*Yes, we sometimes give ratings
to days or weeks. It all harks back to our beginnings.
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I know, I know. Not only have I spent the last month or so drooling over Cranford, I'm now immersed in the world of Oliver Twist (and, whisper it softly, but I've got the Fanny Hill two-parter to watch as well). Pass me my knitting.
Actually I used to be able to knit, but that's a whole other story. Tonight is the finale of the new Oliver Twist adaptation on BBC1, and having had a nice glass of wine and settled down in front of the telly, I'm going to sit here and write as I watch. (I may have had enough wine that this is the only way I'll stay awake throughout the episode.)
1910 So here we are. Five minutes to go til it starts, and this Oliver is suffering a fate worse than his namesake in the Dickens novel - he's having to watch the last few minutes of Strictly Come Dancing, in which Bruce Forsyth is singing. I don't normally watch this. Does he do that every week? If so, how does it get any viewing figures? Jesus Christ. Let's Twist again, already.
1912 A bit of background: if you've not been near your set this week, BBC1 has been running Twist every day since Tuesday's hour-long opener. Wednesday, Thursday and Friday have each had half-hour instalments, and tonight is the concluding part.
1914 I'm sure you all know what happens in Oliver Twist, but I'm hopelessly ill-informed. My only real knowledge of the show comes from the Disney adaptation in which a cartoon kitten plays the title role, ably assisted by the Artful Dodger, taking the form of a mongrel with a bunch of sausages around its neck. I am now told by IMDB that Billy Joel is involved in that somewhere. I absatively, posolutely can't believe that. No wonder I like him.
1915 More trails than you can shake a pocketful of handkerchiefs (chieves?) at, including one for the forthcoming series in which they try to find stars for a new Oliver! musical. I might actually be tempted. Somebody shoot me.
1916 Hey hey! Here we go. Much splashing through water, and there's Fagin packing in a bit of a hurry. What Fagin this boy is, too. Timothy Spall may be on the plump side for a King of street urchins, but he's done a fine old job. Ooh! It's the Old Bill! With Oliver's saviour Mr Brownlow in tow! This'll be a good half hour, y'know.
1917 I do love the opening titles, especially the bull terrier. A long, long time since bull terriers were in fashion. We used to have a bull terrier called Lizzie, who famously bit through my ear one day. Lovely dog, honest.
1919 Sykes is marching Oliver off (with bully tagging along), somewhere away from London. Mr Brownlow is not impressed that Oliver is not back with Fagin, and the police officer (who I'm sure appeared in the first episode - was there only one copper in Dickensian London?) is not amused either. Fagin "peaches" and tells the police that Sykes has taken Oliver. Not looking good for Fagin as he's taken off. Even Ezekiel the crow is condemned, and neither are going to go quietly.
1920 Have you noticed, by the way, that Ezekiel and Fagin never appear together? Clearly the producers couldn't get the crow to squawk in a room with actors in it, so they stuck it on a perch and just filmed various takes of it doing its lines alone. Poor effort from the crow.
1922 "You're my protection, boy. You're supposed to say, 'It couldn't have been Bill Sykes what done it', cos I was out here, wa'n't I?" Tom Hardy is a bloody good Sykes. Shame the bull terrier's had enough and done a runner. And can you blame it when the ghost of Nancy, the girl Sykes has just murdered, is there in the forest with them? Even Lizzie would have thought twice before sinking her fangs into that.
1924 Ah, the first appearance for Mr Monks, otherwise known as Edward Brownlow, but best known to us 21st century types as Mac out of Green Wing. And how superbly he's gone from affable ladies' man to the embodiment of consummate evil, as he plots the demise of the workhouse boy who stands to halve his inheritance.
1925 Here's a situation. You are a ten year old boy being held hostage by a deeply depraved, ethically vacant gangster who has started to see the ghost of the lover he killed. What's your next move? Sing "Abide With Me"? Spot on.
1927 Mr Brownlow confronts Edward, who says he has lost his mind. (He wouldn't be the first in the opening ten minutes.) It doesn't take long for Mac to crack and things are starting to unravel, as are people. Now the Good Guys have the letter from Agnes in their possession. Which is good 'cos they've got eighteen minutes of broadcast to sort this mess out.
1928 By the way if you don't know who Agnes is, go to iPlayer and watch the first four episodes. You've got til Christmas Day 2007 before the first one expires. Crack on! (It's from the BBC and it's free.)
1930 Edward's trying to exercise his influence over his grandfather one final time. He ain't buying it. Bets on Edward killing grandpa in the next minute?
1932 Nope, nope, Mr Brownlow is alive and well. Edward clearly didn't fancy his chances versus the coppers in the house. We've had the noose threatened enough times in five days' viewing but that would've been, if you will excuse the pun, a dead cert.
1935 Dodger and Fagin, who have been as close as lovers throughout, have a frantic discussion in jail. Dodger is charged with finding Oliver as he's dragged away by more policemen. (Who, even in this century, were never around when you needed them.)
1936 Sykes has lost it and as Oliver makes good his escape, his captor's off into the sewers of London - punishment enough, you'd think, and the coppers don't seem in much of a hurry to pursue. It won't exactly take long to smell him out when he resurfaces.
1937 Dodger and Oliver bump into each other but Dodger's not getting any joy. Meanwhile Fagin is up before the beak, and this time it isn't Ezekiel's. Now - is that one of the blokes out of Armstrong and Miller playing the part of the judge? I'm sure he is but a) I don't know which is which out of those two and b) I'm notoriously shite at celebrity spotting, even on telly.
1938 Fagin refuses to renounce his faith in front of whichever one of Armstrong or Miller, so it's not looking good for him. (That noose has been promised action all week, in fairness, and it's been left, er, 'hanging' til now.)
1940 Here's a situation. You are a deeply depraved, ethically vacant gangster who has started to see the ghost of the lover he killed. You're on the run in the sewers. What's your next move? Sing "Abide With Me"? Spot on.
1942 Oliver's back! Rose is overjoyed and Mr Brownlow, never overly expressive, looks on in the background. They'll live happily ever after. Fagin, however, probably won't, as he looks out across the crowd at his imminent hanging. He spots Dodger, who can't bear to watch and hides as the grisly sound effects play out around his ears. Out of nowhere the bull terrier pops up, clearly sensing an ear to be nibbled, and Dodger has a new companion. I used to play with that dog in a crash helmet after the ear incident, just so you know Dodge.
1943 Agnes gets a proper send-off at last, in the company of sister Rose and son Oliver, who remembers Nancy too. Dog and Dodge make their sombre way across town, throwing the occasional heartbroken threat at passers-by, and even Mr Bumble (come on, keep up) gets a quick cameo at the end with his new madam.
1944 A series which for a moment looked as though it would end with Mr Bumble getting a kick up the arse, actually ends with Oliver and Rose playing a wonderful piano duet in front of an appreciative Mr Brownlow (who, at the outset, disliked the instrument immensely). The show closes with "Merry Christmas!" ringing in the air. And to you, too.
If you watched Oliver Twist all week, let me know your thoughts in the comments. As I'm sure you can gather I've rather enjoyed it. It's no Cranford but it's whiled away three highly enjoyable hours and at least, now, I know the bloody story. Can I have Oliver and Co on DVD for Christmas?
Having started a job where a five-hour daily commute is thrown into the bargain, I've started to watch a lot of television on the coach to and from work. Plug socket, free wi-fi, BBC iPlayer, and away we go - hours of fun.
Or hours of weeping softly through the rolling hills of the Home Counties, if you choose to spend that time watching Cranford.
I am not usually one for period dramas, but the first of Cranford's five episodes - adapting Elizabeth Gaskell novels into a series on the life of a small Cheshire village in the 1840s - aired the Sunday before I started these gargantuan trips down the M40. Given it provided 60 minutes of entertainment I plumped for it, and what an excellent decision that turned out to be.
Cranford is pure television gold. It is one of the most innocent, charming, relaxing and heartwarming dramas I have ever seen, with the sort of cast you'd pick if you were told you had free reign to choose anyone at all.
Philip Glenister (i.e. Life On Mars) for example, giving a tremendous performance as a gentleman in charge of an estate, who takes it upon himself to educate the young son of a poacher.
Or Dame Judi Dench as the simple, generous, good-hearted centre of the predominantly female village society, Miss Mattie.
And just when I thought they couldn't top that, they did. In the final five minutes of the last episode (and this is giving very little of the plot away, I promise you) one character's long-lost brother returns from India. And who appears in the briefest of scenes as the brother?
When you can get Martin Shaw (always Judge John Deed to me) to appear for one scene, for 45 seconds, in the final episode of a series, you must be onto a winner.
It's not even worth trying to explain what made this so good, or taking you through any of the plot. You have to see it. Here, as reassurance that I'm not alone if nothing else, are some thoughts from people commenting on this website about the series and the books:
"If only Cranford could go on for ever and ever! BBC historical drama at its best."
"My cynical Scouse husband, my 17 year old stepson, and my 77 year old mum all join me in loving Cranford."
"This too short series made the licence fee all worthwhile."
"Television at its best. More emotion conveyed in just a glance than in a whole hour of soap histrionics."
"I have finally found a flaw in this wonderful production - that it has finished so soon."
"My wife was not with me when I watched it and I, for a 62 year old, cried buckets on my own. What a joy this series was. It was spellbinding from start to finish. Have to hand it to the BBC, just brilliant."
I work in a totally different bit of the corporation and have absolutely no attachment to this programme other than loving it to pieces, but my God it warms the cockles of my heart to see people, for once, applauding the BBC for getting something right.
On the subject of the Beeb, hello to Scaryduck. Scaryduck has become the latest person to realise the Dayorama comments system pretends to break each time you use it, but secretly works.
In response to my somewhat self-indulgent (look, it's a blog) ode to my first story on Ceefax, Scaryduck writes:
Gad! Eighteen years, and I've never had a Ceefax.
Which, among other clues on his own blog, leads me to conclude that our duck has seen far longer service at Television Centre than I.
Not that I am about to forgive Scaryduck for winning the Guardian's Best British Blog 2002 award, when we at Dayorama were merely shortlisted - even in five years, duck, I have not forgotten that name!
Click here to read the original article announcing the winner. Those were the days. Please do check the duck's award-winning (fix!) blog out here.
What would possess anyone to part with over twenty quid to spend an entire Saturday in a cinema, watching two series of a sitcom that they already own on DVD?
What would possess someone who already works in a cinema to spend their entire Saturday in a different cinema, watching two series of a sitcom that they already own on DVD?
Spaced has possessed those people. And it possessed myself, Amy J, Sarah and Lucy to gather at the British Film Institute on Saturday. At 12.30pm they showed all seven episodes of the first series. At 7.30pm they showed all seven episodes of the second series. And then we went home.
Except, a few nice things happened along the way. First, I snuck out after the first four episodes and stood in the standby queue for the Q&A session that was going to take place in between the two screenings. A Q&A session with almost the entire Spaced cast, including none other than Simon Pegg (of Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz and, er, Spaced fame, among many others).
Tickets for the Q&A were sold out when I booked the tickets for the screenings, so the standby queue was our only hope. Happily, when I reached it, it wasn't very long. But it was the strangest queue in the world:
There were ten people ahead of me, all standard issue studenty, arty types that sit and drink alcohol in standby queues at film institutes. And boy, had some of them been drinking alcohol. It transpired that the gentleman at the head of the queue had been in it since 10am, and in fact had constituted the queue in its entirety for at least two hours.
At 1pm-ish he'd been joined by a few others and had proceeded to get himself very, very drunk, sat at the front of the line. By 3pm when I joined the queue, he was a little loud but not overtly tipsy. By 4.30pm when I got my standby tickets for the Q&A (hurrah!), he was wandering the queue offering a selection of newspaper supplements to bemused Spaced fans.
While I had been waiting in line, others in our party had been busy. Sarah and Lucy had been watching the final few episodes of series one. Amy J had been dipping in and out of them (the episodes), but had been a little distracted by the appearance, outside one of the auditorium doors, of Simon Pegg. And a few other cast members. She might have managed to persuade them to sign stuff:
But she didn't bump into Simon Pegg as he left a gents' toilet. That honour was reserved for Sarah, as Pegg took evasive action to avoid her on re-entering the corridor. (There's a euphemism.) Sarah turned crimson, purple, green and white simultaneously, then had to press herself against a wall to avoid keeling over. It seems the man had that effect on quite a lot of people in the building. Strange.
Pegg was not the only victim mercilessly tracked down by the teenage duo of Sarah and Lucy, led in their mercenary celebrity bounty hunt by a rampant Amy J, for whom this sort of thing is a routine bloodsport, a bit like pheasant shooting but less humane. Spaced star Nick Frost, outside the venue for a crafty fag behind a flight of stairs, was brutally assaulted with a camera and two young women, to the point where he felt compelled to run away and hide (though that could have been the queue of fifty fans that built up behind them).
Everyone left the venue with a piece of paper full of signatures and some nice photos involving celebrities. Everyone, that is, except me. Nothing on this earth will persuade me to pester a celebrity to have my photograph taken with them. I would rather gnaw my own nipples off than either:
a) become the nineteen millionth person that day to trouble some poor individual with the misfortune to have become well known; or
b) lower myself to the status of 'fan with a camera and a marker pen'.
Seriously. We were stood outside the VIP area, roped off with a security guard uttering menacing directions at passers-by now and then, with the three girls trying to barter for autographs with the admin lady. I felt a quite horrible pang of disgust that I had to stand outside the rope and do the whole 'pleb' routine. My fingers teased my BBC ID card in my pocket. "Why must I be a total nobody outside the rope when I could be a total nobody inside it?" I asked myself.
But then, even total-nobody-outside-rope status beats wanker-who-got-told-to-shove-his-BBC-pass status.
And you know what? I'm just happy that everybody else was happy. Not that I wasn't happy, because I was happy. But I was happier because other people were happy, and that was no happy accident. It all fell into place. What a brilliant day out.
By the way - if you were in seat M32, you're going to kick yourself. You won the special prize announced on stage. But you'd gone home so the bloke in seat M31 took it. Just thought you'd like to know.
My absences grow ever longer. Way back when - it feels like decades ago but was actually last Wednesday - my mum completed her marathon fiftieth birthday celebrations with a trip to the Eden Project, in Cornwall, to see Peter Gabriel with me.
And to think I moaned when it rained before I went to Switzerland. And to think I was taken aback by the rain in Switzerland. That was but a murky prelude to the true majesty of the rainstorms which swept across the Eden Project throughout the evening. My mother, wisely, bought a cheap rainproof at the shop as we arrived. I, on the other hand, decided to tough it out.
After the support acts had finished, drenched to the bone, certain of pneumonia and squelching like a tub of jelly with every step, I went in search of a cheap umbrella. I found a teensy tiny one for £4. It didn't rain again. God plays his hand expertly, you know.
Mother had put the shop to good use not only by insulating herself against the rain. She'd happened across a cuddly toy black sheep (it may be a cow, I'm not entirely sure), and the moment their eyes met, it became clear they wouldn't be parted.
The sheep/cow became known as 'Blood' - Peter Gabriel has a song called 'The Blood Of Eden', and the connection should be fairly obvious. It's not a name I'm terribly keen on, but my suggestions weren't given much time of day (not that they were much better). So 'Blood' it is.
Meanwhile, as evidence on the right hand side above, there was plenty of flora to be admiring in the hours before Peter Gabriel emerged on stage. The Eden Project really is a fantastic place to go and attend a gig. Not only is their choice of artist rather good, they open their huge biomes until 9pm, allowing you to wander the tropical and temperate spheres at your leisure, listening to the opening acts. There's plenty of food at not-too-ridiculous prices, and plenty of space in which to be eating it. It's not a bad arrangement at all.
Peter Gabriel only announced this date quite recently, and his presence was tied in to the launch of a new piece of sculpture, called something like 'The Seed', aptly homed in the centre of 'The Core', one of Eden's main buildings. The Seed's claim to fame is that it is the largest sculpture, in Britain at least, made from a single piece of rock.
This is all well and good but, in the author's humble opinion, it has taken on the form of a giant urinal cake.
I try to be a connoisseur of the arts, I really do. But it's a monumental struggle.
The gig itself was as spectacularly good as I could have hoped. Gabriel, brilliantly, elected to play lesser-known tracks as voted for on his website by fans.
This is exactly what I wanted and I got to hear tracks like 'Intruder', 'No Self Control' and 'Humdrum' live - which I never thought would happen in my lifetime. Frankly halfway through the gig I wasn't expecting to hear them in my lifetime, as I was fully expecting to either drown or die of cold, but it was all worthwhile.
I realise I'm in a minority in holding artists like Genesis and Peter Gabriel in the esteem that I do, at my age, but seriously - it's worth giving them a chance. They create songs rich in layers, with brilliant lyrics and a real sense that this is craftsmanship, a kind of delicate, passionate art that's not the same as many other pop, rock or indie acts. It's all a bit different.
Try 'San Jacinto' by Peter Gabriel, or 'Domino' by Genesis, as songs which weren't particularly huge successes for either, but exemplify the spirit of their work. Then for an idea of the breadth of their catalogues, go for 'Moribund The Burgermeister' by Gabriel (opening track of his first solo album), and 'Trick Of The Tail' by Genesis. It's accessible and inventive stuff.
I've got a second chance to see Genesis in a couple of weeks at Twickenham, and am working on a second opportunity to see Peter Gabriel too. Where are today's equivalents? Who, of today's bands, will be around to sell out stadia like Twickenham in the year 2030?
The Daily Politics likes nothing more than a bolshy attempt to get into the spirit of things.
Yesterday, Tony Blair said:
"The fear of missing out means today's media, more than ever before, hunts in a pack.
"In these modes it is like a feral beast, just tearing people and reputations to bits. But no-one dares miss out."
Today, The Daily Politics had its answer:
For those of you that can't tell, on the left we have Jenny Scott, and on the right we have Andrew Neil, the show's very own political animals, introducing what they called "The Daily Feral Beasts" - and of course, wearing feral beast masks. No expense is spared in the BBC's political programming, you see.
Having donned the masks, Andrew Neil began an earnest discussion with Nick Robinson about the forthcoming PMQs.
"Are we actually going to try to have a serious interview?" Asked Robinson. I have no idea why he should express such surprise - it's hard to tell Neil is wearing a mask.
Don't go out and buy an Architecture in Helsinki album.
It won't be anything like as good as seeing them live. I went to see them play at King's College London last night, their last UK date before a trip to the USA. My only preparation beforehand was five snatched minutes on their MySpace, where they sounded tolerable enough to at least go to the gig.
Well forget that - on stage Architecture in Helsinki are a brilliant presence, the six or seven members of the band chopping and changing between instruments like there's some sort of three-minute rule, with far more dancing on stage than among the awed audience.
We had a prime position perched on the stairs with a view across the stage, and it's just a guaranteed good evening when you've got a clear view of people enjoying their music to this degree. Plus there's plenty of percussion going on, from drum pads (when not accidentally destroyed by an overactive guitarist/singer/keyboardist/percussionist) to cowbells and all manner of intriguing ephemera draped over the drum kit.
Describing the kind of music these hyperactive Antipodeans conjure up isn't easy. A lot of the vocals are shouty and raw, so you'll not get much change if you're after ballads or a delicate refrain. You do get a rousing chorus with practically everyone singing in harmony, steel drums rattling over booming bass, and the simple sense that there's a party happening on stage and you'd be silly not to enjoy yourself.
Usually, I'll confess, I go to gigs - even bands I really like - and after four or five songs a part of me is counting down til the end of the set. It's not that I don't like the music, I just tend to find most gigs a bit stifling somehow, they're not really my natural habitat. When Architecture in Helsinki left after a one-song encore, I was open-mouthed that they were leaving so soon! It's not often I feel robbed when a band eventually departs.
I've since had a listen online and the studio-recorded stuff doesn't capture me like the live performance. AiH are by no means the first band like that - Editors, a real favourite band of mine, put in one of the best shows I've ever seen in front of no more than 50 people in Oxford before they started gaining recognition. But their first album didn't quite capture the same edge.
Buy the new AiH single, 'Heart It Races', to get a flavour for the band, but leave it there and give them your hard-earned cash when they turn up on your doorstep to play live.
That's that then. A 101-year-old record has been reset and Nicky Shorey is Reading's first England player since 1906.
Not that tomorrow's back pages are likely to have his name splashed in bold black lettering. It was a fairly anonymous England debut - but perhaps that's the best sort of England debut.
Each time Shorey got the ball, he looked to dispatch it swiftly, efficiently and calmly to another white shirt, then carried on with his game. Nothing flash, nothing too risky, in fact nothing risky at all. Pass and move, the essence of simple football. No complaints there.
If he'd scored a hat-trick, nobbled three Brazilians while the ref wasn't looking, and saved a penalty, that would have been brilliant - but where do you go from there? Equally the boy Shorey did nothing wrong, certainly nothing the commentators and pundits were prepared to pick up on, and I didn't spot anything either.
People voting on the BBC Sport player rater have, at the time of writing, given Shorey 6.53 out of 10 - behind Beckham (7.88), Gerrard (7.78) and Terry (7.24). Now even allowing for enthusiastic Reading fans clicking '10' a few dozen times, he's doing alright to be top of the pile behind those three, and he's streets ahead of the rest.
Staying under the radar is ideal in your first England game. He can go to Steve McClaren, say 'job done', and wait for his next opportunity - after all there's no guarantee Wayne Bridge will be back for the Estonia game, and even if he is, Bridge needs to find an extra gear to demonstrate why he ought to be ahead of Shorey in the pecking order.
The pressure is back off Nicky - til tomorrow's wedding. Earlier his bride-to-be Emily was joking that they need a cardboard cut-out of him for rehearsals. At least tonight wasn't a flop.
Big Brother watch
Ziggy has entered the house, with male hormones inside already as rare as stardust (barring one or two distinct 'maybes' on the testosterone front - we're talking pink hair).
Ziggy's introductory video was frankly soft porn, and the former boyband star has entered the house clad in an immaculate black suit.
After a little trouble wading through the doors he emerged to the kind of reception any boyband member would come to expect - a horde of screaming women. Kisses - on the cheek - all round. The twins are dancing in circles.
"Am I the only guy here?" See, this has all been about the girls' reaction, but no one really gave time to how poor Ziggy would react to the challenge of fending off the female population. He's just repeated it. "Am I the only guy in here?" He looks, frankly, a worried man.
Oh no hang on, that worried look has broken into a smug look. "Who's going to show me round?" Classic male approach, that - let the ladies assert their claim, take the pressure off, make them work for it. Full marks boyo.
Ziggy's swiftly called to the diary room and immediately takes the time to thank Big Brother for "the people you've put in the house". Give it time with the twins, Zigmeister, and you'll regret counting those chickens.
Outside Laura is looking underwhelmed, presumably because - and we have to be honest here - she's around ninth in the queue.
He's back out and the jacket's off. Any sweat patches on that white shirt? None discernible - good boy, that'd have ruined it.
It's just been confirmed that Ziggy will be the only one allowed to nominate people for eviction. Frankly he's not my type but for the rest of that lot, for the next week, he'll be some kind of God. I must wear suits more often, you know.
Unlucky, lads. Once again the small technicality of the United Kingdom being almost universally despised across Europe proved a minor stumbling block to Eurovision domination as Scooch, the pretty-terrible-but-never-worse-than-Serbia UK entry, crashed to joint-second last.
Instead the asexual Serbian entry romped home as 327 Eastern European states each distributed points evenly among their near neighbours - a form of musical collectivism.
So let's not worry that you have to get to 17th place before a country you might call Western European (and even then it's Finland, which is borderline) appears on the grid.
Instead, we should be asking some pretty severe questions of this lady:
That's the Lithuanian entry, 4Fun, otherwise known as Julija Ritcik. In a competition where every nation east of the old Iron Curtain had cause to cheer - for God's sake, Moldova made the top ten - Lithuania somehow contrived to finish in 21st place, just above the UK.
This must be cause for a public enquiry back home in Vilnius. Neighbours Latvia and Belarus clocked up a healthy 54 and 145 points respectively, but the Lithuanians were ostracized by their fellows, ending up with a paltry (by Eastern European standards) 28 points.
Latvia chucked them a consolatory 10 points (without which they'd have been below the UK), and the supremely generous but hopelessly last Irish gave them an unprecedented maximum 12, but there were only a few scraps after that - 3 from the UK, 2 from Belarus and a wooden spoon 1 from Andorra. 1 point from the musical powerhouse of Andorra. You'd rather have nil, wouldn't you. As for the Irish, their sole donation came from the Albanians, of all people.
Not that looking through the UK's list of benefactors is any more pleasant. Just two countries bothered to throw the Brits a bone: the Irish, shooting themselves in the foot, gave us 5, and the Maltese somehow came up with a whopping 12 points to lend if not credibility, then a smidgen of substance to our score.
Can you imagine the horror in Malta as the country's 27 voters realised they had bestowed chart-topping status on an act 41 other nations had seen fit to ignore entirely? Almost every Balkan TV presenter, popping up for their 15 seconds of fame, could be seen to wave a metaphorical middle finger at the Union Jack as they rounded off with 12 points for the comrades next door. The Maltese had to grit their teeth to deliver their shameful verdict, lest the words "Oh, shit" creep out.
And to finish, the UK vote. "Ah, I know this girl!", proclaimed Wogan when Fearne Cotton appeared, but by then Wogan's credentials viz-a-viz recognition had been sorely tested. When the Finnish presenters announced Andorra in French - "l'Andorre" - Sir Terry thought they'd said "London" and ridiculed the Finns when the Andorrans appeared in place of Miss Cotton.
At the second time of Terry's asking, there she was, and the UK had given Turkey the maximum 12, almost certainly because of Wogan's repeated insistence that their backing dancers were all British. Intriguingly Turkey also got the maximum from France, Germany, the Dutch and the Belgians, with 10 from the Swiss, Danish and Austrians, which suggests a mentality along the lines of "we're not voting for any of our shitty Western European neighbours, and we're not voting for any of those shitty Eastern Europeans, so we'll vote for the shitty Turks because they're neither Western nor Eastern".
It's not often I'm around in time for soap-tv. So, the adverts. Firstly, how can skin be "more than radiant". I mean, radiant is radiant. You can't be more radiant. That's something else, surely. Glowing. Or even "amazingly radiant". You're just radiant. Not "more radiant". And anyway, if you look radiant, isn't that good enough. Damn, I'd like to look radiant at the end of a day of work... even less than radiant would be OK. Second, why do we have to have adverts for anti-diarrhea and women's sanitary products? Don't we just get what we want? Will an advert for one brand of sanitary produce over the other really make a woman change? I reckon you use either a) what your Mother or sister used or b) what is on special offer. Jeez. Oh and third, why do glade or haze or something or other air fresheners come in such ridiculous smells? I want a room to smell sweet, inoffensive. Not like warm, rotting roses (TM OJ, or something along those lines). I do not want, "white tea and lily"... "mountain berry" or "peaches and petals". Whatever next.
