We're relaunching Ganymede & Titan. Properly relaunching it. Not just a redesign or a minor restructure, it's going to be a whole new site. We're changing our content management system from Movable Type to Drupal, which gives us all sorts of new possibilities. For a start, articles will be integrated into the system for the first time, meaning your comments will appear on the actual article page, like they do on Noise To Signal. Not only that, but you'll be able to register an account with us for posting comments, so that you can do things like keep track of what's new since your last visit. Also, each entry, be it news, review, article or whatever, will be tagged with several keywords (eg. DVD news, Craig Charles, Brittas), which means it'll be much easier to find whatever you want to read.

But, as great as all that is going to be, if there's one change that will be G&T great again, it's this: we've got our mates on board. Jonathan Capps, Tanya Jones, Seb Patrick, Phil Reed and Austin Ross from Observation Dome will all be writing for G&T after the relaunch. Basically, running a good website requires more work than a mere two people can provide, especially when one of them's starting his own business and the other is in his final year at uni. With more people working on the site, there'll be someone around to add news stories as soon as they break. There'll be plenty of people working on new articles, and they're not half as lazy as me and John are. And better still, there's plenty of opportunity for collaborative projects... needless to say, the 'Productions' section of the new site will be expanded exponentially.

So, obviously, Observation Dome has been closed down. It's been down for a while, which is a shame. Without wanting to air our dirty, cum-stained pants in public, Kirk Northrop won't be working with us any more, and he owns the domain. But fear not, we have all the old content, and it'll be transferred to G&T in time for the relaunch. As will all the content from The White Hole, Garbage World and Fuchal, which are also being incorporated into G&T. Haven't we learned over the last few years that if we all pull together, we can become greater than the sum of our parts? That if we are of one mind and one intent, there are no boundries as to what we can achieve. Now, this relaunch is going to work, do we believe? Do we believe?

So, don't forget to tune in to our brand new URL, ganymede.tv, from Monday, 4th September 2006. See you in silicon heaven.

CRAIG ARRESTED: Yeah, you all know. I'm just mentioning it now so people don't think we're avoiding the issue. There's not a huge amount more to say, apart from let's hope he still makes it to DJ. And I have a very funny joke here that I'd like to do, but I don't DARE.

BEAT THE GEEK MENUS: Excellent! I could go on about how gorgeous the menus are (and you know you're pathetically geeky when you realise that you're genuinely excited about seeing new angles on the existing DVD menu sets...) - and the "unrendering" and zooming round the ship sound fantastic. Unfortunately, I then saw the questions and shat my pants. The first two are OK, but if the last two are any indication of difficulty, then I may need to buy several copies to replace the discs I fling out the window. You BASTARD, Ellard.

BACK IN BUSINESS: A trailer has been released for Chris Barrie's new film, as TOS reports. It's impossible to tell what the actual film is like, as the trailer seems to have been edited by a certain Colin Hunt. Will trailer people please realise that humorous captions have never actually been funny?

I'm extremely excited about Brian Blessed, though.

MASSIVE ENGINES DVD: Here! Due to be released 25th September. I'm extremely surprised this has got a release, actually - and I wonder whether the presence of Chris Barrie means that they're banking on the Red Dwarf geek market to make it worthwhile. Still, it's a great show, and worthy of a release.

And that's your lot. Sorry. My guilt chips is already in overdrive - I-I feel terrible...

Personally, I just can't wait for the inevitable desktop background.

What is new is that Beat The Geek is now available for pre-order - at the BBC Shop, and Play (who are doing it for a ridiculous £14.99). The release date is given as 23rd October 2006 - you'd think you could trust the BBC, but given past experience it'd probably best to wait until GNP give a date.

In other news, the Region 2 release date of Just The Shows: Volume 2 has been confirmed as October 2nd. There's no Australian release date as yet, but if it follows the same release pattern as Volume 1, it'll be in November. Region 1 won't be getting a release.

I suppose it's the time of year to start watching the BBFC site again...

Anyway, fanclub Chairman James Bull has posted to the Webboard today to let us know that Craig is still to attend DJ this September. "I just wanted to let everyone attending DJ, that Craig is still coming to the event. I spoke with him today. He's happy and in good health and looking forward to DJ!" Excellent.

Other guests confirmed so far are Norman Lovett, Hattie Hayridge, Danny John-Jules, Robert Llewellyn, and the Model Unit crew Mike Tucker, Alan Brannan, Nick Kool, and Pete Tyler. Chris Barrie is yet to confirm. The event is taking place on the 22nd - 24th September at The Holiday Inn, Peterborough - for more details, see the fanclub site.

JUST THE SHOWS VOL 2: Artwork! Lovely - far nicer than the first boxset. Nice to see that Series VII and VIII aren't squashed onto one disc each like the Czech release of VII, and instead are given two discs each.

