorites.

Congratulations to the following winners:

Novel You Shoved Most Often in People’s Faces

The End of Everything by Megan Abbott

Lead Character You Most Want As Your Friend

Charlie Hardie—Fun & Games by Duane Swierczynski

Most Scene-Stealing Supporting Character

Elvis Cole—The Sentry by Robert Crais

Most Throat-Grabbing Opening Sentence

“There are drunken assholes, and there are assholes who are drunks.”—Purgatory Chasm by Steve Ulfelder

Most Memorable Dialogue

Fun & Games by Duane Swierczynski

Catchiest Title (this won by one vote)

The Boy in the Suitcase by Lene Kaaberbol & Agnete Friis

Most Eye-Popping Cover

Getting Off by Lawrence Block

Favorite Author on Social Media

Meg Gardiner

Most Criminally Underrated Author

Eric Beetner

This was great fun for me, and I hope it was for you, too. Thank you to everyone who took time to submit nominations, spread the word, and vote. I hope you’re making notes as you read this year’s books, so you’ll be ready with your noms for next year’s Stalkers!

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Armchair BEA—Day 5: Blogging Tips

Design by Emily of Emily's Reading Room

Today we’re supposed to share advice on blogging if we’ve been doing it awhile, or ask for tips if we’re new. I’ve visited several other participants already, and there are lots of good suggestions out there, so I’ll just add a couple I haven’t seen.

Use yourself to judge your success. I see a lot of bloggers obsess over their stats—hits, number of followers, etc.—and why someone else is getting certain ARCs and they’re not. And then they beat themselves up, thinking they’re not good enough or doing something wrong.

It’s not a competition; there are no blogging Olympics or medals for bloggers with the most books. Set your own goals and try to achieve those. Is your writing at the level you want it to be? Do you feel your blog design represents who you are, and is aesthetically pleasing to you? Do you have interesting conversations with the nice people who regularly stop by and leave comments, even if there are only two of them? At the end of the day, if you’re meeting your goals, then I think you’re a success. In life, I don’t compare myself to others and feel bad if I don’t have as big a home, or as nice a car, so I don’t do it in blogging.

Make it easy for people to reach you/explore your site. I’m surprised by how many blogs don’t have the blogger’s contact info easily accessible. There should be a contact form or email address so people can reach you if they want to drop you a line or pitch you books. (I recommend a contact form so your email address isn’t out there for spamming robots to find.) Also, have a Home button. If someone found your blog via a permalink to a specific post and liked what they read, they might want to see what else you’ve written. Having a button that takes them back to your home page will be extremely helpful.

That’s all for now, because I’m still in my jammies and haven’t had coffee. It’s a good thing you can’t see what my hair looks like. Armchair BEA has been fun. Many thanks to regular and new visitors alike for stopping by, and as we say in our high school yearbooks, I hope we stay in touch.

What advice do you have for bloggers? Even if you don’t blog, you probably read blogs, so what do you like and not like?

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Armchair BEA, Day 4: Beyond the Blog

Design by Emily of Emily's Reading Room

You might have seen earlier this week that I’m participating in Armchair BEA, in conjunction with BookExpo America that’s going on in NYC right now. The event was created so bloggers who couldn’t make it there could still convene and network online.

The ABEA team has given us topics to write about, and today’s is how our blogs have led to professional opportunities, writing-related or otherwise. These are some of the gigs I’ve landed since I started blogging three and a half years ago.

Shelf Awareness for Readers. A little over a year ago, a blogger friend, Jen Forbus (whom I met because of this blog), told me that Shelf Awareness, the daily newsletter for book industry professionals, was hiring freelance reviewers for its new edition aimed at readers. I submitted three reviews from this blog, and was offered the job. If I hadn’t been blogging, I wouldn’t have had writing samples available online.

Criminal Element. When I saw last year that Macmillan was about to launch a website for crime fiction fans, I wrote to the community manager at the time, Clare Toohey, to say I was interested in contributing crime-related blog posts. I then asked Jen (she’s a very nice friend) to put in a good word for me because she’d been previously hired as a social media maven for the site. When Clare responded, she said she was already familiar with my blog and accepted my request to join the writing team. The blog scored again.