Sometimes I am wonderfully proud of having close ties with the Garden of England. And the sometimes I don't want to have any connection with Kent what so ever. What is this all about? The BBC don't seem convinced either. At least technically it is in Medway, not Kent...
Alright, I realise this is probably incendiary, but I've got issues with the ending of Life On Mars.
The series drew to a close with tonight's finale, in which Sam is exposed (to himself as much as anyone else) as an undercover cop trying to rid the force of the, shall we say, unorthodox methods of his superior Gene Hunt. Sam is transported back to the present day where he appears to wake from a coma, but then - disillusioned with 21st-century police methods and afraid he's abandoned the people he came to know during the series - he takes a running jump off the top of the building, and returns to 1973 to get the girl as the credits roll.
If you didn't see it, much of what follows, you might not. But if you did then let me know your thoughts.
1. Sam wouldn't jump.
I'm sorry, but given all we've seen of Sam Tyler in this series, he's not one for jumping off an office block - in other words, committing suicide. Even allowing for him having apparently been won over by Gene's style of policing versus the present day, that leap was a leap of faith too far for me to buy.
2. They've got their Gene back to front.
Think about this episode: the conclusion seems to be that it's okay for Gene Hunt to let innocent people die "because we like his style". In the first five minutes an entirely innocent man, who came to help the police, is murdered through Gene's gross negligence, and yet by the end Sam's portrayed as making the right choice in joining Gene, eschewing the way things are done these days.
I think that's an appalling conclusion to reach. I love watching Gene as a character but if he existed next to me in real life, I'd despise him and everything he stands for. People die because of his bravado, ignorance and stupidity, and he leads a life rooted in alcoholism and violence. A couple of times we've seen him go through some epiphany or other and acquire moral values when it really matters, but by the next episode they're gone again. The idea that letting innocent people die is preferable to clicking a pen around in a 21st-century police force is pretty sickening.
So where is he?
There's still no conclusive evidence as to what happened to dear old Sam. For my money, he's back in a coma in 2006. Amy J reckoned he was in 1973 all along and the 2006 bits were his imagination, but look at the cars: it's one hell of an imagination that's able to accurately guess how cars will look 30 years later, replicate the actual 2006 police car livery, and predict the format of UK car registration plates in the 21st-century (56/06 etc). Sam must have been in 2006 to start with.
So he's either back in a coma again, or he's travelling back and forth through time a la Doctor Who. And there is a crossover Christmas Special I'd like to see.
"Go away for a few days, and do something that forces you to relax," said the Doctor. So I did.
Trains and beer.
Almost two years ago, I embarked on a mission of sheer dalliance, combining the two great passions of every boy and man in the kingdom and taking them to extremes. A chance encounter with some leaflets at Bristol Temple Meads introduced me to the concept of the 'Rail Ale Trail', which does precisely what it says on the sleeve - in this case, taking you on a tour of Wessex via the salient drinking points in each locale. Armed with a drinking buddy, a timetable and quite literally the most fluid of plans, an entire week was spent crawling between Bristol and Weymouth and the various real ale pubs en-route - 28 in all.
I can't remember much beyond Frome, but I know it's one of the best holiday's I've ever had. It's not just that it was a pub crawl on an enormous scale; it took us to parts of the countryside we'd never seen before, and gave us an excuse to support some of the rural micro-breweries... by macro-drinking them out of house and home.
So imagine my delight when I realised there are more of these things to be done....
Having 'planned' a week off in February, the timing was perfect. The trail would be purely medicinal, and any liquids taken on board the same, ensuring the patient remains well hydrated at all times.
I decided I'd tackle the Tarka trail between Exeter and Barnstaple. It's a notoriously scenic line, and one I haven't travelled for years. With 19 pubs on the trail, 14 stations on the line (many of them request stops), and 11 trains a day in each direction, it was unlikely my three-day jaunt would be earning me the commemorative beer glass, awarded to those with a fully stamped leaflet. But, played sensibly, I might just manage a t-shirt for Ollie...
The casual drinker may decide to begin his trail at one end of the line, and drink his way to the other. However, the "experienced beer traveller" (as I was termed by one of the wonderful landlords I met) knows that to maximise his drinking time, he must juggle the sticky thorns of opening hours and irregular train times - and here, that meant starting in the middle.
Welcome to Morchard Road station, one of the more remote outposts on the line, served by a mere ten trains per day, and then only if you wave your hand like fury at the approaching train. It's so remote you can hear your train approaching from miles away, echoing around the Yeo valley on the clickety-click unwelded track. What a great feeling of adventure it is late at night to watch lights emerging from an otherwise pitch black landscape, and to have the train stop just for you with one flash of the light from your mobile 'phone.
I got to enjoy it twice at Morchard Road, for that's where I based myself on the first night, in digs above the pub itself. A wise choice, as you can see...
After my first (and second) pint of the trail at The Devonshire Dumpling, an evening in Barnstaple beckoned, where a three hour window between arrival and last train allowed all four town pubs to be ticked off. Opposite one of the four, a reminder that we're very lucky still to have the Tarka line:
Here's the old Barnstaple Town station, on the opposite side of the River Yeo to the current Barnstaple station (formerly Barnstaple Junction) and long since lost from the railway map. A late casualty of Dr Beeching, it's a clue that Barnstaple used to be a hive of railway activity, with lines to Lynton (closed in 1935), Bideford (1965) and Ilfracombe (1970). Lengthy express trains would stop on their way to/from London, and goods traffic would come and go from the enormous yard at Barnstaple Junction. The Town station is now a school, though the old sign lives on... as, happily, does the truncated line to Exeter.
Thank goodness - quite apart from being a lifeline to the communities it serves (barely a seat is free at peak times), it's the line that takes us to the pub.
An evening's drinking in Barnstaple should have warranted something of a lie in the following morning, but there was no such luck. Miss the 0944 from Morchard Road, and that's your lot 'til 1452. In that time, I had at least two pubs earmarked for a visit.
Punch drunk on weather and scenery, I decided to re-do the trip to Barnstaple in daylight (I'm glad I did), before returning to remotest Eggesford:
It's hard to enjoy sights like this and believe that you're not on some preserved railway or other, with stations and atmospheres carefully pickled in aspic. This is a functional line, working hard for its existence, and the fact that it's beautiful is treated as a happy bonus.
You'll find precious few houses in Eggesford, but you will find an early opener in the form of The Fox & Hounds, more of a hotel than a pub, and a little more polished than I'd have liked in such a rural location. It was also one of three pubs to stare in amazement as I produced my Rail Ale Trail leaflet and asked them to stamp it. Here, far from the official stamp (which some pubs treasure in a locked cabinet, or with pride of place behind the bar), I received a cheque stamp across my booklet, together with the kind of smile that made me feel like a weirdo for asking. While we're at it, let's name and shame The Jolly Porter in Exeter and The Lamb in Barnstaple (the latter is nothing short of a dive, by the way), both of whom came up with similarly poor substitutes for the real thing. Frankly, if they're happy to accept the extra custom that something like the Rail Ale Trail must draw, the least they can do is play along with the game.
Thank goodness for The Rising Sun up the line at Umberleigh, which has everything right. From the moment I collected my leaflet, people had suggested this as a good venue for lunch, and I even overheard two men in a pub 20 miles away discussing their next visit - mine would be sooner. A barman who clearly lives and breathes the pub gave a welcome like no other, and for the second time I found myself walking away from the bar having forgotten to pay. It was just like popping round to a friend's for a beer. A top class chef friend, that is.
A hefty lunch necessitated a hefty walk. I picked a hill and decided to climb to the top, before deciding halfway-up that the view probably couldn't get any better.
(The train sits in this photo like it's some co-incidence it passed as I clicked the shutter. Actually, I waited 35 minutes to see it. Still, the panting had subsided after 25...)
It's difficult to imagine the Tarka Line as a major express route. For much of its length today there's just a single track. Looking down on Umberleigh station from the road bridge, it's almost a typical branch line scene. Look carefully though, and you'll see the second platform past which the Atlantic Coast Express ('ACE' to its many friends) once hurtled on its way to London...
Having exhausted the top end of the line, I returned to Exeter to find digs, ahead of what I suspected would be a night of passion. The southern end of the line plays host to the undoubted star of the trail, the cleverly named Beer Engine at Newton St. Cyres, which not only brews its own beer but lets you see it being done and offers you the chance to take away a few kegs! Timing my stop to coincide with dinner, I shoehorned in visits to The Mare & Foal in Yeoford and The Crediton Inn (both worthy of a more lengthy stop if you can), and arrived at The Beer Engine just after 9pm. I wasn't disappointed.
It's hard to imagine how it could be better. It feels like some undiscovered jewel in the trail, brewing away in the middle of nowhere and yet comfortably filled with happy drinkers and diners enjoying the time of their lives. The pub has a railway theme, with beautifully sign-written notices pointing the way to "First Class Beer", and even railway references in the names of their three main brews. I fell in love with Piston Bitter, and not just because it's the best pun I've seen this year.
Armed with my carrykeg, I staggered my way back to the tiny platform at Newton St. Cyres three pints and a lemon sole heavier, but light of heart. One of those moments where the atmosphere is all.
With 10 pubs down, I'd scheduled a little time for drinking in Exeter the following afternoon, but couldn't go home without the essential trip along the Dawlish sea wall. It's my favourite stretch of railway line in this country, with sea on one side of the train, and red rock on the other. I jumped on at Exeter Central to be sure of a good seat, so was understandably disappointed to find that First Great Western's window cleaner had apparently got the year off...
(Understandably, the trains take quite a battering on rough days, so I'll find it in my heart to forgive them - but let's hope they get this sorted for the tourist season.)
The briefest of stops at Teignmouth gave me time to enjoy one of my all time favourite stations, followed by a trip to Starcross to enjoy another all time favourite. Why do fish and chips taste better when the view looks like this?
I even managed to build in an 'extra' pub, The Atmospheric Railway Inn in Starcross, which is a must for anybody interested in the history of Devon's railways. No stamp, I just fancied a drink...
So to Exeter, a final two official pubs, and home. I'm still reeling from the atmosphere of three days spent in the tranquillity of Devon's prettiest villages, on trains we're very lucky to have. Long may any initiative continue that helps to bolster loadings on our rural railways (not that the Barnstaple line seemed to need it much), particularly when they draw you into the local communities too. Like anything, a Rail Ale Trail is probably best tackled with a pal or two in tow, but you'll never be short of company en route if you do decide to go it alone - the local people know what you're up to, and share in your adventure whenever they can.
The minute the leaflets in front of me stop spinning, I'll be planning the next one.
On to the main purpose to my posting tonight - the first episode of Party Animals, a new BBC drama based on the lives of MP's researchers in the House of Commons. Well, that'll be me then. It has been said elsewhere in the political blogosphere that it was unlikely to be too realistic, which was one of the points of the series. They weren't wrong.
I watched the first 15 minutes in the office, then walked home, and caught the last 20 minutes at home. In that first 15 minutes, I lost count of all of the mistakes that were made. A junior minister wouldn't base herself out of Portcullis House. Nor would the Chief Whip. Nor are the offices that big or nice. (Well, some are, but they're reserved for the big beasts, not a PUSS and her shadow Tory spokesman.) The pass isn't quite right. The set for the chamber was a bit shabby. I left the office with little hope.
And yet, on my walk home, I gave some thought to the whole concept. It's a sign of the changing television times, I suppose. For example, Party Animals is being sold as This Life for my generation. Now, I remember watching This Life on its first run of repeats in 2000, and I'm currently making my way through the DVDs now. Even now, it still presents an aspirational lifestyle for me to lead. I'm not sure I'd want to lead it, but the point was that it was something I could do in a few years time. Similarly, The West Wing always had that sense of distance (if slightly less achievable) that drew you in. But not Party Animals. All I can see is something so very different from my job (and the jobs that are more directly shown on the show), which makes me write something like this. I fully expect there to be many similar reviews online and in the corridors tomorrow by other researchers. I'm not aspiring to live the Party Animals life; I'm annoyed that a show that wanted so much to portray a realistic picture of our jobs could go so wrong. Of course, it's all in the name of drama, but for the first 15 minutes, it didn't look like a trade worth making.
But I sat down at home and watched the last 20 minutes. It really wasn't much cop for most of it, until - spoiler here - they ran over and killed the annoying, alcoholic, drug taking lobbyist. Genius. Completely unexpected, well acted, and I'm excited to see how this will play out in the next episode.
There were a few other nice touches as well. The outside locations are all on site, and make it more realistic certainly (although researchers can't really afford to drink in the St Stephen's Tavern, frankly). And the scene with Danny falling asleep by Newsnight is so very, very true - he says typing this post in front of Jeremy Paxman on screen.
So, it's... merited another viewing. But frankly I can't help but feel they've wasted an opportunity here.
Goodness me, where have the last few days gone? Where's January gone? So far 2007 is disappearing in a blur of sport in a wonderful variety of forms.
Dayorama reader Amy J is fast becoming a partner in crime in many of my sporting endeavours. You'll remember she was on hand at the Madejski Stadium in the autumn, and on David's Christmas bus back in December. Well this week, it was high time I travelled back to Amy J country: Cheltenham, and more specifically Whaddon Road, home of Cheltenham Town FC, for the visit of Scunthorpe United.
As Tuesday nights go, it wasn't spectacularly pleasant, at least from a weather point of view. The rain did that beautiful swirl it always does underneath floodlights, made all the more beautiful by the knowledge you're sat under cover and the players are bearing the full brunt.
Amy J's father, who is distinguished enough to have had his first name all but eliminated in favour of the word "Lord", has tickets in the vice-presidents' lounge at Cheltenham Town. When it became clear that not only was I free on Tuesday night, but Lord J was unable to attend the match owing to work commitments, I found myself down on the list to occupy one of the best seats in the house for the League One match against Scunthorpe.
Now Amy J and I are both passionate about a computer game named Football Manager, which some of you might know as Championship Manager (without getting into technicalities, the new Championship Manager is in fact an entirely different franchise - the old Championship Manager became Football Manager about two years ago). Amy is currently managing Reading in her version, while I'm looking after Maidenhead.
In her fictitious Reading side of the future she's got a man named Billy Sharp playing up front. She signed him from Scunthorpe United, and he's now one of her top players. Lo and behold, there he was on the Cheltenham Town pitch on Tuesday night, playing of course for Scunthorpe.
Amy J is passionate about Football Manager, but not half as passionate as she is about Cheltenham Town. My muted cries of "Come on, Scunthorpe" just as the teams kicked off were enough for me to all but face a fatwa. But when Cheltenham went 1-0 up, we all celebrated (it seemed wise to join in) and all was well with the world. Cheltenham are in a bit of trouble in the league - winning being something of an alien experience for the team this season - so to be beating Scunthorpe, second in the division, was all the better.
Alas, it didn't stay that way. Just after the second half had got underway, the same Cheltenham player responsible for their brilliant goal found himself free with the ball, running towards the Scunthorpe area. Carelessly he played the ball too far ahead of himself but, as a Scunthorpe defender moved into to tidy up the loose ball, our Cheltenham man threw himself like a six foot dart in the ball's general direction. He missed by some considerable distance, but made instant contact with the Scunthorpe player's leg. The latter had barely hit the floor by the time the referee had his red card out - Cheltenham down to ten.
Suddenly a Scunthorpe equaliser seemed inevitable and, when it came, the scorer equally so. One Mr William Sharp rose to flick home a corner. Amy J, who'd previously held him up as a paragon of virtue in Football Manager, sat stony-faced and silent. I sat grinning like a Cheshire cat, trying desperately not to open my mouth to voice any of the hundred witty comments racing around my mind, lest I find myself beaten black and blue.
After five minutes I plucked up the courage to speak, only to be told to shut up. Amy J and the ten-year-old behind us, a commentator in the making with a catchphrase of "that's gone!" to describe anything that looks like it's going out of play, intimidated me into the sort of silence most of my friends and colleagues would saw off limbs to experience.
The moment Amy got home after the match, she removed Billy Sharp from her Reading team in Football Manager, sent him packing to languish in the under-18s squad, and transfer listed him. A somewhat harsh punishment, but apparently it would seem it's the only way he'll learn.
If only Scunthorpe's other striker, Andrew Keogh, had scored the winner. He's in my Maidenhead side - I'd have doubled his wages overnight. (You might remember Andrew Keogh: my wallet certainly does.)
On Saturday afternoon Anthony and I were wandering around London and happened upon the Russian Winter Festival in Trafalgar Square. We arrived a little before the six which if you read the program of events here, you will see was near to the end. The event was free and promoted all things Russian and all things touristy connected with Russia. There were, needless to say, and incredible number of Russians gathered. There was a stage with Russian folk / pop bands singing away and many craft stands selling Russian wares or tempting you with their tour guides or vodka. The highlight was the playing of the National anthem. It is a very rousing anthem, rather military in style. As the final notes of the anthem were fading away, the sky (it was late dusk, not quite a "black" sky, but that dark dusky blue with a few streaks of pink cloud) was filled with artificial snow from the four corners of Trafalgar Square. We were gently covered in foamy fake snow, as the anthem returned for a final chorus. They had also positioned lights so that the "snow" glistened in the air, representing the three colours (red, blue and white) of the Russian flag. Young children and old (me) were entranced. It was really rather magical, even if as English folk we were outsiders, intruders almost. It also made one feel rather sad that we couldn't be slightly more Imperial at times, and that we were equally aroused by the strength of our nation.
The three word mantra which every BBC employee up and down the land has been encouraged to chant at each stage in their working life - not, as much of the media would have you believe, since the recent spotlight surrounding the Hutton Inquiry or the prickly issue of the licence fee settlement - but, as far as I can see, since the sun first dawned on the foundations of Birt's Bistro (Wogan's infamous landmark across the road from Lord Reith's gaff, Broadcating House).
And if anybody in the great Corporation is in any doubt about how to bring those words to life in their work, they need to be watching BBC2 next Thursday at 9pm. So too, do the programme makers of every production house and television outlet in the world. The BBC will, as it usually does, show them how it's done.
The Truth About Food effortlessly parades everything we could want from the BBC in a truly brilliant series which will certainly go on to enrich our lives.
I would say that, of course. I'm going to be in it a few weeks from now, illustrating the truth about caffeine and the effect it can have on our bodies (or in my case, a lack of it). But in case you think I'm at all biased, tonight is the first time I've seen any of the series on a post-production screen, and I can honestly say it's the most gripping viewing I've enjoyed in months.
Tonight's episode - the first - tackled the inevitable question of how to be healthy, and did so with remarkable gravitas. The difference between this and programmes like Channel 4's You Are What You Eat (to which it will inevitably be compared), is that here, we enter into the spirit of healthy eating with no moral axe to grind. The world's leading scientists are engaged on a mission to find out exactly what the title implies, and nowhere in the experiments they conduct is there room for Gillian McKeith's sensational guilt tripping comparisons with football pitches full of take-aways or bus loads of sugar.
Instead we're informed by the hard facts of some gripping scientific experiments, like the attempt to take ten obese volunteers back to the diet of apes to see how primeval living may improve their chances of survival. (In case this sounds to you like dull viewing, a further entertainment factor was introduced by the fact the experiment was conducted under convincing jungle conditions... unlike I'm a Celebrity..., which I'm still certain could be shot on an elaborate set on a backlot at Elstree...)
The creative treatment of science kept us watching through a whole hour of experiments. The inspired idea of tracking the progress of a trucker's unusually high-fibre breakfast through his body as Fiona Bruce tracked the progress of his journey ("I can't stop the truck every two hours for a shit", says the trucker); the testing of the old wives' tale that raw garlic improves a man's ability to sustain an erection (which, apparently, it does!); all gripping stuff which leaves us feeling able to make informed decisions about our chosen diet and the effects it may have on our bodies, rather than just a vague guilt as we blindly reach for the next Pot Noodle.
And this, I think, means a lot to people who, in the midst of normal human temptation, are trying their best to lead a healthy life.
It's a great illustration of what the BBC can do so well. Above all, it's quite a brave series too. For example, it's the first time I've ever seen lumps of human poo on my television screen. Granted, Sunday night episodes of Coronation Street often come inadvertently close...
I'll feature alongside Maggie Philbin in the final episode, 'How to be best', on Thursday 15th February at 8pm on BBC2. More on that to follow...
See below for Torchwood tonight, but while watching the antics of the cryptic Cardiff crew I was flicking over to Channel 4 for the start of Celebrity Big Brother.
Good of them, I thought, to follow last year's "non-celebrity" ploy to its logical conclusion - by including eleven non-celebrities in this year's list of eleven housemates. Do you know who this lot are?
Jermaine Jackson
Danielle Lloyd
Dirk Benedict
Jo O'Meara
Ian Watkins
Ken Russell
Leo Sayer
Shilpa Shetty
Cleo Rocos
Carole Malone
Donny Tourette
I'd have guessed that Jermaine Jackson was something to do with the Jackson Five, correctly. I might have eventually remembered that Ken Russell is a film director. I know who Leo Sayer is. The rest, I'd never have had a hope.
My Celebrity Big Brother dream team, trying to be realistic, would have been:
Leo Sayer - keep him in, he's good
Donny Tourette - alright so I didn't know who he was, but good entrance
Phil Tufnell - nice and topical
Lembit Opik - give him some more C-list celebs to nibble at
'Comical Ali' - the Iraqi Information Minister
Aled Jones - not too many people have seen him post-Snowman, even if they've heard him
Dawn French, in character as the Vicar of Dibley
Sooty and Matthew Corbett - two people, can be voted off separately. Let's see Sooty try to get by without Matthew
Toni Basil - of "Mickey" fame
Davina McCall - taste of your own medicine, love
Anyone I've missed? (Try to be reasonable about it, although you can have one or two "unlikelies". I'll admit Comical Ali might be a tricky one to nail down.)
Alright, look, I promise I'll stop this in a few days when I've exhausted my Planet Earth box set.
In the mean time tonight's animal of choice is the tibetan fox, a strong candidate for the title of "Daftest Looking Fox" in any year.
Look at it! It's bloody beautiful (I do like a good fox), but as even David Attenborough observes, "Why the square head?". Bonkers fox, that is. It also has an amazing way of stalking prey, which essentially involves a strut-cum-shuffle. Imagine Michael Jackson stalking... well, I can't say that, can I? You get the idea.
Sadly for the black-lipped pika, it gets the idea only too well:
The pika, which looks uncannily like it might have been the inspiration for better-known namesake Pikachu, is almost the only item on your average tibetan fox's menu. Analysis of tibetan fox droppings (what a job) reveals that 95 per cent of their diet is black-lipped pika. Never a good statistic for a black-lipped pika to have to live with.
Why's it just black-lipped pikas (pikae?) anyway? Perhaps a pika with a bit of lippy on somehow proves a turn-off. Maybe it's tibetan fox food - maybe it's Maybelline.
I missed the entirety of the landmark Planet Earth series - narrated, of course, by David Attenborough - when it hit our screens last year. That was a mistake. Now I'm lucky enough to have been given the DVD box set for Christmas and there's stunning footage at every turn, like this little fellow:
Well, maybe not that fellow, but one of his very close friends. It's a blind salamander, featured in the episode of Planet Earth dedicated to life in caves. Since it never sees the light it has no pigment to its skin and, more importantly, no need for eyes. It appears that, rather than developing without eyes, the salamander did have eyes to start with. Evolution has slowly but surely taken them away - just one of hundreds of marvels I've enjoyed watching in the opening five episodes.
The other night I ended up discussing what I'd do if I won a substantial amount of money on the lottery (yes, that old chestnut of a conversation - but with a dash of topicality as I'd just won the princely sum of £10 on it).
The answer's simple: I'd set up my own company producing natural history television. I can think of no better way to live life than filming, and talking about, the world around us. Every time I see a programme like this, I think, "Surely it's all been done now." But it never has. There's always somewhere new to go, some new technology to use, some unbelievable new footage to show us. I'd love to be a part of that some day.
Oh, and just quickly: bless the French. In a knowing nod to their reputation for saying "no" to everything, they spent today protesting - against 2007.
"Demonstrators in the western city of Nantes waved banners reading: 'No to 2007' and 'Now is better!'
"The arrival of 2007 did nothing to dampen their enthusiasm. The protesters began to chant: 'No to 2008!'."
I don't think I share their pessimism - after all, I might just end up with that lottery win. If I find myself looking a blind salamander in the cavities where its eyes once were, I'll know the year is going well.
Well that was a bloody good end to Christmas. The Doctor Who Christmas special, entitled 'The Runaway Bride', gave me even more reason to avoid getting married any time soon, as if that were somehow a threat.
Donna, the bride in question, ends up mysteriously transported from her wedding day - landing in the Tardis. The Doctor quickly establishes she's central to a plot involving a nasty looking spider woman, her many millions of children, and an ancient energy source.
Superb acting performances all round and even the hallmark of any television show worth its salt - the ability to crowbar a Segway human transporter (well not one, but three) into the episode without it looking out of place. It's difficult for anything to look out of place when a group of robots dressed as Santa, using brass instruments as weapons, all have their heads blown apart by a particularly vicious sound system at a wedding reception.
Top dialogue throughout too, this just one neat little exchange:
Doctor: "How far down does it go?" Empress: "Down, all the way down... to the centre of the earth!" Doctor: "Seriously? What for?" Donna: "Dinosaurs?" (pause) Doctor: "What do you mean, 'dinosaurs'?" Donna: "You know, that film - they had dinosaurs at the centre of the earth. I was only trying to help." Doctor: "That's not helping."
By the way, wondering what Darth Maul's been doing since that rather close encounter with Obi-Wan Kenobi in The Phantom Menace? It would appear he's had the op and become a hideous spider queen known as the Empress of Racnoss, who causes the good doc a bit of bother. But you can still tell it's good old Darth - no missing that birthmark.
And we leave you with the knowledge, from this episode, that the Doctor's pockets are (of course) "bigger on the inside". I thought he was just pleased to see Amy J...
Take one farm boy - select your farm boy wisely, allowing for boyish good looks, charm, mop of hair and the kind of physique which suggests they look after themselves, without having won any junior bodybuilding awards.
