CRANFORD (BBC1 - Sundays)
Just glance down the cast list and you can sense a superb series. This is Elizabeth Gaskell's Cheshire market town beautifully staged and looking, though I feel sure Miss Deborah Jenkyns (Eileen Atkins) would deplore my saying so, a million dollars.
Something to record after the Antiques Roadshow, then.
We shall still watch Long Way Down (BBC2) until the very end. Boorman and McGregor are compulsive viewing.
EGGHEADS. (BBC2 - nightly)
Last week the Eggheads were beaten twice in two days.
On Tuesday they lost to a team of museum people who departed with £33,000.
On Wednesday they were beaten by a bunch of tax inspectors, but the prize money was back to £1,000. (Hurray!)
Time to demand a change in the format, Eggheads.
And the departure of Dreadful Dermot.
WE CAN'T ALL BE EGGHEADS.
(Or museum people or, thanks be, tax inspectors.)
On Monday at 7.30 pm my Leader reminded me that Mastermind was about to start.
"Hurry up or you'll miss the chance to get your two right answers," she advised cheerfully.
The gifted imagination of television schedulers ensures that half an hour of Mastermind (John Humphrys being consistently pleasant) is followed by half an hour of University Challenge (Jeremy Paxman being occasionally likeable).
After Mastermind I repaired to the kitchen.
When "Come on! Come on!" Paxman started his introduction I bolted back to the television.
"What's the rush?" my bemused Leader called after me.
The truth will out.
"Must try to increase my right answers to four."
MATCH OF THE DAY LIVE. (BBC1 - Wednesday 19th November)
England 2 - Croatia 3
So England failed to qualify for Euro 2008.
The scoreline says it all.
The cat Shadow departed long before it finished.
England manager Steve McClaren and assistant Terry Venables departed shortly after it finished.
I departed at 9 pm to watch Heroes on BBC2.
NCIS. (Five)
At the end (a while back) of what I took to be the final series, Jethro Gibbs (Mark Harmon), having quit his job, walked along a beach to meet up with his old boss.
I thought that was it.
NCIS was over.
Now it seems he may have had a dream in a shower or something because a new series is being advertised and the word repeat has not been mentioned.
If this really is brand new and has never been shown here before, great!
I need no longer watch repeats of
CRIMINAL MINDS. (Five)
Where each week dear old Mandy Patinkin, gravitas glasses on the end of his nose, appears with The Sequential Dialogue Club.
This is a delightful load of bunkum in which it is clear that from me - to you - via her - to him - back to Mandy dialogue has been allocated to the ensemble, sequentially, to be delivered without pause for breath or suggestion of thought.
Sometimes two or three people share a sentence.
It is democracy gone mad.
Once the Criminal Mind of the week has been terminated, a voice-only who sounds a lot like Mandy Patinkin delivers a worldly-wise denouement - without let or hindrance - and that's that.
I still enjoy it.
Though ol' Mandy really is better when he's singing.
CSI (Five)
Thinking about sequential dialogue brought to mind my one bone of contention with CSI.
No forensic or other expert in a CSI/NY/Miami (whatever) episode is ever allowed to express a view without some fellow cast member simplifying it, in alternative words, for the benefit of the viewing public.
Ever stopped to wonder at the incredible patience of experts who take no offence at this?
I have.
I find myself longing for just one expert who will yell: "Stop re-wording everything I say, you smart-ass! Fuck off!"
Monday, November 26, 2007
Wednesday, November 07, 2007
91. A few more Dribs and Drabs
CANUTE AT THE SEASIDE.
When we moved here seven years ago I could sit at my computer by the upstairs workroom window and, on the corner of a road just along from our garage, take in the sight of a pleasant little bungalow probably built around the time of the second world war.
It stood in a reasonable garden.
Then, a few months ago, it was demolished.
The entire site has now been taken up by a three storey block of flats. It is the second of its kind to be built around here, less than a hundred yards apart, in the past six months. Most of them are devoid of private parking.
Seems councils have been counselled that people who choose to live in flats should not be encouraged to own cars. Well. the shops are but a short walk away.
I am well aware that the jaw-dropping Scot and his henchpersons are tossers - they are M.P.s after all - and I do realize that the local prats-in-power are fiscally bound to creep to central government.
But are not their sad attempts to drive more and more people back to the pre 1950 days of mass public transport just another example of Canute at the seaside?
Mark you, with petrol at the cost it is now even old Two Jags Prescott may soon have to use his bus pass.
EIGHT WASTED MINUTES, YOUR MAJESTY.
Yes, all that pomp and paraphernalia and thumping on doors just for Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth 2 to tell us, in eight wasted minutes, that her government is going to stick its oar into education...health...oh...you name it...you've heard it all before.
The eight minutes would have been far better spent if the aforementioned Queen Elizabeth 2 (an elderly lady who really has done me no harm) had been allowed to say:
"My government will make the same almighty cockup of absolutely everything that it and previous governments have for as long as I, or any of my subjects, can remember. It will also indulge in the same lies and deception to cover up its considerable shortcomings. That having been said, my husband and I look forward, with wry amusement, to the childish party squabbling which, no doubt, my words will engender at Westminster in the near future."
A COLLINS MOMENT.
