|
|
|
 |
|
|
26th April The news of Blake's 7's possible return lead one Scottish radio station to email me yesterday asking if anyone from this footling website would like to go on air to talk about it. I suspect they got the link because Si's splendid episode guide is linked to from B7's Wiki page. Sadly, they emailed about 2.45 for a 3.30 slot and I didn't get the email until I got home about 4.30. So it was far too late to give them Si's email address and hope for the best. Obviously I wouldn't go on to talk about Blake's 7 - I've not watched it in ages and responded to the news of the potential remake with my usual slightly cynical lack of interest. I think there is potential in a Blake's 7 remake but it is fraught with dangers. The original was camp but it didn't set out to be camp - it just became camp because certain actors and actresses became bigger than the series and scripts started being written for them. Blake's 7 was initially about a freedom fighter who has been tortured into amnesia by a brutally corrupt regime, he begins to remember what happened to him so he's put on trial for paedophilia and sentenced to imprisonment on a penal planet. Luckily - and few TV characters have ever had such a large slice of luck - his prison ship bumps into the most advanced space ship in the galaxy - bereft of crew - and Blake is able to steal it. I wouldn't mind Kudos having a go at Blake's 7 - they make Spooks and Life on Mars - nor would I mind the people behind the new Robin Hood. I wouldn't want to see RTD doing Blake's 7 as it would end up as Torchwood in space. I like Torchwood but there only needs to be one Torchwood and no more. Sky One - who are planning the remake - had some involvement in the brilliant new Battlestar Galactica but I doubt theirs was anything more than a financial stake. I doubt they influenced the creative decision making which turned a bland late 70s sci fi joke into what may be America's finest ever science fiction TV series (feel free to delete the words "science fiction" from that sentence). So remaking Blake's 7 is fraught with problems - not least if the Nation estate have to approve everything because they'll veto anything that is too imaginative - but if there is someone with a really strong vision in charge, who realises that you can't manufacture camp and who isn't afraid to piss off some of the more traditional B7 fans it could work. But work on Sky One which means I won't be able to watch it. I could've said all that to Scottish radio. No I couldn't - I would've ummed and erred and wouldn't have understood the accents of anyone I was speaking to and would probably have been cut off after the word "paedophilia". Si would've been much better. He would probably have done a Servalan impression and been offered his own show. ~~~~~ Humph was one of those people you just always assumed would be around forever. He'd been the faux-grumpy old man my entire life with his gloriously witty putdowns on I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue. Every week he'd have something new from a Mrs Trellis of North Wales or he'd find some new way to insult pianist Colin Sell. Humph was the chairman extraordinaire - he kept the game moving without ever letting it become pleased with itself. There was a time when Clue was being showered with awards and could've become rather smug as it enjoyed its status as officially Britain's wittiest show. But Humph would never have allowed that - he was the epitome of self depreciating British humour. If you've ever heard Clue you know what I mean. If you haven't then for goodness sake get a CD and listen to it. There will never be another like Humph.
24th April KFD made an unexpected return yesterday. I know he's a reader so wave to him. He's over from Canadadada for the week and popped into work to see everyone. Alas, the woman on reception wouldn't let him in the building even with a responsible adult to make sure he didn't STEAL~! any of the company's secrets. I wasn't the responsible adult by the way. That would've required the receptionist to have a sense of humour. Instead she had a procedure and he hadn't followed it. Bah. Being six foot ten, unshaven and tanned from all that Canadian sunshine meant I wasn't able to cleverly smuggle him in so the next best thing was for him to go and wait in the nearby pub for people to come to him. Pubs being less choosy about who they let in than companies with SECRETS~! While at the pub I was dazzled by sunlight reflecting off the shiniest table in England, I heard a story about someone at work's sexual proclivities which made me unwell (I won't go into details but why would you tell anyone at work that this is how you like to spend your evenings? How would it come up in conversation? "Your skin looks good - what do you use?" / "Spunk") and KFD was kind enough to out himself as a fan and ask for spoilers for the final chapter of Captain Marvel. Well, I kept quiet - you'll have to wait for the weekend to find out which of the well-rounded cast of characters is hiding under the Scorpion's satin mask. So that was an unexpected twist on what had promised to be just another Wednesday. Or whatever it was yesterday. I'm having a vague spell. I forgot what time of year it was earlier today. And not because the hailstones made it look like it had been snowing. Such a shame that it would pour down today of all days - the company's golf tournament. My sidekick - who was hoping for rain because he