I’ve seen some wacky advertising in my time – but this takes the biscuit… Please tell me it’s a joke?
(hat tip to The Intersection)
Category: Entertainment
-
The Doctor Cometh
I see that Joss Whedon returns next week with a sing-along blog: Dr. Horrible. What’s not to like? Whedon’s work (Buffy, Firefly, Serenity) always struck me as a cut above the usual pap we see on the haunted fishtank or the silver screen. I’m curious to see what he will do with the Web. -
Filth
Last night, the Beeb showed a TV drama about the clash in the 1960s between Mrs. Mary Whitehouse and Sir Hugh Carleton Greene, then director-general of the BBC. Entitled Filth: The Mary Whitehouse Story, it was an entertaining look at the woman and her campaign. I refer you to the great Nancy Banks-Smith, and her review of the programme for more detail. I think I would agree with her that the Julie Walters‘ playing of Whitehouse was probably more lovable than the real person. My one experience of seeing Mrs. Whitehouse in the flesh, as it were, still leaves me – at a distance of thirty years – with feelings of anger and disgust.Update: Anticant has a review of the programme. He had personal experience of just what a nasty piece of work Whitehouse could be. Worth reading to understand the less lovable side of her. -
The Apprentice
I’ve mentioned before how much I love to hate The Apprentice. Last night’s episode was a cracker. Two of the contestants had not a clue as to what the term Kosher actually means – and one of them describes himself as "a good Jewish boy". I swear, you couldn’t make it up. The peak was reached in this exchange between Nick and Margaret (as reported by the great Nancy Banks-Smith):"I’m a Catholic," whispered Nick to Margaret. "You’re a Protestant. We know what kosher is and Michael doesn’t! He did classics at Edinburgh." "Edinburgh," said Margaret sadly, "isn’t what it was."Amen, Margaret, Amen. -
Penguins?
Dear lord, but I do hate meeja people who have not two brain cells to rub together. Francis Sedgemore points us to this idiotic puffery about some upper-class twitess. Excuse me, penguins in the Artic? Clearly the makers of this shite are from some other planet from the rest of us. -
A Bunch With No Pick
BBC’s latest series of The Apprentice is now down to 10 candidates. Anna Pickard, in the Guardian, gives us the run down on their chances. Frankly, not one of them strikes me as anyone that a) I would like to have as a boss and b) would trust to be a business leader. Surallun has his work cut out. Terrific entertainment, though. I watch each episode through my fingers covering my face while groaning at the idiocy/mendacity on screen. -
Torchwood Series Two Finale
Well, it was certainly a great improvement over the finale of series one, with its truly bathetic monster. But I still found it a bit of a curate’s egg.The best bits (for me) were:- Naoko Mori’s acting at the moment of Toshiko’s death. For me, it was up there with Sir Laurence Oliver’s interpretation of John Mortimer’s father going blind in a climatic moment from A Voyage Round My Father.
- Toshiko’s message from beyond the grave. Nice touch, which brought happy tears to my eyes.
Bad bits:- Captain Jack’s brother. I’m sorry, but both the character and the actor did not convince me in the slightest. Dreadful plotting, dreadful acting.
- James Marsters disappointed me. I had expected more of an edge. Instead I felt I got a rather soft and mushy sleepwalk of an interpretation.
Oh well, at least my main man is now back again. -
It’s Baaack!
…that’s the BBC’s Apprentice. Yet another series that starts with 16 hopefuls demonstrating all that is worst in human nature. Is it just me, or are these 16 even more frightful caricatures of human beings than ever before? The first casualty, Nicholas de Lacy-Brown, was so over the top as an upper class fop who apparently knows nothing of how ordinary folks live that I wondered what century we are living in. It’s getting to the stage when I am finding it difficult to watch this programme without screaming continuously. I do, however, look forward to the pompous Raef Bjayou getting his richly deserved come-uppance.Update: Anna Pickard has a screamingly funny stream-of-consciousness blog on this episode here. Well worth reading. -
Torchwood…
… continues to disappoint. I’m sorry, but tonight’s "Out of the Rain" episode was not a patch on "Something Wicked This Way Comes", from which it all too obviously seemed to be derived… -
White
BBC2 starts a series of programmes this weekend themed around the white working class of Britain. Judging from the trailers, it strikes me as a particularly crass wallow in imagined victimhood. Justin, over at Chicken Yoghurt, sums up my feelings of distaste very well indeed. -
The Dame Edna Experience
Following on from a nod to the passing of Emily Perry, I can’t help reminiscing over an abiding memory from The Dame Edna Experience, broadcast back in 1987. Dame Edna was chatting to her guests: Cliff Richard and Mary Whitehouse before introducing the next guest. The idea of Barry Humphries, an Australian female impersonator in his persona of Dame Edna Everage, having Mary Whitehouse, the epitome of all that was the worst in sanctimonious mealy-mouthed moralists, as his/her guest was enough to beggar the imagination. My brain was already rolling over and begging for mercy."Ladies and Gentlemen", trills Edna, "Would you please welcome Mr. Kurt Waldheim, President of Austria!" She stands up and waves grandly towards back centre stage, where on a raised podium over the band, double doors slide open and reveal Kurt Waldheim, clutching a bunch of gladioli! He steps forward to great applause and waves shyly to the audience. Meanwhile, Cliff and Mary are also on their feet, beaming and applauding. You could see the thought going through both of their minds: "Kurt Waldheim? – how is this possible? – but, he’s a really important politician, and I’m here as well…"Mr. Waldheim turns, and walks along the podium. Suddenly, a trapdoor opens up beneath his feet, and he falls through it, gladdies and all. Complete deathly hush in the studio – camera cuts to Dame Edna returning a lever on the table next to her chair to the upright position. Cliff Richard and Mary Whitehouse ashen-faced. Cliff, horror-struck and mute, turns to Dame Edna, his hands making little gesturings towards the podium as if to say "shouldn’t we be doing something to help?" Dame Edna shrugs her shoulders and says to Cliff: "Ï’m sorry dear, but he was getting boring, so I aborted him".Well, the look on their faces as they realise they’ve been had was priceless. I don’t think I laughed so much in years. -