Put them, to nobody's surprise, on a farm. Preferably a farm in the middle of nowhere, relatively isolated, and certainly not anywhere near a big city. Give them some form of family figure to look over them but subtly suggest that there has been family trauma for the farm boy to deal with.
Make the farm boy live in tempestuous times, nothing like as peaceful as they once were. Create a rather large and menacing empire ruled by a dark, twisted leader, one who administers power using equally malevolent underlings with special powers.
To this add the farm boy's future: a resistance movement, hiding out in unlikely locations, waiting patiently for the leader their myths and legends tell them will come (cue: farm boy).
So what do you end up with? Yes, you do indeed end up with Star Wars. But you also end up with Eragon, the new fantasy film of Lord of the Rings aspirations. Universally panned it has been, were we to talk like Yoda for a moment. Reasons are many and varied, but they focus on: poor dialogue, bad acting, lack of a decent plot, and complete inconsistency with the apparently rather good book of same name.
That seems to be the real bugbear for many. As with Harry Potter and any other epic that could be eleven feature films in its own right before you even reach the second in the series, Eragon the film is, I'm told, nothing like Eragon the book. Some people dare to suggest the follow-up film (and there'll be one, alright - we saw the evil dragon at the end and it looked like it had some fire-breathing to do) will be nothing at all like the follow-up book because the plot has been destroyed. That will certainly make things interesting for whoever has to do the screenplay.
The joy of all this is that, having not read the book, I didn't give a monkey's that the film doesn't represent it very well. Some of the acting could have been better, and the dialogue was all quite hammy and unrealistic, but then there is a dragon involved from start to finish. This rather renders cries of "the dialogue was unrealistic" a little superfluous. If you have a dragon in your film, you're entitled to depart reality and it's our own fault for wanting the impossibility that is a realistic film with dragons in it.
My personal success-o-meter for any film is: how long before the film finished did I start pining for it to end? Blessed as I am with the kind of attention span that would render me King Among Goldfish, but only just, I tend to start eyeballing the watch even in the best of films. If it's a bad film, keeping it mercifully short will earn you enough brownie points to restore it to mediocrity. The Eragon credits were rolling before I'd even given thought to the fact the film might end, so for all its faults it kept me ticking contentedly over in the cheap seats (alright, luxury seats) throughout.
The dragon in it is very good, by the way - voiced very well and, as we have come to expect these days, it looks suitably as though it actually exists. However I did feel the evil forces of the empire demonstrated an incapability bordering on the farcical in their inability to find this dragon. Bear in mind that there are henchmen everywhere out to find the boy with the dragon, the only dragon in existence apart from the king's. Now, this dragon is big. And it's flying around a lot. You know it's not the king's dragon, and you know there are no other dragons. Somehow boy and dragon make good their escape and the henchmen end up a good few days behind! It had been circling in the bloody sky for days!
Sum total: not a classic by any means, but not the 100 minutes of torture many people proclaim - unless you've read the book, in which case it may well be the cinematic equivalent of having your soul eaten by badgers. And yes, it's the plot of Star Wars, but with dragons.
I must now possess one of the best percentage-win records I've ever had for a season supporting Manchester City.
Up til this season I've usually managed at least 20 matches in each league campaign, reaching a monotonous nadir in 2005/06, when I managed to attend 14 matches without a single victory.
This season work commitments have vastly curtailed my ability to follow City, to the point where this is only the second match I've been able to get to. The first one was the opening game of the season, away at Chelsea, which needless to say we lost.
Tonight, however, we dispatched Aston Villa 3-1 at Villa Park, and we did it with quite a bit of style by City's standards. Darius Vassell opened the scoring for us against his old club, and Sylvain Distin - usually at least 40/1 to score given his position at centre-back - stormed through to wrap up the win in the second half.
By the way, if you're a Reading fan reading this, you can put the pitchforks and torches away - every time I'm working on a Reading game I'm very much a Reading supporter, and I was at the Bolton play-off final in 1995 (which Reading somehow lost despite, at one point, being two goals up with a penalty awarded).
I was only 10 years old at the time so it's fair to say I don't remember much detail from the game. I do, though, remember screaming something about one of the wingers in a high-pitched 10-year-old's voice, to which the old fella next to me (no, not my dad) turned round and said: "You're bloody right, son. Keep talking sense like that and you'll have a bright future."
If ever I apply to do commentary on a game, that's going down on the CV as the one positive observation on my footballing knowledge.
To further reassure Reading supporters, it's important to point out that when Reading beat Ciy 1-0 earlier this season, I spent the last 10 minutes desperate for Reading to cling on.
Granted, this was primarily because I'd already written the match report. And I'd accidentally clicked the wrong button and published it on the BBC site - with a 'Reading 1-0 Man City' headline - five minutes before full time. So I had a vested interest in the scoreline staying the same, but even so, I was crying out for that Reading win.
Back to tonight's game and the best thing about it was the fans. For a start Villa's fans were very quiet, which is always a positive (the attendance was a pitiful 30,000 in a ground that can probably hold half that again). But equally the City away fans I was stood next to behaved themselves, which is practically unheard of. Maybe it's just because I've spent a lot of time in their company, but I maintain that City's away support has the biggest moron-to-seat ratio in professional football.
Tonight they just watched the game and sang at the appropriate points, which was a godsend compared to the traditional smell-of-drugs added to the equally essential turn-up-late-from-pub and scream-abuse-at-anything. Once or twice we've had the delightful fall-off-row-behind-you-onto-you, most notably when Uwe Rosler chipped Peter Schmeichel at Old Trafford in the mid-90s. OJ might remember that: he was there with me and ended up hugging a complete stranger.
So in summary the game was good, the team played well, and the fans behaved. It almost makes me feel like I'm missing out... but then we're at home to Watford on Monday night. And we're unbeaten at home all season. That's a match we're guaranteed to lose - I'll stay at work.
As ever, anything I write which approaches the category "film review" is completed long after everyone else has seen the film in question.
So I'm more interested in whether you agree or not than I am in providing you with a taster of a film you've doubtless already consumed, digested and, er, removed. If you're Borat, you'll have popped it in a plastic bag and taken it back down to your rather refined hosts. (An eerily similar incident really did happen to a friend of a friend, but I shan't relate it - you might be eating.)
I liked Borat a lot. Not the individual, of course, even allowing for the unrepentant charm of a man who goes swimming with his pet bear, asks women how much sex with them will cost while walking past them in the street, and sings a national anthem pertaining to potassium in front of an angry American rodeo crowd.
This is a knowing film, of course. Many times the punchline hoved into view minutes, hours before Borat finally delivered it, but as with classics of the limb-gnawing genre - think Meet The Parents - it's the agony before the pay-off which hits the mark. The moment Borat is shown meeting a group of American feminists it's not the how, but the how long.
The question mark lingers longest over the length. At the end of the film my companions - all a few years older than me, so perhaps more mature (though I'd argue that point) - seemed to feel Borat had outstayed his dubious welcome. I reckon that, at approaching 90 minutes, he was hardly trying to construct a Kazakh Lord Of The Rings (and heaven knows which rings those would be, given some of the action we see in a hotel room). It was like watching a television special on the big screen. You might not like that idea, but it sat well with me.
The odd thing is, despite the reservations all three fellow Borat voyeurs expressed at the end, I swear none of them stopped laughing right the way through the film. You can't spend the whole movie finding it funny, then pop a straight face on as you emerge and pretend you're above all that puerile nonsense. If you laughed, you laughed - admit it, a man with a chicken in a briefcase burning a copy of an old Baywatch annual made you giggle.
Of course you may not have laughed. I can think of a number of people to whom I'd never show this film. Horses for courses, as they sometimes say. In Borat's case, bears for ice cream vans.
It's not every day a global rolling news network launches, so the debut this week of Al Jazeera English was always going to make waves.
But the way AJE have gone about poaching top talent from British, US and Australian networks, in a direct bid to appeal to those audiences, lends the network something of an audacious air as it starts broadcasting.
A few days into its broadcasting life, does AJE provide a natural home for the likes of Rageh Omaar, Sir David Frost and Riz Khan?
Watch the very first five or so minutes of Al Jazeera English here:
I've spent all afternoon with AJE on and it's definitely not out of its depth - that was never likely given the funding the network has, the technology they've acquired with it and the names lured across.
Particularly impressive has been some of the newsreading talent. In the same week as I watched Channel 4's Samira Ahmed make a dog's breakfast of two lunchtime bulletins, it's good to see Channel 4 export Hamish MacDonald making it look so easy for AJE, and the same goes for David Foster (ex-Sky).
Newsreading should be warm, intimate and assured. Under no circumstances should you look or sound uncertain on air, which was Samira's problem in my view and it's not one AJE are without. The lady presenting alongside Hamish MacDonald in their Doha studio has an odd way of appearing genuinely petrified with her eyes while reading stories, which does very little for anybody's faith!
Some of the reporting has been hit-and-miss. The obvious area where AJE will come under scrutiny is Middle East coverage, where AJE have led with two big stories today: an Israeli air strike killing one person in Gaza, and a suicide bombing in Baghdad killing a group of unemployed builders in a queue for jobs.
The Gaza report has both sides represented - the Israeli military and Hamas each get a say - and you can feel AJE straining to make sure that's the case, even if a group of Palestinians acting as a human shield seem almost to be praised for doing so in the script. (Of course, condemning them for that action would be equally as bad, the idea is complete objectivity, or as near as is possible.)
AJE produces exclusive footage of Iraqi resistance fighters next, which must be where the channel comes into its own in sourcing that kind of material. I may have missed it but I've never seen anything similar on the likes of the BBC, ITN or Sky, and it was pretty compelling to watch the guerrillas trying to kill our armed forces as they train for the job. Again, it felt like the report had been treated carefully (as it should be!) and the script wasn't afraid to point out that these people are terrorists in many people's eyes.
Away from the mainstream news reporting, AJE has a global outlook which I don't think can currently be rivalled if you live in the UK. That's not because the BBC or Sky are worse, it's because that's not their aim. News 24 and Sky both want to tell you about UK stories first, because they've got a UK audience. AJE is broadcast globally and so has far more freedom to go anywhere in the world in the search for an interesting five minutes of TV. I'd like to think BBC World does the same thing but, of course, we can't get that in the UK - so AJE fills that gap.
I've seen two or three top quality reports from corners of the globe you rarely hear about via domestic UK news. The reporters that stand out in my mind are John Cookson, who went down illegal gold mines in the Congo, and Juliana Ruhfus, who posed as a tourist to film in Turkmenistan as part of a series entitled 'People & Power'. Both told their stories exceptionally well, delivering reports with personality and insight as well as good pictures. Some of the other reports I've seen this afternoon lack that personal touch, some even lack a decent voice-over.
Maybe I'm biased given my job, but for me by far the worst problem at AJE is their website. You have to pay to watch AJE on broadband, are allowed only a 15-minute trial of narrowband, and at the time of writing no video reports are available online. Plus, to be honest, the website just looks dull:
That's the main front page of the AJE site - good use of images in terms of their size, but the whole point of images on the web is their ability to grab the attention. Rendering them in grayscale might make things look a little more refined and polished, but these pictures lose any attraction to the eye and there's no life to the page. Look at the difference if you inject the colour back into them all:
Furthermore, AJE don't seem to have an equivalent of the BBC's "Also in the news" section - reserved on the front page to remind us it's not all bad. Looking at the AJE home page there's not one potentially uplifting story, it's all death, destruction, conflict and politics. One tiny sports headline about Roger Federer provides a lone glimpse of light relief. I know people might think it's dumbing down or pandering to the lowest common denominator, but I'm a strong believer in reporting the good things as well as the bad.
So the summary is: AJE looks like a strong, well-funded service populated by reporters keen to tell stories from parts of the world you won't normally hear about. In as much as that's the case, I don't think AJE is a competitor to the BBC or Sky, certainly not on a domestic level. In fact, I'll use AJE as a stand-in for BBC World to get news from a broader field when I'm fed up with UK stories.
How annoying that I'll have to leave the country to see how AJE and BBC World compare, but then people abroad I've spoken to say AJE's made little or no impression. My Iranian friend hadn't even heard of the service, while my friend Adam, in Egypt, says nobody in the country has been watching. He goes on to say the BBC's proposed Arabic TV news service will meet with similar indifference - "if you're watching in English you'll watch the BBC, if you're watching in Arabic you'll watch Al Jazeera". If that's the case, AJE might be a costly exercise in futility.
Sometimes I wonder why we bother watching television.
Last night's Mysterious Creatures, on ITV, was a case in point. Billed as a 'tale of family tragedy', it was more a tale of sheer, relentless, unremitting woe for 90 minutes. Had a bad day, have you? Want to settle down in front of the box, do you? Well here. Have this, and see what these people had to suffer. You ungrateful shite.
It's a true story, just to tip you off the bridge of despair and into oblivion, of how two parents try (and fail) to deal with their daughter's many and varied addictions. Ostensibly these include spending money on shoes and cuddly toys, but they are more demonstrably seen to include throwing violent wobblers in the middle of packed high streets, and escorting parents to failed suicide bids.
My stepmum, bless her, stuck with the whole hour and a half of this. I don't know how she did it. I only properly caught the last half an hour and, by the end of it, I'd have gladly gunned down every character to have appeared in it.
But tonight I pop into the living room and what do I find - more woe! This time it's Tripping Over on Five, described as a "series in which five young travellers meet in Bangkok where a tragic incident changes the direction of their lives."
There's that tragedy bit again, as if our daily lives didn't have enough for us to be working on emotionally and psychologically. I saw five minutes, during which a man was told he had a disease which would have rendered him infertile since the day he was born. Given he has a son in his 20s, this clearly presents a dilemma. Unable to watch the numbingly inevitable agony with which this would play out, I left.
It doesn't all have to be like that, you know. Last night, when I could have been watching the first hour of Mysterious Creatures, I retired elsewhere and watched the hour-long Royle Family special. What a treat. If that hour of television doesn't win every award for which it is nominated, I will be violently sick with anger.
It is six years since the Royles were last on our televisions (no, really! I couldn't believe it either), and this episode shows us where they're up to. Then, as Nana becomes increasingly ill, we're given some incredibly moving and real insights into the human beings behind the comedy figures Royle Family fans love.
For example, the show starts with a row - as ever- between Jim and Nana. But as things change and her condition slowly worsens, we see beautiful scenes of Jim helping her up the stairs, all the while making her laugh by being silly, proving himself the true gentleman when the situation demands. And all this set to hauntingly dainty, carefree music reminiscent of radio gems from the 30s and 40s.
As the end draws near, we see each of the many characters from the show finding their way to the hospital from the walks of life they have each carved out - wearing the clothes specific to their profession, each approaching this most worrying of situations in their own little ways. There are so many wonderful fine touches to every scene that I can't possible document them. It's as though I'm watching myself in all these people. How fascinating to watch the writers of the show thrust their characters into a serious, emotionally charged situation, and let the actors thrive in developing that side to roles they've already had five years to develop. Brilliant television.
The one scene which will live in my memory always is portrayed through the eyes of Nana as she lies in her hospital bed. It is not made clear whether she can actually see, or whether she is asleep and we simply view the scene from her sleeping position.
Jim Royle walks into the shot. The camera then holds for 10 to 15 seconds as Jim, utterly overcome by grief and trying with all his convulsive might to fight away floods of uncontrollable tears, stands over the bed. Those are some of the most powerful seconds of television I have ever seen, and at that point I started crying too - I didn't stop until the credits.
I didn't cry because I was depressed. I didn't cry because somebody had thrown tragedy after tragedy, each removed from my own experience and a little far fetched, at my television set. I cried because the writers took an event all of us have to face sooner or later - death. They showed us how some of our favourite characters, people we identify with, people we see laugh and joke all the time, dealt with death. And when Jim Royle started crying, they showed us it was okay to be a human being. Even for Jim.
Nana died quietly at the hospital in the full knowledge it was coming. No addictions, no screaming, no violence, no concocted tragedy, no gratuitous exploitation of emoton. Nana's was the simplest of deaths, portrayed in the simplest of ways, and it made me feel better about myself. That's a reason to watch television.
Watch the following video closely. You will see people at the bottom of the giant slides at the Tate Modern gallery in London. Then you'll see what happens to small children flung from the slide apparatus...
Not really, of course. Fun slides though! Here's a selection of pics starting with my favourite, combining a word from the slide instructions on the glass viewing platform with a slider in motion. Who says we can't try to create art out of art?
Don't get me wrong: the slides are good fun, they attract youngsters to art, and they're so popular that clearly the British public have been craving this kind of interactivity with their galleries. But it feels like not over-much actual artistic effort went in. The slides are bare, grey structures with no life to them. I had expected them to be decorated or surrounded by other works of art suspended from above, so people sliding would have plenty of exciting things flying through their field of vision as they descended the exhibit. But there was nothing like that.
One word of advice if you're planning on going. Get there very early (it opens at 10am most days), get in line to book your free tickets for the higher slides, and come back at the appointed time. We got there at 2pm and they had already almost sold out of tickets for the whole of the rest of the day. It's very easy to end up disappointed - given the gallery doesn't shut til 10pm on a Friday, you simply don't expect all eight hours of remaining sliding to be booked up!
If I'm honest the rest of the Tate Modern left me cold. There was some photography on display which did little to inspire me, and plenty of modern art about which I could bleat on forever, but suffice to say it's just not clever enough. If I reckon I could reproduce it given enough time and resources, it's not art. I can lump a load of clay into silly shapes and leave it in a corner of a room as per one exhibit - I couldn't paint the Mona Lisa. Therein lies the difference, for me.
God, it's tedious when normal people play at politics. That, at least, is how it feels when it's put on television and turned into an implausible prime time television series.
Believe me, I'm no great lover of politicians. But then not many people are great lovers of journalists. You have citizen journalism, where the public get to be journalists, with the help of journalists. Here we have The Amazing Mrs Pritchard, where one of the public gets to be Prime Minister, with the help of a few other politicians.
Except that's the equivalent of installing someone who writes to Points Of View, expressing a low opinion of Natasha Kaplinsky, as Director-General of the BBC. Who knows? Maybe that might work. But it's not going to bloody happen, is it?
And that's the fundamental problem with this series. No matter what you do or say, you will not convince me that 54 per cent of the voting British public have it within themselves to elect a middle-aged woman with a bee in her bonnet about politicians.
Those people who can still be bothered to vote - in themselves practically a minority - are usually so pig-headedly biased in favour of one party, they wouldn't switch their party of choice if it suddenly advocated mandatory sex with ducks on Sundays. These people are not going to vote for Mrs Pritchard, amazing as she is.
The crushing minority of people actually undecided with their vote might well vote for Mrs Pritchard. But the Green Party, UKIP, Respect, and the various other at-least-we-can-say-we-tried parties are all vying for the same vote, so our new lady Prime Minister would have lost some votes to them too.
Then we must confront gender politics. The Purple Alliance, Mrs Pritchard's hastily convened party, is made up primarily of women defecting from other parties. There's very little male presence. Imagine a front bench of Margaret Beckett, Ann Widdecombe, Clare Short, Diane Abbott, Patricia Hewitt, Tessa Jowell et al. It just wouldn't work. You would be screaming for Gordon Brown to come back, and when you reach that point, you know something is seriously wrong.
Alright, alright. So the scriptwriters know all this. They want us to suspend our disbelief, but I just can't do it. I don't know why. Why can I happily entertain the notion that I'm watching Robin Hood returning from the Crusades to a 12th-century village near Nottingham, when I know damn well it's 21st-century Hungary, yet I can't accept this premise?
Maybe it's the tone of this programme - so whiter-than-white it's like watching The Daily Politics, sponsored by Daz, so pious it might as well declare itself Pope. Full of limb-gnawingly empowering speeches from our parliamental protagonist, set to a look-she-really-means-it score of soaring strings and rabid applause from people who, in real life, would pat her reassuringly on the shoulder, ring the mental home, then go and vote Lib Dem.
I think what's stopping me enjoying this programme is the sheer stench of earnest determination: on the part of the characters, on the part of the cast playing the characters, and on the part of the producers. This is not what politics is about - go and watch The Thick Of It. There the stench of sleaze and debauchery rings so true it has indeed, apparently, worn off on its cast!
Call me a cynic, but I can't watch an earnest political drama. If she's not screwing her Cabinet in more ways than one by next week, I'm voting her out.
Death Of A President, the highly controversial film depicting the assassination of George W Bush in 2007, got its UK debut on digital channel More4 this evening.
And the very fact this film is so controversial in the USA - where cinemas refuse to touch it - is testament to the political climate in that country at the moment.
Have you read any What If? books? They're a series of thoughtful historical works exploring possible alternative histories had just one event, or perhaps a succession of small events, changed.
The most basic of these is: what would the world be like if the Nazis had won World War Two? It's a strand of thought entitled "counterfactual history". It's not the most scientific of disciplines since, by necessity, it requires imagination and subjective thought, but it's interesting - it illuminates the tiny, almost insignifcant ways in which world history could have been vastly altered.
Death Of A President is a fine example of counterfactual history at work, with the minor caveat that since it discusses the year 2007, it may or may not actually prove counterfactual. There is still plenty of room for the President to find himself shot, but the film is made in the spirit of exploring a What If? scenario.
Yes, it depicts the President dying, which is by no means the most dignified of on-screen appearances for George. But if you are the President of the USA, you have better things to worry about than someone making a film where you die. The hilarious argument that this film will incite people to murder him has already been dealt with eloquently by many other people.
Other than the minor matter of his death, it's actually quite kind to the President. Okay, there are plenty of protesters on screen, but that's hardly counterfactual is it? Moreover many of the talking heads in the film - fictitious security chief, made up lawyer, imagined wife of assassin etc - are outspoken in their respect, if not in some cases love, for the President. This is matched by the passionate dislike others feel for him, but it's hardly a one-sided affair.
What we have is an exercise in imagination, just like the What If? books. Where is the hail of condemnation for the writers who dared to dream a world where the Nazis won? Think how many American soldiers, British troops and innocent Jewish civilians that must automatically wipe out - far more than the life of one admittedly rather important man.
As far as the film itself goes, it's a cracking watch up until just after the point Bush is shot.
From the start it licks along at a good pace, using cleverly edited archive footage to show the Presidential convoy coming under an abortive attack, then Bush's speech at the Sheraton hotel in Chicago, then his assassination on leaving.
Alas, after the shooting it slowly degenerates into the sort of second-rate American made-for-TV movie you'll find gracing the BBC in the early hours. As wooden talking heads try to sound spontaneous the film becomes bogged down in mealy-mouthed soul-searching dialogue. Prior to that this had been a film you could imagine being made in the aftermath of an assassination. But when was the last time you saw the assassin's lawyer give a lengthy interview to one of these things?
The moment the hand-wringing starts, this production becomes tedious, but that doesn't devalue the thundering opening. After watching this I can see how the President might come to be assassinated, and can picture the events as they might happen. I am entirely unconvinced, however, that - were I an assassin myself - this would be the final piece in the jigsaw for me to now go and bump off the Leader of the Free World.
Would this film have received the same appalled reaction from many in the US (and, indeed, some in the UK and elsewhere) had it been made in 2009? With George W Bush safely retired from the presidency and the audience fully aware nothing like this will happen to him? It strikes me the pious outrage is very much an expression, no, an admission that this is a thoroughly believable What If?. Not liking our nightmares is no reason not to confront them.
I always worry with much-hyped TV drama series - especially period ones - that they're going to be fundamentally unwatchable.
So many things can go wrong. Your characters can be unbelievable, your scenery can look stupid, your dialogue can fall flat, and your plot can be wafer-thin.
Well the first episode of the much-vaunted Robin Hood was pretty darned good, in my humble opinion. It almost lived up to the excruciating billing it's had - BBC News 24 were running a report on the new series on Thursday, a good two days before the programme even made it to our screens.
Considering it's filmed in Hungary, Robin Hood really looks the part. In a beautifully filmed opening sequence Robin, walking home through lush forest, rescues the man we later come to know as Alan-a-Dale. There's no rush to the scene and it doesn't feel beholden to any previous incarnation of the hooded one - and, this time, all the tricks of films like Lord Of The Rings have been worked onto the small screen, not least a fine score.
There's a subtle fun element built in, too. Little in the way of raw comedy or slapstick, but simple humour derived from exchanges between Robin and companion Much. That said, sometimes actions speak louder than words - during my three-year history degree I don't remember studying medieval cleavage, but I really should have done, given its apparent prominence in Robin's world. Ten minutes in and he's already pulled the first woman to appear in the entire series - enraging her father in the process - then the following day he's trying it on with Marian!
All the while the dialogue's almost Shakespearean, but with suitably northern accents attached - as in the title of this post, where Alan-a-Dale frantically protests that he's not from Locksley, on finding an earlier lie may have inadvertently earned him a hanging.
It feels like one of those outdoor plays, only on a grander scale, which is a good sensation to have. Yes, there's acting going on, and we all know it, but the suspension of disbelief is there to the extent that this might as well be Sherwood Forest - and that 'might as well' is important.
There's a suitable cliff-hanger at the end of the episode too, enough to make me think I'll be finding a way to watch next week. That's the key: even the likes of Lost have, well, lost their ability to make the masses tune back in again and again (in that instance thanks to plot complications beyond any realistic tolerance level). The test for Robin Hood is whether, like BBC stablemate Life On Mars, it can hold its audience long enough to buoy the entire series.
Score: 9/10
Believable medieval dialogue, doesn't try too hard to be funny
Well directed, good use of colour
Not evocative of any previous Robin Hood - nor in their shadow
What more can you ask than to be left wanting more?
Two new comedy shows on BBC2 tonight: Extras, the Ricky Gervais vehicle, followed by That Mitchell And Webb Look, from the two gentlemen behind Peep Show.
Extras
I never really watched the first series of this beyond the very first episode, which didn't grab me. I don't know what it is about Ricky Gervais that millions of people do enjoy and I don't, but all power to him for exploiting it.
But this time round I was hooked in by the brilliant opening scene in which guest star Orlando Bloom - for Extras, of course, is all about the guest star - plays a barrister. It's all very Judge John Deed, a favourite series of mine.
Bloom is up against a female barrister who, it is revealed, is his wife. They have a row in front of the jury and a witness. The judge orders them, with great drama, to "kiss and make up", which they then do to a crescendo of music and applause. This is no less plausible than most Deed storylines.
I heard Stephen Merchant, a close Gervais co-conspirator, being interviewd on Radio 2 earlier on. His prediction was that the performance of Keith Chegwin, another guest star, would "put his neck on the line". And how. While Orlando Bloom, as himself, developed in traditional self-obsessed megastar fashon, Chegwin's role as Chegwin was a complete departure.
