New Spurious Awards!

Duke Nukem, JK Rowling, Game Of Thrones and more - it's this week's Spurious Awards, hosted by Narin Bahar!

PR FAIL OF THE WEEK
You'd think in the week that they tweeted a warning to journalists who reviewed Duke Nukem with particular 'venom' that they wouldn't be getting review copies of other games, the Redner Group would be a shoo-in for this award. But no, the accolade has to go to Scottish company StonehillSalt who, having got the account to handle Pottermore made a slight faux pas by, erm, accidentally emailing journalists the day before the big reveal with a confidential document explaining not only what JK Rowling's super-secret post- Potter project was, but also how the PR company would be dealing with any leaks that meant the pesky media let the cat out of the bag early. Which of course is what they did as soon as the information dropped into their inboxes. Ooops.

Just in case you haven't heard the full details - which in simple terms is an online community with a wealth of additional content and character background woven into the original stories - here's JK Rowling explaining it all in her own words. It looks pretty cool, although we can't help thinking that when it comes to being 'sorted' no-one's going to want to be in Hufflepuff...

BROMANCE OF THE WEEK
Game Of Thrones is arguably one of the best new shows of the year, but sometimes don't you find it just a teensy bit heavy ? Don't you fancy something with more of an emphasis of the wacky japes, witty banter and blooming bromances of Westeros? Well courtesy of nymag.com now you can enjoy just that, brilliant from the first shot to the final tagline.

CRITIC OF THE WEEK
Sticking with Game Of Thrones , there were lots of stand-out moments in the finale - as you'd hope - but between all the blood, shouting and naked ladyparts (it is an HBO production after all) Joffrey the inbred king managed to come up with a way to revolutionise reality television that needs highlighting lest it be overlooked. When a minstrel makes a name for himself for singing songs insulting Cersei and mocking the death of the king, Joffrey gets him into court and makes him sing it again in front of everyone. Then, having given it a bit of a slow handclap, he has the hapless minstrel's tongue cut out. Makes Simon Cowell's monotone 'it's a no from me' style refusal seem a bit dull in comparison, no matter how much associated eye rolling he does with it.

GREEN LANTERN HOMAGE OF THE WEEK
What is it with homages to Green Lantern ? We gave one lame example an award a few weeks back but this week the Muppets had a go too - is it just us who actually think the new Muppet movie looks more fun than the Green Lantern proper on the basis of this trailer?

On the other hand, with most of the reviews in (and many negative) you can't help imagining marketing teams across the globe suddenly thinking perhaps they should have done something related to X-Men: First Class or even Transformers instead. This didn't stop the WWE though, who went one step further and categorised all their wrestlers by random superheroic colour on the basis of, well mostly what shade of outfit they wear.

GEEKY CRAFTING OF THE WEEK
When sci-fi geeks and crafting geeks unite the results can be surreally ace, as this collection of various sci-fi and fantasy characters as miniature mice shows. We especially liked Mouse Amy Pond and Mouse Harry Potter , although we defy you not to find one character that makes you go 'awwwwwwwww'. They even make Daleks look cute.

HIGH SCHOOL PRINCIPAL OF THE WEEK
We've all sat in school assemblies, minds wandering as we listen to teachers give us advice on life. But graduating students at Ming-Dao High School in Taiwan got a very memorable farewell speech, courtesy of headmaster Albert T Wang. Even King of Cool Jon Favreau himself was inspired to tweet his admiration .

SNOOPY DANCE OF THE WEEK
Artist Larry Wentzel has reimagined Doctor Who characters as the gang from Charles Schulz's Peanuts before (we liked his Amy, Rory and the Doctor from last month ) but his latest interpretation of some of the Doctor's foes celebrating his imprisonment in the Pandorica raises the bar again - especially, in our humble opinion, Dalek Shroeder.

CAMEO OF THE WEEK
Primeval finally gets a Tyrannosaurus Rex, thanks to Connor's tinkering with man-made anomalies. Made even better for its appearance being prefaced with: "Mum, we'll be fine, what on earth do you think is going to happen?" Probably not being chased past Primark by a dinosaur, we reckon.

GENDER STEREOTYPE OF THE WEEK
Doing the rounds on Twitter this picture shows how Tesco is laying out its children's comic section nowadays. Girl geeks? What are they then? You can't have Pokemon , Star Wars or Doctor Who if you don't have a penis, go back to fairies and unicorns and pink things. It'd be funny if it wasn't so depressing.

Thanks Narin! Your regular host, Mr Dave Golder, will return next week. Why not discuss this and more over at our Facebook page ?