Little prompts me to write on here nowadays. Something has to stir sufficient emotion (normally "anger" is the one of choice) and I have to have sufficient time (I have a breathing space before Christmas, and everything is wrapped...)
But "FOR FIVE MINUTES....!" (as a colleague of mine says to avoid swearing loudly when it wouldn't be appropriate...) "Hasn't John Lewis dropped off...??" (That's me saying that. Not her.)
It seems to be the only place one can buy a "traditional" advent calendar de nos jours. You know, one without the bit of moulded Kake-Brand-style cooking chocolate behind each door; one where you get a Christmassy picture, not one of something hideous and Disney; one where the small robin/star/(God Forbid) Baby Jesus isn't obscured utterly by some foil and 4cm2 transparent shaped plastic tray.
Anyway, I thought I was onto a winner this year, as I'd seen quite a classy 3-D example, having forgiven John Lewis for their advent calendar of a few year back when all the pictures were the bloody same. But the once respected and admired partnership has entered a terminal decline, it seems, and sold me one with two 18s.
I'm not an expert on these matters, but if making advent calendars were a task on The Apprentice, even Stuart Baggs would have worked out that 24 numbers, one of each, was crucial. (Do Amstrad make advent calendars? Just planning ahead for next year...)
Anyway, at this time of year, when peace and harmony become important for several minutes somewhere along the line, I curbed my Aggressive Personality Disorder and instead of marching back to John Lewis and haranguing them, I solved it myself, Blue Peter style. Let's say, in homage to Matt Baker, who should've won Strictly. But didn't.
NB If I'd solved it Blue Peter style in homage to Anthea Turner instead, I could have made the whole bloody thing from scratch. With Flakes. In a layby off the M40.
Sunday, December 19, 2010
Saturday, October 02, 2010
Disloyal...
Call Centre: "Hello. As a loyal BT customer, I would like to offer you..."*
Me: "Can I stop you there? I am not a loyal BT customer. I left BT five years ago and took my landline and broadband from Talk Talk because it was half the price. I have been extremely satisfied with Talk Talk and loyalty to BT was not my reason for coming back. I wanted my broadband from o2 and the levels of anti-competitive bureaucracy which still exist in the UK telecoms market mean you have to have a BT line for o2 broadband and you have to have it for 12 months, even though I really want o2 to have my landline too. I could, of course, leave BT early, paying a penalty of around £100, so I am waiting until later this month when the Ofcom ruling which forces you to reduce early termination charges comes into effect and then I will be off again..."
Call Centre: (silence.....) "Erm... oh..." (silence, click, tone....)
(This is an adapted highlight of a call from earlier today. It may not be word for word, but these calls are recorded for training purposes, so I suppose I could always ask for the transcript. If I'm loyal enough.)
(*Also, if BT is reading this, possibly for training purposes "As you are a loyal BT customer, I would like to offer you..." would be better...)
Me: "Can I stop you there? I am not a loyal BT customer. I left BT five years ago and took my landline and broadband from Talk Talk because it was half the price. I have been extremely satisfied with Talk Talk and loyalty to BT was not my reason for coming back. I wanted my broadband from o2 and the levels of anti-competitive bureaucracy which still exist in the UK telecoms market mean you have to have a BT line for o2 broadband and you have to have it for 12 months, even though I really want o2 to have my landline too. I could, of course, leave BT early, paying a penalty of around £100, so I am waiting until later this month when the Ofcom ruling which forces you to reduce early termination charges comes into effect and then I will be off again..."
Call Centre: (silence.....) "Erm... oh..." (silence, click, tone....)
(This is an adapted highlight of a call from earlier today. It may not be word for word, but these calls are recorded for training purposes, so I suppose I could always ask for the transcript. If I'm loyal enough.)
(*Also, if BT is reading this, possibly for training purposes "As you are a loyal BT customer, I would like to offer you..." would be better...)
Sunday, February 21, 2010
Contains spoilers...
OK. So we all know the feeling when something we've really been looking forward to turns out to be less good than expected, or just a bit crap. It's easy to be disappointed and cross and irritated.
