On the seventh day, God rested. He had created the heavens and the Earth; all things terrestrial and cosmic had unfolded and sprung from His benevolent palms, twisting together in arcs of splendour and horror to find shape in four key elements: fire, water, wind and soil. And yet, in his infinite wisdom and boundless scope, the Lord had neglected the fifth and final element, the crucial component that would fuse these disparate particularities, making them greater as a whole than they could ever hope to be apart. God, realising his error, gave His golden wrist a mighty flick and willed into being this ultimate entity, the adhesive property He had forgotten that would guide the world into everlasting glory and hold back the tide of our suffering: He created Bruce Willis.

And the rest, as they say, is Pal-story...

The Exorcist is a story of pain. The pain of late 20th-century America, torn asunder by the dual impulses of its self-avowed exceptionalism: the urges to expand and to conserve. The pain of raising children in a world where spurious, quasi-religion dichotomies of vice and virtue erode under the weight of moral relativism. The pain of confronting one's own frailties, not just those of the flesh but those of the spirit, the pale recognition that love has its limits but terror, as always, is infinite. The pain -- most especially -- of letting Jesus f@$k you.

Pal-lelujah!

So there's a man walking through a dense woodland area, until he finally comes to a solitary cabin with rooms to let. He walks up to it and raps twice, loudly, on the door.

"Who's there?" comes a reply.

"Bob," the man responds.

"Uh huh, Bob Down, I suppose?" says the now-wary voice emanating from the cabin. "I've heard that one before, mate! You'll hafta do better than that."

"Now, look here," Bob implores, "I'm a simple man named Bob, and I'd like a place to stay for the night."

"No jokers admitted, sorry." And with that, the man will hear no more.

Later, when Bob tells this story to his Pals, he is effusive about the rudeness of the proprietor and the exhaustion he endured making his way to another establishment for the evening.

However, Bob is always insistent that the dwelling itself was a handsome venture, a property of stout build and an inviting aura, as whatever grumblings he might have about his lacklustre experiences trying to procure a bed for the night, none of that in and of itself should be construed as a Knock at the Cabin.

I hate the way they talk so much,

I hate the way they laugh.

I hate that they’re so out of touch,

I hate the constant gaffes.

I hate the way that their do bits,

I hate it when they sing,

I hate these opinionated sh!ts,

And I really f$&@in' hate it when they sing.

I hate the fact that they are always around,

Even though the pod’s hit a wall,

But mostly I hate that they can’t rhyme,

Not any one of them, not a single Pal.

Christmas isn't what you think it is. It isn't contained within the waking, sometimes sleepless days of the yuletide season; it doesn't simply begin and end at those polar midnights of late December. It's not quantifiable by tallying cards and presents, not merely a protracted spree of buying and giving, wrapping and tearing, hugging and crying. Christmas, really, is more akin to music or memory than the temporal here and now; even when it's not loudly ringing out, even when it happened so long ago, you carry it within you to summon against the darkness, holding it tight against the quiet and the cold. It's something you know as a child and try your absolute hardest to forget as an adult, but the truth is that Christmas is truly, deeply, embarrassingly about that one special thing: it's love, actually.

Now, this is a story all about how Galinda's actually Glinda now

And we're talking bout Wicked

Massive hit of the year

So take a break from all your worries and lend us an ear

On the stages of Broadway, born and raised

Where this musical originated back in the days

Of George Bush, Usher and low-rise jeans

It sure was a hit of grandiloquent means

Elphaba's green, and people are mean

"What's up with that?" I suppose you might scream

Well it's a metaphor, stupid, for prejudiced people

And how rejecting diversity can be terribly lethal

Wicked Wicked Wicked, what a crazy little movie

Chic-a chic-a chic-a, scooby dooby dooby

F is for the way the snow falls fast

R is recording a film podcast

O is "Oh my gracious, this is so outrageous!"

Z is the zillion times we've all heard Elsa's sing-song rhymes

So E's enough of the poem mode

N so now we can listen to the episode

[Sung to the tune of L-O-V-E but then it just sorta falls apart, I guess]

Enjoy the latest Throw in the Pal!

Remember when you were sick from school and your grandpa who you didn’t like that much and looked an awful lot like TV’s Colombo came by to read you a story about a fantasy world where no one has the same accent and eels can shriek and extra fingers are somehow a disadvantage and originally he kinda took it easy on all the horny stuff in the story but leaned reeeal into it by the end because at that point you were both super into it, so much so that you asked if he could come back the next day to read you the same exact story?! Well, turns out they made a movie about that self-same relatable thing that every one of us went through as children, and it’s not called The Princess Diaries. It's the other one, actually. So... enjoy the Pals talking about that!