I'll reiterate what I said the release of Volume 1 - it's less that I can't understand why people wouldn't be interested in the extras, and more that I can't understand why anyone would love the show enough to want it on DVD, and not be interested in the extras. Still, there's obviously an audience out there, so well worth releasing. And the menus are lovely, anyway. It's due in October.

R1 BOXSET: Region 1 didn't get a Just The Shows release at all; instead, there has been a full boxset announced instead, due on September 5th - for the cool, crisp RRP of $249.92. (There's no plans for a Region 2 release.)

Predictably, this has annoyed a few people; see this ATVRD post. This has prompted a discussion on the Webboard. Personally, I've never really been a collector; I'm more interested in other pointless Red Dwarf-related activities. So I don't really care about any box. On the other hand, I can see why it would annoy people who had supported the releases from the beginning. I think the Region 2 releases dealt with the problem in the best way possible.

2007 CALENDAR: Hooray! Some interesting news that involves nothing more than me cutting and pasting a post by Andrew on the the Webboard:

"This is an advance warning that there WILL be a Red Dwarf 
calendar for next year. So if you were looking at that 
movie/comedy/nudie calendar 2007 - WAIT!

The RD calendar will be announced on the site when we 
have more details and art. Launch is likely sometime in 
September.

Why say this now? Because I'm in the middle of mocking 
up concept art and...well, we've got a killer concept. If 
things go to plan (we have one hurdle to jump first), this 
will show you Dwarf as you've never seen it before. This is 
NOT the same old smeg.

No exaggeration - it's gonna be killer. Can't wait to post 
the first images on the site - you WILL burst."

Excellent. The last calendar was well worth getting - if this one is even more exciting, it has to be a must-have...

PROPSTORE: - As mentioned in this TOS story, The Propstore have some new items. I'd buy something myself, but sadly I can't afford a £12 DVD at the moment.

Oh, and in a bit of non-merchandising news, Ghostie has set up the domain for the new Channel 27 news - just enter your email and he'll tell you when the site launches. Which reminds me - when's Danny's site coming?

Right. Back to work...

What really makes the interview worth listening to is that it doesn't shy away from the difficult subjects. Accusations that VII wasn't very good? Check. Rob Grant leaving? Check. But most of all, we get the first public words from anyone connected with the show over Craig's crack allegations:

MARK SEAMAN: You mention Craig there - course bless him, he hasn't had the best publicity in recent times - have you kept in touch?

ROBERT LLEWELLYN: Oh yeah absolutely, I've been talking to him recently and he's been sending me very amusing texts, so he's not lost his sense of humour. But I mean, I just feel so sorry for him, and he's an extrodinary man, a wonderful guy, he stood by me when we were on the set of Red Dwarf when I didn't know what was going on - my brain had boiled, you know - he's a really good friend, an amazing guy, and I just felt so sad when I saw all that because you know he's his own worst enemy - he's no danger to the public, he's a danger to himself, and he's such a sweet man, and he's incredible with the fans, just a genius.

MARK: Sometimes naturally creative people just kind of don't know where to take that kind of creativity do they?

ROBERT: No. No. He's such an energised guy, and it's such a shame - it really broke my heart and I feel sorry for his wife and children cos that's pretty horrible thing to happen to them, to have to go through all that. And his wife's a fantastic woman, Jackie, wonderful, two lovely little daughters, and he's got a big son, who luckily is old enough to know...

MARK: To work it through...

ROBERT: Yeah...

BBC Wiltshire, I salute you. I picked out that bit for the record - but please, listen to the whole interview, as it's well worth it. Especially for the anecdote about the new producer and the camera rehearsal, which I hadn't heard before...

No immediate review from us for this one, mainly because me and Ian haven't got a PSP - but if any of you lot would like to review it for us, get in touch.

Red Dwarf: Smeg Outs will be released in time for Christmas. Just The Shows: Vol 2 is due Sep/Oct 2006 in Region 2, whilst Beat The Geek is due Autumn/Winter.

Which reminds me - in our laxity (yes, it's a word), we haven't linked to this DVD Details update, which is obviously written knowing that geeks love both lists and numbers, so combining them is geek heaven.

Also: unlockable games = excellent.

To rectify, then. TOS has launched a new Merchandise section to replace the now-defunct Red Dwarf shops. For all the effort that's gone into it, there's little to say apart from: FANTASTIC. It's an excellent bit of design - you can search via country or type of product, and it's extremely easy to use.

With my web standards hat on, I've always had a few issues with the design of reddwarf.co.uk - mainly that I don't like a site requiring javascript when it doesn't really need to. But ignoring that, as part of the existing design, this works wonderfully. In fact, it's so good that you wonder why they ever went to the trouble of setting up the shops, and just didn't always go with this idea.

