Gerard McGarry's blog

New kid Jared Evan wants to "leave a musical impact; I want to alter the state of music." And with his new single, In Love With You, he almost alters topography. By which I mean, this is a veritable earthquake of a song, you can almost feel it shaking loose plaster from nearby walls.

It's a contradiction of a song - he's definitely singing a tribute to some girl he's in love with, but the music's forceful, distorted and LOUD. This is not your typical ballad, Jared! In fact, it's the sort of stomping anthem that would accompany WWE wrestlers into the ring, a pounding, aggressive rock stomper.

But then, Jared has declared his mission to redefine music. And he's already considered a genre-defying force of nature. That may be a little bit of over-enthusiastic PR for the guy, but In Love With You is possibly one of the strongest fusions of hip-hop and rock that I've heard in a while. That's logical, since he namechecks the creme of classic rock and rap influences - from Led Zeppelin to The Who and from Wu Tang Clan to KRS One.

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When last we left the crew of the Orpheus, Clem (James Nesbitt) was being crushed by the pressure of the great underwater trash compactor. Or was he?

Nope. Just like his Lazarusesque (yes, that's a new word!) wife, Clem not only survives Lurch imploding, he takes slimy Raymond out with an iron bar, gets shot in the gut, roasted by a blast from a nuclear weapon and then blown up along with the rest of the Volos.

While I applaud the writers for being brave enough to sacrifice a lead character, Clem's death was ridiculous. The upshot was that I spent the rest of the episode devising improbable ways that Clem would suddenly pop up again, alive. Maybe the lava bugs have regenerative properties?

Having said that, there was a certain symmetry in having the husband depart on a mission to find his wife, and having the wife return from the dead while Clem got shot and roasted.

Back on the Orpheus, the big news is that a blast from the Volos has knocked out the life support systems. Frances is unconscious, and the rest of the crew gradually start tripping out and collapsing. What saves them is...Svetlana and Vincent blowing up the Volos.

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I don't know about you, but everybody in our immediate circle is raving about Stieg Larsson's Millennium Trilogy. The abiding impression I'm being given is that a shining light in the genre of crime fiction wrote three amazing books, then died before he could see the impact of his work.

It's perhaps arguable that Larsson's trilogy shot to such heady heights because of his death and some smart marketing on the part of the publisher. Nevertheless, who are we to argue with the massive commercial success that the books have achieved recently?

The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo

Some trivia: The novel was originally titled Men Who Hate Women.

The Plot: Mikael Blomkvist is a journalist and publisher recently convicted of libel. Blomlvist is part-owner of Millennium, a financial magazine that frequently exposes corporate malpractice. He withdraws from work to save the face of the publication, but receives a tempting offer from an industrialist called Henrik Vanger to write a history of his family. The real purpose of Vanger's request is to have Blomkvist investigate a murder in the family that happened over 30 years ago.

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Would it be fair to say that the latest episode of True Blood lacked excitement?

It felt like Fresh Blood was more like the clotted remains of Talbot that Russell Edgington's been carrying around with him for the last several weeks. The episode dealt mostly with the characters in Bon Temps and storylines that we've all grown weary of.

Hoyt and Jessica are back together, but their scenes were not as touching as usual. On the flip side, the revelation that Maxine Fortenberry set Summer up with Hoyt was clever - showing the manipulative mother figure at her most cunning. Arlene enlisted wiccan waitress Holly to get rid of Rene's evil baby, but predictably though she bled heavily, the baby survived. Arlene's pregnancy is a tedious storyline that feels like it's leaning too heavily on season one's storyline. Or coasting on old glories. They'd have been better off pushing Arlene toward the right-wing anti-supernatural character that she became in the books, rather than having her knocked up with an almost-forgotten character's baby.

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It was almost as if Lenore heard our cries of dismay at her absence in last week's episode. She strode purposefully into Ray's school and beckoned him outside the classroom for a chat about ripping her off.

Because this, the penultimate episode in Hung's second season, is where things start to fall apart: Ray finds out about Tanya ripping off Mike and Frances, Lenore gives him a pretty clear threat that she'll destroy him if she doesn't get paid, and Tanya is desperate and remorseless after Lenore destroys her reputation at work.

Elsewhere in the b-plot territory that is Jess's world, her marriage starts to collapse properly this time as Ronnie discovers she went to another dermatologist behind his back - the ultimate slap in the face for a 'skin man'.