He is witnessed somewhat drunkenly ridiculing homosexuality, referring with a certain half-hearted malice to "Jews, gays and blacks", and acting with woeful ineptitude. He cuts a sorry character when he films a sitcom scene playing the part of Alfie. Eventually he admits to Gervais, directing the action, that he is confused about who Alfie is. Gervais agrees that Keith's character can be renamed 'Keith' to help him. But then Chegwin becomes confused about "which Keith" he is supposed to be.
Ultimately Extras still failed to hold my rapt attention. Maybe I continue not to give it enough of a chance, but I just know it'll have the scent of Ricky Gervais smeared all over it. It's like popcorn - everyone loves it and I can understand why, but it's not for me.
That Mitchell And Webb Look
I held out against Peep Show for ages before my university friends converted me, after which point I loved it, so it's great to see these two on BBC2.
They've been given a sketch show with which to convince us they're not yet typecast as the pair of flatmates blundering through life with thinly veiled mutual contempt, and they do an encouraging job of it. On a few occasions this felt very much like "the guys from Peep Show doing a sketch" but that's to be expected, and it was wearing off as time went on.
Highlights were 'Numberwang', a game show in the spirit of Countdown in which two contestants seemingly shout out random numbers, to which the host intersperses "That's Numberwang!" at regular intervals with no discernible logic to what, precisely, that Numberwang is. Imagine the number round of Countdown, taking place in an ancient alien language and fast forwarded, and we're about there.
The two Numberwang contestants this week were Julie, from Somerset, and Simon, from Somerset. "Got any hobbies in Somerset?", demanded the host. "Yes!", answered Julie. "No," answered Simon. Somerset is long overdue a good joshing from a comedy show, I approve.
A very clever tactic used by Mitchell and Webb: breaking out of a comedy sketch to show the two of them discussing the scene in question.
They did this in a sketch where the person featured in a "How Not To Look"-esque show turns up in a burqa. That's the first joke, but then we break out to see the full set replete with camera crew. Robert Webb wanders over to David Mitchell, who is wearing the burqa, and asks if this is really going to work as a gag, and are they just mocking people for their beliefs? Mitchell then removes the burqa to reveal himself fully blacked-up, simply because he likes it like that.
Out of the two shows it's TM&WL that'll have me coming back for more, if only because I know these two have bags of promise and there were fleeting glimpses of comedy genius in this half an hour. Extras - I'm sure it's good, but not my kettle of fish, ta.
So, as Amy will attest to having spoken to me rather dopily on the phone (I was dopey, not her), I have just woken up from an afternoon nap as a result of getting up at 4 to go to see an outside broadcast of Today this morning in Great Torrington.
It was an interesting experience. We were effectively in a theatre, with the radio desk up on the stage, chaired by Jim Naughtie, who was much better humoured than I had expected. Then, projected onto the cinema screen behind was a live feed from the studio, where Sarah Monatgue, Charlotte Green, and the rest of the London team could be seen. To the side in the theatre was the technical area, with two tech guys, a researcher, producer/editors, and the business and sports correspondents. I think Ollie is a very junior amalgamation of all of these to Jim Naughtie's Henry Kelly.
The technological part was all very cool, but I shan't go into detail here, safe to say that having a live linkup between Devon, London, and variously Turkey, America, and Toronto, is very cool. More interesting was seeing the Today programme in action - both its successes and flaws. For example, the whole thing is very polished, and the ability of the presenters to carry on an indepth discussion while reading the latest piece of paper from the editors and stirring their coffee is impressive. But what it also showed was the limitation of a radio interview and discussion. The pieces, particularly from Torrington on Tesco, organic boxes, and the teaching of history, did very little to inform. Setting up a debate by introducing three people with opposing viewpoints and then giving them a sentence each does not make for a good discussion. I know that there is merit in inviting these people on to the show and presenting the topic as a dialogue, but for those with any sort of prior knowledge (and even for those without), they would have been better off if Jim had just summarized everyone's views and read them out. Indeed, he'd probably have been able to give greater depth to them.
This was particularly frustrating for the history section. I wasn't expecting to get called on, though I did have a nice two sentence sound bite ready that argued for the necessity of contextualising the historical narrative in other subjects, and also featured the word underwhelmed. But to standard consesnual lines from the businessman who thought that history was not good preparation for life, the student who agreed, the historian in defense of history, the student who agreed, and the teacher on the importance of research skills, was predictable and uninformative. Similarly, the Tesco debate was similarly constructed. Today isn't meant to be anything like the Moral Maze or Newsnight, but somehow seeing the programme in person only emphasised the restricted nature of the reports in a way that doesn't come across when listening to the radio.
Still, the rest of it was great fun. The sports reporter, whose name I have temporarily forgotten, served admirably as a warm up act with Today bloopers, and was very polished, and the audience, of whom about 10 were either under 40 or male and not bearded, were into the spirit of the programme. And of course, I doubt it will be back in Torrington soon, or indeed ever. But tomorrow morning I will be listening with a slightly different focus on my drive to work, just to see what the immediate differences are to the ear, rather than ear and eye.
This Big Brother final diary was updated from 8.50pm until 11.00pm on the night of the Big Brother 7 final. Probably best to scroll down to the bottom and work your way up to appreciate things in their chronological order...
11.00pm Right, back to your homes, nothing more to see here. Our winner is Pete, second place is Glyn, third is Aisleyne, which is a result I'll happily take. But hats off, and then back on cowboy-stylee, to Richard too.
Pete leaps off his chair then back onto it. "It's been a blast," says Davina. And here comes the mightily-long Big Brother's Best Bits sequence, with a Snow Patrol track as the bed, which is a horrible, horrible way to have to remember the entire series.
One final fact: did you know that this series of Big Brother started before I started my job? It lasted for six more days than my professional career to date. There's a thought.
10.50pm
Davina: "How does it feel?"
Pete: "Ahhh! Wankers!"
And that sums up this entire series.
Davina must not have had a harder series of interviews in her life. First Nikki, unable to open her mouth, then Pete, unable to shut himself up long enough to actually answer her questions.
Davina: "You've done very well!"
Pete: "Have I?"
Pete says he was at his most relaxed cuddling Richard. See! Richard's the real winner.
10.40pm It's madness. Sheer madness. Pete comes through the Big Brother doors, reaches the stairs, tumbles down the stairs in semi-controlled fashion, is seized by rabid fans and only eventually does he notice the goggle-eyed Davina.
There are fireworks going off all over the place which are hardly helping, and it's a little like watching Pete trying to dodge sniper fire rather than him celebrating a Big Brother win. He's now crab-walking backwards down the stage. Ad break!
10.38pm "I'm going to talk to the house," says Davina, talking to a house with just one crazed Pete in it. Pete is destroying the furniture and has gone just a little feral in the last 20 minutes.
10.35pm It's all gone a bit Wales crazy, with the by-now obligatory Glyn-speaks-Welsh moment. Bangor University has itself a new superstar.
10.30pm Our valiant runner-up, Glyn, gets hold of a Welsh flag and drapes it over himself for the photographers, just prior to one of the final ad breaks of Big Brother 7. I am ashamed to say that I will miss it. How did I manage to avoid Big Brothers 2 through 6 without so much as batting an eyelid, then get sucked in so comprehensively by this one?
Glyn is sat with Davina, whose pregnancies you can use to work out which week of each Big Brother it is. Pete is rolling around the floor of the Big Brother house in the background. Glyn is now singing with, well, quite an impressive voice! Cerys Matthews, move over.
"Oh no, I don't want to see it," says Glyn when threatened with footage of him 13 weeks ago. There's a marked difference, especially in the hair department. It's safe to say it's an improvement.
His montage has a section devoted to Wales and, I'm not sure, but I think I can see the Welsh flag folded neatly by his chair. Bless!
10.20pm Pete! A good deal. We'll take that. The crowd go stark, raving wild. It was a foregone conclusion for months on end but we love him anyway. And the screaming we're hearing is definitely not Tourette's any more...
10.15pm Aisleyne spends her entire "Best Bits" montage holding her head in her hands and mouthing "I am so sorry" at fellow ex-housemates.
Davina makes a comment about fake boobs at the precise moment Aisleyne spots her dad in the crowd, providing an odd juxtaposition. Aisleyne does well to keep yelling "Dad!" until Davina shuts up about the boobs.
To be brutally honest her post-eviction interview was verging on tedious. Poor girl exhausted all that attitude in her first few weeks and now she's too nice to be entertaining. See, you're damned if you do and damned if you don't on this programme.
10.05pm Aisleyne, having at least made a half-hearted attempt to enclose her breasts in fabric, emerges to fewer boos than one might have initially expected. As she descends the staircase she achieves an octave previously known only to soprano bats, then immediately reclaims the 'attitude' of which she was earlier so ashamed when she sees the cameras.
10.00pm Here we go then, it's the final countdown. Who will win - Pete, or Glyn?
Alright, alright, let's be honest. It's going to be Pete. Even asking the question is akin to speculating on the Christmas present your aunt might prefer: a detached house on a tropical island, or smallpox.
9.20pm Aisleyne's out, having announced it to herself about nine times over during Davina's usual agonising silence. And I swear Pete has just brilliantly continuity-announced that 8 Out Of 10 Cats is about to follow this! That man's got a job as a voiceover artist after this. Or not, thinking about it.
Glyn wants the toilet, poor man. Pete has continuity-announced 8 Out Of 10 Cats again! But now he's not sure if it's the Friday Night Project. This, for a man who's been in the house since the very beginning, is remarkably good knowledge of the Channel 4 schedule!
I shall leave the increasingly-desperate Glyn to his search for a toilet and return at 10pm for more.
9.10pm Richard, the Dime bar of Big Brother: "popular on the outside, unpopular on the inside". But he's just so charming and affable, far more so - and far more genuine, I personally feel - than many of his fellow housemates.
Very nice video montage from the Big Brother crew showing Richard's many moments of advice styled as a Montel Williams/Trisha recap. And much applause all round! Have you noticed that? He's had bags of applause and not a boo to be heard. Rightly so, too.
"You always gave great nomination," says Davina, leaving the S off the end of 'nominations' to make it sound rather sordid.
Richard one-liners:
That man was like a chihuahua on a fat man's leg
If he bent over you could serve dinner for eight on it
I'll rip your lungs out of your throat and shove them up your ass
She's like genital warts, she just won't seem to go away
And, his trademark, out with the plastics
9.00pm "This is what live television's all about," says Davina, as the entire programme comes crashing down around Nikki. Having been evicted she finds herself, in a final fit of dramatic ennuie, unable to speak at all. Davina makes a valiant effort but eventually abandons all hope and tries to lead Nikki off to her fellow housemates, only for her to fall over. The producers are clearly completely flummoxed so they press the self-destruct button, go back and evict Richard to move things along.
Naturally I'm disappointed one of my two favourites is leaving fourth, but I like any of the remaining three enough to be satisfied with them winning it.
8:50pm Nikki has finished in fifth place in the final of Big Brother. This is an unbelievable result. I was fully prepared for the single most spine-chillingly absurd, annoying, petty, shallow and vindictive woman on the planet to stay in right til the end. That she's been kicked out before Richard has made my (equally petty, shallow, vindictive) evening.
Remember, I want Richard or Aisleyne to win (faced with having to choose between the two then Richard, but they're roughly equal). My mum wants Glyn. The rest of the nation wants Pete.
See, now I like Aisleyne, and I like Grace. So putting the two of them together in the same room, if only for 21 minutes, was going to be interesting.
Grace, put back in the House Next Door having been evicted at least a month ago, got 21 minutes in the main Big Brother house to celebrate her 21st birthday. Aisleyne, who despises Grace for pouring water over Suzie when the former was evicted, couldn't resist.
She started having a go. Grace completely dealt with her. Oh, how I laughed. Aisleyne, where once I valued you most highly, you've just been blown out of the water by the Queen Bitch herself.
How can anyone want dopey Nikki anywhere near this house when we could have a good week or so of Aisleyne versus Grace action? That would rock. Time will shortly tell - more soon.
Time Trumpet's debut episode aired on BBC2 at 10pm this evening to general fanfare. It being a series with "trumpet" in the title, it would have been odd had it not arrived to some form of fanfare.
However I really don't see where the Daily Mail perceives the threat to humanity. Having watched Time Trumpet's first half hour of awkward, snatched life outside the neural womb of Armando Iannucci, I'm not about to rank it up alongside the likes of The Thick Of It, which I consider to be the funniest comedy of the last decade.
Parts of Time Trumpet work quite well. The sequences of heavily edited political footage are tremendously clever (if a little self-indulgent). I was particularly impressed by the sight of Tony Blair and David Cameron dueting to David Bowie's 'Changes' at their various party conferences.
Other parts I felt fell flat. The idea of an idiotic interviewer fluffing the task of asking banal questions of equally inept 'talking heads' for Time Trumpet (the concept for which, remember, is an "I Love The 80s"-esque look back at the years from 2005 to 2030), simply grated with me rather than drawing any laughter. Extended pauses were left in to imply the incompetence of the documentary-making process on all sides, but this just gave each similar sequence the air of filler, as though the programme hadn't got enough in the tank to last even half an hour.
If I were the Daily Mail I'd be resting easy in my armchair with my Werther's Originals tonight. Time Trumpet is alright but it's no television superstar in the making. The youth of today will not go out tomorrow intent on assassinating Tony Blair. But then, perhaps that's been the Mail's problem all along.
Why would you ever want to go to a normal gig, packed into some dark, dingy, nondescript building in the middle of a city centre, after going to a gig in the middle of a forest?
Watching the Pet Shop Boys in Thetford forest was an amazing experience.
It's the first time I've properly seen them in concert (they played three tracks at T4 On The Beach) which immediately makes it special, and they played two of my favourite songs - Left To My Own Devices and Suburbia - in the early stages of the gig, so I was sold from the start.
But the venue. Wow, the venue. I demand more gigs in the middle of forests! Look at it, it's such a great idea, especially on a gorgeous summer night like last night. It took a good few hours' driving in pretty bad traffic and unbearably hot weather to get there and back but it was all worth the hassle to see such a great gig in the middle of a clearing.
After all, how many gigs hosted by the Forestry Commission have you been to? Trust me, you should go to more. People brought chairs, rugs and picnics, there was no queue for the ample supply of toilets and the bar was, if anything, over-staffed by helpful people who had your drink ready and waiting. "Ideal" is a word often used to mean something of a watered-down version of its actual definition. Last night was ideal.
Right. Let me make this very clear. You are doing yourself a monumental disservice if you do not go out and buy the following two albums, which I could not recommend more earnestly and enthusiastically if I tried.
The first is 'Through The Windowpane' by Guillemots. Back on 15 January this year I tipped them for success so it's good to see them on the iTunes front page and well into the top ten album downloads.
This album is nothing short of brilliant. Guillemots have a faintly exotic, South American sound - helped by song titles like 'Sao Paulo' and 'Trains To Brazil' - but it's tempered by a more traditional British indie feel underpinning the whole lot. If you pumped a bit of the Rio carnival into Keane you might get something similar. Most importantly, Guillemots' musical atmospherics are gorgeous. The band does things with organs, sound effects, vocals and echoes that you would not believe.
I am entirely captivated by this album as both a pool of quiet reflection and an explosion of enthusiasm for life. As lead singer Fyfe Dangerfield (what a name) exclaims at the climax of the wonderful 'Trains To Brazil', a stalwart of my collection since last year:
And to those of you who mourn your lives through one day to the next,
Well, let them take you next!
Can't you live and be thankful you're here?
See, it could be you tomorrow or next year.
The second record without which you should not do is 'The Dark Third' by Pure Reason Revolution. At this point I declare an interest: I work with the drummer's wife. But I declare a second interest: I'd seen PRR twice and bought their EP before ever meeting her, so I'm not being press-ganged into this one, I genuinely love everything this band does.
PRR are prog and entirely unafraid of it. For some reason prog - i.e. progressive rock, the inadequate phrase used to somehow pin down the wildly imaginative, creative, occasionally meandering style of bands like Pink Floyd and Genesis - has become a dirty word of late. It shouldn't be when it essentially stands for rock unleashed, a form of popular music that doesn't respect the place of the three-minute chart-busting single.
And so we find PRR's infamous twelve-minute epic 'The Bright Ambassadors Of Morning' on this album among many other glorious tracks. Once again they're masters of atmosphere, but they also bring a brilliant knack for sustaining epic songs over several changes of mood, tempo and key. It's engrossing stuff, reminiscent to me of a brand new Pink Floyd arriving on the scene just as members of the old one choose to depart this mortal coil. Where Guillemots use doleful strings and jaunty organ, Pure Reason Revolution prefer the blast of synthesizer and guitar, to equal effect.
Finally, on an entirely unrelated note because I've been meaning to mention this for ages but keep forgetting so might as well do it now, to the question of Boris Johnson. The mopped one went mad in the Commons yesterday over the question of the Natwest Three. There's a transcript of some of the debate on his weblog and it just shows what many other politicians lack compared to Boris. When other MPs speak during the transcripted segment of the debate, their contributions are relatively bland and formal. Boris, by contrast, employs the most ingenious turns of phrase at every opportunity. For example:
My right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Folkestone and Hythe rightly used the verb - or adjective - poodle. It is, indeed, a noun. It is also, however, a verb: to poodle is a verb - we poodled. We poodled in implementing the treaty before the Americans had even ratified it ...
The hon. Gentleman certainly shows that he has been following the debate keenly and is dead right.
I would say that I was grateful to the Solicitor-General, but I am not really.
As usual, my right hon. and learned Friend is bang on.
Read the full transcript here if you're particularly bored.
The Post Office. Been on their website lately? You wouldn't ever guess that the Post Office actually sold stamps and sent post around the country. No wonder the damn post never arrives - the Post Office seem to have forgotten that they should be dealing with it. On the website until you actually scroll down the page, all you can find out about is insurance, phone contracts and "flowers and gifts" (? wtf). Even on google the description of the website reads "The Post Office - Providing home, car and travel insurance, foreign currency exchange, banking, investments and bill payments." Nothing to do with the actual post then? I had to scroll down the front page and then click through three different pages before I found how I could send something with guaranteed next day delivery and how much it would cost. Incidentally, it's £4.10 to send something Special Delivery. Serves me right for forgetting to send a damn good luck card sooner.
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It would appear that the Royal Mail is the best place to look. But answer this. If you want to track something it asks you for your "13 digit reference number". Well, my "13 digit number" actually includes four letters. But apparently they are now numbers. Go figure.
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With the contents of this post, and the last... I don't think anyone should cross me today...they won't know what has hit them!!
Yesterday I went to the Michelangelo exhibition at the British Museum. For anyone who has been in London lately you won't have been able to miss the posters in the tubes, the adverts in Time Out or the free books about Michelangelo with the Standard. So, since I adore the Sistene Chapel, and since it seemed the exhibition of the season to go and see, we trotted off yesterday. OK, so the exhibition has had amazing reviews, so much so that they are opening until Midnight on the last day due to high demand. And it's clear to see why. The sketches are amazing. The detail, the study of the human body (especially male) are incredibly impressive, especially when you step back and realise that these were drawn in the 1400s-1500s. But that aside, the exhibition annoyed me. Forget the quality of what was being displayed, just think about the display itself. The area of the exhibition was tiny considering the amount on display and the volume of people visiting. Just because the sketches are small, doesn't mean you can't give them lots of space. The comments on each drawing were annoying too - they weren't remotely critical. Every comment seemed sycophantic and after a while I wanted to read something critical. I mean, he clearly couldn't draw women (unless you've seen lots of women with breasts stuck on the body like tennis balls and spread so far apart across the chest that the look as though they are about to fall off) but did anyone recognise this fact? No, they simply tell you he was homosexual and this is meant to excuse him from drawing women. So that was that. Amazing, but I think the British Museum could have done better with their presentation.
And then weI went to see the Taming of the Shrew by the Shakespeare Company at Regent's Park Open Air Theatre. Amazing. I'd never been to RP before, and it's lovely. It has beautiful rose gardens, flowered avenues and lovely fountains. Quite different to any of the other London parks. And of course it is in North London. So that means that there are fewer tourists and more locals. Since yesterday was such a lovely day the park was very busy - reading groups, yoga classes, anything which would generally be associated with the slightly more bohemian and relaxed side of North London. It makes West London seem worlds apart. The snobbery and the Sloane expression miles away. The Theatre itself was very enjoyable. The production itself was great and the atmosphere in the Theatre itself was wonderful - very relaxed, very united, you could enjoy your picnic in the grounds around it. Certainly something I would go and see again without a doubt (different play, of course!).
The housemates are set the task of seeing who can shout the loudest - Big Brother measures each of them, in decibels. Richard is the winner. His reward is a dinner for two with champagne. Richard has to decide who to invite to this dinner. I scream "Imogen!" at the television, because he fell out spectacularly with her last week, before Imogen's best buddy Sezer was evicted.
Richard, being a warm, friendly gentleman, invites Imogen as directed by me. Richard says he wants to make it up to her and get to know her better.
After the dinner Imogen, thoroughly ungrateful wench that she is, tells Lisa - fellow member of her little 'group', which used to include Sezer and George before they left, and still includes other airheads like Nikki and Grace - that Richard is simply playing for votes and that it is somehow a victory for them over him and his 'group'. Yes, Richard's invitation to Imogen does smack of "look at me, I'm so big-hearted and keen to just get along with everyone". But he didn't have to do it.
Lisa then ends up talking to Sam, the new and universally despised contestant (along with Aisleyne, also new and also universally despised). Lisa and co have previously ridiculed this girl - 'girl' used in the loosest possible sense - and called her every name under the sun. Then Sam said she quite liked their group. After which Lisa said "we'll look after Sam now". Lisa also threatened to dump all Richard's clothes in the swimming pool, for no real reason other than irrational, blind hatred.
This programme continues to plumb the grim depths of human stupidity and artificiality. Nikki and Lisa are not only ignorant and false beyond any previous measure science has devised: they also both possess accents designed to make you wish yourself dead a thousand times over with every sentence uttered. I am also appalled at how quickly the house has divided into these two 'groups', with no prospect of a resolution.
That said, I know which group I'd be in. Lisa and co are referred to as the 'plastics'. This, of course, refers to their personalities, but - like plastic - they are eminently expendable.
Mister Dog has been evicted from the Big Brother house, to general fanfare. Dog, sometimes referred to as Sezer, garnered more than a whopping 90 per cent of the public vote to kick him out of the house. Uri Geller says he was "mindblown". What the hell is Uri Geller doing on this show? Does spoon bending not fill the coffers any more?
It now seems as though Pete, the nice young man with the swearing problem - "I love it when my Tourette's is in context", quoth he, hilariously - is odds on to win. In fact he's not just odds on to win, it will take something truly spectacular to stop him walking away with this. None of the remaining housemates possess an ounce of the endearing qualities Pete displays on such a regular basis (to quote fellow blog Londonist, "how adorable he looks in his geek-attire propellor cap").
Not since "Nasty Nick" has the small section of the British public watching this thing - namely anyone with an England flag attached to their car plus a small number of mildly interested bloggers (I watch because it's work-related... ahem) - reacted in such violent, negative fashion to one housemate. From what I can tell, the previous best in earlier series was set by Oxfordshire businessman Stuart Hosking at 86 per cent. Even then the landlord of his local pub proclaimed him "well-liked in the village". No such defence forthcoming for Mister Dog who, as a stockbroker by trade, was always going to be a pretentious, sleazy gobshite anyway.
Some small consolation: I have not been watching the worst thing on television this evening. I'm not sure Celebrity X Factor was on, in which case it would claim that title, but I know for a fact that Team America: World Police was on Sky Movies. I watched the first 15 minute or so. It was genuinely, quite palpably pathetic. This is what happens when the Americans try to do something that involves irony. They should be stopped before they humiliate themselves further.
Welcome to Dayorama's coverage of Big Brother 7. This post is Dayorama's coverage of Big Brother 7, you're not getting any more, at least not if I can help it. And believe me I'll fight with every fibre of my being to avoid being sucked in by this.
I notice one of the contestants is an 18-year-old called Glyn from deepest, darkest Wales. He's head boy in his sixth form. I demand of OJ: why, oh why, did you not go into the Big Brother house when we were in sixth form and you were head boy? At least it would have given me something worthwhile for fledgling school newspaper The Orb...
Seriously though, the poor boy's going to either get eaten alive or lose his mind in this house - although I have a strong suspicion he's the one in the flesh-coloured figure-hugging top. God, it's depressing. So many people say this every year, but damning indictments of the entire nation don't ever come quite so comprehensive as the first night of each new Big Brother series.
My mum just wandered over and demanded to know when there'd be a series with old people in it. Go on, laugh, but wouldn't that be such a refreshing change? Put twelve older, wiser, wrinkly-but-enthusiastic individuals into a house for a month and see what happens. On a slightly different intellectual level it'd be every bit as riveting, I'm sure.
Still, we're left with the usual gathering of twelve egomaniacs, at least two of which Endemol hope will have sex on live television. This is where the BBC should come into its own and provide nightly anti-Big Brother programming: maybe dedicate BBC4 to daily 9pm reruns of Horizon, or hand Terry Wogan the task of providing a wry commentary on Radio 2, simulcast with Big Brother itself. A bit like watching the football on Sky but listening to the Five Live coverage.
The ordeal has ended and the contestants have disappeared off to E4 to carry on getting drunk and boisterous. It only remains for me to warn you that Lisa is going to be the really annoying one plastered across the papers this year. Avoid at all costs.
Two films to recommend tonight - the first is Ice Age 2 (or Ice Age: The Meltdown if we're being pedantic), which is good harmless fun involving various animals trying to escape an imminent flood. There's two mammoths, one of whom thinks she's actually a possum, two possums who are possums (possi? A posse of possi? Possibly), and an adorable rat type thing - 'Scrat' - whose epic attempts to capture a lone acorn are interspersed throughout the movie.
I recall reading a review a while back claiming these Scrat moments were a masterclass in comedy, and that review wasn't wrong. I spent most of the film enjoyably entertained by the main storyline - it never takes much to keep me happy in a cinema - but all the while, at the back of my mind, I was counting down the seconds til Scrat and his acorn came back. I recommend the film on that basis alone. Forget the flood and the impending doom of many hundreds of animals - it's the rat and the acorn you'll be worrying about.
As yet unreleased but promised in the near future is The Promise, which needless to say looks promising. You can view the trailer here. It looks along much the same lines as Hero and House Of Flying Daggers, both brilliant movies with gorgeous scenery and noticeably exquisite use of colour. It's also obvious from the trailer that we can expect another helping of magical set pieces involving hundreds of people on-screen, always a feast for the eyes.