I got to see this man at AFI Fest (Getty Images)

American Film Institute Film Festival press passes. Two years ago, I pimped out a few blog posts to apply for a press pass for the annual film festival in November, during which many awards contenders make their world premieres. I submitted links to three of my movie-related articles and was thrilled to be approved as a press member, receiving an ID in a lanyard that got me into most of the screenings. Tickets are free, but they go fast every year. I didn’t have to try snagging some online (the site would always freeze due to traffic overload), or wait in long standby lines. I saw other lanyard-wearers from publications like Variety and the Los Angeles Times. And there was me—Pop Culture Nerd. Heh. My name also got put on press lists, and now I occasionally get offers of screeners and invitations to screenings of upcoming films.

Copyediting jobs. Because of the blog, I met two wonderful, talented writers, Brett Battles and Laura Benedict (among many other fantastic authors). We started out as Twitter pals, with them occasionally visiting my blog and leaving nice comments, but both relationships led to my being their copyeditor.

I finally met Brett in person two years ago, and mentioned I was an editor. I wasn’t pushing my services on him; he was traditionally published at the time. But last year, when he decided to dive into the self-publishing world, he contacted me about editing his book. I have since edited 7 novels, 1 novella, 3 short stories, 1 long blog post for him, and am currently working on his next novel, Pale Horse. I got to meet Laura last year at Bouchercon, the world mystery convention, and not long thereafter, she asked me to copyedit her novel Devil’s Oven, the inaugural title for Gallowstree Press, the new publishing press she started with her husband. Two years ago, I was only reading their books. Now I get to have input. All because of the blog.

Wow. When I started this post, I thought I’d make a short list and just say a few things. Seven hundred words later, I have before my eyes proof that this blog has been good to me. And I just started it as a creative outlet, with no clear goals. I didn’t really know what I was doing in the beginning, and couldn’t have imagined where it’s taken me so far. No doubt, it’s a lot of work, and you can see via the time stamps that many of my posts have been published at ridiculo’clock in the morning. But I do find it rewarding, and some days still feel like I’m winging it. Which keeps it fun, because I’m never quite sure what will happen next.

Where has your blog led you? If you’re a new blogger, where would you like to go with it?

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Movie Review: PROMETHEUS

It’s not such a big secret anymore, but during production, Ridley Scott and the creative team behind Prometheus (out Friday, June 8th) were very coy about whether or not this was an Alien prequel. Well, it takes place before the events in Scott’s 1979 classic, shares certain elements, and has a thread that leads to Alien. So, yes, I’d say it’s a prequel.

Marshall-Green, Rapace, Fassbender

Other than that, I’ll be vague about plot points so as not to spoil anything, because things do get pretty wild. In 2089, scientists Elizabeth Shaw (Noomi Rapace) and Charlie Holloway (Logan Marshall-Green) find evidence via cave drawings that extraterrestrials visited Earth a long time ago. They determine that these beings came from a planet in a far-away solar system, and manage to get wealthy Peter Weyland and his Weyland Industries to fund an expedition on a space ship called Prometheus to investigate the origins of man. The journey takes two years, during which the travelers are in hypersleep, and most of the movie’s action unfolds in 2093, upon their arrival on planet Zeta 2 Reticuli. Of course, the environment (impressively rendered in 3D) is not what they expected, and bad things start befalling them.

It’s exciting to see Rapace, the original Lisbeth Salander, in her first lead Hollywood role, though for the first half of the movie, she doesn’t get to really bust out and show her acting or action chops. And then she gets this one scene that’s so horrific and unconventionally badass that I thought, “OK, that’s probably one of the reasons Scott hired her.” She does something I’d never seen done on screen, and it requires someone who can convince us she’s tough enough to handle it. I’m still cringing just thinking about it.

Fassbender is the other highlight, playing the ship’s robot, David, with a mechanical smile and friendly demeanor that perhaps masks something darker underneath (though I don’t understand the motivation behind some of his actions since robots aren’t supposed to want things or think for themselves). The actor continues to impress, with his wide array of roles that are vastly different from each other. Charlize Theron, as the onboard Weyland rep, uses her icy blondness effectively. And British actor Idris Elba, as the ship’s genial captain, surprises by speaking in a Southern drawl.

