I woke bleary eyed after the Star Trek marathon on television this weekend. No, before you ask, I didn't have anything better to do. I've been pretty critical of the films by and large, so you have to wonder why I bothered. Put simply, there were one or two I've never seen and it's been a while since I saw the others.

The major thing that struck me was the obvious. The early films try to create a sense of magic which just doesn't work. It's as if just having the old team from USS Enterprise up there on the big screen was going to be enough. Perhaps back then it was.

Nonetheless I can't help feeling the film was intended to wow us with special effects rather than provide a plot. I've always said the first film was nothing more than a light show, and it was intriguing to learn that the special effects were cobbled together at the last moment when production when horribly wrong.

What interested me more than anything was the last film, Nemesis, which I'd not seen before. The only film that never made any profit and yet the only film that felt like it was more than an advertisement for the series. The only one that I enjoyed as a film in its own right as opposed to another chance to see the old crew. Why was it a failure?

A Certain Breed

"They were bred in india." Said the owner. Dalmatians? Surely they come from Dalmatia? I've just looked up the breed on the web and sure enough the Balkans are listed as the region of origin.

True to form, the dog was constantly trotting back and forth in a quest to find something to sniff. The description is right, they are energetic dogs. But then, I have personal experience of them. Our family owned one for a while before we got tireed of tearing our hair out and sold the animal on to a new unsuspecting owner.

It was a horror. It ripped and tore anything made of paper, it refused utterly to get down from a sofa or a bed, and really just did its own thing regardless of how many times a red-faced owner shouted "Sit!"

That was the only dog we owned that none of us cared to remember fondly. No, I haven't a clue what happened to it after.

Coughs and Ring Tones

There's a guy sat at the computer across the other side of a pillar from me. Every ten seconds he makes a sort of regular grunt/humming noise. No, I mean it, he really is that annoying.

"(Cough) Hmm hmm hmm hmm hmm hmm hmm hmm hmm hmm..."

Not an especially interesting rythmn if I were honest, and the lack of melody is even more pronounced than chart hits.

"(Cough) Hmm hmm hmm hmm hmm hmm hmm hmm hmm hmm..."

Aaargh! This is getting really distracting!

"(Cough) Hmm hmm hmm hmm hmm hmm hmm hmm hmm hmm..."

Luckily for him someone elses mobile phone went off. In the silence of the library, the chart hit was played by the tinny little speaker loud enough to be heard by everyone, including Dragon Lady, who's on the help desk this morning. I saw her eyes rise from her work and narrow menacingly.

"(Cough) Hmm hmm hmm hmm hmm hmm hmm hmm hmm hmm..."