thought it might put people off and he would shoot up the rankings - will have been drenched and battered and might even have sunk into a bunker like cartoon characters who fail to heed warnings about quicksand. In no way would he deserve that just for playing in the company's golf tournament with all the management types and their bacon sandwiches. ~~~~~ Banana has figured out that taking her little green chair with her wherever she goes is a great way to be able to reach things that are higher up than she can ordinarily reach. She's ever so clever. Borderline genius I'd say. Alas, her marvellous plan went a bit awry when she tried to use her little chair to reach a particular door handle. The door opens inwards and with her chair in the way, she was pulling and pulling on the door and couldn't work out why it wouldn't open. She takes after me you know. That bit should've come earlier. ~~~~~ And - after much persuading from my sidekick - I've finally watched a bit of Harry Hill's TV Burp. I've seen Harry over the years and never found him especially funny. But I obtained the third series and thought it was very good. Not perhaps as good as its predecessor - In Bed With MeDinner - but still capable of big laughs. I could be predictable here and ask who is really the king of making jokes about clips from television programmes - Harry Hill or Bob Mills? There's only one way to find out... FIGHT~! ...but I won't. That would be beneath contempt. ~~~~~ And on a more serious note, there have been a number of stories in the media this afternoon which have used the death of Frank Lampard's mother as part of the hype for Saturday's United vs Chelsea match. This is extraordinarily tacky even by the press's standards. The story about his mother being ill only broke because everyone was claiming his absence from training was a definite sign that he was leaving in the summer and everyone had fallen out with everyone else. Now she's passed away and all they take the angle that he's going to miss the game. It was the lead story on the BBC football website. It is appalling.
20th April I think my favourite sketch from the second series of "That Mitchell and Webb Look" was the one in the final episode where Rob's playing a fair weather Liverpool supporter and David is someone who doesn't care about football. Of particular annoyance to David is Rob's use of "we" to explain what Liverpool did the previous night. "We won", "We played really well", "We scored a great goal" etc. David replied by saying that last night "we" went on a quest for the holy grail and that we saw a man's face melt. After all, if Rob could put himself into the game he watched why couldn't David do the same with the film he watched? This has now entered my box of slightly annoying things to do. Viz, last Monday TheArtist tells me what "we" did at the weekend - he's a Wolverhampton supporter so they probably lost and didn't score any goals and now they won't be allowed to move up into a proper football cup. I listened to him explain what "we" did and then told him that was all very interest but Donna and I went to Pompeii. It was great. We had a few monsters to fight and the odd enormous moral dilemma but we did the right thing in the end. He saw the sketch too and grimaced when he realised what he'd done. It doesn't help that there is a West Bromwich fan behind us who encourages him to use what is - frankly - the polar opposite of the Royal We. It will be a battle to see who succeeds in conditioning my sidekick but as long as I continue to remember what I watched the previous night I won't run out of ammunition. After all, who else can go into work on a Monday morning and say that we ended slavery on a galactic scale? We're great. ~~~~~ Not that I'll have anyone to talk to about this, that or indeed anything. My sidekick is away for a week - using up hols which have to be taken by the end of April or they disappear like biscuits left on a desk overnight when the cleaners are in. He's going to play a spot of golf, take delivery of a new television and probably watch some James Bond films. All the while I'll have no one to talk to for a whole week. I'm probably going to have to do something brilliant to fill the time. That usually works. ~~~~~ On an entirely different note (some say tract) this may be the most foolish story of the year.
Eating disorders are serious psychological conditions and maybe John Prescott really did suffer from one but (a) admitting it and (b) talking about trifles is just going to make everyone take the piss out of him for years to come. Always a figure of fun, Prescott has fallen off the radar recently as New Labour has given us a new cast of comedy characters to chuckle at. Now Prescott is apparently trying to turn himself into a spoof Alan Bennett monologue. Condensed milk? Endless trifle? Apparently he's also eaten his common sense - and not puked it up - because this is never going to go away. Maybe that was the plan - he wanted to be back in the spotlight.
That's just too gross to think about.
I think - and call me a cynical old cynical puss if you like - it isn't going to increase bulimia awareness, it's going to turn bulimia into a national joke - the punchline whenever a fat man has three helpings of trifle. Whatever the outcome it is still the strangest story of the year. It's like discovering that Sooty is a serial killer or that Kylie once won the world sumo championship. You don't expect it on a Sunday morning.