The movie is melancholy in some parts, and while Elizabeth’s belief in creationism is emphasized in the beginning, the theory of how we came about gets a little murky once hell breaks loose. It’s as if screenwriters Damon Lindelof and John Spaihts wanted to ask deep, philosophical questions, but they also wanted to make us jump with scary monster stuff. In the end there are some questions left dangling, including whether what we see here is consistent with what we already know about the aliens, but since there are almost thirty years between the end of this and the beginning of Alien, it’s possible this won’t be the only prequel.

Nerd verdict: Familiar Alien territory

Photos: Kerry Brown/20th Century Fox

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Book Review: INTO THE DARKEST CORNER by Elizabeth Haynes

After I read this book, I wrote an email about it to my friend Lauren, who said I had to include what I wrote to her in my review. So let me start with that:

Stayed up ’til 5:30 to finish. [Mr. PCN] wasn’t feeling well and really needed sleep so I couldn’t read in bed with the lights on. Instead, I STOOD IN THE HALLWAY to read. Why didn’t I go to the living room? Because I thought I’d just read a little and then go to sleep. I didn’t even sit down or lean against the wall. I really wanted to be as uncomfortable as possible to tire myself out so I’d go to bed. But I kept reading, and reading, and next thing I knew, I’d been standing in the hallway for three hours.

That might sound insane, but I love it when a book makes me do that. This is the story of twentysomething Catherine Bailey, who meets super-hot guy Lee Brightman at a nightclub. There’s a spark of attraction, which quickly grows into a relationship, then devolves into a nightmarish, obsessive situation.

The novel begins with Brightman on trial in 2005 for an attack on Catherine, though he spins it as something else. Cut to 2007, and Catherine, now Cathy, has turned into a hermit living in a different city, with PTSD and an extreme case of OCD that makes her repeatedly check the locks on her doors and windows. It’s exhausting, but at least she’s a survivor rebuilding her life. And then she gets a phone call saying Lee is being released from prison.

Cathy is certain Lee will come for her, but has a hard time convincing others of that, including the kind upstairs neighbor who might be developing an interest in her. She starts feeling gaslighted, as little things in her apartment are moved around, something Lee used to do, but nothing she can call the cops about. Would she have to confront him herself, and would she survive this time?

Haynes cuts back and forth between 2003, when the two lovers first meet, and 2007, when Cathy is a shadow of her former self. Each time period plays with our emotions differently. It’s nice to see Catherine and Lee in happier times, when they were passionate and romantic. But as the story gets closer to the date of when The Terrible Thing happened, I was filled with dread, not wanting to witness it.

In 2007, Cathy’s OCD is sometimes painful to read about, but Haynes helps us understand the reasons behind her protag’s compulsions. And her growing friendship with Stuart, the nice neighbor, gives the story a sense of hope. Until Lee gets out of prison, and the terror starts all over again.

The novel has its frustrations, such as how Catherine couldn’t find one person, not even among close friends, who would believe her when things with Lee start taking a dark turn (everyone’s dazzled by his surface charm), or how she makes it astoundingly easy for him to find her in 2007 (let’s just say her contact info is the opposite of unlisted). But there was no stopping my obsession with knowing how it’d all end. After finishing the book, standing in the hallway at 5:30 a.m., I let out a sigh of relief that I could breathe—and sleep—again.

Nerd verdict: Head straight to the Corner

Buy it now from Amazon| Buy it from an indie bookstore

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Armchair BEA Intro: The Self-Interview

Design by Emily of Emily's Reading Room

As many of you know, today is the beginning of the annual BookExpo America (BEA) in New York City. I hope to attend one day, but since it wasn’t in the cards this year, I signed up for Armchair BEA, an online event that allows bloggers and book lovers to still enjoy some of the festivities via live streaming and Internetworking, among other things. The armchair is pretty much my favorite place in my home so this should be fun and comfy.

The first thing we have to do is introduce ourselves via a self-interview, choosing 5 questions from a predesignated list. Here are my answers.

Q: What is your favorite feature on your blog?

Pop Culture Nerd: This will sound super cheesy, but it’s the comments section. Yes, I enjoy reviewing books and movies, and interviewing authors, and sharing random stories, but I would just be a nerd silently doing a face plant in the forest if people didn’t take time to leave funny, insightful, encouraging comments. I love the conversations they engender.