It's especially interesting investigating what countries other than the UK and the USA offer - check out Japan's Better Than Life cover. It's lovely having images and descriptions of some of the more obscure stuff, all in one place.

Oh, and a nice little link to the Webboard has been added to the navbar too. The sad thing is, I actually think this is an important thing to put on record for generations to come. Archaeological Roman digs? Swivel. Sadly, it does mean the end of the Arcade section, which never reached - or even started to reach - its full potential, although Beat The Geek will be more than consolation for this. This also means the end of Simulants' Revenge - whether it's available anywhere else online, I don't know. I can't find it off-hand.

Speaking of merchandise, TOS also announced last week that Series 1 has been released in Poland - Re-mastered, vanilla, you know the drill. The information on the dub is very interesting - just one voice doing all the characters? Odd. I'm sure I'd get confused, but I guess it must work if that's what you're used to.

THEY'RE ILLEGAL MATEY: No doubt most of you have heard the news by now, but just in case: original Mirror story, BBC story confirming Corrie/6 Music suspension. I'm frankly fucking appalled at The Mirror - "early 1990s BBC2 sci-fi comedy"? It started in 1988! Journalism at its finest.

More seriously, we're not going to comment further until there's been a statement from Craig.

BEST EVER SPITTING IMAGE: Starting this Sunday! 10:30pm! ITV1! And Rob and Doug are interviewed! This is excellent news, and bodes well for the series as a whole - seeing as the excellent Tooth & Claw reveals that the Comedy Police basically saved the show in its early days, there's been a laughable lack of acknowledgement of this.

This does have the potential to be a great series - it looks as though some real effort has gone into the show. The best thing we can hope for now is a full repeat of Spitting Image, from the beginning, on ITV4 - the show more than deserves it.

FAT: Now put back from November 2nd to December 28th. Just missing the Christmas market. Well done! Bear in mind this was originally supposed to be released on May 1st 2005, but projects do get put back. Oooh, lovely old design that I've been meaning to fix for fucking ages...

That, as they say, is your lot. More soon/next month/next year*

* Delete as appropriate.

More entertainingly, there's also UMD Smeg Ups cover and menu designs, and a release date - July 10th. I'm still not keen on the idea of buying anything on a format other than DVD at the moment myself (just rip DVDs for all your portable viewing needs - you did buy them, after all) - but I suppose sales will be the ultimate judge of whether the release was worth doing or not. At least effort has been made to not simply duplicate the DVD releases directly. (The more I think about it, the more I'd like to see this material released on DVD as well - it's just far more satisfying viewing than how it's presented on the main DVD releases.)

Interestingly, the VII Smeg Ups (originally released on the Xtended vid) are also on there - presumably, the VIII smeg ups will be included on the Smeg Outs release, due in time for Christmas. Also interestingly, the merchandise section of the main feature has been edited out - with a new voiceover from Robert added to give up-to-date info. Presumably the edit without the competition details will be used as well. Anyway, it's good to see that it looks like they're going with the original video's 15 classification, rather than editing it for a 12 like the recent DVD releases (presuming that the classification on the cover art is correct) - and a brave one from a marketing point of view, considering it's for release on a console.

(There's nothing on either Smeg Ups or Smeg Outs that I think deserves a 15 certificate anyway - and the 12 certificate was around for video use in time for both releases. But that's a whole different discussion.)

Apart from that, there's really not much going on in the world of Dwarf at the moment. The only other thing is that Fifth Dwarfer Tony Hawks has revamped his website. An Flash-based navigation system, an ugly design, and pointless sound that gets in the way of what I'm actually listening to at the time? I'd prefer chicken. A pity, because the content is pretty good - if you've not read it already, you have to see Skate Mail. Nyah, amusing!

(A free drink at DJ from me for the first person to get that last reference.)

Hats, then. I'm at a loss as to what to say here, except that if this isn't one of the best DVD games ever made up to this point, I'll be surprised. I've never been hugely enthused with the format up until now - the Millionaire one just plays like a bad version of the Playstation game, and isn't half as much fun, wheras the QI one seemed great at first, but got tedious very quickly because the creators simply hadn't thought out the game mechanics very well. (As in: the questions are impossible to get right, and the nature of the game means you have to do some tedious replaying of the same questions over and over again, where you sometimes don't even know exactly where you went wrong.) Each DVD Details article just reinforces the fact that playability, and replayability, have been the major driving force behind the game.