Oh and finally, if you're in need of something to listen to tonight, may I recommend Radio Jackie - click here to listen. On-the-hour news bulletins from my friend Rachel too (you can even see a tiny photo of her on their website, although I'm sure I can find far worse, maybe here). We've come a long way since the day we first got our recording equipment last October.
"It's the news that matters in Surrey," she tells me. "Like the end of the K5 bus route." Don't even try to tell me you're not interested now. Off you go and listen.
Apologies for Dayorama being unavailable earlier on this morning. It turns out the scripts that run our comments and trackbacks are being spammed to such an extent that our hosts had to take the site down. We were in danger of causing trouble for the entire server on which this and other websites are stored. This is not good. Hosts 34SP, despite an initial blip where they falsely accused us of not paying them on time, responded remarkably quickly and have made a few suggestions to help evade the spam. In the mean time comments won't work though, so I'm afraid if you feel passionately about fluffy sheep or Sir OJ, you'll have to email us!
I spent last night at the Regal Theatre in Minehead, watching a concert in aid of Amnesty International put on by people from the local school. It's a pleasure to be at what amounted to a school concert without the knowledge that I'd have to play grade 2 "Intercity Stomp" on piano or do some drumming for a musical about a cockerel, both events seared into my memory. School concerts are immensely more satisfying when safely removed from any risk of participation.
Alas, one of the first acts of the night knew all too well the unhinged terror of performing in a school concert without the necessary confidence to pull it off. She was only 10 or 11 and had elected, or been chosen, to perform a song with a full rock backing band. So from the off, she looked a little out of place tucked delicately behind the microphone in the company of four or five grown men on electric guitars, grand piano and drums.
And then she started to sing "Take Your Mama Out", Scissor Sisters' anthem for gay men coming out to their mothers in gay bars in New York. Lyrics include:
It's a struggle
Livin' like a good boy oughta
In the summer
Watchin' all the girls pass by
When your mama
Heard the way that you'd been talking
I tried to tell you
That all she'd wanna do is cry
It's a great song, but I do wonder whether the poor young lady trying to sing it fully appreciated the context. (This is a band who also have a track dedicated to the phenomenon of the drug crystal meth on the US gay scene.) Either way, she was struggling to get the words out - by the second verse she was barely audible and referring to the lyrics on a sheet, which seemed not to help. BUT: full marks for effort. At the age of 11 I'd have been thinking twice about singing that song, on that stage, with that backing band, but she did it.
She was followed by an older girl, moving up to sixth form age, who had an amazing voice and proceeded to sing Lennon's "Imagine" with an endearing couldn't-care-less presence on stage. It's one of those voices which isn't the standard-issue private-school cut-glass operatic quality, more singer-songwriter, bit of gravel thrown in for character. It was great. The accompanying pianist screwed up once or twice, made all the more evident by the thinly veiled contempt on the face of our singer. She then returned to perform two songs on guitar, accompanied by a third girl. This was a mistake since the other girl wasn't all that hot in the singing department, and once again the look of thinly veiled contempt returned.
Other highlights of the first act (the event ran from 7:30pm til 11pm, quite a long haul but surprisingly entertaining) included a perfect violin rendition from someone no older than 12 or 13, and a performance of the Moonlight Sonata by a sixth form girl who looked for all the world as though she were going to commit suicide midway through it.
The second half was also pretty good, though fewer things immediately stood out. A comedy trio doing their level best to be Minehead's answer to Monty Python made appearances throughout the night, hitting new heights of strangeness, particularly with one sketch involving throwing cheese graters at someone. During this sketch, one of the trio told another to "sit in the corner and play Connect Four with the deer". And they duly did, sat opposite a ginormous cuddly toy deer who proceeded to narrowly lose. "He'll get you on the diagonals, sir! Always with the diagonals!"
The evening finished with a time-honoured rendition of "Hey Jude", performed by around 30 people on stage, led by a young man in a gold patterned jacket who looked like the next Bob Geldof in the making (that's part compliment, part insult). It made a Babyshambles gig look like a shining example of military efficiency. But it was good fun, and that's all that counts.
As I write I'm in the car slowly crawling out of London, more specifically Stamford Bridge, where I've just seen Chelsea comfortably dispatch Manchester City 2-0.
Not that they entirely deserved to. By all means the talent they have on display was of a standard far superior to anything we can offer, especially with ten first team City players out injured. But the tendency of Chelsea players to bend or break the rules of the game, securing victories they could otherwise comfortably achieve within the regulations, is becoming a standard feature of top-flight football.
Today they were aided and abetted by referee Rob Styles and his assistants. They conspired to miss what I, having only seen it once and with very much a subjective point of view, consider to be one of the most blatant handball offences I've ever seen. Chelsea striker Didier Drogba controlled the ball with his outstretched arm, in plain view of the linesman if not the referee, before calmly slotting it home and celebrating, to quote Five Live just now, "with no shame".
Of course, that's less Chelsea's fault and more the fault of the officials, who did not help matters by sending off City captain Sylvain Distin for continuing to protest at half-time. My dad and I agreed that we'd have both been sent off long before the break, incensed as we were, so I hold little truck with BBC Sport Online's assertion that Distin was letting his side down in receiving his marching orders. Yes, viewed in the harsh light of day it is stupid to get oneself sent off over the issue, condemning one's side to even greater misery, but I don't think many people in Distin's position would have summoned up any more restraint. It is not as though Distin launched himself at the referee with a machete, much as I'm sure he'd have loved to. He simply walked over as the whistle went for half-time to continue remonstrating. At that precise moment, Mr Styles made certain of ruining a game he'd already nigh on wrecked.
Bear in mind that for the home supporters at Chelsea, it costs more than enough money to see what fizzled out to become a nothing encounter in the second half - City weren't about to threaten anything and Chelsea had long since given up trying. Then consider the Manchester City fans. It costs forty-eight pounds - forty-eight pounds - to sit in Chelsea's away end. Add that on top of travel costs like petrol or train tickets and you've probably paid well into three figures to watch a referee unnecessarily destroy a football match, first through an unaccountably appalling oversight, then an overzealous reaction to the understandably irate victims of that decision. I hope he is suitably censured by the authorities (he won't be).
I don't begrudge Chelsea the victory. I'd have taken 2-0 before the kick-off given the disparity between the two sides. But something needs to be done to iron out frankly bizarre officiating like we've seen today. You may think Distin deserved to be sent off (an argument can be made for it), but that situation would not have arisen had the officials been able to spot a clear infringement in the first place. An infringement, I might add, that put the game beyond doubt.
So it comes down to technology, doesn't it. That age-old question - do we want technology to start making decisions for us, or at the very least helping? I don't think I can see any reason, any more, why controversial decisions should not be referred to a footballing "third umpire", a video referee able to spend 30 seconds reviewing the blanket TV coverage available at all these matches before arriving at an informed decision. This need only be employed in situations the referee considers to have a crucial bearing on a match - goals, dismissals etc.
Let's use Drogba's disputed goal as an example.
Didier Drogba receives the ball from a cross, and it appears to clearly hit his hand. Neither the linesman nor the referee seem to witness this and, with play allowed to continue, Drogba coolly finishes the move, scoring a goal.
Without TV replay: Drogba and players spend a minute or so celebrating the goal (as would any team, it's normal) before settling back down. The entire Manchester City team are incensed. One Manchester City player is later sent off as a direct result. The referee, despite being a full 90 yards from any away supporter, is given an escort off the pitch at half-time through sheer volume of dissent voiced by supporters.
With TV replay: the referee notes the incensed reaction and handball appeal of the Manchester City players and immediately stops his watch before signalling for the video referee (ten seconds have elapsed since the goal was scored). Drogba, the rest of the Chelsea players and the City team all wait for a decision - you may have seen this in rugby, where a "TRY/NO TRY" verdict is displayed on the big screens (screens almost all top-flight clubs now have, or else you could announce the verdict over the tannoy). It takes the video referee fifteen seconds to call up the relevant footage of the goal and the incident. It then takes him a further twenty to thirty seconds to make his mind up as to whether an infraction has been committed. He then returns his result - no goal, handball, free kick to Manchester City - and play takes a further twenty seconds to resume.
I reckon that's just over a minute required from the moment the ball hits the back of the net to the resumption of play - roughly the amount of time it takes players to finish celebrating after a goal is scored. Considering the potential of video technology to stop these matches boiling over - with plenty at stake in terms of pride, finances, European qualification, Cup progress etc - I think it's time we introduced it.
A quick postscript: Drogba has just been on the radio. He says he thinks all the focus is on his handball because he plays for Chelsea, and Chelsea are a big club, and no one likes to see them succeed. "If Manchester City had done this, no one would say a thing." Au contraire, Didier. If Manchester City had done this, all the Chelsea players would have been furious, all their fans would have been furious, and it would all have happened from the other point of view. No one wants to see it happen - demonstrably poor officiating should not be a part of football just because it traditionally has been. Introduce TV technology at very little time penalty and we'd solve a lot of these problems.
Exclusive preview for LCC readers - my next comedy t-shirt will look a little something like this:
Find out more here. It's from a webcomic called Goats, whose praises I sing on Dayorama from time to time. If you look around the store you'll realise it's the source of a good number of the t-shirts I can be seen in now and again.
I bought TOCA 3 for the Playstation 2 today. It was a spur of the moment thing as I was walking through High Wycombe to the train station. It's been a very long time since I had a decent motor racing game (which is what TOCA is, for the uninitiated), and now I can happily reveal the wait for such a game has ended, because TOCA is top class. There's plenty of different forms of car to take on, from tiny Renault Clios bombing round corners to classic F1 cars, and it's exceptionally easy to just pick up the controller and start thrashing your way around Silverstone. I only hope it gets harder as I go along, as I'm sure it will, and who knows? Maybe, in the distant future, I'll get to the final two levels of play where you can take a Williams F1 model (as in vehicle, not pit girl) out for a spin. They even chose my favourite F1 team. Big thumbs up for TOCA, then.
And there's me getting into the spirit of reviewing stuff, because my work for the Daily Telegraph's Weekend section is back on. I may not have mentioned this previously, but I'm now doing some research for one of the Telegraph's writers for a column to appear on Saturday 25 March (I think), and probable future columns after that. I will of course let you know if my work makes it into the paper. One or two people know what the topic is - I warn you it's nothing too exciting and mysterious, but it is a little out of the ordinary given the topics you might reasonably expect me to write about. Put it this way, it involves stuff I won't have mentioned on here before. So it's definitely not the Telegraph's well-known weekly comedy t-shirt round-up.
Here's a post that combines two topics that Dayorama (or should that just be Ollie and me?) write about: RSS feeds and internet browsers. I wrote last week that I had downloaded the Beta Preview of IE7, and very impressed I am with it too. It's only crashed once so far, which is pretty good going, since it completely installed itself over IE6 without asking me. The two key features of note are tabs and the RSS implementation. Tabbed browsing is found in every browser other than IE6, and very useful it is too. Instead of opening up a new copy of IE down on the windows task bar everytime you click on a link that opens in a new window, it comes up in a tab within the the original window. This saves an awful lot of time, and is a far neater solution. It allows you to open up all your favourties sites at once, for instance, and they will load in parallel. There are also very cool ways to look at all your tabs at once. Neat.
But wait, there's RSS too! Again, like Safari, Firefox, and every other browser that's out there, IE7 finally integrates RSS into the browser. And...it works. Really well. Which again, is a good thing, because it broke my previous reader, Pluck, when I installed it. In fact, it finally makes RSS usable for me, which should save me a lot of (procrastination) time in the future.
Of course, this is IE, so the usual caveats about security flaws and crashing apply, especially since it's in beta. But otherwise, good job Microsoft.
Last night I went to see the musical of the The Producers. The musical, by Mel Brooks, is the stage version of the film of the same name. The plot centres around a failing Broadway producer called Max Bialystock. Bailystock's career is failing and reviews of his latest plays are disastrous. However, his accountant comes to his rescue and suggests that putting on a "failed" Broadway play is actually the way to success. The pair then set out robbing - or more appropriately, shagging - old ladies of money, finding a play which will be a guaranteed flop, and whilst enlisting the campest producer around and worst cast, they stage the play of "Springtime For Hitler". Obviously, this is a raging success, and the pair end up losing money... etc etc.
It is a wonderfully funny, laugh-a-minute production. That is, if you think jokes about sex, Hitler and gays are funny. It is in the best possible taste though. I would recommend people going to see it.
Anyway, as with many plays/musicals etc, often the most entertaining thing about the evening can be your fellow audience. To start with, the Drury Lane theatre is an incredibly strange venue. It's rather how I imagine an old Blackpool hotel to look inside. The artwork is obscure, to the point that I don't really know how to describe it, and you do get the feeling that it has never really worked out what it wants to be. Needless to say, this adds to its charm. So, back to the audience. There are just three episodes worthy of note. First, the couple sitting on my right. Throughout the first half, the lady sat and stared, rather harshly. She barely chuckled and instead complained she couldn't see. It didn't bother me, I just felt sorry for her long-suffering husband/partner. After the interval however, she was a completely changed person. She passed comment, giggled raucously and even whooped when the play finished. Such a transformation. There was definitely something in her gin! Second, was the German couple sitting on our left. All publicity for The Producers makes it clear that there are going to be a number of jokes levelled at Hitler and/or Germany. This couple sat in deadpan silence. After the Hitler-esque saluting pigeons in the first half, clearly they had seen enough and did not return for the second half! Finally, the couple at the end of the row. General opinion is that this couple were probably not Londoners. They'd come down for the day, wanted to have a "London" experience and were out at the theatre. Consequently they too were rather sloshed. The female (mid-thirties?) found the musical hilarious and her giggling could be heard throughout. It was rather amusing, and of course the volume and intensity of this laughter rose an extra layer after the alcohol-fuelled interval. When it came to leave the theatre it took quite a while for them to get themselves together and actually move. This wouldn’t usually be a problem… but they were at the end of the row. The man turned to the person I was with and said, "Sorry, we're having problems - drunk a little bit... ha ha". My companion simply smiled and told him that all he had to do was "put one foot in front of the other" and all would be OK. At this, the man turned around, grinned and shook his hand. Bizarre. They didn't manage to move any quicker though, so we turned the other way and made our escape out of another exit. It does indeed take all sorts. But, none of the audience were annoying - just everyone was simply having a very good time! Lots of fun.
P.S. It snowed (see, snow reference again) in Covent Garden last night. Lots of flakes.
Bloody marvellous, Life On Mars. It's the new flagship BBC1 drama, Monday nights at 9pm, starring John Simm as DI Sam Tyler. Tyler is hit by a car in the opening scenes of the first episode and somehow thrown back from 2006 to 1973, something that has yet to be explained, but may well involve his being in a coma back in 2006.
I wasn't around in the 1970s to know what they were like, but the 70s on display in Life On Mars is believable enough to me. But forget that, it's just great to see a decent new cop show on telly - this is like a British Starsky & Hutch, right down to the natty cars and cardboard boxes all over the shop. Thrown in the good-cop-bad-cop leading actors leaping into action, hurdling a table like they're The Sweeney and fighting each other as often as they fight the bad guys, and you're really cooking with gas. Top it off with the time travel from Dr Who and the odd surreal he's-actually-in-a-coma moment, bring to the boil, and it's the best show I've seen on telly for ages.
If only the law operated for me, as a 21st century trainee journalist, like it does for most of the coppers you'll see in Life On Mars, where the emphasis is very much on smacking the bastards round the chops first, maybe asking questions later if they can't plant any evidence on anyone. No one gets defamed, no one claims an infringement of privacy, search warrants are anathema and the Human Rights Act an exceptionally distant dream for the poor blighters brought in for 'questioning'.
We've had two posts entitled 'Harry Potter' before - this one being Amy's brief review of the last film almost a year and a half ago - so I've gone with the title of the fourth film for this one.
It's excellent. Most noticeably, it's darker than its predecessors and offers comparatively few moments of light relief. In previous films scenes in lessons or involving Quidditch have been used to give the audience a breather from the heavy stuff and inject a little comedy into proceedings; this time round there's barely any of that, so much so that when Quidditch does appear, it's suffixed by more misery.
The acting's getting better too. Harry's performance is genuinely captivating when it needs to be during the action sequences, even if the romance scenes (and there's far less of this than you might have expected from some reviews) feel unrealistic for the 21st century in their coy schoolboy quality. Only the final few moments of the film, once all the important stuff has been resolved, are truly dreadful, which was a shame as they left a slightly sour taste just after the fabulous execution of the grandest plot development to date in the films. There's even a nod to Star Wars, although for it to be accurate it'd mean Harry had joined the dark side. Meanwhile, expect to have the heartstrings tugged at more than once, although some will react differently to the more depressing events than others. My friend Clare was wiping away tears at one point, but her friend Vicky was wiping away tears of laughter on seeing Clare crying. My eyes stayed dry but I could understand both sentiments.
Meanwhile, back in reality, I deserve a cut of Boots' profits for the forthcoming financial year. This much has been said before, but I've gone one better than my own hefty patronage - now I'm dragging a whole horde of journalists to their sandwich counter. I introduced my friend Andy to the concept of the Boots meal deal a couple of week sago, and he was so taken with it that he went round this lunchtime drumming up support for a group outing to our local store. Off we went, about ten of us, descending on the sandwiches and leaving barely anything for those unlucky few who found themselves behind us.
But that wasn't all. I produced my Boots Advantage card when I paid, to ooohs and ahhhs from those assembled behind me - indeed, I now have enough points for a free lunch tomorrow. Within minutes, four or five of the group were returning to the newsroom with Advantage card application forms tucked under their arms. I've seen few things funnier than Andy and Ray sat in the corner of the newsroom quietly filling out their online applications forms for the card, checking out the 3 for 2 deals on mens' cosmetics and even browsing the insurance policies available on the site in search of more points. I got a text during Harry Potter from Andy: "Just earned myself 32 Boots points. YES!" A man converted.
Having plugged I'm A Celeb - bless the poor dear who got carried off because she kept fainting, and bless David Dickinson for his paternal concern, "let these gentlemen take a look ... she can't go on, she's not in a good way" - it's only fair that I cast my lazy eye over Chris Evans' new show, OFI Sunday, which follows it.
And it's crap.
TFI Friday, the show which Evans masterminded in the late 90s and early 00s, was something of a minor success story for the man. OFI Sunday is a tired attempt at rehashing that concept into something worthwhile a second time round, and it fails miserably.
Essentially, the format is a whole selection of gimmicks soldered together with Evans' personality. There's a 'comedy' sidekick who must be shaking with shame right now, Evans' ex Billie Piper for a little intrigue, and one or two other sideshows in the form of some navy lark and a few unfortunate injured people.
What grates more than anything is Evans' belief that things pertaining to his life are what the audience want. Here's the woman I'm divorcing for some banter with me and her; here's some of my stuff, let's have the audience and callers identify which stuff is mine and which isn't; here's a photo I took; here's me chasing a pair of inflatable breasts down a hill; here's a clip from TFI Friday back when I made good telly.
It doesn't help that the absolute lack of a format, aside from the 'look, it's Chris Evans!' approach, is matched by technical ineptitude. The sidekick's microphone malfunctioned during the guess-which-item-belongs-to-Chris game, leading to the most amusing moment of the (live) show so far, when a technician tried to subtly open the set door behind the sidekick to give him a new microphone. Subtlety wasn't really achievable in the circumstances. Meanwhile the cameras are struggling, other technicians (boom operators, runners etc) are visible on many occasions, and the whole thing feels disjointed. Not a success. The show title may well come to sum up the feelings of ITV executives when the ratings get released after a few weeks of this.
A new series on the BBC began this evening: Shakespeare Retold. This is where Shakespeare classics are set in a modern day environment, in modern English. In essence, the plot is the same as the Shakespeare, but everything else has been changed.
Tonight was an interpretation of Much Ado About Nothing. This has to be one of my favourite Shakespeare plays: studied at school, and I’ve watched the Kenneth Branagh adaptation far too many times. For this attempt to impress, it would have to be good.
I have to say that the adaptation of Much Ado was very enjoyable. It did impress. Set in a regional newsroom, it followed the relationship between an engaged couple (Hero, played by Billy Piper and Claude, played by Tom Ellis – the weathergirl and sports presenter) and two warring news presenters (Beatrice and Benedick – the witty couple whose mutual hate for each other ultimately ends in love). If you don’t get it, go read the play – or the Lamb’s abridged version at least. It’s worth it. Tom Ellis was pretty cute too. Anyway, the adaptation was funny, it was close in plot to the original play and I’d say that the BBC have hit the mark, for once.
It was far more thrilling than the BBC’s incredibly dull interpretation of Bleak House at the moment. If you didn’t like Dickens before, you won’t like it any better after watching this program. Bleak? You bet.
I look forward to Macbeth next week: set in a restaurant kitchen, I have a feeling some knives will be involved!
I will review this paper sooner rather than later - but I'm still in a sulk about guarenteed (see below, and above) and Ollie's attempt at cupboard love by saying that a possible anagram of dayorama is "adora-amy", doesn't help :p
And for those who care, I am feeling much better. However, the penicillin takes its toll on one's digestive system.
'Bromwell High' is Channel 4's new flagship adult cartoon series, as was evident from the heavy rotation of trailers for it across the network all week long. So I sat down to give it a chance and it was bloomin' great.
Bromwell High is a secondary school in the failing London suburb of your choice (more on that later). The teaching staff and pupils are locked in competition, struggling to be that much more irresponsible and underhanded than their other half - it might be a tired premise, but it works here. We all know teachers like the wry, detached, scheming geography teacher, or the absurdly naive pair that absent-mindedly adopt a doll believing it to be a Romanian orphan. Teachers like that do indeed exist.
So most of the humour was possibly a bit predictable, but still good enough to raise laughs. However, I think most of the time I was finding Bromwell High funny because it was true. Take, for example, the shutting of a small girl in a locker by three older girls. They explain that it's a ritual to shut the younger ones in lockers and then pound them with their bare fists. A new, smart girl turns up and declares that it'd be much better if they used hockey sticks to beat the locker instead, which they do.
After one week of secondary school, a bunch of older kids tried to shut me in a locker and beat it with hockey sticks (having done it to other people in my year). I avoided this fate by first delaying it ('not now, but you can shut me in it at break'), then scarpering (I didn't go back at break and then went home at lunchtime before they could get near me). A small series of events later, involving sports kit that I hadn't brought home, a furious mother and a startled deputy headmaster, I got a letter of apology off the lot of them. I then also got abuse all the way through the final end-of-year ceremony before they left, but that was bearable. It was very funny to see the other side of the coin, and to know that it's the same old locker-and-stick technique from private school to inner-city comprehensive.
My biggest laugh was reserved for after the show ended, though. I popped the title into Google, more to check that I'd got it right for the title of this post than anything else. The number one search result is a page containing this snippet from January this year:
Looks like there's been a name-change for Hat-Trick's anarchic school toon "Streatham Hill". C21media reports that the adult-skewed show is now being officially touted as "Bromwell High".
[source: Toonhound.com]
Streatham Hill eh? Guess where I'm moving to next month...
Over the weekend, in a hotel in Bradford, I watched the first two episodes of new series 'Lost' back to back. It's a US import once again, but comes highly recommended by US critics writing about it.
The last time I was persuaded to watch something on that basis, it was 'Desperate Housewives', which was decent enough and kept my interest for a few episodes. But after a while I gave up making the effort to try to commandeer the communal TV at uni to see it, and got on with normal television-less life again.
This time round, I'm not sure that interest will wane so fast. 'Lost' is not your ordinary series. To my delight and sheer terror, they've introduced an element of the supernatural (don't worry, that's as far as the spoilers will go) which had me on the edge of my seat - well, bed - in fear. My dad texted me from the hotel room opposite to tell me what time he reckoned we should go for breakfast the next morning, and when my phone vibrated on the bedside desk, I nearly jumped out of my skin. One US critic wrote that 'Lost' had reinvented 'must-see TV' because you simply had to find out what was going on, and he wasn't wrong - there is no way in hell I am going to miss the third episode, whenever Channel 4 screen it.
Happily, my mum recently bought a TV licence for her flat, so there really is no chance of me missing it. She bought it ostensibly to watch a series on dieting, but it's going to be immensely handy for 'Lost' whilst I'm down in Minehead for the next few weeks.
Oh, and I almost forgot to mention the Lost website. Do you remember the film Donnie Darko, released a few years ago, that quickly became a cult classic? Its official site still exists here. The 'Lost' minisite borrows heavily from the innovate concept of the Donnie Darko site, which invited visitors to take part in a complex, elaborate, devilishly-conceived point-and-click adventure accompanied by unsettling music and imagery. 'Lost', which carries the same ethereal air as Donnie Darko, gets plenty of mileage out of the same trick - you keep on clicking without finding much out that makes sense, but that's no excuse to stop clicking.
Channel 4 is doing a roaring trade in suspense right now. If 'Lost' won't get you, The Ashes will. I sat in almost the same state of paranoid terror watching the final session of play between England and Australia today as I had experienced watching 'Lost', only 'Lost' didn't leave me quite so disappointed. Stuffy bloody Australians. ONE wicket! Needless to say I, like a lot of other people, will happily admit I care far more about the cricket than I do the Premiership right about now. This series has been easily the greatest in my short lifetime, and I flit agonisingly between being too emotionally engaged to be able to stand watching it, to being so engrossed that I can't tear my eyes away. Not only that, but having played no cricket this summer I'll have to wait until next April to even get a chance at some action! It's going to itch away at my mind all winter. I'm desperate to actually play.
And now for Johnny Depp. Well, where to start… ***dribble***. I’ve just come back from seeing Charlie and the Chocolate Factory with my friend Kathryn. It was a thoroughly good film – and not just because of Depp’s good looks or superb acting. First of all, on the way to the film I suddenly remembered about “Orange Wednesday”, a facility offered by Orange that I was yet to use whereby you can by two tickets for the price of one. I activated this, and lo and behold we were able to have two luxury seats for £3.75 each – worth it to avoid the children. Second, the film itself. In short, it was very close to the text (of what I can remember), the set design was wonderful and the character development was very good. The film had a good pace, moving along quicker than the book, as the description of the chocolate factory in the book naturally covers pages, whereas in a film this can be captured in one scene. The development of Charlie’s family was good – and like the rest of the film, very witty. Most scenes had some form of double-humour: there’s a great scene with squirrels and their nuts….Anyway. The most notable acting came from the young boy who played Charlie – he was as superb as when he starred alongside Depp in Finding Neverland. However, the social stereotypes portrayed by the other characters is fantastic: a fat german butcher's son for Augustus, a Californian barbie-doll figure, with matching mother, for Violet and a wonderful girl from a Hampshire Estate for Veruca. Depp doesn’t look that great (apart from in one jungle scene) – he reminded me far too much of Michael Jackson - however, once again this is a film where he does steal the show. As my friend Kathryn said: “every time I watch a film with him in, I admire Depp even more”. He’s done an incredible diverse, and some could say “risky” selection of films, but he seems to have pulled this one off too. His facial expressions, coupled with his acting, make for a very pleasurable and humorous viewing experience.
