I’ll be honest, I may have cried a little manly happy tear. The return of “Big Green”, or Master Chief Petty Officer Spartan John-117 to give him his Sunday name, is a most welcome one for fans of the Halo franchise worldwide. The previous two instalments (the God awful real-time strategy, Halo Wars, and the rather excellent Halo: Reach) were prequels and so the Chief didn’t make an appearance, and the one before that was based on a different character during the time of Halo 3.

We last saw him at the end of Halo 3 entering a stasis pod on the derelict hulk of the ship that he, the Arbiter of the Covenant, and his companion Cortana used to escape the ring-world.

I’m trying not to get too excited, because there’s a catch. The new games are not being developed by the franchise’s previous gatekeepers, Bungie. Instead the torch has passed to 343 Industries, a subsidiary of Microsoft Game Studios created specifically to oversee the development of Halo; they even take their name from an in-game character, 343 Guilty Spark.

Already 343 have taken a minor liberty with the story – just a minor one – in that when the Chief bursts out of his stasis pod in the teaser trailer his armour seems to be equipped with some kind of rocket pack that he didn’t have going in.

On the plus side, the big shiny planet thing at the end of clip looks awfully like the description of Shield-World Onyx where, according to the supporting novels, the last surviving Spartans and their creator, Dr Halsey are holed up.

The new game will be the first in a new trilogy and, although it’s officially called Halo 4, it will actually be the seventh title to take place in the Halo universe, meaning the closing chapter of the new trilogy (presumably Halo 6) will be the ninth game of the series.

I can’t see it ending there though, if for no other reason than Halo: X is too good a name to let go to waste.

Here’s the trailer. Check it out for yourself.

The original film centres around a group of men who rent rooms in the house of one Mrs Wilberforce, a kindly old lady with a large house close to King’s Cross railway station. The men, led by Alec Guinness’s “Professor” Marcus, convince the old dear that they’re an amateur string group who need the rooms for rehearsal space – in reality they’re planning to rob a security van at the train station and the house is their base of operations and bolt-hole.

It’s a superbly good fun black comedy, and I’d recommend it to anyone. What has me excited, however, is not just the prospect of seeing The Ladykillers live on stage – but that it’s being adapted for the stage by the man who gave us Black Books, Father Ted, and the wonderful The IT Crowd; the brilliant Graham Linehan.

Linehan’s version will be limited to what happens inside the house, so will need a fair bit of creative license, but if anyone can do it, he can.

He’ll be directing an ensemble cast, including Peter Capaldi (The Thick Of It), comedian Ben Miller and James Fleet (Hugo from The Vicar of Dibley) so there’s notable talent both on-stage and behind the scenes.

Sadly the show is currently only scheduled to run at the Liverpool Playhouse from 3-19 November before moving on to the Gielgud Theatre in London’s West End the week after. But, given Linehan’s credentials and the names on the billing, I suspect it won’t take too much convincing to take the show on a national tour.

Apparently Superman, Spiderman and Batman have already had this treatment, so Bruce Banner is just joining his superhero friends in the slightly more adult world apparently.

I find it ridiculous that they will literally make porn out of anything, though to be honest, it must be a fun job coming up with what to parody.

Recently the UK has jumped on the band wagon with The Only Way is Essex and Made in Chelsea, and now MTV has knocked out Geordie Shore (like Jersey Shore but with chavs).

From the group photo of the “stars” that will be taking part in this show, I’m not too excited to watch it to be honest. They all look awful. The boys all have too many muscles around their necks, and wear t-shirts that practically V down to their belly buttons. And the woman look like middle-aged housewives from the OC, though they’re probably still teenagers, with bad tans and too much chest on show.

They basically look like complete morons, and I’m sure they will be when we watch the show. If we watch it.

Image via the Telegraph

Another one is people who just come out and talk about films that are still in the cinema, without asking you if you’ve seen them. I knew the end of the Sixth Sense, the Others, Se7en and Fight Club all before I even saw them, thanks to people who can’t keep their mouth shut.

Well it turns out that Steven Moffat (that’s the chief writer at Doctor Who) hates spoilers too, though he just mainly features on Doctor Who spoilers.

Apparently fans who were allowed into sneak previews of this season’s first two episodes promptly decided to hit the internet and type out the entire plot before anyone else got the chance to see it. Not cool right?

If I want to find a spoiler, then I’ll ask for it, but I hate when I find one while innocently browsing. However, it’s not just nerds with nothing better to do that are spoiling Doctor Who for us this season. IMDB has listed characters for an upcoming episode, and it may give away the true identity of the little time lord girl who was lurking about in the first two episodes. I won’t say any more. I wouldn’t want to spoil it for you.

This video has been all over the web today already and had been spread about on Twitter and Facebook. Spooky right?

Check out the video clip here on You Tube.

However, people are now criticising the show for being too scary and too complex for the younger audience. What you do you think? I mean The Silence were pretty damn terrifying (and I’m 23), but I’ve heard many stories from my parents when they were little about how Doctor Who and the Daleks used to have them hiding behind the sofa. Doctor Who has always been scary to children, but are the new monsters a little too far?

Personally I think they are far less scary than the things that used to scare me as a child (like the skeksis in Dark Crystal or the guy getting run over flat in Who Framed Roger Rabbit). I think it takes a lot more to scare kids these days, and as long as the Doctor is there to scare stuff away, we’ll be fine.

John is based in New Orleans and used wooden arms from old dolls and ceramic paint to decorate the eggy works of art. Here are some of my favourite examples of his work.

Stephen King and a little Pennywise the clown.

The South Park Boys.

Leatherface.

Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland

Pictures of him on the red carpet show him giving his lady wife a smoosh before doing the same thing to his co-star Helem Mirren. Apparently he joked that Perry wouldn’t be too happy about the kiss. No kidding. I guess she can’t really complain though after the amount of people she kisses in her music videos.

Image via the Metro

Image via the Metro