Love her or loathe her, ol' Joan Collins does occasionally come out with a gem.
Talking to Melanie Sykes on The Paul O'Grady Show recently, she was asked whether there was anything sexy about kissing handsome actors in films. Her reply was a throwaway masterpiece.
"No. You are too worried about being on the right camera. And makeup are too worried that you might smudge your lipstick - or smudge his lipstick!"
Wicked.
SPOOKS OR MIAMI?
On Tuesday nights at 9 o'clock it is either Spooks on BBC1 or CSI: Miami on Five. Or watch one of them and record the other. Both are hilarious tosh, but while the former has actors. the latter has David Caruso and his acting sunglasses.
I cannot choose between them so I always record Spooks and watch it after I have seen Miami with my Leader. She does not watch Spooks. Well, apart from Peter Firth there are no antiques in it.
On the other hand, David Caruso's sunglasses are probably worth as much as any antique.
My Leader and I count how many times ol' David stands sideways to talk to somebody.
My Leader: "Why do you think he stands like that?"
Me: "To avoid being kicked in the balls."
(Later)
My Leader: "He's got that strange, wistful look on his face again."
Me: "Perhaps he forgot to stand sideways."
Both of us: "Hallo! He's putting his sunglasses on! There'll be trouble now..."
JOE'S PALACE.
One of the Spooks stalwarts, Rupert Penry-Jones, had a leading role in this absorbing drama by Stephen Poliakoff. The main character, Joe, was beautifully portrayed by newcomer Danny Lee Wynter and the eccentric billionaire who employed him to act as doorkeeper at a mansion was that star actor, very funny interviewee and self-proclaimed liar, Sir Michael Gambon.
Nothing ever seems to happen in a Poliakoff story. You just have to keep watching.
The end was worth the wait.
When we moved here seven years ago I could sit at my computer by the upstairs workroom window and, on the corner of a road just along from our garage, take in the sight of a pleasant little bungalow probably built around the time of the second world war.
It stood in a reasonable garden.
Then, a few months ago, it was demolished.
The entire site has now been taken up by a three storey block of flats. It is the second of its kind to be built around here, less than a hundred yards apart, in the past six months. Most of them are devoid of private parking.
Seems councils have been counselled that people who choose to live in flats should not be encouraged to own cars. Well. the shops are but a short walk away.
I am well aware that the jaw-dropping Scot and his henchpersons are tossers - they are M.P.s after all - and I do realize that the local prats-in-power are fiscally bound to creep to central government.
But are not their sad attempts to drive more and more people back to the pre 1950 days of mass public transport just another example of Canute at the seaside?
Mark you, with petrol at the cost it is now even old Two Jags Prescott may soon have to use his bus pass.
EIGHT WASTED MINUTES, YOUR MAJESTY.
Yes, all that pomp and paraphernalia and thumping on doors just for Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth 2 to tell us, in eight wasted minutes, that her government is going to stick its oar into education...health...oh...you name it...you've heard it all before.
The eight minutes would have been far better spent if the aforementioned Queen Elizabeth 2 (an elderly lady who really has done me no harm) had been allowed to say:
"My government will make the same almighty cockup of absolutely everything that it and previous governments have for as long as I, or any of my subjects, can remember. It will also indulge in the same lies and deception to cover up its considerable shortcomings. That having been said, my husband and I look forward, with wry amusement, to the childish party squabbling which, no doubt, my words will engender at Westminster in the near future."
A COLLINS MOMENT.
Love her or loathe her, ol' Joan Collins does occasionally come out with a gem.
Talking to Melanie Sykes on The Paul O'Grady Show recently, she was asked whether there was anything sexy about kissing handsome actors in films. Her reply was a throwaway masterpiece.
"No. You are too worried about being on the right camera. And makeup are too worried that you might smudge your lipstick - or smudge his lipstick!"
Wicked.
SPOOKS OR MIAMI?
On Tuesday nights at 9 o'clock it is either Spooks on BBC1 or CSI: Miami on Five. Or watch one of them and record the other. Both are hilarious tosh, but while the former has actors. the latter has David Caruso and his acting sunglasses.
I cannot choose between them so I always record Spooks and watch it after I have seen Miami with my Leader. She does not watch Spooks. Well, apart from Peter Firth there are no antiques in it.
On the other hand, David Caruso's sunglasses are probably worth as much as any antique.
My Leader and I count how many times ol' David stands sideways to talk to somebody.
My Leader: "Why do you think he stands like that?"
Me: "To avoid being kicked in the balls."
(Later)
My Leader: "He's got that strange, wistful look on his face again."
Me: "Perhaps he forgot to stand sideways."
Both of us: "Hallo! He's putting his sunglasses on! There'll be trouble now..."
JOE'S PALACE.
One of the Spooks stalwarts, Rupert Penry-Jones, had a leading role in this absorbing drama by Stephen Poliakoff. The main character, Joe, was beautifully portrayed by newcomer Danny Lee Wynter and the eccentric billionaire who employed him to act as doorkeeper at a mansion was that star actor, very funny interviewee and self-proclaimed liar, Sir Michael Gambon.
Nothing ever seems to happen in a Poliakoff story. You just have to keep watching.
The end was worth the wait.
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