Q: What literary location would you most like to visit? Why?

PCN: Hogwarts. I want to eat in the Great Hall, play quidditch (as a beater, of course), hang out in front of the fire in the Gryffindor common room, and just run around the grounds. Scratch that—I’d probably fly on my broomstick since I’m too lazy to run anywhere. I want the whole experience in getting there, too: running through the wall on Platform 9 3/4, the journey on the train, and the boat and carriage rides toward the castle. The closest I got to being teleported was a couple of years ago, when my friend Mari transformed her home into Hogwarts for Thanksgiving.

Q: Tell us one non-book-related thing that everyone reading your blog may not know about you.

PCN: Many know I’m a huge Star Wars nerd, but I don’t think they know I got to meet Princess Leia, Carrie Fisher. No, I didn’t jump on her. She surprised me by lifting me right off my feet.

Q: If you could eat dinner with any author or character, who would it be and why?

PCN: [Mr. PCN, skip to the next question] Elvis Cole from Robert Crais‘s novels. He’d have to cook, at his A-frame house, and we’d eat on his deck overlooking the canyons. Afterward…who knows?

Q: Which is your favorite post that you have written that you want everyone to read?

PCN: The response to my Memorial Day post from two years ago was overwhelmingly kind, so I’ll link to that. For something lighter, check out my fake FTC disclosure.

OK, those are my five. I don’t want this to be a one-way conversation, so I’d love for you to answer some of these Qs in the comments if you’re not a blogger who already did one of these interviews. Even if you’re a regular here, I’m sure there are loads of things I don’t know about you!

Many thanks to the tireless ABEA team—Emily, Amy, Danielle, Tif, Chris, Pam, Julie, Florinda, and Michelle—for organizing this event!

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First Impressions—Flashback Edition

I couldn’t find any exceptional openers among the ARCs I received this week, so I decided to go back and look at the opening passages from three of my favorite novels to see whether each was as good as the rest of the book. Let’s take a trip down memory lane.

The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafón, translated by Lucia Graves

I still remember the day my father took me to the Cemetery of Forgotten Books for the first time. It was the early summer of 1945, and we walked through the streets of a Barcelona trapped beneath ashen skies as dawn poured over Rambla de Santa Mónica in a wreath of liquid copper.

“Daniel, you mustn’t tell anyone what you’re about to see today,” my father warned. “Not even your friend Tomás. No one.”

I think this is a good indicator of what’s to come, though it’s only a tiny hint of the wondrous, mysterious world readers are about to enter. It had me at Cemetery of Forgotten Books. Is there really such a place? Why can’t Daniel tell anyone? Isn’t that how the books became forgotten in the first place, because people stopped talking about them? Regardless, I totally wanted in on the secret, and to go there and unforget all the books. Note: A sequel, The Prisoner of Heaven, comes out July 10!

Dark Places by Gillian Flynn

Libby Day

NOW

I have a meanness inside me, real as an organ. Slit me at my belly and it might slide out, meaty and dark, drop on the floor so you could stomp on it. It’s the Day blood. Something’s wrong with it. I was never a good little girl, and I got worse after the murders. Little Orphan Libby grew up sullen and boneless, shuffled around a group of lesser relatives—second cousins and great-aunts and friends of friends—stuck in a series of mobile homes or rotting ranch houses all across Kansas. Me going to school in my dead sisters’ hand-me-downs: shirts with mustardy armpits. Pants with baggy bottoms, comically loose, held on with a raggedy belt cinched to the farthest hole. In class photos my hair was always crooked—barrettes hanging loosely from strands, as if they were airborne objects caught in the tangles—and I always had bulging pockets under my eyes, drunk-landlady eyes. Maybe a grudging curve of the lips where a smile should be. Maybe.

There’s so much good stuff here, where do I start? A little girl with drunk-landlady eyes? A meanness inside her belly that’s meaty and dark and slithering? It’s so creepy but there was no way I could stop reading. Flynn writes nasty characters you can’t peel your eyes from, even if their vileness deserves to be stomped on. To read my full review of this, go here. You can also check out the opening of Flynn’s upcoming Gone Girl here.

The Time Traveler’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger

Prologue

CLARE: It’s hard being left behind. I wait for Henry, not knowing where he is, wondering if he’s okay. It’s hard to be the one who stays.

