Latest News

25 / 07 / 2010
Fantasy F1: The results from the eleventh race in Germany are in! Check the results, see how your team did or enter a new team. Next race is Hungary next weekend on 1st August.

11 / 07 / 2010
Fantasy Rally: The results from Rally Bulgaria are in! Check the results, see how your team did or enter a new team. Next rally is Finland on THURSDAY 29th July (a day earlier than usual!).

11 / 07 / 2010
Fantasy F1: The results from the tenth race in Silverstone are in! Check the results, see how your team did or enter a new team. Next race is Hockenheim on 25th July.

27 / 06 / 2010
Fantasy F1: The results from the ninth race in Valencia are in, including the penalties for the naughty boys driving too fast. Check the results, see how your team did or enter a new team. Next race is Silverstone on 11th July.

13 / 06 / 2010
Fantasy F1: The results from the eighth race in Canada are in! Check the results, see how your team did or enter a new team. Next race is Valencia on 27th June.

30 / 05 / 2010
Fantasy Rally: The results from Rally Portugal are in! Check the results, see how your team did or enter a new team. Next rally is Bulgaria on 9th July.

30 / 05 / 2010
Fantasy F1: The results from the exciting seventh race in Turkey are in! Check the results, see how your team did or enter a new team. Next race is Canada on 13th June.

16 / 05 / 2010
Fantasy F1: The Monaco scores have been updated to reflect Michael Schumacher's ridiculous penalty for daring to overtake a Ferrari. Check the updated results, see how your team did or enter a new team.

16 / 05 / 2010
Fantasy F1: The results from the sixth race in Monaco are in! Check the results, see how your team did or enter a new team. Next race is Turkey on 30th May.

10 / 05 / 2010
Fantasy F1: The results from the fifth race in Barcelona are in! Check the results, see how your team did or enter a new team. Next race is Monaco on 16th May.

10 / 05 / 2010
Fantasy Rally: The results from Rally New Zealand are in! Check the results, see how your team did or enter a new team. Next rally is Portugal on 28th May.

19 / 04 / 2010
Fantasy Rally: The results from Rally Turkey are in! Check the results, see how your team did or enter a new team. Next rally is New Zealand on 7th May.

18 / 04 / 2010
Fantasy F1: The results from the fourth race in China are in! Check the results, see how your team did or enter a new team. Next race is Barcelona on 9th May.

06 / 04 / 2010
Fantasy Rally: The JWRC driver lineup has been released, so you can make your selection before teams are frozen for Turkey on the night of 15th April. If you don't pick anyone, you'll get Aaron Burkart by default.

05 / 04 / 2010
Fantasy F1: The results from the third race in Malaysia are in! Check the results, see how your team did or enter a new team. Next race is China on 18th April.

03 / 04 / 2010
Fantasy Rally: The results from Rally Jordan are in! Check the results, see how your team did or enter a new team. Next race is Turkey on 14th April.

29 / 03 / 2010
Fantasy F1: The results from the second race in Melbourne are in! Check the results, see how your team did or enter a new team. Next race is Malaysia THIS WEEKEND on 4th April.

14 / 03 / 2010
Fantasy F1: The results from the first race in Bahrain are in! Check the results, see how your team did or enter a new team. Next race is Australia on 28th March.

09 / 03 / 2010
Fantasy F1! Yes, there's a brand new Fantasy Formula One game! Check the rules or enter your team by Friday night to qualify for the first race in Bahrain!

08 / 03 / 2010
Fantasy Rally: The results from Rally Mexico are in! Check the results, see how your team did or enter a new team. Next race is Jordan on 1st April.

17 / 02 / 2010
Fantasy Rally: The points awarded for a win have changed in the real WRC, so we've reflected the changes in our scoring too. Check the rules to see the details. Next rally is Mexico on 5th March, teams will be frozen at midnight on the night of Thursday 4th March.

16 / 02 / 2010
Fantasy Rally: The results from Rally Sweden are in! Check the results, see how your team did or enter a new team.

31 / 01 / 2010
Fantasy Rally: The new rally season is upon us - 2010 Fantasy Rally is now open! Check the rules or pick a team ready for the start on 12th Feb.

25 / 10 / 2009
Fantasy Rally: All previous years' Fantasy Rally results are online - Check the 2009 season.

02 / 08 / 2009
Reviews: Sorry, there won't be any more movie reviews for the foreseeable future. Events have overtaken me. Catch up on reviews you may have missed.

18 / 08 / 2005
Sudoku! Have a go at the online Sudoku game.

National Treasure: Book of Secrets

Cast: Nicolas Cage, Diane Kruger, Jon Voight, Ed Harris, Helen Mirren, Harvey Keitel, Justin Bartha, Bruce Greenwood. Directed by Jon Turteltaub. Story: On the trail of more hidden treasure. Running Time: 2hrs 4 minutes. UK Certificate 12A.

I must admit I've become a little tired lately of finding new ways of saying movies are "pretty good, not great" and giving them 4/5. National Treasure: Book of Secrets neatly avoids this problem by being fucking terrible.

You may remember the first one - I said that it was a bad movie, but you'd love it, and most of you did. With Book of Secrets, however, the first time Cage instantly solves one of the obscure riddles you'll hear an audible collective scoff from the audience - "the clue is 'twins', Danny de Vito was in that, he was also in Throw Momma from the Train, what's the most famous train? The Flying Scotsman - so the treasure's in the sky over Scotland! To the hot air balloon!" OK, I made that up, but it's equally asinine. Whereas in the first movie the daftness was offset by some reasonably compelling drama, here it's monkey-brains to the core. Sequels are usually similar but amplified versions of the original, but they've amplified the wrong aspect - the implausibility - instead of the Indiana Jones you-could-do-this ethos.

With a script as painful as this, it's a major surprise to see some big names inflicting a vomit-stain on their CVs. Nicolas Cage, Diane Kruger, Jon Voight and Harvey Keitel all return, and oh my, that's Ed Harris and oh no, they've got Helen Mirren too! Much as I love watching her in her varied successes such as Calendar Girls and The Queen, in this cesspit of a movie it was a couple of scenes before I even figured out she was trying to do an American accent - maybe she was trying to distract us from the avalanche of sewage going on around her. I can only assume that the movie underwent a tumultuous development cycle, because there's no way these names would've signed up if the initial script was this bad. You expect when a sequel arrives without fanfare that it's going to be poor, because otherwise the studio would've been shouting about it, but Book of Secrets effortlessly limbos under the expectation bar in platform heels.

Now here's the thing. Despite the wholesale shittiness of the movie, I still predict it will garner more than its fair share of fans. I will grudgingly admit that the car chase in London's tight streets is quite fun, albeit riddled with the continuity errors you expect from half-arsed crap like this, and the Brit-bashing is mildly amusing, but for every step forward there are at least ten steps back. Every plot step is so utterly ludicrous that I was half-expecting the final clue to be branded into the president's arsehole, requiring Nic Cage to don a proctologist's white coat and persuade Mr President to flash the starfish.

National Treasure: Book of Secrets should remain buried forever. You need to believe in it to enjoy it, and compared to this, the evil bile spewed by Sally Morgan: Star Psychic seems quite plausible. If you're one of the lucky viewers with no imagination who enjoyed the first one, it'll entertain you in the same way, but I shouldn't think too many of those kind of viewer will be reading this, because you lovely people are smarter than that.

I enjoyed this film: 1/5

I think the average moviegoer will enjoy it: 3/5

Testosterone Satisfaction Rating: 2/5 - not as much as the original.

To enjoy this film you should: have no sense of disbelief to suspend.