Well worth the visit – but pay the extra for luxury seats - Orange Wednesday or not – it will save you from the screaming kids in the lower seats!
Hello. Remember me? I used to post here, then I started working, and it turns out that work takes up lots of time. That, and I've had very little of interest to write about recently. I too was in London last weekend, and went through King's Cross on Saturday, and was struck by the memorial by the station. I should also note that when I came back up to Oxford on Sunday evening, Oxford Street appeared to be closed up by Marble Arch, although nothing was mentioned on the news, so I expect it was just an alert.
The weekend was spent with Amy in sunny Kent again, and for most of it we managed to stay in something that looked like countryside. It also gave me the opportunity to read the latest Harry Potter, the Half Blood Prince. (I have no doubt that Ollie must be intimately acquainted with it by now if he's in Stokenchurch.) It was actually pretty good, being the penultimate in the series. No major spoilers here, but suffice to say it does set up events nicely for the final book. That said, the plot could have been more integrated. The first half of the book was very different to the second. Usually I would scream loudly at this, but both plots were very good, and there was some integration. But... it just didn't flow as it could have done. And the ending, while not altogether shocking and unexpected, is enough of a curveball to just make you sit back and think how much of a departure it suggests the structure of the final book will be from the current six. Still, a good quick read, and worth the very cheap price that every store has discounted it to.
There's a rather large thunderstorm rolling past as I write this. In fact, I feel positively Caribbean, sat here with the rain lashing down outside, making that lovely it's-been-raining smell. The lights flicker in time with the lightning for added effect. However, I think what's doing the most for the atmosphere in here is - Jeeesus, that was close - er, is the band War Against Sleep.
Well, I say band. It's actually just one person, around whom a live band is sometimes constructed, but it's darned good. The track 'Damaged Woman' was the source of my Caribbean inspiration a moment ago, and the tracks on this album - 'Invitation To The Feast' - are precisely that, warm and inviting. They're full of melody and soft, rumbling rhythms that neatly entwine themselves with the weather outside. The vocals range from something reminiscent of the Barenaked Ladies (especially on the delightful track 'Puppies And Kittens') to a low, awkward, distant Interpol growl. It's the perfect accompaniment when you're staring outside wondering whether you should still be sitting at your laptop, or if it might blow up in your face with the next lightning strike. Time to see if the ol' Belkin surge protector thingy does what it says on the tin...
Last night, OJ and I watched Ocean's 12 on DVD. Now, Ocean's 11 is probably the ideal type of film for both of us to watch together; for me it has the requisite romance, suspense and comedy, and for OJ it has the crime, the gangster feel about it, the mystery surrounding how they break into the vault, and then of course the suspense on whether they will achieve it. He also claims that the romance element is “manly” romance, so that's ok. However, he said that prior to watching, and enjoying Dirty Dancing, so I guess that comment is rather meaningless now.
Both films have an amazing cast list, with the current film having Zeta Jones and Bruce Willis in addition to Matt Damon, Julia Roberts and of course Brad Pitt and George Clooney. As a sequel, Ocean's 12 is very successful. It certainly didn’t lose the charm or humour of the first film, and the characters continued to develop. The romance element was greater, with Pitt being involved with the sexy, female police detective who was trying to lock Ocean's 12 up, but it still worked and didn’t take over the film. The so-called “plan”, (or plans as it turns out) they try to pull of in this film are less grand than in the first film, and the planning of them takes a lesser role in the film, rather disappointingly. Despite this, the last half an hour is incredibly gripping, with the mystery of “how they did it” being revealed. I can’t wait to watch the film again, because I was kicking myself for not spotting some of the clues and twists at an early stage; if you do watch the film, keep thinking and looking closely…
Perhaps a little slower than the first, but Ocean's 12 is a sequel that works, combines the best elements of the first film with some new, and retains the buzz and enjoyment of Ocean's 11.
I met them about a month and a bit ago to interview them, an interview I still haven't written up thanks to a combination of exams and Oxide getting in the way. You know you're in at the deep end in the world of rock and roll when two of your potential interviewees bail out of the interview in order to move the van so they don't get a ticket in Broad Street. This was hardcore stuff.
I really enjoyed interviewing them, and their gig afterwards at The Cellar was good stuff. Solid, very impressive now and then, perhaps unspectacular but very much along the right lines as far as I was concerned.
Anyway, their PR company StoneImmaculate - or at least the lovely Emma Hogan, who looks after them - has sent me a promotional copy of their next single, 'Fifty Eight'. I just about remember this from the gig, because we had a discussion about one of the recurring lyrics in the song: 'I'm going to find you, kill you, move on.' For a song with that kind of topic, it's remarkably light going.
In fact, it struggles to be anything more than a few minutes of light going. For a song about finding someone and killing them - there's no double entendre there, if you listen to the lyrics - it feels like it has all the meaning and passion of a used car salesman. This is the kind of subject matter Interpol could make sound deeply haunting and obsessive, we need to be left in no doubt about the motives behind this sentiment.
Alas, the chords in the chorus are almost triumphant, as though the idea of finding them and killing them is a victory in itself, never mind the actual act. It's a celebration of the thought of murder, not the 'murder ballad' I wanted it to be. Maybe I'm approaching it from the wrong angle, but a track with that subject matter deserves the murky, depressing treatment.
I prefer 'Torch', the B side on this CD and their set closer at The Cellar. It's a beautiful song. Perhaps I prefer the vocals here to those on 'Fifty Eight', but the way the track speeds up, if tried and tested, is very effective. The guitar pips away in the background as the drums reach a crescendo, with the refrain of 'hold a torch for me, baby' soaring over the top.
Their website describes this track as 'radio-unfriendly', which I think is rubbish - just about anything can squeak its way onto the wireless these days (particularly if I'm in charge) and 'Torch' would make a welcome addition to my set list any day.
If I were The Customers, I'd have had 'Torch' as the A side here. 'Fifty Eight' is no bad song, but 'Torch' has the same distinctive qualities which initially drew me to The Customers with their earlier release, 'Black Water'.
Also new in my CD pile this week:
Coldplay - 'Speed Of Sound'
Tune. Tune, tune, tune. Some people say it sounds like 'Clocks' but at a different tempo. They're probably right but I can't help but listen to it and enjoy it every time I hear it. It used to be fashionable to be bored of Coldplay but I'm on pins waiting for the album (which I've sneakily heard online and enjoyed immensely, even if it did get a bit samey after a while).
Clor - 'Love + Pain'
If there's one song I love more than 'Speed Of Sound' at the moment, it's 'Love + Pain'. The Head of Music at Oxide doesn't share this sentiment; in fact, he looked at me aghast when I professed my love for it. But the stomping beat, electric noodling and spinetingling bass on this track are enough to win me over. The B sides are great, too.
Let's be honest about this. I'm writing this review with an eye to seeing if my cunning little ploy to get ratings to show up on certain 'In Review' posts will work. Those with access to the test pages for the new-look Dayorama will know if it has worked, because there'll be a rating just above this paragraph. If there isn't, chances are I'm tearing my hair out somewhere trying to fix it. Those of you who can only see the old Dayorama pages at the time of writing will have no idea if my cunning plans are working - sorry. Patience is a virtue.
On to the film itself. I was accompanied by our good friend Mr Wooding, whose most illustrious achievement of the evening was finding out that he could get a larger tub of popcorn for five pence less than the cost of a medium size one, owing to some form of combo deal. Needless to say this was a source of great mirth, although the big man barely got through a fifth of his gargantuan tub throughout the two-hour duration of the film.
Now, it's not the unmitigated disaster that some film reviewers and Star Wars naysayers would have you believe. I'm relatively neutral when it comes to Star Wars - I quite like watching the old films, but not enough to have gone to see any of the new ones on the big screen before, so I'm not much of a dedicated fan, more an observer whose curiosity has been mildly piqued. And I must say, this film wasn't bad. Some of the action scenes were fantastic and set-pieces reminiscent of the original films were a fixture throughout (let's face it, I bet that's what most people came to see).
There were two major problems that I could personally identify, and they are inextricably linked.
The first is Padme, played by Natalie Portman. This is one of the worst performances I have ever seen on the big screen. The basic premise (look away now if you want to be spared plot details) is that a love affair between Anakin and Padme ends up with the former spiralling towards the Dark Side in a misguided quest to save the latter. The problem is that Portman is so relentlessly useless that it's impossible to believe that she's worth all of Anakin's trouble. 'Hold me like you used to,' she pitifully mews, having (so I believe) been quite a powerful, strong character in previous episodes. All of a sudden she's a timid, homely, rudderless bambi of a young woman whose life is wasted without the guiding force of Anakin beside her.
This is pap. As Portman delivers her lines, you can hear the cardboard holding her performance up creaking. 'Maybe we're on the wrong side!' She exclaims, in the sort of formal, monotone political discussion that must go on in every household. 'Don't say that!' Retorts Anakin. 'You sound like a Separatist!' Oh now come on, don't be coy with us Mr Lucas. They might well be exceptionally powerful characters at the heart of a galactical empire and battlefield (though you wouldn't know it from Portman's interpretation of Padme), but the dialogue when the two are on screen together is so stilted that you can almost see them reading their scripts as they speak. No one talks like this! Jesus Christ, if you thought your boyfriend or girlfriend might just be on the wrong side in a war, or if your other half had just mooted that same point at you, you'd be a whole lot more animated no matter what your relationship was like. I know some couples who would be at each other's throats in that situation; I know others who would find it hilarious and be laughing and joking the whole way through what is quite a serious discussion. But I know of no human beings who would be expressing these sentiments in the dull, emotionless dribble seeping out of the mouths of this pair.
The second problem stems from Portman's dire performance - the relationship around which the film's entire plot revolves simply isn't conceivable. Anakin, as whom Hayden Christensen puts in what I thought was quite a good performance, looks convincing as he is torn between the devious Palpatine and the love of his life. But how can he be in love with that? The quivering, whimpering morass of puppy eyes and panic that is Padme would never attract someone of Anakin's stature and deep, fermenting emotional turmoil. She's so utterly spineless and transparent that I've seen oily puddles with more layers. The film relies on suspension of disbelief for its finer set-piece moments of technological wizardry, but the most prolonged disbelief is reserved for the apparent feelings Anakin harbours for the mannequin with the minimalist top-floor apartment and precious little else. Would you lose your legs and boil your skin away in a river of molten lava for her? Would you heck.
Film reviews which ridicule the basic premise rarely turn out all right, but I don't want to sound too harsh - ultimately, this was certainly watchable enough and I didn't feel particularly let down by it, but then I'm no ardent Star Wars fanatic like the individual who saw fit to holler and clap when Darth Vader donned his famous black mask for the first time. It's by no means a classic and it'll never match the prestige bestowed upon the original triumvirate, but it explains what's going on in Darth's mind in those next instalments, and it held my attention. 'Engaging,' as OJ put it - your eyes are engaged with the action, your brain is engaged wondering just how good Padme must be in bed to warrant that kind of loyalty.
Terry Wogan, the reason the Eurovision Song Contest is remotely worth watching. He kept me company through a good three and a half hours of what we might loosely term 'revision' this evening.
I think the Greeks won purely because everyone had installed them as the bookies' favourites, and voting European public felt duly obliged to like them. Poor Javine definitely didn't deserve the rough treatment she got, I thought it was one of the best UK entries for years.
In any case, as Mr Wogan was only too keen to point out, the political voting turns the thing into a sham - a watchable sham where we try to guess which neighbour each nation will bestow its twelve points upon, but a sham nonetheless. As our dear Terry also noted, the four great bastions of Eurovisions past - the UK, France, Spain and Germany - finished in the final four places. Clearly no one likes a big old guy any more. Wooding, you have been warned. The lesson to be learnt is that next time you take part in a singing competition, your size and age will rob you of a deserved victory.
What really impressed me was the ease and speed with which Terry Wogan can move between light-hearted, mocking dissection of the idiosyncracies, nay idiocies, of Eurovision, and a deadpan series of heartfelt asides. For example:
Terry's mocking dissection: "So, Greece. Now I wonder, is there a vote for Cyprus in here?"
Terry's series of deadpan, heartfelt asides: "Six points for Malta, they did well. Seven for Denmark, dropping off the pace a little. Eight for Russia, well that's a surprise but it was quite a nice song."
His tone, inflection and level of audible enthusiasm changed entirely midway through the delivery of the results of the Polish jury. For reasons I couldn't fathom, he went straight from chirpy and cheeky to calm and contemplative. If I didn't know better, I'd suggest he was experiencing mood swings brought on by the advanced stages of whisky consumption.
Of all his comments, however, one rang true throughout the night. That girl co-presenting did not need a microphone. It took Wogan no time at all to register this and transform his pastiche of the pair from 'Ant and Shrek' to 'Ant and Shriek'. This is why this man is paid money to get drunk and ridicule our European friends. To think, I'll be just about old enough to have his job when he retires...
And that concludes this week's episode of Doctor Who, a broadcast on behalf of BBC News.
For those that did not see it, it was a sublime piece of satire designed as a nod to the BBC's critics in the aftermath of Gilligan, Hutton etc. The message? We're doing the best we can, and we could be a whole lot worse. As the episode opens, The Doctor and his lovely assistant Rose (along with tag-along British kid we met in the last episode) are on a space station orbiting Earth in around the year 200,000.
The people on this space station are 'the Journalists'. We see them using holes in their heads to acquire data feeds as other journalists sit around channeling information through microchips in their heads. They address each other as 'ladies, gentlemen, both, undecided or robot', insist on impartiality at all times and the space station on which they are based controls the information that, effectively, everyone reads.
So it's the BBC in the year 200,000 then. Except someone's been monitoring their output and has discovered it to be lies, manipulated by someone at the very top. A security scan by the evil 'Editor', who we see on the 500th floor of the space station commanding a crew of a dead people whose microchips use their lifeless bodies to operate machinery, reveals that the culprit is a woman, not (as you might expect) The Doctor. She gets 'promoted' to floor 500 and is done away with after a brief confrontation with the 'Editor' over lies. She accuses him of consciously manipulating output and lying to the public. He enjoys it so much he asks her to say it again.
When The Doctor works his way up to floor 500, we learn that in actuality, the 'Editor' is second in command to the 'Editor-in-Chief'. And wouldn't you know it, the 'Editor-in-Chief' is a massive, snarling puddle of brown sludge, who controls the station and 'allows' humans to live there through some twisted benevolence. The station keeps our alien puddle of sludge cool (although it's very hot on the other levels since the air con is working overtime), the alien lets everyone live. The humans are conned into thinking they have a function as journalists. Little do they know they're all being manipulated. Humankind has been set back about eighty or ninety years at least, reckons The Doctor.
In the end a newly-enlightened journalist friend steals her way up to floor 500, finds out what is going on from the shadows as the 'Editor' mocks The Doctor, and uses the hole in her head to communicate this to the rest of the station whilst shutting down the air con, thus killing the alien sludgeball.
This summary does not convey the very funny and blindingly obvious parallels with the BBC's navel-gazing quest for balanced reporting through self-monitoring. You could also see why it was a good idea to broadcast it just after the General Election - at one point The Doctor questions why there are no aliens on the station, and is told something about strict immigration controls, which must have been implemented by the 'Editor-in-Chief', who turns out to be a pile of brown sludge that eats people it doesn't like. Michael Howard would have been less than thrilled.
Random title but then I'm bouncing through a wonderful dimension of unassailable happiness as I write. Which is odd for 8:45am on the Tuesday following a bank holiday, and a night's sleep severely disrupted by a bloody moth that refused to stop buzzing. I gave it ample opportunity to escape out of an open window but it was having none of it. In the end I squished it with a copy of Wuthering Heights (the book), so at least now I'm no longer the only one to have collapsed under the weight of everything that goes on in that novel.
But I digress - I'm happy. I'm thrilled. I'm so ecstatic that even the big, gay vampire monkeys that touch up your dad, as discussed by Phill Jupitus on the radio this morning, wouldn't worry me. Ah, the radio, the source of my unbridled joy. Over the weekend I recorded a pilot radio show for a brand new internet radio station that is launching next month - the plan, as advertised by the station, was for budding DJs to record a show, send it in, and if it's good enough then there might well be a regular spot up for grabs.
Well I finished uploading the show to the internet yesterday for consumption by the lovely people in charge, and the email response this morning opened with: "that, sire, is fantastic". It isn't fantastic, it's pretty mediocre, even allowing for my ever-modest nature - the vocals are quiet and a lot of the stuff I talk about is pretty flimsy. Because it's pre-recorded for possible transmission some weeks from now, I can't really discuss current affairs, music news, upcoming gigs/CDs or anything of a time-sensitive nature on the show; nor did I have a co-host or any wonderful featurettes to drop in, so it's just me and some music for two hours. That's quite tough going to keep interesting, and if I'm honest I'd probably switch me off pretty quickly were I listening, but even this two hour pilot took an entire day to record and export to mp3.
In any case, I'll let you know if it creeps onto the air at any stage. Whilst the email used such lovely terminology as "sire" and "fantastic", it still only contained two sentences - that one and one along the lines of "I'll get back to you later". So despite the enthusiasm, nothing is done and dusted. Better than a slap in the face, mind. When I got the email reply just now, I tore off my headphones and skipped through the deserted college library performing my own little version of the Dean Scream. After all, from such humble beginnings as a pilot show for a tiny new internet radio station, recorded in my bedroom of a Sunday, do broadcasting careers begin.
Please, please, listen to 'Funeral', an album by the wonderful Arcade Fire. It's relatively recent, and it's about as uplifting as any album entitled 'Funeral' will get. I recommend in particular the single 'Rebellion (Lies)' and album track 'Neighborhood 4 (Power Out)'. Oh, and read the lyrics to 'Crown Of Love'. Beautiful. And relevant.
If anyone wants to drive me to Bristol and back to see them in early May, I will buy their ticket to get in.
I'm going to watch Goldeneye tonight (ITV1, 8.30pm). I think it is the best Bond film of all time, and thoroughly enjoyable. But it was released in 1995. ten years ago! A decade! I knew the game was slightly out of date when it arrived (and boy, what good memories I have of that), but ten years. Having spent the last few days messing around watching DVDs (thank you screenselect), I suddenly feel old again.
Two posts in one day? Wonders will never cease. Amy has braved the Kentish weather (and more generally, Kent) to go home for the weekend, and having submitted a second draft of my thesis to a friend and written a very poor essay plan for my class on Thursday, I have a free-ish weekend (and week coming up). To celebrate, Amy and I disappeared to Borders last night for a mosy, which along with going to the train station this morning, made me feel distinctly normal, rather than a student. At Borders I picked up Ocean’s Eleven, which I finally watched last night. Brief thoughts: very enjoyable, George Clooney is cool, reminds me a lot of the remade Italian Job with the whole modern bank robbery theme. Tonight is I, Robot, which is another mindless action film I’m looking forward to. I also picked up a copy of The Insider, the diaries of Piers Morgan. And I’m completely hooked. Probably the first time I’ve bought something having read a serialised version (and yes, it was in the Daily Mail, which becomes just about understandable once you read Morgan’s praise for Paul Dacre). The writing itself is nothing special. It’s really just a blog on paper: short sentences with facts, all chronological. Having read more books this term, however, than ever before in the name of the thesis, which have all been in heavily academic prose, this is an absolute joy. It’s much easier than Andrew Marr’s book, which is effectively a monograph, although I will confess to not having given Greg Dyke’s book (a gift from Ollie) a look yet. More than the style, however, is the content. I think this is the first book that actually tells the hidden story behind events that I consciously remember (it starts in 1994, but everything from 1995/6 on rings bells). Utterly compulsive and fascinating. I’ll probably have finished it by tonight.
For those of you with little music taste, and I take that to be the vast majority of known readers, I present details of two things to buy tomorrow, when the week's selection of new singles is released:
1. Kaiser Chiefs: Oh My God
This is the same track I harped on about getting as a single last year - that first release is now worth a small fortune, and now the Chiefs, having gained in popularity, are re-releasing it with some new B-sides. Copies will still be quite limited though, so get down to your store quick to get hold of one. The track itself is a gorgeous shout-out-loud-chorus anthem and is damn good fun live. The Chiefs' album, Employment, is out next month.
2. Maximo Park: Apply Some Pressure
I'm not sure which of these two bands is currently the more obscure, but on balance it's probably Maximo Park. I must confess I'm not particularly knowledgeable on this front, but new single Apply Some Pressure is very good indeed, starting a little edgily before proceeding into a sequence of smooth chords and soaring chorus. Their website, particularly the diary, retains the local-band-keeping-their-mates-updated feel which I prize quite highly with bands - it's nice to know that bands remember they're still just bands in the end, even if they are off all over the world.
Speaking of being off all over the world, if you really do like both these singles, you can catch Kaiser Chiefs and Maximo Park in Los Angeles, on the same bill, in mid-March.
The Dears finished their UK tour at the Zodiac in Oxford earlier tonight, and it must be said that it was an excellent, excellent show. Fronted by the charismatic and charming Murray Lightburn, who led the crowd in a rousing rendition of Happy Birthday for drummer George Donoso, the Canadian six-piece played a selection of tracks from their album No Cities Left, as well as one or two new numbers. I should know, I got hold of a copy of their set list and almost stole their tambourine - in the end my convictions got the better of me and I asked politely for it, only to have it immediately removed out of reach.
The evening also illustrated the benefits of turning up early, as opening support act Pure Reason Revolution were particularly special, although downloads of their music are proving tantalisingly difficult to find (there was one on NME.com but the link is broken).
In other good-band-release-good-music news, my band's CDs are now ready to be shipped. I only have about 20 to despatch at the moment, and they cost £2 each, although I'm keeping two back for eBay once supplies run out (perhaps I might even flog it on Oxford's very own eBay, Boso). You can also get stickers, which I must say look very fine indeed. If you would like a CD, you can send me £2 to ollie@goalsnetwork.com via PayPal, or email me at the same address to sort out some other means of payment; you'll need to email me anyway to tell me your address, and whether you'd like the cover with the cliff on it, or the cover with the desert road on it.
Finally, I have some time free, and I can give you a medium length review of one of the best films of all time – National Treasure. It is in my personal top 2, along with Top Gun. It is quite superb, and I urge everyone and anyone to see it (indeed, I just recommended it to my history tutor).
Naturally, there will be few others who will lavish praise on it as much as I am going to. Perhaps its target audience of American historians who are doing a thesis on Benjamin Franklin is a little narrow. Maybe some people couldn’t accept suspend disbelief for just long enough to enjoy the movie. But I’ll say this. When I first watched The Day After Tomorrow, I came out of it wishing I had read Earth Sciences and unhealthy interest in National Geographic. Re-watching on Saturday, having seen National Treasure, I still enjoyed it and its lupine goodness, but that was it. My inner climatologist was left asleep. Now, if you don’t come out of National Treasure wanting to be a historian, then you have no soul. This film does for historians what Indian Jones did for archaeology.
What makes it so good? First of all, you have to accept that the film, much like the best historians, doesn’t take itself seriously. This is a preposterous film in the very finest sense. So not only do you get lashings of history, but all within a humorous setting. The plot is that Benjamin Franklin Gates, rogue historian and scientist (gosh, how well named he is), played by Nic Cage, is part of a family that holds the secret to the location of the treasure of the Knight Templars, which has been passed down by Masons who buried it at the time of the American Revolution. He has spent the best part of his life, eschewing the academic community, trying to find the treasure from his one clue, “The secret lies with the Charlotte.” He finds the Charlotte in the Arctic (handily by using a metal detector and striking the name plate), which leads to another clue. This is the cue for the stealing of the Declaration of Independence, going to the Liberty Bell in Philadelphia and the Trinity Church in New York, where the treasure is ultimately buried far below. One of the clues are the Silence Dogood letters. Another involves multicoloured bifocals invented by Benjamin Franklin. This is, in short, an American historian’s wet dream. I mean, these are documents I used in my Further Subject last Hilary! These are quintessential locations that resonate with historical meaning, obvious to anyone who cares. Wow!
The plot itself was enough for me to love the film, but the way the film was made made me want to marry it. I love the cinematography, with its glorious colours and willingness to shoot alternative angles of classic locations. Riley, techno-sidekick to Gates provided some wonderful comedy lines. His “I know something you don’t” moment when he works out the importance of Daylight Savings Time (which Franklin first suggested) is a classic. So too his fear of being trapped underground, and his tears upon finding the stairs instead of the treasure. Or when Dr Chase, token beautiful women, is filled in awe at finding the lost scrolls of Alexandria - Riley instead finds an Egyptian sarcophagus and hugs it, saying “big green blue person thing with a long goatee, I love you.” Then there was the completely unsubtle romantic tensions, signified by the Dr Chase tapping her foot like a little girl whilst looking into Gates’s eyes, and the completely unnecessary kiss in a dark tunnel. And then there’s Sean Bean, playing Ian, the British criminal who had previously funded Gates’s exploration but now wants the treasure for himself. Where Gates uses historical skills, Ian uses brute force. And what about the product placement, for HP and Urban Outfitters. So unsubtle, and brilliant for being so. And of course, the respect for the Declaration of Independence, and the heavy handed repetition of the freedoms for which it stands? Can ever a document have been shown so much love as the worried looks that cross the faces of our heroes, prior to dabbing the back with lemon juice and a hairdryer? Just wonderful.
I have never enjoyed a film in the cinema as much as I enjoyed this one (I was too young to see Top Gun in the cinema, although here’s hoping the release a re-mastered version for the 20th anniversary next year). The big grin never left my face. A special edition, extended with extras DVD you say? Yes please.
It's been a week and a bit so it's time to mention the Kaiser Chiefs again.
