That guy's a Maniac...

Sharla who? Yes in the second of the Operation Rainfall titles we've been playing through we think that our crush on elastatits has been completely replaced by our love of the heavy-drinking, fun loving, foul-mouthed Syrenne of The Last Story . Plus she's disabled*! A strong, disabled female video game character who puts the typical JRPG male protagonist to shame.   *She has a Northern accent.

Making what passes for 'news' today is the story that the X-Factor final last week had the lowest viewer figures since 2006 . Why might this be? Well we can speculate. People may be tired of the format, people may have better things to do on a Saturday night. TV may need to reexamine the way it judges the success of failure of shows because with so many ways to catch up online, on mobiles or through set top boxes that allow pre-recording. The notion of having to be sat at home to watch something at a fixed time (complete with annoying ads) is probably alien to people of the generations after mine. They may have just found the contestants boring or figured that it wasn't really a contest anymore given that the finalists comprise an uncharismatic Liverpudlian, an uncharismatic shy guy (not that kind) who insists on having a haircut that makes him instantly unlikeable and the one who can actually sing and seems a bit interesting. These all sound like possible causes for the