Who would try the PBS Diet? Giles from ‘Buffy’, of course!

Giles from ‘Buffy the Vampire Slayer’: a PBS / NPR type if ever there was one…
(Find a great eyebrow-raising gif at static.tumblr.com)

Was it just me who secretly wished Giles would swoop in like a not-so-silver fox and claim the plucky Buffy? We could have avoided all the last few seasons’ worth of moping around after Angel if only the great Joss Whedon had read enough romance novels (any).

We’d have a classic Watcher/Slayer combo: the standard shy and nerdy yet protective older man with the sassy and spirited yet vulnerable young woman, leaving the actually centuries older Angel free to go on and marry his real true love in ‘Bones‘ (er, ok).

In any case, it’s not just me: there’s a treasure trove of Buffy / Giles fanfiction stories and videos. For newcomers, there’s a nice little ‘Buffy’ recap here.

And here’s a nice roundup of ‘Sh!t Rupert Giles Says’:

(Clips from ‘Buffy The Vampire Slayer’, shared via MrMorda898 on YouTube)

Rupert Giles, played by Anthony Stewart Head. Definitely an NPR / PBS watching type. Signed photo available from Amazon UK

Hooray! I was in the mood for some grumpy-old-git themed diets to remind me how old I am after my birthday. I don’t like my birthdays in general: they bring out my inner pessimist, convince me my friends don’t want to hear from me, and remind me I still haven’t been to space or cured cancer.

But a shy and tweedy occultist librarian with whisky could be just the thing to cheer me up.

Enter the PBS Diet: what a happy coincidence! Because if anyone in sci-fi listens to NPR and watches PBS, it’s Giles.

So, however does he stay so trim? 😉

The PBS Diet is based on the flimsiest of precepts, which of course needs turning into a one week eating plan: apparently, people who ate snacks while watching PBS shows like News Hour or The Week with Charlie Rose ate less or in some other way put on less weight than people who watched thrillers.

Or as one of the commenters put it, “after fifteen minutes of Charlie Rose, most of his fans are asleep in their soup”…

Here are the links to the PBS news article and the original Cornell University study.

And here’s the diet: you can only eat while listening to NPR or watching PBS (lots of sandwiches in the car for me then!) Brits: think Radio 4, or any of the kind of thing with Jeremy Paxman in.

This Week’s Challenges

Listen to NPR and watch PBS
Wear something tweedy and drink whisky
Obviously, go and check out your local library just in case it really is a training centre for fighting the occult. I mean, there are corners in the reference library where it looks like no one ever goes.
Watch Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Hulu, Vudu, Netflix, Google Play, Amazon UK
And apply for some library jobs (I actually did just apply for school library volunteering 🙂 Vampire slaying, here I come!)

About that Non-Romance…

Oh go on then… 😉 Nice song too:

(Shared via polly1esther on YouTube)

Amazing what they can do with some clever video editing. Oh, how I’m looking forward to making a ‘collectibles’ page for this one!