17th April We went to the company's first quiz night last night. Our team consisted of me, TheArtist, AngryDave and our line manager chap and we came second. This is good. Our team name took quite a while to come up with and almost certainly wasn't worth the effort. Having discounted our early suggestions -
- we were forced to come up with something different. We toyed with "Ken Dodd's Dad's Dog's Got No Nose" before settling on the following - {teamName:Wide} Now this was not only to celebrate our geekhood but was also a terribly smug and clever joke because it is the bit of variable which pulls across a user's team name when they are sending a letter to someone. Well done us. In order to avoid a situation where no one could pronounce our name - you know, just like Prince - it was spelled out in the email to the quiz organiser. "You pronounce it 'team name colon wide in curly braces'" the email said. This was obviously not clear enough as we were, throughout the evening and including our glorious second place, referred to simply as "Colon wide with braces". That sounds like a medical complaint - observed our near hysterical project manager - and it does. A digestive complain which renders the sufferer unable to wear a belt. Possibly due to gaseous bloating. Not great. That's the last time I try to be clever at a quiz. No, wait. Not like that. We knew we wouldn't come last as we saw the team sat next to us. That was a morale boost. They claimed it was a case of putting an answer in the wrong place but I'm not convinced they didn't think Shakespeare was a book of the Bible. Mind you, I staked my reputation on one of the pictures in the picture quiz not being Alanis Morissette. It was Alanis Morissette. I no longer have a reputation. No one has noticed so far. It was only a small, pale, practically transparent one anyway. I could probably have put it back in its box and taken it back for a refund. Since when has Alanis Morissette ever been blonde? She didn't mention that in any of her records and she's made a career out of singing about herself. She could've rhymed suicide and peroxide and I wouldn't have been left looking like a piece of cheese. And if anyone could rhyme suicide and peroxide it would be Alanis Morissette. Maybe she will on her new LP - it's out in June. Hoorah. It's four years since the last one. Unacceptable.
14th April Doctor Who and Pompeii was really good. I don't take back what I said last week about them always using monsters even when none are needed because they do. But this time they used them well. I wonder what odds you would get that in Doctor Who's history there would be two red headed actresses that were thought to be light entertainment stunt casting who would finally win over the fans after a story set in Pompeii? I even watched Confidential after it as well. I've only done that once before. That's what happens when I don't watch it when it goes out regardless of the mood I'm in and instead wait until later when the darkness has passed. ~~~~~ I don't know if this is a good thing or a bad thing. I was in the queue at the deli counter in the works mess (they prefer "waterside restaurant" and most people settle on "canteen") and one of the sandwich people spotted me and - while in the middle of another woman's sandwich - said "cheese panini", took one out of cold storage and popped it on the grill. He then went back to his prior engagement and gave the woman good sandwich action. So I've become fairly predictable. That's fine. It meant I didn't have to wait for ages because the grill had done its fiery magic by the time it was my go and five minutes saved is five minutes less milling around to be done. But is that all I am? Well, it got better or worse on Friday because this time he didn't even speak to me. He saw me approach and stuck a cheese panini under the grill. Am I that predictable? Of course I am - let's not b about the b - but we have to face the fact that I am a cheese panini in the labyrinth of this eastern European gentleman's mind. Nothing more, nothing less. It isn't as if that is all I ever have - I once had something different. I didn't like it much and they don't do it anymore but that's hardly the point. I've been well and truly pigeonholed. Still, his thinking "cheese panini" when he sees me is probably better than what most people think when they see me so maybe I'll go with it. And it does save time and awkward conversation. ~~~~~ This past weekend I watched the first series of the Reeves and Mortimer reimagination of Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased). It was £4.99 for the whole lot in the recent ChoicesUK sale and I'd not seen it since 2000 when it first - and rather unimpressively - burst onto our screens. I really liked it. I'd never been a fan before but watching it eight years on I thought it really good. Even Bob Mortimer's acting seemed better than I remembered. Perhaps this is some new digital remastering process invented for DVDs where the leads can't act. That would be rather more in demand than vidFIRE I would assume. Anyway, the music is fantastic, the two leads have great chemistry, the thing looks gorgeous, the tone is just right and I'm looking forward to seeing the rest. Not quite sure whether I'm glad I saw David Tennant in a wedding dress but these things happen. ~~~~~ This story about the Welsh national anthem at the Cup Final is exactly why so much of modern politics appals me. For one thing, why have we got a fucking Welsh sports minister? That's a waste of a hundred thousand pounds a year plus all the staff and buildings he no doubt needs to deal with all those pressing Welsh sporting issues. Secondly, it is the English FA Cup. If a Welsh team wants to take part in the English FA Cup then they should abide by English rules. They've already basically said Welsh sport is a joke so they want to be English so shut up. Thirdly, who gives a fuck? I mean really as opposed to politically. This tosser on the gravy train thinks he's being terribly patriotic but it is two minutes of badly sung music before a football match. It isn't anything important. Fourthly, God Save the Queen - though a terrible song - is the BRITISH national anthem. Wales is part of Britain. It is THEIR national anthem too. If there was an English national anthem - say "Bring Me Sunshine" by Morecambe and Wise - then that should be played before the Cup Final instead of God Save the Q. I can't stand these well paid political types (and I'm including special interest groups, lobbying groups and all the rest) who just sit around all day waiting for the chance to push their own tiny agenda and blow things out of all proportion. Isn't it enough that Cardiff City are in the FA Cup Final? Do you have to scrub around in the dirt looking for something to complain about? Get a proper job where you actually do something to benefit humanity rather than desperately hoping something will happen that you can take offence at. As Basil Fawlty once said to Manuel, "You are a waste of space". And then he hit him with a spoon. More ministers should be hit with spoons. That's my new policy.
9th April I haven't watched the Verity Lambert tribute yet but I wonder if it included any mention of 1994's "Class Act"? Probably not as it managed to be one of her lesser hits despite starring Joanna Lumley and despite being really good. I've rediscovered it this week thanks to a kind soul who uploaded the first couple of episodes. I've already ordered the Region 1 DVD (not available in R2 - well done everyone) as a result. I feared this would be one of those shows which wouldn't hold up after all these years. It would feel too 90s, it wouldn't be funny, it would seem too bland and ITVish. More to the point, how would I react now I don't have a huge crush on Nadine Garner? Well, I liked it. I was doing my A-Levels when the first series was on and would almost certainly have been living in Halls when the second (and sadly final) series aired. Watching it again reminds me of the enormous relief of the evening after the last exam, of it being the only thing FLC and I ever seemed to have in common and that I still use one line of its dialogue in regular conversation - "why have an Australian and bark yourself?" The premise of the series is that Joanna Lumley plays a completely selfish bitch called Kate. She is married to a wide boy who is murdered by shady associates and Kate ends up in prison because she was party to his tax evasion. Inside she hooks up with a spunky Australian burglar called Gloria who is (by way of an amazing coincidence) released from prison on exactly the same day. She, Gloria and the journalist responsible for Kate going to jail, Jack, form an unlikely alliance trying to find her late husband's money and possibly make some on the side. Lumley is quite superb as self-centred Kate, John Bowe is excellent as the utterly pathetic Jack, Nadine Garner is still gorgeous and then there is the peerless Richard Vernon (the only real Slartibartfast) as Kate's dotty old father. Based on what I've seen it isn't an absolute top draw classic series but the memory didn't cheat - Class Act is enormous fun and that's enough for me.