And who knows, if it sells well, perhaps it might spark off that long-awaited Red Dwarf puter game. I always wondered why it never had one in the past (well, an official one, anyway - there are obviously plenty of fan-written games) - especially considering that shows like, of all things, Spitting Image had a few. I do wonder whether Rob and Doug simply exerted ruthless quality control, and maybe in later years this was compounded by the cost of game development shooting up.

Other stuff, then. In fansite news, Groovetown has revamped its forums - by, erm, changing the colours a bit, and adding a big number behind each post. It does look good, though. Meanwhile, after the death of Channel 27 last December, Ghostie has decided to restart it, and has set up a development blog, which actually looks pretty interesting - but I'm a sucker for things like that.

There's also an interesting three page piece on it²i² in this month's TV Zone (issue 203) - which, oddly enough, uses one of these photos. Robert's also done a "My Sci-Fi" piece in the latest SFX. Fucking hell, I didn't know he was 50.

That's yer lot, then. You may have noticed we've been having a bit of a spam problem at the moment - I've tightened up the controls until it eases off, so for now, don't worry if your comment isn't published immediately - I'll get round to approving it eventually.

Oh, and one final thing: buy Joking Apart. See why here. That is all.

Interesting that it's called Just The Shows Series 5 To 8 currently, rather Vol.2. Presumably it's just a mistake by the online shops, as it was called Volume 2 in this TOS article. Yes, that is interesting, now shut up.

Whilst we're at it - you can now buy it²i² from Play - and oddly enough, cheaper than from Robert Llewellyn himself. You can read a review of the release on Cappsy's gaping twat.

BEAT THE GEEK: TOS has a great article on filming the Holly links for Beat The Geek - Andrew's gone into more detail about the writing of the script on the Webboard. It all makes fascinating reading. Go and read it all yourself, as I've got better things to do than sit here rewriting it - although I will say that I do want to know what this extra surprise they've got lined up is.

CZECH VI RELEASE: It's been released, then. Even Andrew has given up waffling on about this, so I'm not going to bother.

PARTWORKS POSTPONED: Hints about the status of future Dwarf projects have also been gleaned from the Webboard - the Partworks has been put on hold for the time being; apparently, there were concerns that the planned covermounted DVDs weren't right for the show at this point. The possibility of a Re-mastered release is still floating around, however, after Beat The Geek - although it's nowhere near confirmed as yet.

DJ HOTEL: The main DJ hotel is now full; however, there is an overspill hotel, which is the same as last year - the Ramada Peterborough. Hopefully the OD crowd will be organised enough to do a live report this time for those of you who can't go - last year this was sadly scuppered by a lack of organisation and the presence of LAZINESS and BOOZE.

I AM A CUNT: Desperate to see some "comediens"? In particular "Hatti Hayridge?" Then pop along to the Epmire Featre in Hallsted, Essexxe un Sonday Siptember 24fth ate 7:30pme fur Comidee Niyght - tickuts cist ton pouinds. I'm truly sorry. The booking line is 07778 025490, and see the site for further deytails. Erm, details. DON'T SPELLCHECK THIS SITE IT'S PERFECT HONEST THANKS BYE.

VIII COMPO: Want to win "an authentic-worn costume from the set of the cult-favorite comedy Red Dwarf!!"? Then why not enter this competition, and SELL YOUR SOUL by registering for a website and then emailing them the word SMEGHEAD? It's either Rimmer or Lister's costume as used in Back In The Red - they can't seem to figure out which one. Which is a shame, as one of them I'd be quite happy to own, and the other I DON'T WANT IN THE HOUSE.

That's your lot. I leave work this Wednesday to concentrate on setting up by own web design company full-time (my pants are currently full of shit), so expect G&T to be updated far more as I keep putting off work. Hooray!

For the rest of the winners, see the BAFTA site. A pity the craft awards aren't as well known as the "main" awards - the work is just as impressive, after all. I'll spare you the rant, though.

Two updates from TOS this week. The first is the long-awaited VIII quiz. Let's just see how I do...

...18/20. Pfft. Could be worse.

The other update is the conclusion of Andrew's articles about each series: Eighth Dimension. For a series that isn't my favourite by a long stretch, it's probably my favourite article; there's some excellent points about how the changes to the show's situation don't really mean a thing, which is something I always bang on about (my problems with the series certainly aren't anything to do with the change in setting); but it's worth reading alone for the image of the mirror universe Professor Cat and our Kryten having a great time chatting together. And a rather interesting ending, as well...

In other news, Rob's it²i² site has relaunched; it's now thankfully devoid of pointless Flash, so I can bear to browse it now. There's lots of lovely new content - unfortunately, I don't think I can run the videos as I need Quicktime 7, which only runs on XP (which I don't have). Ah well, I'm moving away from Windows next month anyway - there's no way I'm designing websites full-time using the shitting thing.

And that's all the weather - *points at camera* - for now.