Such A Sadness
David Lynch has his doubts about watching films on mobile telephones. I concur.(hat tip to Tim Spaulding, over at Thingology, for the link) -
How To Ruin a Good Idea
BBC Four is currently running a series of programmes on Pop music. There are some gems in there, but also some real clunkers. An example of a gem was Paul Morley’s examination of his obsession with Pop music in his excellent programme: Pop! What Is It Good For? In many ways, it was a TV reworking of his book Words and Music, which I think is the best book ever written on Pop music. Both the programme and the book used Kylie Minogue’s song Can’t Get You Out Of My Head as the starting point for a meaty discourse on the genre.And an example of a clunker? Well, that would have to be last night’s How Pop Songs Work. The basic idea was good: what are the elements that go to make up a memorable pop song. And the central idea was to have Charles Hazlewood, a conductor, examine the music of pop songs. He’s done this before – I remember seeing a TV programme where he dissected the skills of Lennon and McCartney and successfully demonstrated their genius at its best. There, it was just Hazlewood and a piano, and it was shot without fuss, to let the ideas come through.Last night’s programme, though, was completely ruined for me by the director’s insistence of filming Hazlewood at the piano with multiple cameras – all but one at very odd angles and viewpoints – and then constantly cycling between them. The nadir was one camera lurking behind piles of CDs and spying on Hazlewood. It was at that point that I very nearly threw something through the TV screen. This was gratuitous tricksy TV, which completely undercut any argument that Hazlewood was making as far as I am concerned. Awful, awful crap. -
Voyage of the Damned
Well, I, along with apparently most of the population of the UK, watched the Doctor Who Special on Christmas Day. To be honest, I wasn’t all that impressed. Too many bangs and crashes and creaky plot devices, I thought. This interpretation by Cavalorn hits the mark, I think. -
RIP Verity
Damn, Verity Lambert has died. While she’s best known for producing the first two series of Doctor Who, she left her mark on many other notable productions in British TV. She will be missed. -
Doctor Meets Doctor
The Beeb commissioned a special short episode of Doctor Who for last Friday’s Children in Need fundraising in the UK. The fifth and the tenth Doctor meet. Clearly, a great time was had by all. The two actors are perfect, and Steven Moffat’s script is razor-sharp, with jokes for all ages and orientations. Sample:10th Doctor: …Oh, and the Master, he just showed up again…5th Doctor: Really, does he stll have that rubbish beard?10th Doctor: No… no beard this time; well, a wife… -
Another Milestone
I see that today my blog clocked up its 250,000th page view. Thanks for dropping by. -
Hand Shadows
Part of my self-education when I was growing up was to read my father’s collection of bound copies of "The Boy’s Own Paper". Poring through the contents I’d come across articles on knot-making, or survival skills, or magic tricks in amongst the stories about the relief of Mafeking. I remember one of the articles was about using the hands to make shadow puppets. I avidly practised this (it was cheap and required no special materials other than a lamp and a wall).I can’t say I was ever particularly good at it, though. If you want to see a master at work, then here’s Raymond Crowe…(hat tip to Neil Gaiman for the link) -
The Political Compass
Where do you fall on the Political Compass? It seems as though (with an Economic Left/Right score of -6.50 and a Social Libertarian/Authoritarian score of -7.49) I’m closer to Nelson Mandela and the Dalai Lama than I am to Tony Blair and Dubya. Not totally unexpected, then. -
Stuff and Nonsense
I don’t read the UK newspaper The Daily Mail. As a matter of fact, I don’t think it’s fit even to wrap fish and chips in either. This does have the fortunate side effect of ensuring that I don’t often come into contact with the opinions of its resident columnist Melanie Phillips, usually because when I do, I am left gasping for breath at the spittle-flecked lunacy of her opinions.Still, every now and then something that Mad Mel writes is picked up and displayed elsewhere, usually because someone else also can’t believe the stuff she churns out. Here’s a good case in point. She apparently believes that science, not faith, is the new enemy of reason. Head on over to the link and read the full thing. You might also peruse the comments, which fall into one of two categories: a) detailed rebuttal of her harebrained arguments or b) an expression along the lines of "who is this idiot?" (for the best answer, see comment 58). I’ll just leave you with a taste of her tripe…Science cannot explain the origin of the universe. Yet it now presumes to do so and as a result it has descended into irrationality.The most conspicuous example of this is provided by Dawkins himself, who breaks the rules of scientific evidence by seeking to claim that Darwin’s theory of evolution – which sought to explain how complex organisms evolved through random natural selection – also accounts for the origin of life itself.Needless to say, Dawkins has never said any such thing. Mel then goes on to waffle about Intelligent Design and the Cambrian Explosion. The only things that she makes abundantly clear are the depths of her ignorance and the idiocy of her claim that science is the enemy of reason. As the first comment notes, her homework should be to read The Ancestor’s Tale.
Geoff Coupe's Blog 