6th April I'm not going to moan about "Partners in Crime". I'm really not. Though I hated most of it, I'm fine now. It didn't start well - the BBC decided to punish me (specifically) for not being pissed off with their moving the start time to 6.20. Plenty of people were up in arms but I was fine - I have a DVR, I don't care when it starts because I'll watch it when I'm good and ready. So they started it several minutes earlier than billed and even with padding my recording started with Phil Collinson's credit. Nice to see him but not really where I wanted to join the drama. So I'm done defending the BBC's scheduling policy. They are all fuckers. If you ignore all the rubbish bits, there were some good moments in it. The mimed conversation between the Doctor and Donna benefited from being performed by actors who can do comedy. Donna herself seems like she's going to work as a regular - I never really had an opinion about her as "The Runaway Bride" was the wrong episode at the wrong time for me and I haven't really thought much about it since. You need to have a radical change from time to time or the companions become so samey that they become desperate in their attempts to make them difference. They can't change the basic character template (the girls have to be "ballsy" to be permissible on television in Y2KVIII) so they have to resort to race, hair colour and accent. In a parallel world, Gwen Cooper is in the Tardis and she's "the Welsh one" and not much more. Donna isn't like that - it isn't that she has more depth than the others, just that she is different in a good way. She can carry witty dialogue better than her predecessors, she's allowed to be scared of things and she isn't weighed down by Hollyoaks style emotional attachments. Next week looks like it sums up the New Series - we're going back to Pompeii, scene of the most famous volcanic eruption in popular history, and the plot is going to revolve around monsters. Doctor Who has done Pompeii - it's called "Fires of Vulcan" and it didn't need anything more than a volcano, some characters and a well constructed dramatic plot. Next week's may be brilliant - and it looks good from the trailer - but if a fucking VOLCANO~! isn't thought dramatic enough then the people making this new series don't have a lot of faith in their audience. Far more fun than P in C itself is the commentary available for download from the BBC website. This week, Catherine, David and Phil chatting. ~~~~~ My iPod Touch has arrived. It is every bit as lovely as I thought it would be. The wifi is superb, the internet rendering is a hundred times better than on my Nokia N800 and it even synchs with Outlook. The only downside is that it is far too clumsy maintaining two iTunes libraries on a computer than it ought to be. Everything will get far more exciting in June when their software development kit starts bearing fruit. There are a few niggles - the mail application won't work with Hotmail (not Apple's fault - Microsoft make Hotmail as awkward as possible for anything other than their own mail apps) though there is a workaround with a forwarding service which I don't entirely trust yet. The touch screen obviously greases up like an Elvis impersonator and the device doesn't yet handle Flash. They are working on it apparently. It does however cope with the BBC's iPlayer - something which is both cool and useless all at the same time. It did however mean I could be ever so terrible decadent and read Si's review of Partners in Crime, find out that Charlton Heston had died and discover that there would probably be snow outside without getting out of bed. ~~~~~ And a final bit of infinitesimal trivia linking two of today's updates. The female characters in the early series of Much Binding in the Marsh were played by an actress called Maureen Riscoe (as you can hear in the first of the sound clips) who would go on to become a casting agent - among her many credits was Sapphire and Steel. She is responsible for Tamasin Bridge.
2nd April Woo and indeed hoo - I passed my eye test. I'm not one of the 1-in-5 who can't be zapped by a trained professional. He complimented me on the thickness of my corneas, showed me some charts of my eye balls which could've been North Sea fish reserves for all I knew, had me read some letters, not read some letters and then shone lights of different colours at me. He then put some drops in. This was why I couldn't drive. I now have massive pupils. Apparently, according to the Daily Express, so does England. I now look as though I've been possessed by evil. Because of my eyes, not because I've just linked to an article on the Daily Express website. It was in the BBC's list of "not actually April Fools jokes" yesterday. There really wasn't anything news worthy in the whole consultation affair apart from the fact that they gave me drops which meant I couldn't read anything (which I realised when I tried to give her my card details and found I could make them out). While unable to read, they produce the finance paperwork. "Just sign here, here, here and here" she says. I can barely make out her crosses, I definitely can't read if it says "signature" and I certainly can't read any of the agreement I'm signing. In most situations this would be a bad thing. The temptation to include a wacky clause or two must be overwhelming. Working with lasers is exciting on its own but throw in the chance to make someone legally obliged to hop everywhere, show you their pants or call you "Sagacity" must make it the perfect job. Anyway, she kept dropping her pen so I don't think deviousness was uppermost in her mind. Really, she dropped it four times in ten minutes. She was also the fasted typist I've ever seen. I told you this story didn't have any value. ~~~~~ Here's an old one which always amuses me. My sidekick was playing in a five-a-side tournament and wanted an amusing name for his team. We tossed around a few hundred puns of varying quality and he decided that "Sporting Lesbian" would be a ribald but amusing play on Sporting Lisbon. The next day he did wonder if it was a slight misjudgement when the tannoy announcer - never noted for their ability to sell a joke - announced "First out are the Sporting Lesbians... and their opponents are Pensions Team 4". It turns out it wasn't a day for ribald jocularity. Luckily they didn't win. ~~~~~ There was an Apple Store near the opticians and I went in for a quick play with an iPod Touch. It was officially great. So easy to use, so intuitive and so sexy. I'm glad I've ordered one now. I should probably have done it the other way around but there you go. Apple's stuff may be expensive and may put people off with the blanket hype but when you actually come to use it - and compare it with its nearest rivals - it is just in a different class. I mean, look at it, it's like something from a movie we don't believe. No one should be allowed to own something like that without a silver lamé jumpsuit and a hoverboard.
|
 
|
