Television

Not Torchwood, but another programme from the top 5 things on TV at the moment (and yes that is more a comment about everything else out there).

Robin Hood appears to have had a bad reception in many quarters, however Sarah and I love it and try and watch it together. It's obviously taking advantage of Russel T Davies' reinvention of the family genre with the laddish swaggering Robin, and strong female supporting heros. Sarah especially likes the way Jack is much brighter than the male outlaws.

It is amusing how of the times it is, we have political intrigue and correctness, but far from dragging it down the political correctness actually makes Robin Hood more entertaining. Especially as you can imagine nutters from Tonbridge Wells foaming at the mouth.

DVD

I'm enjoying my DVD of A Bit Of Fry And Laurie - Series 1 so much I thought I would share this YouTube clip from the pilot.



I need to ration myself on this. Often stuff we enjoyed in the past can be disappointing when re revisit them on DVD, but this is as funny as ever.

Non-review

I would review this weeks Torchwood, only I put it on and sort of didn't watch it.

Much as I enjoyed seeing people camping on TV, it just didn't grab, me. And excessive gore is not my thing either.

Still it was a good twist to have a story where it turns out that it wasn't any of Torchwood's business after all.

Oh Nice!

Eddie Robson has a CD out.

I was there when he received his first professional writing payment from Gary of Big Finish. Now I know some people don’t like Big Finish very much, but I still think it’s nice to see people I know "in print".

Eddie's story along with several others will be on BBC7 this Christmas.

Googleism

For all those looking for "Who sang I'm only a poor little sparrow" the answer is in this post.

The song was called "The Sparrow" and was sung by The Abbey Hey Ramblers, who were the choir of the primary school I went to and led by the music teacher Maurice Jordan. I know as my cousins were in it and sang on the record!

An Improvement

I enjoyed Torchwood this week, written by Sapphire & Steel creator PJ Hammond.

Very nasty, but not nearly as silly as previous weeks. People still have trouble with the falibility of the team, and the lack of morality.

Next week is written by the showrunner Chris Chibnall again, who so far has contributed the worst of the 5 episodes so far.

Remembering them

Yesterday was Remembrance Sunday. We impressed on the explorers that it would be nice that they turned up on Sunday, and was pleased some of them did. Explorers tend to be exempt from sponsorship agreements with places of worship, so there was no obligation for those that turned up. So I was really impressed with the turn out from Blacksheep.

Actually the Explorers have impressed me a lot lately. I planned and ran quite a serious evening on mental health issues last Wednesday. It was quite a serious topic, and even though there was a small amount of chatter, most of it was relatively grown up discussion of the topic in hand. I was very pleased with the way the evening went, it was a great success.

Back to Remembrance Sunday, and I have to admit some concordance with both James G and James C over the self righteousness of White poppies, with a Christian group deeming Red Poppies "politically correct". Some people I know have very sensible reasons for not wearing the red poppy. Howvwer beyond the news story the last white poppy I saw was back in my days as a Venture Scout when the leader of Dovers VSU was an ex-serviceman, and we were childish. I don't see the red poppy as glorifying war, given remembrance is all about reflecting on those who were killed in battle. Nor do I buy the idea that those who wear red poppies don't remember civilian casualties. Contrary to what is suggested in the latest furore the poetry then red poppy image comes from doesn't in an way suggest war is a Good Thing.

During the service at the Church, Barry Overend, the vicar, gave what I thought was a good talk on the meaning of some of the traditional remembrance hymns. It made it very clear why St Chads goes in for the less modern side of its hymn books given his enthusiasm for the musical history of the church. However it may have been better aimed at a Women's Institute or musical society evening than a sermon to a general audience, as I was a little bored, let alone the cubs.

The weekend brought up various conflicting ideas regarding what people in the war fought for. Two things spring to mind. This morning a friend of a friend sent a link to a Daily Mail article about an unrelated subject, and I noted the poppy at the top of the page. On Friday the odious Nick Griffin was cleared of inciting racial hatred, and was depicted wearing a red poppy. I realise the poppy is an emblem from the great war, but both the Mail and Griffin stand for the very values that we fought against in the subsequent conflict, even in the diluted "secure the borders" mildly xenophobic message prevalent in the mail.

And yet there's a dilemma. Silencing these people would also be insulting the efforts of those that have died for us because it would be fighting fascism with fascism. The fact that what Griffin said was not illegal does not make it right, and nor does it mean we should be toughening the law to make sure it's illegal. We should let people like that have their say, and they can condemn themselves out of their own mouths. Unfortunately freedom sometimes means having to hear things we dislike.

Weight a minute!

Just been for a relaxing sauna and swim at the Leisure centre.

My weight is still going down, despite not having done much this week, I have lost 15 kg (2.5 stone) since I started back in June and am now the weight I was 4 years ago.

Need to keep things going but also work towards achieving a maintainable body mass. However I'm very pleased with the progress!

Making fun of whom?

I'm genuinely perplexed about Borat.

I thought the character had the same motives as Sacha Baron Cohen's Ali G character, a ridiculously obviously untrue spoof character who's purpose is to make fun of the idiots around him, and to either wind up his audience, get them to display their prejudices to what they think will be a like minded audience, or even in the case of the rodeo scenes both. While Ali G is a spoof Gangsta Rapper, the character is not making fun of black people, but the targets that don't even notice that Baron Cohen isn't even Black. Similarly with the character of Borat Kazakhstan was, I thought, not being made fun of.

Borat's wikipedia article states: The differences between Borat's fictional homeland in Kazakhstan and the actual people and way of life in the country are so far apart that some speculate whether Cohen made it that way to be a satire of American views of the world. Some people speculate? Surely this is the point writ large, not people reading things into the performance?

However, having said all that, like Ali G on Children In Need, Borat is often performed to people who really ought to be in on the joke. In the film there is linking material without a stooge to laugh at. Many are up in arms, especially the Kasakhs who aren't helped by having the character brought to their attention by the more hard of thinking end of the press. Are we laughing at foreigners, rather than those who would laugh at foreigners?

Mind you people thought Alf Garnett was a mouth piece for racism, rather than as the character actually was, fighting such prejudice by sending it up.

Pressies

Gosh, I've had lots of mail today. Perhaps it's been getting engaged, but I've had lots of birthday cards.

Yesterday I had a parcel from Amazon which I resisted opening. This had a Jasper Fforde book and a A Bit Of Fry And Laurie on DVD,.

I've also had a lovely smart watch, a book on castles, and some chocolate!

Hey! That's a bit silly.

No one, but no one will understand the reference, but I'll carry on.

I'm still following Torchwood, usually delayed on the PVR even though it's on six out of seven days a week.

Last night's was a bit of a daft base under siege runaround, set almost entirely in the hub. Torchwood is a post-watershed "adult" programme. By adult it means only suitable for over 18's not any suggestion of intelectual depth, although the emotion is still there from its parent.

The plot was basically, and this isn't a spoiler, sexy female cyborg looks sexy and creates havoc. As seen in the trailers cybergirl is shown throughout incompete and minus her outer armour in a cheap attempt to show some flesh. The costume even has high heels.

Many criticising the show seem to be expecting "adult" to mean the sort of Sci-fi that would not be out of place on BBC4. Torchwood is very much BBC3, the BBC station for 18-25 year olds, and I'm not convinced I'm part of its demographic. Still it's fun and even if I stop watching I would defend the right of its target audience to be entertained.

Worth a try

I'm decluttering by selling some stuff on amazon.co.uk. My seller id is rankersbo. Click here to see a list of my items.

Get in touch if there's anything of interest.