For a while I'd been mulling over writing about Up. I'll probably return to it as and when I get around to writing about the recent spate of 3-D cinema releases, most likely around about the time we are all forced to endure the Avatar hoopla. But that doesn't matter right now. Because today I saw A Serious Man, and even though I have high hopes for Where the Wild Things Are next month and though I certainly blubbed at Up and was very, very impressed by Moon, this is my film of the year. I'll be thinking about this none-more-Coenish Coen Brothers movie for days to come. See it at all costs. And I'm spoiling nothing by saying this thing is going to become not just a university film studies stalwart, but a philosophy, ethics and theology one to boot. Awesome film-making.

Happy 20th Birthday, Wallace & Gromit.

As is so often the case, the most famous characters and films of the Aardman stable are not their best. The Creature Comforts and Rex the Runt series are funnier; Morph, the earliest Conservation Pieces short films and their first feature, Chicken Run, represent more historic achievements in animation; Timmy Time is sweeter and innumerable one-offs such as Next: The Infinite Variety Show more rich.

But the Wallace & Gromit entries (the second short, The Wrong Trousers, and the feature length Curse of the Were-Rabbit in particular) succeed as perhaps the most purely cinematic of all Aardman's output. Director Nick Park recently pointed to Ealing comedy and Hitchcockian noir as influences. Hammer horror's in the mix too, as are BBC sitcom stylings (perhaps inevitable, given Peter Sallis' involvement).

If the series has perhaps lapsed into formula (thwarted love interests for Wallace; threats that only Gromit can perceive; Heath Robinson gadgetry; food puns) then that is only the hallmark of comparable animated series such as Chuck Jones' Coyote & Roadrunner cartoons.

Along with The Snowman, they are the closest Britain has to the various classic animated holiday specials that American audiences hold synonymous with Christmas. An institution, then. And long may it endure.

As an aside, I cannot friggin' wait for their new production of this.

Clap.

Clap.

Clap.

"Lowest turnout ever in a Scottish by-election", at just under 33%.

And of this trickle, two thirds still, still voted Labour. SNP apparently losing votes to Tories. Three times as many Nazi votes as Green, and everyone else blown away.

Leave it to Tommy to sum up nicely.

Charlie Baillie- British National Party (Scotland)
Artwork © Terry Anderson

Glasgow North East Electorate- for whom shall we vote?

1) Let's agree that we will vote for someone. Not voting isn't a protest, in exactly the same way as simply not showing up for work isn't the same as going on strike. The only message you send is that of indolence.

2) And let's also agree that we won't vote for the hateful, moronic racist pictured above. Again, a vote for the BNP isn't a protest or expression of disillusionment. The other big parties don't care about us? Well, neither do they. They don't have to. The BNP know they can't win and aren't pretending they will. Their stated aim is third place in this by-election. Why? Because accepting that they cannot and never will govern anything, they prefer the louder, less responsible role of ascendant common sense alternative to "politically correct madness". A respectable showing in an election outside of their English heartlands would feed that narrative. Don't buy into it; the BNP received less votes in the 09 Euro elections than four years previous. Their two victories were down to extraordinarily low voter turnout, not a swell of support. Deny these dribbling fools further oxygen.

3) Is Glasgow being "ripped off"? No more and no less than usual. Let's not vote Labour in a Westminster election even if we're pissed off about decisions taken by the SNP at Holyrood and hold our fire until 2011. And let's not vote SNP just because we want to "send a message" to the Labour government in Westminster. For all Alex Salmond's speculation about a rump of SNP MPs holding the balance of power in a hung parliament, Scottish MPs generally and SNP ones especially will be utterly ignored by a David Cameron government, even one with a small minority. Their English base feel hard-done by after a decade of governance that they perceive as having been by Celts, for Celts. To concede an inch to any Scottish demands just won't play to the Tunbridge Wells WI.

4) Indeed, if we really want to spook Labour then we should vote for the Conservatives. Ruth Davidson is arguably the most impressive of the candidates. But we won't, because... Well... She's a Tory. Brrr.

5) Let's not vote for Tommy Sheridan. He's very likely to be in jail before the general election. Turnout in another by-election between now and then would be so poor as to risk the nightmare scenario at 2.

6) Let's not vote for Kevin McVey or Louise McDaid. We may agree with their principles but until the Left can get their act together and present a united front they'll be using water pistols to fight house fires.

7) We won't vote for Mev Brown, Colin Campbell, Mikey Hughes or John Smeaton, for obvious reasons.

8) Two boxes left. Should we vote for Eileen Baxendale? Maybe... Ideas like raising the income tax threshold to £10k would help every family in the constituency. But the Lib Dems have been exhibiting entirely too much of their old disease of late. They are clearly riven over the issue of the UK's future and this may well be the undoing of the party in Scotland.

9) Let's vote David Doherty. He's the most prematurely aged twenty four year old I've ever seen, but sending a child (pure, unsullied, a bit scared) to Westminster would seem appropriate after decades of grey, corpulent, over-comfortable Labour representation (to think there was a time when our MP was Keir Hardie's brother). And as an added bonus he's from the only party whose principles are compatible with a future in which elections, not not hand-to-hand combat over half-empty petrol cans, are still the mechanism that shapes society.

Willie Bain will still win tomorrow night, but, despite his lousy campaign and because of sentimentality, witlessness and inertia. Yah, us.

PS- I got a letter from Gordon Brown this morning. Disappointing to find it wasn't hand-written and full of spelling mistakes. In fact his signature didn't look like ink at all. I think the whole thing might just be a photocopy! I am outraged that the head of the UK government hasn't taken the time to write personally to every single household in Glasgow North-East the day before a by-election. Just another bumbling, stumbling, SUB-HUMAN attempt at communication from our chilling, ONE-EYED Scotch sociopath in chief, eh "readers"?

Happy 40th Birthday, Sesame Street.

While not the first tv home exposure for Jim Henson's Muppets, it was his first effort to achieve a truly global audience, and it's these puppet characters that are the show's principal legacy. Personal favourites? Almost all the "monsters" are good value, especially Grover making that bald blue bloke's life miserable, anything involving these two, this/these two or thiskid.

Henson was a consummate puppeteer or course, but he was a televisualist first and foremost and peppered Sesame Street with as much live action and animation film-making as he could. In the early days several of these shorts were made by Henson, his family and friends on an ad hoc basis. Later others would contribute little productions, often set to surprisingly good music, extolling a particular letter or number. The best have become pop culture artefacts in their own right; The Alligator King, Ladybugs' Picnic, the misadventures of the big-bottomed, sign-reading man or the wheeled, humming typewriter are instantly recognisable.

Where would hard-pressed comedy writers be without dependable, Proustian hot buttons like...?