I keep myself busy. Time goes faster that way.

I go to sleep alone, and wake up alone. I take walks. I work until I’m tired. I watch the wind play with the trash that’s been under the snow all winter. Everything seems simple until you think about it. Why is love intensified by absence?

This may not be a throat-grabbing opener, but it evokes a sense of longing that drew me in. I too wondered where Henry is. Why did he leave Clare? Is he coming back? Is he okay? These questions—and the title—made me read on, a good thing since I ended up swooning over it, completely caught up in the heartbreaking, impossible relationship between the lovers.

Have you read any of these? Do these openers make you want to?

Happy Friday!

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Stalker Award Nominees 2012

Happy Tuesday after a long weekend! Hope you’re all well rested, sun-kissed, loaded up on burgers and potato salad, and caught up on your reading. Me, I’m still pasty, but I did manage to ingest a healthy amount of ice cream. In this heat, I consider it a survival technique.

I also snapped out of my sedentary stupor long enough to tally up the nominees for this year’s Stalker Awards, given to crime novels and authors readers are obsessed about. Nominations were submitted by genre lovers at large over the last two weeks.

The poll will be open for one week, so you can now vote for one winner in each category until June 5, midnight PST. I’ll reveal the results soon thereafter.

My profuse thanks to all who took time to submit nominations and/or spread the word. I hope you see some of your favorites on the ballot!

*Voting has ended. Winners will be revealed next week. Thanks for stopping by!*

[SURVEYS 2]

Nominated covers:

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First Impressions 5.25.12

I received nine books this week, and only two had interesting openers. The others began with descriptions of weather (blue sky, sunny day, rain, humidity), scenery (lake, houses), or people doing mundane things (walking, driving, eating). Some included two or all of these categories.

These were the two openers that wasted no time in getting my attention.

The Absent One by Jussi Adler-Olsen, Dutton, out August 21

PROLOGUE

Another shot echoed over the treetops.

The beaters’ calls had grown clearer. A throbbing pulse was thundering against my eardrums, the damp air forcing its way into my lungs so fast and hard that it hurt.

Run, run, don’t fall. I’ll never get up again if I do. Fuck, fuck. Why can’t I get my hands free? Oh, run, run…shhhh. Can’t let them hear me. Did they hear me? Is this it? Is this really how my life is going to end?

The Facility by Simon Lelic, Penguin, out August 28

Welcome. Come in, sit down. Would you like some coffee? Muffin? They’re yesterday’s but they’re fine. There’s blueberry and chocolate and a lemon one with some kind of seed. Sesame, he thinks but his friend cuts in. Poppy, the friend says. Lemon and poppyseed. His personal favourite. Low fat too, he adds and he winks. And Arthur is saying, no, no thank you, and for the second time since entering the room he says, who are you? What is this about? And that is when they ask. They give him coffee even though he said no and they say, so, Arthur: do you like cock?

Do these intrigue you? Wanna know more about what kind of interview Arthur is having?

Special thanks to my friend Lauren, who was so determined to see this post up today, she took dictation over the phone and typed this out for me because I’m still in traction.

Have a safe, wonderful holiday weekend!

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Satisfying REVENGE (SPOILERS)

*Don’t read any further if you haven’t seen the finale!*

I’m sitting here in a neck brace typing with only one hand because the other one arm isn’t working and the doctor says I really shouldn’t be on the computer. But the Revenge finale was quite good, after a few disappointing eps, so I wanted to tap out a few words about it.

Emily ninja’d White Hair with a giant ax! I don’t know why she threw it down after taking a few swings at him, and then got a good beating because of that, but her swinging that thing made her look formidable.

I like how simply Em and Daniel ended their relationship. He’s been slowly turning into a d-bag so I thought there’d be yelling or melodrama, but it was done quietly, and I believed Daniel might have even been hurt.

Loved Em’s response to Victoria when she came over to offer her “condolences” on their breakup: “I can feel your devastation.” And that engagement gift/empty box? Ice cold on V’s part.

Did anyone else think that kiss Conrad gave Lydia when he said goodbye was a total Godfather move? Could he be working with the mob?

