Stan Lee is a God to millions of geeks everywhere and a seemingly harmless, eccentric old man to the rest of us. Lee is the former president and CEO of Marvel comics, the publisher that brought us such legends as Spiderman, the X Men and Squirrel Girl (seriously).

Why is a washed up old geek in the news I hear you ask? Well, apparently the great state of California is attempting to restrict the availability of violent video games. That is to say, the state governed by Arnold Schwarzenegger, a man who appeared in a boat load of violent films, most of which had videogame adaptations, thinks that games are bad and should be stopped before they harm the kiddywinks.

Crazy ol’ Uncle Stan posted the following message on the Video Game Voters Network’s website, which interestingly had never been heard of until this story:

My memory has always been lousy and it’s not improving with age. But it’s good enough to remember a time when the government was trying to do to comic books what some politicians now want to do with video games: censor them and prohibit their sales. It was a bad idea half a century ago and it’s just as bad an idea now.

Despite how liable he is to wet himself, Grampa Simpson Stan Lee is right, the politicians are overstepping the mark by using games as a scapegoat and this new bill is a blatant attempt to appease conservative voters. He also found time in his open letter to accuse the politicians of doing all this just to drum up positive headlines, to ensure they get re-elected and that 50 years on, politicians still haven’t changed.

And he’s right, after all, 70 or so years ago we saw another Austrian with a dubious past and some right wing ideas get elected to power. He did manage to write a book though. I’m not convinced the Governator can actually write.

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Derren Brown, the British mind magician and all around annoying show off, has wowed the slackjawed public with his latest special, Hero at 30,000 feet, in which he takes a bad actor an average guy and turns him into a hero… at 30,000 feet (this is achieved with a plane in case you haven’t yet realised it).

Now, I’m not one to nit-pick (not true, I really am), but I had a bone to pick with this show. Most people will tell you that it was all staged and that it was done with split screen technology or something equally annoying, but that wasn’t the problem.

The problem was… Derren Brown appears to have just made a mockumentary version of Donnie Darko.

Let’s examine the evidence. Donnie Matt is an average guy who isn’t fulfilling his potential and is yearning to be special. One night he sleepwalks after being woken up by a mysterious voice that tells him he has about a month until a life changing event will occur. By this point all that’s missing is an 80s soundtrack and some rabbit ears on Brown. I half expected Matt to reveal he was just Jake Gyllenhaal wearing a, “stupid man suit.”

Derren, who is now quite obviously channelling Frank the Rabbit, then wakes up Matt again, to bring him into the middle of a field to explain how his life is unfulfilled. We are then introduced to an animal that Matt is told represents power, a crocodile, in the film this part was played by the statue of the school’s mascot. As much as I wanted to see Matt put an axe through its skull it, unfortunately, never happened.

Matt then goes through a series of events that includes theft, breaking into the house of a respected member of society (the police commissioner, who isn’t a paedophile in this show, or so we’re lead to believe) and a feat of super human strength when he breaks out of the strait jacket on the train tracks.

At one point, Brown even says Matt is going through a, “transformation from ordinary to extraordinary,” you know, like that high school kid who could time travel and had superpowers. What was his name again? Oh yeah, Donnie Darko.

But most of all, at the end of the show, a plane carrying some of his loved ones is supposed to be falling out of the sky and only he can save them!

Also the whole thing made about as much sense as Donnie Darko, but at least Drew Barrymore wasn’t in it.

We all want to be a hero, don’t we? We all want to save someone’s life and have our story in the news. ‘Hero Saves Man’ reads the headline. Next thing you know the mayor’s given you the key to the city and Michael Bay wants to make a biopic about you entitled ‘The loser who did something worthwhile’.

Trouble is that this anodyne, office-based existence that we live in doesn’t give us much chance to be a hero. Once upon a time, when mankind roamed the jungles, we could have thrown ourselves into the lion’s path as it attacked our hunting companion from the rear, and our little tribal village would have put on a hell of a feast in our name.

Nowadays the most heroic thing most people do is offer someone a lift home after work. ‘You’re a life-saver!’ they tritely say, as they exit the car door, not even buying you a burger for the effort. And so in these dull, un-heroic times we turn to video games in a desperate attempt to fill the void.

In Negotiator, you play the part of a negotiator, who negotiates with a man (with a life probably quite similar to yours) who is standing on the edge of a roof-top, ready to end it all. Will you say the right thing and save his life, or will you be the final push? To be honest, either outcome is quite satisfying.

Play Negotiator

This is it – we’re into the last week of these Eurovision betting odds, so start betting if you haven’t already.

It’s a big week for everyone. With a record 43 countries hoping to make the Eurovision Song Contest final, there’ll be two semi-finals held this week, culminating in the main event on Saturday. 43 countries, several of which are former Soviet territories. Oh, global superpower communist states, how we miss you.

Here are the Eurovision betting odds for Sweden, with help from Paddy Power…

Sweden (pop. 9,006,405; a Nordic country in Scandinavia) Charlotte Perrelli, Hero

Woop woop! Former Eurovision Song Contest winner alert! Having won Eurovision nine years ago with that song (you know the one. You do. OK, you probably don’t) Charlotte Perrelli is back for a second bite of the cherry with Hero, a heart-rending blockbuster of a ballad so profound that it makes even stone-hearted grown men break down in a tearful flurry of self-realisation. “Everything has a beginning/ Everything comes to an end/ Take it or leave it you’d better believe it/ Be my love or be my friend” it goes. Shame, then, that Hero is so drag queen awful that it makes us want to slam heavy objects into our face until we pass out or die. Still, if this was the Eurovision Singers Who Appear To Have Been Cross-Bred With A Cat Contest, at least we’re confident that Charlotte would walk it. Current Eurovision betting odds – 12/1

Tomorrow – Switzerland! But if that’s too long to wait – or you feel like making more money than you know what to do with – head right over to the Paddy Power Eurovision betting odds page to see the latest, and best, betting odds.