The title to this post is their forthcoming album, but from experience I suspect that few of the mighty entourage surrounding the Chiefs can be fearing for their employment prospects. Either that or maybe they're rather fearful indeed and on their toes the whole time: I sent an email at 1am this morning to check that the Chiefs were playing Bristol, since whilst I have tickets for that gig, it wasn't listed on their site (unlike every other gig). I've just checked my email now and, twenty-five minutes into the working day, I've had two replies. One from their Live Manager reassuring me that he "can only imagine it is a typo", and one from another individual of entirely unknown origin (I wrote to the first guy - I think this one is a webmaster of some sort) thanking me for pointing it out and promising to correct it. That's not shabby service at all.
In other news, I'm as good as cooked if Exeter College goes up in flames in the near future. Leaving aside the minor matter that the fire alarm system actually broke down over Christmas, and the numbing inevitability with which a fire broke out during its down time (it wasn't serious), it seems that I cannot really hear the fire alarm in my room. Because I have a separate bedroom with a door that I close at night, the alarm in the main room is still bloody loud, but has to pass through a heavy door now. I woke up at 8:30 this morning because my dream had been infiltrated by an alarm noise, but I spent a good thirty seconds thinking it was a part of the dream; in previous years I was left in no doubt whatsoever and could barely hear myself think.
As a result I was not just practically the last, but the last person to turn up in the chapel for the traditional beginning-of-term fire drill spiel. This means that my goose is not just cooked but somewhat overdone in the case of a real fire. Let this be a lesson to all those with a view to an en-suite bedroom - you are taking your life into your own hands.
In order to keep this roll ticking over, a brief mention of one of the books I bought today using various vouchers received at Christmas - My Trade by Andrew Marr. I read extracts in the Telegraph back in September and thought it would be worthwhile, and I could not refuse it on half price today. For Andrew Marr junkies the picture of the man himself on the jacket is one to treasure. Given Boris's fall from Grace, I propose we start the Andrew Marr fan club, and turn him - and Mr. Snuffles - into the next hero of overworked students. (Seriously - it's a 300+ page book; where did he get the time?)
Merry Christmas, and have a wonderful 2005. I know I will, because Kate Bush is releasing a new album next year apparently. The pressure is now off me, since Finals are no longer my most anticipated event of the year.
One of the things of being at home is that I get to watch TV, which is something I've not done for 3 months. I've just had the embarassment of watching Strictly Come Dancing, and even staying up to watch the results. Oh how the mighty are fallen.
A yuletide song of hatred, with apologies to Bacharach, David & The Carpenters.
Why do bears suddenly appear
Every time you are near?
Just like me, they long to be
Toasting you.
Why do cars fall down from the sky
Every time you walk by?
Just like me, God longs to be
Toasting you.
On the day that you were born
The devil got a cauldron
And decided to create a loathsome stew
But he sprinkled too much rat instead of toad
And so instead out came you
That is why all the girls in town
Chase you with
Packs of hounds
Just like me, they long to be
Toasting you.
I had a fun time getting my MMR injection this morning. In all occasions such as this, I develop a bit of a roguish attitude to proceedings, which usually has hilarious consequences and occasionally has earth-shatteringly humiliating ones. Of the latter category is the time that I went for physiotherapy and told the nurse, as she massaged my back, that she spoke English very well and where was she from, only to be told South Africa and it was her first language.
Happily, though today didn't qualify under 'hilarious' it certainly wasn't that painful either. Questionnaires are always good for this defiant roguishness, which only comes out into the open as a defence mechanism - if in mortal danger, act like fool. It is my eleventh commandment. Asking me if I am pregnant or not is just too easy to be arsey about, so I skipped a pun there, but Amy had to suffer me trying to put, in a box next to "General Practice:", the word "Required". I then had a bit of jousting with administrative lady number one because she told me to fill in a consent form.
"What with? Have you got a pen?"
"No, you should have brought one."
"But no one told me to."
"You're a student."
What's that supposed to mean? I'm a student so I'm inherently organised? I'm a student and can thus summon pens at will? Luckily the ever-useful Amy had one buried in her handbag, so a crisis was averted.
My crowning moment of roguishness came during the actual injection procedure. Nice little old ladies sat in a ten by twenty block, wafting their becardiganned arms in the air to attract the attention of their next victim, waiting in line at the edge. Having ambled along past Amy to get to my old lady of choice, she sat me down and pleasantly took me through the questionnaire again. I mentioned that I was on antibiotics, and would this be a problem: "Ooh no dear, you feel well today, don't you?" She places her hand on my forehead. "No temperature there, and you certainly look very well."
Goodness! Never one to reject a compliment, I accepted with a gracious "Why thank you!", but even my roguish grin wasn't enough to stop her rolling up my sleeve and prepping a needle. She told me to "relax", and when she realised that my version of relaxation was declenching my buttocks but remaining braced for an imaginary impact, she calmly suggested I lean back a little. Then she told me to hold a small piece of cotton wool next to my arm - hang on! She'd done it!
"Is that it? Have you done it?" I inquired.
"Yes, all done dear," she replied, lobbing the needle into a box for disposal with the consummate ease of someone who has vaccinated a million roguish students.
"Well that was very well done. Do I get to give you marks out of ten?"
"Haha!" She exclaimed. "Why not? What would you give me?"
"Eleven."
At this point, the nurse in front of us, who had been conducting the last rites over her latest captive, leant back and said that no one ever paid her such kind remarks. Clearly us roguish folk are in all too short supply. I hastily departed, and the moment I was out the door my roguishness, sensing imminent danger to have been averted, disappeared in its entirety.
So, that's the introduction to what I was going to talk about, but since the introduction is bloomin' long and roguish, I'm not sure how long I need spend on the actual main body of this post. In a nutshell, I spent most of the morning before and after my injection humming the appropriate line "It's sick, the price of medicine", from the Psychedelic Furs track President Gas. I'd heard it on the radio a few days ago, but by the time I went out for some food at 5:30, I had to own a copy of President Gas, so I went into Virgin and bought their 1982 album Forever Now. It's damn good. I'm reliably informed that my ex-stepdad-who-wasn't-really-but-I-call-him-that-for-reasons-of-brevity, Steve, very much liked the Psychedelic Furs. This is promising, since he was the one who got me into Thunder as well; if nothing else, that man had a very keen eye for good music.
The album, which is a 2002 re-issue with bonus tracks, has a live version of President Gas at the end which is going to sound fantastic on my mp3 player as my official pep-talk tune before football matches. See, I listen to music for about twenty minutes before getting to a game I'm about to play in, and my consequent success always, so my superstition has it, depends on the playlist. Sometimes I let the mp3 player handle this at random so it's pot luck; other times I specify a track that I know will get me all focused, like Battle Without Honor Or Humanity from the Kill Bill 1 soundtrack. The live version of President Gas is going to serve this purpose very well indeed.
This is probably undeserving of the music category, being as it is one part music to five parts self-indulgent waffle. Ah well.
Oh come on: Ukraine, Ukraine, Ukraine, Zimbabwe and the Cricket, Zimbabwe again. The Queen’s Speech and I.D. cards, Blair and Blunkett, Blair again (impeachment), and Blunkett again (re. the nanny of his ex lover). Dumping of fridges, the IRA, Millennium centre in Cardiff (opening, 4 years too late?), acrobatic pandas, and the stance on bullying.
I think Ukraine and Zimbabwe push a relatively normal week on the home-front into a week of greater consequence, thus deserving of a magnificent...
Apologies for missing last week's Dayoramic. I would have probably agreed with OJ about most of what he said, although I'd have been inclined to award the week a 7, not an 8, as I didn't feel it truly merited such a high mark.
As Amy pointed out, there has been plenty of royal activity this week, but again I'm not sure about her use of a 7. We need newsflashes and extended coverage to satisfy the examination criteria for a 7, and whilst Arafat's death and the Berkshire train crash both merited their own BBC In Depth sections, neither Prince Charles nor Prince William managed to summon up that level of interest in their words of wisdom, or lack thereof. I'd be inclined to award the week a 4 on that particular front.
Elsewhere and in the wider news sphere, the ban on hunting must dominate. It certainly has potentially far-reaching consequences, is likely to be revisited in future (particularly if the Tories are voted in), and is not an issue which will go away despite this week's climax to events. Will this week be in the memory in a year's time? Perhaps not, so hunting gets a 7. Margaret Hassan's death, whilst tragic and yet another indictment of the human predicament in the 21st century, is similarly unlikely to capture the attention of the public in the long term, and may be afforded a 6. Finally, racism in Spain was a major issue both here and belatedly in Spain. Whilst the problem of racist abuse with relation to football is not going to go away, nor is this particular peak in activity going to be much of a landmark, beyond gaining the occasional reference from commentators in later years. It can get a 5.
All in all, this would have been a very average week for news were it not for the hunting saga, which tips it over the edge from a 5 to a...
Instead of rating the week in relation to “society” in general, I would just like to remark what a particularly busy week it seems to have been for the Royal Family. Beginning the week, both the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh honoured the war dead in the usual Remembrance Sunday fashion. Following from her aircraft near-miss last week, Princess Anne became very sour over a packet of crisps depicting a cartoon of the Princess. Prince William had an interview marking his final year at St Andrews where he stated that he may follow in brother Harry’s footsteps and join the Army. He was adamant that he would not be kept from “the front line”, just because he was heir to the throne. Reports have been in all broadsheets this weekend, accompanied by many pin-up style photos of the Prince. In addition, William has been described as the first royal “surf dude”, after surfing at a beach in Scotland. Finally, Prince Charles has had to deny being "out of touch" after several comments made regarding modern values and teaching methonds.
So all in all a rather eventful week for the Royals and no doubt their press-officers have been working over-time. Due to the escalated activity, it's only fair that they are awarded appropriately:
Radio One has been rattled by the death of John Peel.
As the great man was mourned by the nation, time after time people could be heard wondering where new, obscure, underplayed and genre-defining music would emerge, given that Peel increasingly came to be seen as an anomalous presence on the Radio One schedule. Surrounded by DJs pumping out chart hits, dance beats and RnB standards, Peel was Radio One's way of saying, "actually, we do care about all kinds of music and there's still room on this station for anything". With his death, the absence of anything else remotely like him on the station became immediately apparent - his replacement, the ridiculously named Rob Da Bank, has adequate credentials (his record label released Grand National's debut album), but he has nothing on Peel; after all, who does?
And so, faced with a gaping hole in its schedule and consequently in its output and its entire ethos, Radio One has launched a vigorous advertising campaign to reassure listeners that it will continue to push back the boundaries of popular music. "In New Music We Trust", it proclaims in a series of slots airing across its radio networks, and possibly on BBC television as well (I don't have access to a TV so I wouldn't know). Listening to Five Live for most of today, a jingle for some kind of house/dance show has been aired about four or five times, featuring the presenter insisting above all else that the show would not get on any commercial radio station because it plays things that simply are not commercial, are not that well known, and cannot be defined as popular music. Eclecticism is the order of the day, and the 'new music' buzz phrase is repeated at least twice in the space of thirty seconds.
Is this a case of clutching at straws? I have to confess that I have been consistently underwhelmed by Radio One. That may be down to my music taste, because Radio One is certainly not aimed at me - if anything I'm the kind of indie kid for whom Six Music exists, fitting snugly into their target demographic and enjoying almost all the music they play. Six Music was launched precisely to cater for the growing sector of the population which puts more faith in a broad range of ever so slightly underground, understated indie acts, ranging from Marjorie Fair to The Others, Kaiser Chiefs (yes, them again) to the Killers. Six Music were widely credited with unearthing Keane and dragging them kicking and screaming into the spotlight with a Steve Lamacq session in 2003, and the station has already established a strong rapport with the music community as a centre for breaking new acts. Perhaps Radio One should give up the ghost, accept that it is the hub of pre-teen pop culture and move on. With the death of Peel, Radio One should respect that teenage kicks today derive from precisely what everyone else plays on the station, and that obscure indie discoveries are now the domain of Xfm and Six Music.
1) Death of Arafat. Big big news. So huge we didn't cover it on Dayorama. Thoughts of someone completely disinterested in the Middle East - I bet this changes things, but I don't know how.
2) Boris is sacked. Big news. Tory party loses major figurehead on slightly dodgy moral basis. Boris' career looks finished in the immediate future, to be honest. I should imagine he'll have to fight for reselection at Henley, I doubt he'll ever be on HIGNFY again, he should keep his Telegraph column but will have trouble staying at The Spectator. And has probably lost his wife and four kids. A pretty damn bad week. I have nagging doubts that he is politically substantial enough to survive perhaps a decade in the back benches before relaunching his career, but if all he does from now on is politics, then who knows?
3) New Attorney General in the US - Alberto Gonzales. Fair few murmurs going round that he's a lightweight, which I suppose will shall find out soon. But who next on the Cabinet merry-go-round?
Overall:
If I had a clue about how Arafat's death is going to impact the world, I'd rate it higher, but I guess it's just wait and see. Everything else seems to be going a bit quiet though.
I thought I’d attempt some form of rating for the week. I will however, contain my musings to “home news”, rather than global issues. Firstly, the week began with the aftermath of the train crash, where seven people died, and a debate has ensued into how safe the railways, in particular level crossings, are. Another transport incident occurred when a plane carrying the Princess Ann was involved in an “air near miss”; the two planes involved came within 3.3miles of each other. The lottery was 10 years old this weeks, and many stories have been published detailing either “the changing lives of lottery winners”, or “how lottery money has helped good causes”. Another tenth birthday belongs to Eurostar, although it is yet to make a profit. The TV personality Fred Dibnah died at the age of 66, and the funeral of John Peel was held yesterday. As more troops died in Iraq, on the 11th the country remembered those who died in WWI, WWII and subsequent conflicts. Apparently the Queen managed to stay awake during the service at the Cenotaph. In addition to the usual acts of remembrance, London was illuminated in red from Thursday through to Sunday. In political news, apparently smoking in public is going to be banned in Scotland, Blunkett has announced yet more policing plans, Johnson was sacked from the Tory front bench and the lawsuit against the Diana’s Memorial Fund by a US souvenir firm has been dropped after the two sides settled out of court. The prototype for the new MSN search engine was launched this week and the premier of the second Bridget Jones film, The Edge of Reason took place. Finally, the Janus Society (an appropriate post will appear in the future when more information can be gathered) announced that they will be opening a bookshop on the Turl, Oxford. And so for a rating. Based purely on home events, the rating is rather low. There’s been nothing of much significance, just small events making for quite an interesting and varied week.
Lots of you crazy kids keep coming here looking for lyrics to the Kaiser Chiefs' kick-ass "Oh My God" track, ever since I mentioned them a while back. I feel bad for not providing the lyrics, so here goes (these are unofficial and my transcript of the lyrics just by listening to the track, I've tried my best to get them spot on):
-----
Time on your side that will never end
The most beautiful thing you can ever spend
But you work in a shirt with your nametag on it
Drifting apart like a plate tectonic
It don't matter to me
It's all I wanted to be
It's a million miles from here
Somewhere more familiar
Too much time spent dragging the past up
I didn't see you not looking when I messed up
Settling down in your early twenties
Sucked more blood than a backstreet dentist
It don't matter to me
It's all I wanted to be
It's a million miles from here
Somewhere more familiar
Oh my God I can't believe it
I've never been this far away from home
And Oh my God I can't believe it
I've never been this far away from home
[repeat x1]
Bright ruins lit for greater glory [*really not sure about this line*]
The only thing growing is our history
Knock me down I'll get right back up again
Come back stronger like a powered-up Pacman
It don't matter to me
It's all I wanted to be
It's a million miles from here
Somewhere more familiar
Oh my God I can't believe it
I've never been this far away from home
And Oh my God I can't believe it
I've never been this far away from home
[repeat x1, then guitar solo, then repeat x2]
-----
There ya go. Anyone with any corrections, let me know.
... I've never been this far away from home. So goes the Kaiser Chiefs lyric. Why am I quoting Kaiser Chiefs lyrics, you ask? Well, read the title of this post again, then continue:
... I've never got quite such a bargain on Ebay (eBay? Does it matter?). Last week, my copy of the Kaiser Chiefs' debut single, Oh My God, arrived. Some guy with the extremely suspicious name J. Doe (turned out to be James, not John) sold it to me for just under £6 including postage and packaging. It's in full working order and I've now copied it to my PC and I love all three tracks on it. It's the Chiefs' debut single and I think it didn't get any higher than the mid-60s in the charts - depending on who you believe, there were only 500 or 1,500 imprints of the single made. I now own one.
Well, if you thought £6 was a bit steep for a CD single, try to find one cheaper now, just a week and a bit later. The Chiefs are supporting the Ordinary Boys on tour at the moment (and I'm damned if I can get a ticket to their dual gig at the Zodiac, grr), so maybe that's doing wonders for their popularity, but you can't get hold of a copy on Amazon for less than £18.99. For a single. On Ebay, and remembering I paid £6 after three days of bidding just two weeks back, starting prices for this CD are now £12 or more. I shall no longer treat tales of online bargains with the contempt I had previously reserved.
Firstly, buy Devendra Banhart's latest single, Little Yellow Spider, because it is insane. Gentle rhythm, quietly strumming guitar, funny voice, absolutely ridiculous lyrics (of which the title of this post is one). Alternatively, if you can't afford the single or are a boring person, listen to BBC 6 Music, as it's on their 'B' playlist at the moment but most of the presenters are taking a shine to it. After all, who wouldn't?
Secondly, you may have already seen it but the BBC have launched what effectively amounts to their own Instant Messenger service. The only catch is you have to be somewhere on their website to use it - well at least I assume that's the plan. As things stand, you actually have to be on Radio 1's website to use it, but at the moment it's just an experiment. Dubbed BBC Connector, the plan is that it allows you to see and talk to people who are on the same page of the BBC website as you.
Alas, when I tried to go to the main BBC home page or the 6 Music home page, it decided I had done a Greg Dyke and 'left the BBC' and closed down. Only on Radio 1 pages would it acknowledge the presence of other people. However they are quick to point out it is an experimental product and we can expect it to expand in the near future (lots of exes in that sentence, which is nothing new for my posts).
Finally, with a little luck the Beastie Boys will suffer a pronounced tragedy in which all of their records and larynxes are burned.
The rise of relatively average, if not dire, pop records from complete nobodies to the number one slot in the charts has always mystified me.
After all, who buys these records? Busted I can understand, and anything similar in appeal like Westlife, the 411 etc (young girls are a powerful consumer body). But you occasionally get something that shouldn't necessarily appeal that much to that age bracket, and shouldn't necessarily really appeal to anyone with any sense, like for example Lola's Theme, which was at the top a few weeks back.
Well today I worked out how this happens. It's the Germans. Now, I shan't mention the war, but clearly something in the German psyche appreciates the mindless banality doled out by Shapeshifters, whoever they may be. I was on the bus back from Oxford today and a group of young German tourists (well, around my age anyway), were sat next to me. They were all nattering away in fluent German, as you might expect, when I noticed one of them clutching a copy of said summer anthem. Now, multiply this single, supposedly harmless act of mindless brutality to the British chart by the number of foreign tourists Oxford gets every year. Now multiply it by the number of places in the UK that attract a similar or greater number of tourists than Oxford. We're beginning to see how musical travesties of justice occur. We fought them on the beaches, but clearly we can't fight them on the dance floor Sophie Ellis-Bextor style. It really is bling time for Hitler.
Indeed, with the ending of eras, let me address one of my pet subjects, the ever wonderful Radio 2. Today has seen the introduction of the new Saturday schedule. Dale Winton and his Pick of the Pops has gone, replaced with Dermot O’Leary’s Saturday Club. A brave move indeed – I think there is more to lose than gain for the station as a whole – but it was a game first effort by Dermot. This means so much because my Saturdays since the age of 13, school permitting, have been dedicated to Radio 2. To accommodate Dermot, Richard Allinson has lost an hour, and Bob Harris has lost half an hour. Paul Gambacinni starts half an hour earlier, and the wonderful chats he had with Richard have, as he pointed out today, gone. Watching schedule changes is interesting as it gives an insight into changing tastes and demand. For instance, although Bob has lost half an hour on Saturday nights, he has gained a new three hour show on Saturday mornings (a very weird working day), suggesting that he is well received by many listeners – something that I have been promoting for years now.
Richard is a different kettle of fish. He lost his weekday evening shows to Mark Radcliffe (who has grown on me substantially now he has lost all his ties to Radio 1 and suddenly shifted into middle age) and now another hour has gone on his Saturday show. As it is, he’s spent the last few weeks filling in for Terry Wogan, Ken Bruce, Steve Wright and next week, Sarah Kennedy. Smart money says that one of those will be going in the near future. Sarah Kennedy, who I used to listen to religiously when I was at school as she was on as I got up, has become increasingly difficult to listen to, especially with her predilections for irrelevant and ineffective personal stories and an intonation that is unbearable. But she would be better replaced by Alex Lester, a highly talented broadcaster who is cruelly underused on the 3am to 6am shift. I cannot see Wogan leaving in the near future, and Allinson, although the best substitute in that slot I’ve heard so far, currently lacks the intimacy and gravitas to lock down the early morning slot. I’ve heard a few rumours surrounding Ken Bruce leaving, but that would be a real shame. Allinson has ably filled the show before, but Bruce is a natural for that time slot.
So that leaves Steve Wright. His show on weekday afternoons is most like Richard’s Saturday show, and I have to say that Richard’s is the better. Wrighty is a broadcaster who cannot just be put on in the background – either you listen to him or he is too irritating a distraction and must go off. His show seems to be decreasing in quality as the years go by – and I remain particularly annoyed at his dedication to the playlist and his inability to do the oldies on time – and I have to say that it would be no great loss for him to be replaced by Richard. Moving on from there, if Johnnie Walker is forced to leave the Drivetime slot due to health issues, then Stuart Maconie has come on in leaps and bounds as a broadcaster, though I hope that Johnnie will not go yet, as he remains a joy to listen to.
Richard Allinson is a highly talented DJ, has a most pleasant and engaging voice, and would be a great loss to Radio 2. I only hope that the powers that be appreciate this as well. I think my plan above is the fairest and best option that would keep Radio 2 as the most listened to station in the country. Where was that link to BBC traineeships…?
I learnt something yesterday. Never buy a film which was released on DVD only a couple of months ago and is now half price. I purchased “Down with Love” hoping for an amusing chick flick. Instead I got first class cringe-trash. Absolutely shocking. Ewan McGregor and Renee Zellweger should be ashamed of themselves.
Today I found out which CDs BBC 6Music sent to me!
Now, there has been some speculation that they would be absolute dross, and by that I don't mean the Absolute Collection of Luther Vandross, which would have been very welcome indeed. However, I remained confident that because this was BBC 6Music, priding itself on good musical taste, I would get some cracking little CDs. And so it proved.
Three CDs arrived in a small package, so small at first that prior to opening I was convinced there was only one CD inside. They were all in thin cardboard sleeves. This is because they were all promotional copies, which is in itself fantastic, as these tend to appreciate in value fairly quickly and are nice little collectors' items to have, regardless of whether you're a big fan of the content.
The first was a promo copy of the new Divine Comedy album, Absent Friends, in its entirety. I have listened to it and it's a very pleasant album, full of tracks which are easy to listen to. The little promotional sticker on the back tells me that the Divine Comedy have embarked on a tour with their own 16-piece orchestra, which is understandable once you listen to the album. It's not something I would have gone out and bought but it's different and, all in all, a worthy addition to the collection.
The second CD was a single-track promo copy of Graham Coxon's debut solo single, Freakin' Out. Wait a minute, I hear you Coxon aficionados cry, since he left Blur his first single was that Bittersweet Bundle Of Misery thing. Au contraire! As the promo label tells us: "Freakin' Out is the debut Parlophone single from the one and only Graham Coxon ... [it] will be released as a limited edition 7" only, with only 2500 numbered copies being pressed. Freakin' Out is the perfect taster from what is to come from Graham's solo album debut for Parlophone." A full UK tour, it continues, will "follow around the next 'proper' single and the album which will both be released in May."
Now, according to Esprit, the leading music memorabilia agency, a copy of the Bittersweet Bundle Of Misery promo 2-track CD fetches £8. The Freakin' Out promo is, by definition, much rarer. It must be worth into double figures, especially as time passes. Fan dabby dozey!
The third CD was another single, this one entitled Aftermath. There's a bit of a serendipitous moment involving the artists, though, who are entitled "The Orb". I find it pleasing to my sense of coincidence that BBC 6Music should send me, at random, a CD by a group whose name is identical to the school newspaper I used to edit. Maybe that's just me. As it happens, the track itself isn't really my kind of thing - the final track on the three-track promo, From A Distance, starts very well but then fades out again.
I've just checked this on Esprit and it is worth £15! The Divine Comedy promo album is worth £18! So, in total, I reckon the BBC have just sent me around £45-worth of stuff for free. Plus a BBC 6Music car sticker. Wahey! Not a bad return on an idle afternoon trawling round the 6Music website, eh...
This is a rare phenomenon. It is usually virtually impossible to get me bored, and I did in fact have loads I could have been doing, but I just didn't really feel like doing anything productive. So I started listening to digital radio. Normally I'd go for Five Live, but today I felt like some music, and the best station for good music is BBC 6Music.
I tuned in just after four o'clock. The guy doing the programme was a bit eccentric, particularly his rather schizoid, jumpy, attention-deficit-meets-inability-to-finish-a-sentence form of presenting, so I thought I would check out the BBC 6Music website to find out who he was. It turned out that he was Andrew Collins, and his little mini-site is here - a former editor of Q, no less.
Well, on his little mini-site there was a competition, entitled Line Two. In order to stand a chance of winning, entrants had to correctly name a track and who sung it having been given the second line of the song. "What do I do with it" was today's second line. I quickly googled this and discovered it to be a track by Echo & The Bunnymen. I sent an email off to the station and waited patiently.
At precisely 6:30pm, I got my reward. "Today's winner of our Line Two competition," announced Mr Collins - well he said it slightly differently and used more words but my memory fails me - "is Ollie Williams. Well done Ollie."
YES!
Fame! Haha! And, of course, the prize. "Some CDs". Precisely which CDs, I won't know until the package arrives. But my God it was worth being bored this afternoon. Isn't it amazing how easy it is to win stuff! All I did was surf the net, use a search engine and send an email, and I ended up with some CDs for absolutely nothing. I've never even paid the licence fee because I've never owned a telly. The BBC are now operating at a loss with regards to me.
I shall, of course, update you as to which CDs arrive. If there is any Rodney Crowell I shan't hesitate to pass it on, OJ.
