the5thmedium

Even after five decades of rock & roll, observers of the form can't make up their minds as to whether or not the classic 'rock' guitar is a phallic or a female symbol. This is an intriguing issue, because when a fretboard is projected, thrust or jiggled on stage, the first option comes to mind. But when you consider that the instrument is shaped with sensuous flowing contours, which many players are prone to caressing, then the latter has the edge. It's a fact of life that some people come... Read Full Story

Sorry for the delay in getting this up, unfortunately real life's got in the way a bit this week. Although part of the blame does lie with the episode itself as I did find that I had to watch it a couple of times before starting on this review. And even then, I still found myself struggling for words somewhat – mainly because I wanted to spare you all from the full force of my excitable gushing. In other words I was in nerd-heaven this week. It was a perfectly formed little episode anyway... Read Full Story

My mother is moving house and she found all these letters. Some I have read since and included in my book about my dad, published in 1998 and called Every Time We Say Goodbye. These two, and hundreds of others, I hadn’t reread since I received them. He was killed in 1989, when I was 19, reporting the war in El Salvador. 1 Undated and typed in capital letters, this is clearly written to me in 1978, the year of the Jonestown massacre in Guyana. I was 8 and living in Crouch End with my mother... Read Full Story

The British photographer Paul Graham embarked on a long road trip in 1981. Twenty years after the publication of Robert Frank’s The Americans – which along with Jack Kerouac’s On the Road immortalised the Great American Road Trip – Graham started his journey in the City of London and followed the A1 for 400 miles through the industrial north and on to Edinburgh. The route has been used since Roman times and was the mail coach route between London, York and Edinburgh before becoming the... Read Full Story

Joe West hammers out the details in a video review of Thor. Follow on Twitter @joejwest Read Full Story

You may have noticed that this Spring Summer it's all about shiny, healthy hair with a subtle wave in it. Before you roll your eyes in disbelief, let me tell you that this is an easily achieved look that once you master takes a couple of minutes and looks the business. I tried using the 3 in 1 Yogi Hair Wand. It has three interchangeable barrels so you can achieve beautiful tight fitted curls and loose waves. And the wand itself comes in 5 colours to match you very own boudoir. Follow... Read Full Story

Twice a year London Docklands’ Excel Centre pushes its glasses a little further up its nose, dusts off its Star Wars toys and gets very geeky for the MCM London Comic Con . The movie, comics and memorabilia expo is another chance to check out the latest in comic books, TV shows and video games. Mainly. It also gives you the chance to top up your collections of Star Trek models, should you wish to do that. Or maybe you just want to add to your Manga wigs and pick up a bright pink addition... Read Full Story

After struggling to keep my gushing enthusiasm for last week's episode under control, I find myself with the opposite problem this time. Not that this week's was bad, it just wasn't really much of anything. I don't think anybody was expecting it to be anything more than a filler episode (although with the series now being split into two shorter blocks of episodes, the presence of filler seems harder to forgive) or, after the over-complicated fun of the last two weeks, 'one for the kids'. Or... Read Full Story

You wouldn't necessarily expect to find out that ducks have a corkscrew penis or that snakes are endowed with a forked double-headed member while you're at the Natural History Museum. You're in for a surprise though: the venerable museum in South Kensington in London has put on a graphic show about animals' sexual habits, called Sexual Nature. The exhibition is a celebration of sex in all its forms and doesn't shy away from tackling forced sex and homosexuality. Yes, you've heard right... Read Full Story

Ever get the feeling you've been cheated? I was definitely thinking that at the start of this week's episode – they'd set so much up with last week's cliffhanger and then decided to jump ahead three months later. But if there's one thing I've learnt from Steven Moffat's previous Who episodes it's not to fight his (time) loopy approach to story structure. I'm not sure if the missing three months (in which the Doctor, River, Amy and Rory ended up being wanted criminals, yet also pulling off a... Read Full Story