Highlights of Fat Off My Love are:

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Devastating news: The sixth series of Doctor Who will be seven episodes long. The good news is that there will be further, six-part series in the autumn.

Other sites are reporting that the series will be split in two (and technically that's correct if you work from a thirteen episode series point of view). But showrunner Steven Moffat is billing this as two separate series - and he says it'll be great for the viewer because we'll "never be more than a few months from the next series of Doctor Who".

Moffat is quoted as saying:

I did think that what this show needs is a big event in the middle. I kept referring rather lamely to a mid-season finale. A huge event in the middle.

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For all the metal fans on Shout, I chanced across this awesome video and just had to share it here. It's Metallica, Megadeth, Slayer and Anthrax all onstage at the same time performing the Diamond Head classic, Am I Evil?

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The bands are performing at Bulgaria's Sonisphere Festival, and it's fair to say that anyone who grew up with these bands is going to feel a tremor of excitement as James Hetfield welcomes the veteran thrash acts to the stage. The members of Anthrax are instantly recognisable - Scott Ian's beard and I see Joey Belladonna has stuck around since the last time her rejoined the group. Spotted Charlie Benante and Frank Bello in the mix as well.

Somehow, Slayer weren't part of my metal experience for some reason. But first I caught a glimpse of Dave Ellefson, then that snarling, curly-haired monster, Dave Mustaine. How satisfying to see these guys all on stage at the same time. As Hetfield said, it was a moment in metal history.

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Now that the smoke has cleared on that nasty X Factor autotune scandal, the programme seems to have moved into more entertaining territory. Tonight's highlights from London and Dublin auditions this summer showed a few rough diamonds among a sea of delusionals.

I really do believe that X Factor gives us the 21st Century equivalent of the village idiot. Except in this century it's on a national, if not global, scale.

Anyhow, there's cause to rejoice in the boobilicious presence of Katy Perry for the Dublin auditions. The funny thing about Perry is that she's so animated and vibrant, she makes Princess Cheryl look even more like a cardboard cutout.

Dublin auditions

First up are Dublin vocal quartet Temple Fire. These guys look like they've got a razor-sharp focus and emerge spouting X Factor friendly cliches like "We've got the heart, we've got the fire" and "This is what we were born to do - we're Temple Fire and we're gonna set this place alight!" Sadly, their version of Wham's Wake Me Up Before You Go-go (a song so bad it should be banned from television forever) is reminiscent of early Boyzone, but without any of the charm. Simon Cowell doesn't even bother to look up as he dismissed them: "You know where this is going. Bye, guys."

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Here's Charlotte Church, trussed up in some very uncomfortable looking corsage, all elbows and armpits exposed as the salt water spoils her lovely dress.

Yes folks, avoiding the cliches like, 'the Welsh warbler', 'the Crazy Chick singer' and 'former voice of an angel', the return of Charlotte Church continues at a brisk pace. Today, she's released the track list to her new album, Back To Scratch. The title almost implies a return to her roots, overlooking the teenage rebellion-type pop album from a while back.

The album cover itself is more Leona Lewis than Lady Gaga, which is a blessing.

Her second pop album - following 2005’s Platinum selling ‘Tissues and Issues’ - ‘Back To Scratch’, shows off a mature, refined side to Charlotte, with a sophisticated pop sound that will doubtless win her legions of new converts as well as satisfying her loyal fan-base. Partly written in Nashville with Luke Laird and Patrick Davis, she also worked with local Welsh artists The Druids and Jonathan Powell on the album.

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Pete's encounter with an older woman last week had nothing on his antics this week - in an absent minded moment, he agrees to marry a friend of his flatmates to allow her to legally live in the country.

Worse still, after mortally offending Anna last week with the pancake tits remarks, he gets into a verbal battle with her father and causes him to have a heart attack. Multiple heart attacks, to be honest. And all because he disputed that denim originated in the French town of Nim. (Pete was right, by the way, it originated in Nimes).

In an almost identical plot to last week, Pete manages to pull a hot nurse while all this is going on. He woos her by pretending to be a caring type, but this backfires when she reveals that she's devoutly religious. He manoeuvres around this skillfully enough, and even talks his way around his sham marriage to her satisfaction. Of course, just when it looks like things are going the right way, the people from immigration turn up.

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