In other news, I was walking from the bus stop to my house when I passed what looked like an injured cyclist, lying motionless on the ground next to the pavement, his bike in a heap beneath him. On closer inspection, it was two people, and they weren't entirely motionless. However, it wasn't quite as sordid as you're now thinking. Though I couldn't see the face of the man underneath, a rather short woman was kneeling on his chest and imploring of him, "Do you love me? Do you wanna be with me?" She sounded so very, very serious and loving about it. I think he was agreeing, but then I think she had him by the throat. Clearly he had been about to cycle away in a huff when she had thrown herself upon him, toppling both of them to floor, then straddled him and begged him to be with her! How sweet is that! Full marks to you, girl. He's a lucky boy.
I think that we’ve already established what the tripe that is The Games is. Absolute rubbish, but hugely enjoyable. Jamie Theakston deserves a lot of credit for being able to hold that sort of straight face for such a long period of time. God knows he was cracking up inside. This is in direct contrast to Jayne Middlemiss, the roving reporter. How she ever made a career as a TV presenter is beyond me. Give that girl a bath, or at the very least a hair wash, some elocution lessons and the imagination to ask questions beyond the banal.
Tonight was the Grand Finale, which pitted the top four from this year against the top four from 2003. The competition came down to a 4x100m relay, which 2003 duly won due to a blistering last leg by Harvey, who I believe is a member of the So Solid Crew (and hence was commiserating with Romeo). The guy can apparently clock 11.3, and based on that I’m not surprised.
However, it says a lot about my armchair athleticness, as well as how involved I got with the show, that I (and my mum) was screaming at the TV that 2003 should have been disqualified. Josie d’Arby was clearly out of her lane on her leg. But no, even though the commentator saw that something was off, Middlemiss got in with her interview and the trophy was presented before any replay could be shown. It is doubly disappointing given how quick they were to disqualify Shane in the speed skating for an equivalent transgression. But still, I salute you Channel 4, for coming up with a celebrity show that I just had to watch.
As a final point, I’m coming up to Oxford tomorrow, so will endeavour to bump into as many tourists as possible as well.
I have abandoned any attempts of revision today – exams are close, yet somehow not close enough for me to be thinking ‘oh f***’ and spending hours on end staring at law texts. Thus, I thought it was only fair to discuss a phenomenon which has been present in my life for the last week – and indeed in OJ’s as well. ‘The Games’. A pun on the ‘Olympic Games’ one must assume. For those who have sadly not watched this Channel 4 production I shall briefly explain what it is about – prepare to be enthralled (?!)
Ten so-called ‘celebrities’ are competing against each other in a series of sporting events – The two teams of men and women have been training separately in order to compete in different sporting disciplines. For the women it has been curling, swimming (50m freestyle), hurdling, track cycling, floor gymnastics and tonight the finale ends with the hammer and 100m sprint. And for the men, we have had diving, weightlifting, speed skating, vault, wrestling and tonight sees them compete in the javelin and again, the 100m sprint. Quite a spread of activities. The participants have been training in the activities for a couple of months, rather amazingly by some of the top professionals in the particular sporting field – for example, last night’s curling episode for the women saw the Olympic Gold Medal team doing the brushing; Matt Roberts has provided fitness information and Colin Jackson was involved in hurdling training – amongst a host of other sporting stars. All money raised goes towards a charity of the winning celebrities choice - so far, so good. The program has the potential to be rather good fun…and for a good cause.
However, we then turn to ‘who’ these ‘celebrities’ actually are… First up, the men. Romeo; Mr Gay UK (he doesn’t appear to have a name); Mjr Charles Ingram (of Who Wants to be a [cheating] Millionaire fame); Pat Sharpe (Fun House) and Shane Lynch (from Boyzone, as was). And for the women we have Lady Isabella Hervey (complete with posh accent and small dog); Charlie Dimmock (with sports bra I am relieved to report); Jodie Marsh; Linda Lusardi (ex page 3 – so every man I have spoken to so far seems to have vivid memories years spent staring freely at her breasts) and finally, the person who seems to be the favourite amongst these men – Katy Hill. So, quite a collection – and what entertainment they have provided.
The thing is, I am not usually one who gets addicted to reality television – the only part of ‘Big Brother’ I ever saw was the 30mins on a Friday night between programs such as ‘Friends’ and ‘Graham Norton’ where the participants got kicked out – the only amusing bit in my opinion. However, ‘The Games’ is certainly compulsive, trashy viewing. I’m not sure why – maybe it’s the fact that we only ever see about 2mins of actual sport – the rest is satirical, and rather good, commentating from Jamie Theakston and Jayne Middlemiss; or is it the insight we are given into the bitching between the contestants – the squabbles Katy and Lady Isabella are highly amusing for sheer ridiculous value; it could be the fascination of Shane’s tattoos – or even the emotional reunion with the Boyzone members a few nights back; is it the arrogance and pomposity of Charles Ingram; Lady Isabella’s dog; the endearing characteristics of Pat; or the scene where Jodie attempted to chat up Mr Gay UK (duh!)…
Oh I don’t know, but whatever it is I urge you to totally lose your faith in humanity tonight, turn on to Channel 4, and you are assured of a good laugh.
So yes, I'm sorry, but in my late night TV trash watching phase, I managed to catch a repeat of Sky One's "The Posh & Becks Years". One of the commentators was Julie Burchill, one of Amy's most disliked people. Having heard her speak, my opinion of her has fallen further. Hard to take her advice on what David Beckham sounds like when she seems to have her own vocal cords contracted.
Having watched the final few minutes of Manchester United v Leicester City on Sky's Premiership Plus channel, I decided to flick through the other channels and see if there was anything good on. I got to channel 431, iSport TV, and something caught my attention.
Gerbil Roulette.
I'm not kidding, this is the most ridiculous thing I have ever seen. They take a big, green, circular table with eight boxes - four red, four black, numbered 1 to 8 - arranged around it. In the centre is a green box concealing yes, you guessed it, a gerbil. They spin the table round a number of times (whilst the gerbil in the centre remains stationary) and then lift the box off the gerbil. Whichever box the gerbil stumbles into first is the winning box. You and your friends can therefore sit at home and place bets with each other over which box will be the winner. Will it be 3 red, or 6 black? All the thrills of the casino, but with cute rodents. I was quite disappointed that there was no option to press the red button and go interactive, where viewers could properly bet on the outcome. Maybe in the future, eh.
Luckily, for every Gerbil Roulette there's a Football & Freedom. On Monday night, BBC Four reran the latter, a fascinating study of the development of two young South Africans: one, Seth, white and the other, Thuso, black. They both want to become professional footballers. Seth comes from a well-to-do South African family and goes to the best school in the country, but has to deal with some fairly severe attitude problems that presumably come with the territory, as well as a father who develops a drink problem after he is the victim of a car hijacking. Thuso has a loving mother who has scrimped and saved to get him a good education, but he sleeps on the floor of his grandmother's kitchen with his mum and two other siblings. Even this arrangement is under threat from the government, which has sold their ramshackle house to a private buyer despite it having been occupied by Thuso's family for more than half a century. The case is due to go to court when filming starts in 1998. By the time the documentary ends, in 2003, the issue has still not been resolved.
The footballing aspect of this film alone was intriguing, viewing the process by which African youngsters from two very different backgrounds go about trying to get selected by talent scouts. Seth ends up at Ajax but can't cope socially and comes back home. Thuso never gets a big break but does get into a South African top flight side.
Yet the documentary was far more powerful for the many and varied aspects of life in modern South Africa it offered. Both Seth's father and Thuso's mother are the victims of violent car hijackings by gangs of black men with guns during filming - Thuso's father had previously been killed in an identical incident. Seth's father's hijacking occurs on his own driveway, whilst waiting for the electric gate protecting the property to open. The impression is that these events are commonplace.
The extended and unresolved debate over Thuso's family's place of residence appears symptomatic of a government which has largely lost control of issues such as housing, and there are numerous references to corruption. More strikingly and surprisingly (though perhaps it shouldn't have been), there is a clear and thinly veiled tension between the black and white inhabitants. Seth's father complains to the camera that there are ten black footballers accepted into training programmes for every white youngster - "that isn't right", he laments. In a scene which particularly amazed me, Seth and another white boy sit isolated and forlorn in the corner of a changing room whilst their nine black team-mates sing songs about beating and killing their white oppressors. On a minibus, Seth complains that the black boys sing these songs on purpose, and only sing louder when asked by white colleagues to stop. Yet for all this flagrant black antagonisation of whites, there is an overwhelming sense of white arrogance and self-aggrandisation from which it is hard to escape.
I strongly urge, if BBC Four repeat this documentary once again, that everyone watch it. It is enlightening, depressing, yet inspiring. Thuso has incredible mental and emotional strength at the age of 13 or 14. Having seen his father murdered and his family threatened with eviction, he is then told by his distraught mother - on camera - that he has been turned down by a prominent soccer school. His reaction is simply to shrug, smile, and dismiss the news with a statement of his intent to get in next year. In private, we see him weeping, and he is on the point of breaking down when he sees his mother's car being hijacked in the same fashion as that which led to his father's death. At this age, he has to bear far more on his shoulders than I expect I will ever have to cope with. If nothing else, this is the kind of television which puts our own problems into perspective.
Michael Grade is the new BBC Chairman (was there really anyone else?). Daily Mail journalists go mad; expect tomorrow's edition to be 'interesting' or maybe 'powerful'.
Well, it seems as if this thing is back on full throttle. I thought it was just some April Fools joke, but no, of all the days we decide to restart posting, we chose this one. Someone, somewhere will smite us.
Fun link for the day: Prebble. All things 80's, including some really natty midi tunes of popular 80's songs. I headed there after googling Danger Zone, and lo and behold, your very own version to sing along to. They also do a good version of the Ghostbusters Theme. Dig those telephones at the start.
I'm not much of a film buff. I make the trip to the cinema only a handful of times a year, usually accompanying the rest of the family to something like Monsters Inc, Cats & Dogs or Shrek. This means that for a lot of the major blockbusters, I only get to see them either a year later on Sky, or a good four or five years later when they eventually descend to the level of getting an airing on terrestrial television.
Which is where 'Meet Joe Black' finds itself tonight, and it is the first time I've seen it. What a very, very clever film. I suspect everyone else but me knows the premise, but for the benefit of myself once I come to re-read this post long after I've forgotten the film, it revolves around Death taking the form of a rather dashing Brad Pitt, and then entering into a bargain with this old guy, and - so far in the film at least - looking a little smitten with the guy's daughter, who is a doctor or some such.
Now, the idea of Death coming to the planet in corporeal form is good enough, but there are so many clever little plot elements going on that it makes it well worth watching (and certainly worth more attention than I've been giving it over the past hour in between talking to people on MSN Messenger). Death - in the form of Joe Black - wanders into a hospital, sees the daughter in her role as a doctor, and evidently contemplates the whole dying phenomenon in an entirely new light. He strikes up a conversation with an old lady in a wheelchair in what sounded to me like a form of West Indian patois, which must have taken Pitt quite a bit of practice, or else some old West Indian guy a lot of heroic lip-synching.
Pitt, in fact, is amazingly good at portraying an intrigued, somewhat naive Death, confused by the simplest of things, such as peanut butter and the phrase 'there are no certainties in life except death and taxes', to which he understandably takes umbrage. Throughout the film Pitt has plenty of scenes where he has to look ever so slightly uncomfortable whilst not giving too much away to the people around him, and he accomplishes this magnificently. If you want someone to look just a little flustered and disturbed, whilst retaining a little cynicism and a certain air of calm, Brad Pitt is your man.
Anyway, I just felt the necessity to pay a brief tribute to the creativity at work so far in this film. Now I'm going to sit back and watch the ending. At least it is unlikely that Pitt will end up dying.
I've decided that each week I will let you all know what things have been keeping me amused in a non-obscene way for the last seven days. This week:
Listening to: Vehicles And Animals, by Athlete
My friend Rhys tried to phone me up from a festival in Manchester to let me listen to Athlete a couple of months ago, but I hadn't a clue who the hell they were and didn't answer the phone anyway (was kind of busy... honest, Rhys). Earlier today, I was in Virgin and desperate for some new music to listen to, so I bought a copy of Athlete's album - my reasoning being that Rhys likes REM a lot, REM are good, so Athlete can't be that bad if they carry his recommendation. And yes, Vehicles And Animals is a very good album. The lead vocalist is, shall we say, unique in his use of melodic gluttal stops, but this adds a certain charm to some of the songs. I like the first track, El Salvador, and the last, Le Casio, in particular. Out Of Nowhere is a very, very funny song.
Watching: Cheers
The launch of Paramount 2 has helped me e-Norm-ously (sorry) in this task, so that I now spend most days flicking between Channel 4 and both Paramount channels to satisfy my Cheers craving. I have always loved Frasier and was dimly aware of Cheers, watching it occasionally when I happened across it by accident. I know my dad is a big fan because I can remember playing with some Lego aged six outside a Cheers heritage centre in Boston whilst he looked round it. Anyway, I'm starting to really like it, though not the early episodes with Coach and that blonde one, because the scripts are nowhere near as tight and funny as later seasons with Kirstie Alley (my mum's hero).
Reading: The Origins Of The 1st World War, by James Joll
Not through choice but because it is a good intro to the course I'm doing this coming term. Actually, it's surprisingly interesting considering I thought I would get bored witless by studying the same material again, and very well written - Joll is obviously aware that the people reading his book are going to need entertaining or at the very least kept out of comatose states. So, for a set book, it's good. Doesn't beat last week's Runaway Jury, a John Grisham novel, though. Got to get me another one of them.
Eating: McCoy's
Got to love them. Shame about the adverts likening them to beer, because they are so much tastier and more upmarket than any beer you'd care to name, especially the Salt & Vinegar and Cheese & Onion flavours. And why can't you get Rock Salt flavour anywhere these days? Only been able to find it at Knutsford services in the past two months, that's a tragedy, it's the best plain flavour crisp in the country. Accept no imitations.
Drinking: Diet Coke
Don't ever expect this to change. Ever.
Add your own Pick Of The Week in the comments if you want. Or else bitch at mine. Not that I know you, Amy, or anything.
I was awake quite late last night. So late, in fact, that by the time I got to sleep the birds were beginning an uneasy dawn chorus and a mass grave of moths had formed beneath my bedroom light. Keeping me company as I lay in bed on my laptop (well, in bed, working on my laptop, as opposed to lying on it) was Nash Bridges.
What a programme. This was the first time I have ever seen it - television in its true 1980s spirit, straight out of the Diagnosis Murder textbook for an engaging detective show with no characters, just hairstyles that talk. I am almost tempted to go in and ask for a Dick Van Dyke when I go to get mine cut this afternoon. Nash Bridges replaces good old Dick with a slightly younger model, and then adds the usual slightly improbable plot: on this occasion, a bomber had taken to hiding bombs in a variety of places which Nash then had to somehow defuse. At one stage this involved making bridges (how appropriate) with furniture to reach a woman in an office, then using a fire extinguisher to disarm a pressure-sensitive bomb strapped to the underside of her desk. I bet every officer has a story like that to tell.
The problem is, television like this no longer gets made. For a start hairstyles like that just don't exist any more, and now it's all about organised terrorism, or it's a docu-soap about the local police force and how they go round re-uniting kittens with worried families... there's more 'MI5, not 9 to 5' and less 'guy working with a loveable sidekick in a really cool car, nailing the bad boys'. And that can't be good.
Take, for example, Starsky and Hutch. I've never seen an episode, and frankly I will not rest until I do. Having played the Starsky and Hutch game, it is obvious that this must have been a lot of fun to watch, but can I find a single Sky channel showing the damn thing? No. We're stuck with Pop Idol Extra every night instead of some quality programming. People complain that we show too many repeats, but when they're like Diagnosis Murder, Nash Bridges and even Murder, She Wrote, how can you complain?
Whilst I'm on the subject of classic television, Channel 4 continue to go up in my estimation for showing wonderful old films every afternoon. A few weeks ago I caught 'It's Great To Be Young', a wonderful 50s tale of a teacher at an exclusive boarding school, and a few days ago I had the pleasure of watching the 1950s 'Moulin Rouge', the biopic of the artists Toulouse-Lautrec, as I worked. It was exquisitely filmed, the acting was superb and the dialogue absolutely hilarious in between moments of despair. If we got rid of wastes of space like shows about package holidays, that new show where one family become servants to the other, the totally irrelevant Big Brother US and others, and replaced them with a blend of Starsky and Hutch and 1950s films, I think the programming schedule would be complete.
Okay, they don't entirely fail me (sorry to dash the hopes of a nation), but ITV's 'The Premiership' can and has got worse. Football fans, i.e. those who do not support Manchester United, had been certain that last season's coverage was as biased, one-dimensional and laughably poor as could be achieved. However, tuning in tonight it quickly became obvious that in their final season before handing the coverage back to a television station that retains a fragment of respect for its viewers, ITV were out to surpass themselves.
Now, by way of a disclaimer, yes, I am a Manchester City fan. Normally I would admit that it's just a case of sour grapes against our 'more illustrious neighbours' (the cheating, diving shits). But this, this was purely and simply Manchester United TelevisionTM, right from the opening credits which fade out with the image of a United player and a trophy in Old Trafford, to the thirty or forty minutes devoted to their match (when did they last not feature?), to the fifteen minutes of Manchester United interviews on ITV News's 'Extra Coverage' (a half hour programme).
That is just not fair. City didn't even play today so I can hardly complain that we didn't get airtime, but the level of coverage afforded to the other teams was paltry at best. Surprise surprise, Arsenal also featured (just like every weekend last season), and ITV only relented and screened Portsmouth v Aston Villa because Liverpool and Chelsea, their other pet teams, had had the audacity to play on Sunday instead (the swines).
If you didn't see it, or don't follow football, you will never quite grasp how appalling The Premiership is, so I might as well save my breath. But my word am I annoyed. Come back Gary Lineker, rescue us from this cesspit of ineptitude.
The Lilt Ladies are destroying my soul. Not only have I been singing the song from the advert all day long, but in this baking heat the image of swimming pools, skimpy outfits and most of all bottle upon bottle of Lilt drives me insane every time I see it. This is extremely effective advertising, because there is nothing I want more right now - with certain exceptions - than an ice cold bottle of Lilt. Get with the crush!
On the subject of the music in adverts, a couple of days ago a friend asked me if I could name the beat behind the new Pringles advert (in which, on this occasion, the plants steal the crisps). He was desperate to discover what it was, and as it turned out, the ad company in charge of the campaign had had the sense to write the song and artist in the bottom corner of the advert. It was a song called 'Come To Me', by an artist called 'Ateed'.
Not heard of them? Neither had I, nor my friend, but a search on Google led me to a fascinating website - Commercial Breaks And Beats, which calls itself the 'UK television advert music database'. What a site. This, my dear Wooding, is a link. Our reader knows where to get her news but I'm fairly sure she hasn't seen this before, and if she has, she will agree with me that it is serves as a tribute to the power of the internet. I find it astounding and heartwarming that people have the time to create a database of the music behind every advert we see and hear in the UK - for Pringles alone there were seven entries between 1998 and 2003, including Basement Jaxx and Lou Bega. You can search by company, artist or song, or view a chronology. I searched for Peter Gabriel (would you expect any different?) and found that his 1986 hit, 'Sledgehammer', was used to advertise the Vauxhall Cavalier in 1999. I could spend hours on this site.
If you like that, try Acclaimed Music. All the top music since the war ranked and rated, another site which demands that you set aside a whole day to play with it.
It is always nice to wake up to Michelle Pfeiffer, and today is no different. I switched on the television and cruised through the channels, pausing briefly for Five's 'George Shrink' and Sky Sports News, but then to my pleasant surprise happening upon The Age Of Innocence on Sky Movies Cinema 2.
I will be even more surprised if many people have seen the film or read the book. I had never heard of it until I studied it at A Level, and it is one of the few books (along with Watership Down and one or two others) that have moved me to tears at the end. The book is fantastic, compelling, a far cry from the longwinded and convoluted tale that was Wuthering Heights (another set book for the same exam). Edith Wharton became the first lady to win a Pulitzer Prize with this book in the 1920s, and with good reason, because I can still remember sitting on a train in Switzerland, reading the ending for the first time and getting strange looks from Austrian tourists as I wept softly into the pages.
The film version I have seen once before, but in stilted segments over a series of lessons in my last year at school, so this was the first opportunity I had to watch it in one go. It stars, as I have mentioned, Michelle Pfeiffer and Daniel Day-Lewis, and was directed by none other than Martin Scorsese, in what even the Sky TV guide admits was a departure for him. I am not sure that the film really captures the book, but the book is such an epic over such a vast expanse of time that even Scorsese was taking on a near impossible task.
I actually find it hard to believe that this film was made as recently as 1993. It just seems like the sort of book, and film, that had long since gone out of fashion and would last have surfaced in the late 1960s. The locations, the subject matter (late 19th century New York high society) and the length (over two hours) all seem prohibitive for a film made ten years ago, and I wonder if it got a general release, and how many people actually went to see it. I cannot think of a period romance based on a novel that could rival it within the last decade - Titanic was based on real life and had far more action (i.e. ship sinking) than The Age Of Innocence, Romeo & Juliet retained the Di Caprio factor but was based on a play and still had more action than The Age Of Innocence (in which no one dies).
So on the face of it, the book and film must sound somewhat boring to someone with no experience of either. An affair develops between the beau of high society, Newland, and the countess/divorcee Ellen, snubbed by that same society, and the book simply traces its development, nothing more, until it reaches a truly devastating conclusion. I can't promise any action for there is none, but if you like a good romance (and I previously didn't), then I can thoroughly recommend it.
Whilst I'm at it, has anyone seen Pirates Of The Caribbean? Good or bad? The last film I saw was Bruce Almighty (twice), which was great the first time but probably didn't warrant a repeat viewing...
Phew, it's a burning hot day out there. I'm on my lunch break in what passes in my life for work - sat at home with MTV on, all the windows open and a fan on - and even in my Play-DryTM Reebok Manchester City shirt I'm sweltering.
Still, MTV Hits and The Music Factory are providing some comfort. I call them the anti-Radio 2, where you can hear music that after six or seven listens in the same hour actually blends into the background, so much so that time compresses and then expands into a bland nothingness. By watching the same insurance advert during seven consecutive commercial breaks, you can in fact split the space/time continuum.
That said, I am warming to some of the stuff I am hearing. I watched the Girls Aloud Video Diary - I really like Life Got Cold, and I liked No Good Advice - and am now firmly in love with Nadine. Cheryl is not bad either, but Nadine's Irish lilt just does it for me, simple as that. Now, the problem really started when I began to like Triple 888's 'Give Me A Reason', and I saw J-Lo's 'Jenny From The Block' which may or may not be old but I liked it a lot.
This is not Genesis, nor is it Peter Gabriel, nor even Blur. Indeed it would appear to mark a complete departure in my music taste which coincides with my interest in Fame Academy 2 and my contemplation of a subscription to Popworld magazine. I have my reasons for this sudden and quite unsettling liking for commercial pop, but those are strictly between myself and my therapist...
So, here at Dayorama you have a choice. If you can name a single Matchbox 20 song, unlike me, and actually care about Noel Edmonds, OJ is your man. If on the other hand you want to discuss Gareth's new longer hair, or think Busted's 'Year 3000' is absolutely hilarious, you'll be wanting to talk to me. If you love Genesis and Peter Gabriel then you won't want to talk to either of us, because OJ will mock you and I will never shut up.
I'm 19 years old, and have been listening to it for at least the last ten years. I've never consciously listened to anything else. I make other people listen to Radio 2, and usually they agree with me that it is the best station out there. My unwavering adoration and devotion to Radio 2 is, I think, a result of familial conditioning. My parents listened to it (although curiously, they've gone off it a bit as of late) and so I listened to it. I'm sure that my musical taste was influenced by it. That's not to say I don't listen to or enjoy modern music, but it does not tend to be from the mainstream segment. There was an article in last week's Telegraph (no link as their website makes me want to cry, and I think registration required) that complained that Radio 1's A list of tracks contained only three UK tracks out of twenty. 15% is pretty poor, but leaving aside issues of supporting unknown UK bands, it is also an accurate reflection of the current state of British musical taste. Since the vast majority of music demand is influenced by teenagers, I feel proud to listen to Radio 2 and be steadfastly in the minority.
I have a lot to thank Radio 2 for. It was Bob Harris who introduced me to the joys of Matchbox Twenty, Fleetwood Mac, Tom Petty and Bruce Springsteen. I recommed his Saturday Show unreservedly as the best show on the radio, ever. Recently, Radio 2 has brought me into the world of country, folk and acoustic with such pleasures as Nickelcreek and Alison Krauss. Terry Wogan is almost a God. Jeremy Vine is doing an excellent job taking over from Sir Jimmy Young. All in all the station is in rude health.
Which cannot be said, unfortunately, for Johnnie Walker, who was recently diagnosed with non-Hodgkins lymphoma. He's taken a break from his Drivetime show for treatment, and following stints by Richard Allinson and Stuart Maconie (who, by changing the traffic jingle from the stock one to Autobahn by Kraftwerk made me swerve on the road in laughter), they seem to have found a permanent temporary presenter in Noel Edmonds. Again, whilst most certainly in the minority, I enjoyed Noel's House Party as a kid, and his skill as a DJ (in the old fashioned sense) is well known. I look forward to listening to him this evening.
Just on a break at work, and personal experience brings up a post. I've just witnessed the telephone network win over humans, as we attempted to transfer a call from one office to another. It ended up with the caller getting cut off, then magically re-appearing on the first phone. Now, on 24, the use of telephone conferencing, and holding, and transfering is used at least five times an episode without a problem. Is Jack Bauer just lucky, or do they have a really good phone system? It is all the more remarkable, of course, because their office was attacked earlier in the day. If that happened here, then I think the whole building would just collapse. However, we aren't a government agency, so it is pretty unlikely.....or are we?
Oliver Twist
Annoyance With The Adverts
On The Rail Ale Trail
Partying Like Animals?
[8/10]
Newsreading should be warm, intimate and assured. Under no circumstances should you look or sound uncertain on air, which was Samira's problem in my view and it's not one AJE are without. The lady presenting alongside Hamish MacDonald in their Doha studio has an odd way of appearing genuinely petrified with her eyes while reading stories, which does very little for anybody's faith!
AJE produces exclusive footage of Iraqi resistance fighters next, which must be where the channel comes into its own in sourcing that kind of material. I may have missed it but I've never seen anything similar on the likes of the BBC, ITN or Sky, and it was pretty compelling to watch the guerrillas trying to kill our armed forces as they train for the job. Again, it felt like the report had been treated carefully (as it should be!) and the script wasn't afraid to point out that these people are terrorists in many people's eyes.
