One step back, three steps forward

Oh dear. Heinz have pulled an advert for their Deli Mayo. Approximately 200 people complained it was inappropriate and made them feel uncomfortable. But the backlash at Heinz's craven stance was so great it crashed their comments page.

The advert did not even depict a homosexual relationship. It depicted a mum who'd been transformed into a "Noo Yoyk" style chef. All very cheap and 70s and not a suggestion of an actual gay relationship. Not that there would be anything wrong if it did, but it does show the average IQ of the complainers.

Personally I think it inappropriate that in this day and age people with hang-ups like that aren't made to feel uncomfortable more often.

Oh and laugh if you will, but I saw it on special offer at Asda last night. I decided to leave it on the shelf because there was no indication as to where the eggs in it came from...

A principled man?

The story of the minute is David Davies resigning to face a by-election on the issue of police being allowed to detain people for 42 days without charge. Any answers on Saturday dragged

Indeed I believe he is a man of principle, and the particular principle he is standing on I believe is a good one, and grudgingly support the decision not to stand in his way. However I don't believe in many of his other principles though, and would hate people to get the wrong idea that because he's a decent bloke on this issue, he's an all round decent chap.

One point of view is that he should have stayed to fight in parliament, and that he is wasting tens of thousands of pounds by taking this action? Tens of thousands of pounds, to draw attention to an important issue? Peanuts. The government spends millions on advertising campaigns educating the public about more trivial matters.

Out of the shadows

One of the things we don't usually watch time-shifted, is Doctor Who. Well last Saturday's we watched on Sunday, but we usually watch it near enough at the time of broadcast.

I've not blogged much about this series, but I have been enjoying it immensely. Last Saturday was the first of a two parter by Stephen Moffatt, the man who will be steering the Doctor Who ship in 2010's fifth series of the revived show. It was unbelievably excellent with more than a hint of the lovely "Time Traveller's Wife", as he runs into someone who he has never met, who turns out to know him very well indeed.

The story is set in a deserted library, in the 51st century, with a weird and wonderful subplot involving a little girl and her psychiatrist in a twentysomethingth century flat to give it a lovely large dollop of "what on earth is going on here"?

The characters are great, even including something rarely seen in drama, but often in real life, two people with the same first name: "Proper" Dave and "Other" Dave. This, despite merely reflecting reality, is hilarious on screen.

There was a point in the episode when The Doctor uses the library systems to determine how many people are in there. 2, humanoids, but a million million lifeforms. 1,000,000,000,000 lifeforms equal 1 terralifeform. But given this is the Vashta Nerada, pirhana like creatures that resemble shadow, perhaps that should be one terror lifeform.

Other PVRs are available

Sky are going a bundle on pushing their PVR technology, known as Sky+. Star studded adverts are on every other hoarding.

The Sky+ name has become a bit like Hoover for vacuum cleaner and iPod for digital audio player- brand names that are used in place of the actual noun. The difference being that to use an actual Sky+ you need to subscribe to Sky. The association between the brand and the technology means that many people think that you need to subscribe to Sky television to enjoy the benefits of Sky+ type technology. This isn't true at all. You don't need to subscribe to Sky to get this service- other PVRs are available for Freeview, cable and Freesat. In fact some of them are a lot better than the Sky+ box!

Sky+ is good technology, but hardly the invention of Sky Television as some people believe. Sky+ is simply Sky commissioning and branding an implementation of an existing innovation. It is easy to use, but it is far from being unique to Sky or indeed the best and easiest PVR out there.

We have a Humax 9200, which is a Freeview PVR. It is great, we just go through the guide once or twice a week and select the programmes we want to watch. Then when we want to sit down and watch TV we switch on and chose something to watch. We probably only watch the news live these days, and the PVR has totally put an end to watching TV just because it's on.

The Humax has come high in many surveys- but it has been out for a few years- a better box may have come along since.

So when you see Michael Parkinson saying how great his Sky+ is, don't fall for it. Only get Sky+ if you want Sky television, if you just want the recording wizardry- get another PVR.