I yelled, “Noooooo!” when Daniel and Ashley were making googly eyes at each other. She’s a backstabbing, manipulative little b. Then again, she might be perfect for him, where he’s headed.

Charlotte scrolled through a Rolodex to find the detective’s name? Was this 1996? I liked her OD at the end, though. That character has been so colossally annoying, I can only hope she doesn’t make it to next season, especially after that horrible, bullying stunt she pulled on Jaime.

Didn’t expect FauxAmanda to suddenly reappear—pregnant!—but am glad Em won’t be all happy with Jack. The show needs her to stay angry and “revenge-y,” as Nolan said. Also, I’ve never thought she had great chemistry with Jack, who’s a rather dull character. I resent him for not recognizing the real Amanda. If she’s his true love, he shouldn’t just buy a substitute so easily.

Speaking of FauxAmanda, where has she been all this time? No one bothers to ask her that? Just “Hey, I disappeared for months, but am now gonna have your baby, Jack”?

The twist about Em’s mom being alive was…interesting, though very Alias-y. Not just the previously-presumed-dead-mom-who’s-actually-alive plot line, but because Mom is apparently also a badass since White Hair said Em fights like her. Someone call Lena Olin’s agent to see what she’s doing this summer!

What did you think of the finale? Were you surprised by anything? Are you hooked for next season?

Photos: ABC/Eric McCandless

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Reaction to HOUSE Series Finale (SPOILERS)

Throughout most of the episode, I was reading a magazine, checking my Twitter account, and watching videos of my baby niece learning how to roll over because all the navel gazing happening on TV was sooo boring and making me twitchy. It was nice to see Kal Penn and Sela Ward and Jennifer Morrison return to the show as Kutner, Stacy, and Cameron, respectively, to talk to House as figments of his imagination while he considered killing himself, but even their appearances and a raging fire couldn’t add much dramatic tension to his internal conflict. It was about the same ol’ issues he’d been struggling with all along—Is life worth living? Will he ever be happy? Can he find true love? Blah, blah, blah. Twenty minutes in, I was shouting at the TV, “Do something!”

Finally, House did get up, but when the building collapsed and exploded, I didn’t feel anything. As Wilson said in his eulogy, it was a selfish death. House had more than enough time to save himself but waited until it was too late. Shrug. And I’m saying this as a former super fan of the show and current fan of Hugh Laurie’s.

So I thought, “That’s that. I didn’t expect a happy ending, anyway.” But when Foreman said the coroner confirmed the identity of the charred body in the building, I thought, “It’d be so easy for House to switch his records with his former patient’s.” Which is what happened, and House appeared quite alive on Wilson’s front stoop.

Finally, we got to see the two in leather and stubble, riding off into the sunset on badass motorcycles. (This was funny in its midlife-crisisness, but Wilson is at his endlife so he’s allowed.) At that moment, I suddenly realized I did care what happened to House, but more for Wilson’s sake, because I didn’t want him to end up being so angry and alone. It’s nice to know Wilson will have his best friend by his side in his last days, and perhaps House will learn to stand on his own after all when his crutch is gone.

What did you think? How did you want the series to end? Did you miss Cuddy?

Photo: Byron Cohen/FOX

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A Few Thoughts on SHERLOCK: “The Reichenbach Fall”

*SPOILERS*

Cumberbatch with Andrew Scott as Moriarty

OK, just finished watching the season 2 finale of BBC’s SHERLOCK, and spent some time with Mr. PCN trying to figure out how Sherlock survived that fall. We came up with a reasonable theory, I think.

Holmes tossed a body over the side of the building, probably one that Molly helped him procure from the lab at the hospital because we saw him pay her a visit. Holmes also had assistance from the Baker Street Irregulars (he mentioned a street network earlier in the episode), one of whom, on the bike, knocked Watson down as he ran to Holmes. This gained the other Irregulars time to swarm around the body, blocking it from public view and removing it, while Holmes ran down to the street and took its place, smearing himself with fake blood. And this is what Watson saw when he finally made his way over.

I think Moriarty also used some kind of prop gun and/or blanks and squibs for his “suicide,” because the Moriarty from the canon was definitely not suicidal.

What did you think? I read that filming for season three won’t start until next year so we won’t get definitive answers anytime soon. Arggghh!

Photo: Colin Hutton/BBC/Hartswood Films