But it's equally easy to be irritated when something turns out to be better than you thought it was going to be. If that makes any sense...
I know this to be true because Inearly* went to see Edge of Darkness (The Film) and was mildly annoyed that it was OK. It wasn't brilliant, but I really wanted it to be awful. And it wasn't.
Now, going to see it was probably a risk all along because Edge of Darkness (The Not-Film 80s TV Series) won several BAFTAs and was genuinely dark and shocking. I remember watching it unfold over several weeks and it was a story that could only be told in that way, slowly and deliberately. It was Classic Drama - it says so on the DVD box.
So I knew the film was going to make a hash of it. There would be no comparison.
Well, actually, there would be a whole range of comparisons.
On the way there, we couldn't actually remember the last thing we'd seen Mel Gibson in. Let alone the last thing he'd been any good in. Whereas Bob Peck's performance is still grim and haunting even now. He can easily act most people off the screen, despite having been dead for eleven years.
Ray Winstone as Jedburgh? Maybe not. Presumably, as the whole thing has been imported into Boston, Jedburgh, American in the original, had to be English. But Ray Winstone can only play Ray Winstone. He played Ray Winstone in Robin of Sherwood and in everything since. And Jedburgh should really have watched Strictly Come Dancing... But he didn't.
So, not looking good so far. How would they capture that sense of foreboding which those lingering shots of the nuclear fuel trains and Eric Clapton created? Who would play Clementine? Would we get Time of the Preacher...?
At least we wouldn't have to put up with Joanne Whalley... Arguably the best thing about her appearance in the original was that she was viciously gunned down in the opening episode. (A punishment that really should have come after Willow, rather than before...) But Emma in the film was less convincing than Yorkshire Emma - less of a terrorist, less in control. And less of a guiding vision for her bereaved father.
The civil servants weren't quite right. You have to be British, with Queen's English and possibly a bowler hat, to do the tortuous bureaucracy required to cover up something politically incovenient. And possibly radioactive. You also have to be called Pendleton and Harcourt. Which the American attachés in the film may have been called, but not noticeably.
Plainly, there was so much that wasn't quite right. The cheesy, uplifting end for a start (or for an end...) I won't spoil what it was. But he dies and is happily reunited with Emma in spectral form. (OK, so I have spoiled it, but no more so than the film does...)
None of the uncertainty and ambiguity of the original, in which both Craven and Grogan face a slow, irradiated death. No particularly prescient environmental message. No Zoe Wannamaker. No black flowers...
But it was OK. No more than that. If you've not seen either, I'll lend you the DVD...
* "Nearly" because my sister nearly wasn't able to get the tickets at the cinema because she signed her debit card over the magnetic strip not the signature strip, rendering it useless in the "Collect your own tickets" machine. Or the "Can't collect your own tickets machine", as it's now called...
But it's equally easy to be irritated when something turns out to be better than you thought it was going to be. If that makes any sense...
I know this to be true because I
Now, going to see it was probably a risk all along because Edge of Darkness (The Not-Film 80s TV Series) won several BAFTAs and was genuinely dark and shocking. I remember watching it unfold over several weeks and it was a story that could only be told in that way, slowly and deliberately. It was Classic Drama - it says so on the DVD box.
So I knew the film was going to make a hash of it. There would be no comparison.
Well, actually, there would be a whole range of comparisons.
On the way there, we couldn't actually remember the last thing we'd seen Mel Gibson in. Let alone the last thing he'd been any good in. Whereas Bob Peck's performance is still grim and haunting even now. He can easily act most people off the screen, despite having been dead for eleven years.
Ray Winstone as Jedburgh? Maybe not. Presumably, as the whole thing has been imported into Boston, Jedburgh, American in the original, had to be English. But Ray Winstone can only play Ray Winstone. He played Ray Winstone in Robin of Sherwood and in everything since. And Jedburgh should really have watched Strictly Come Dancing... But he didn't.
So, not looking good so far. How would they capture that sense of foreboding which those lingering shots of the nuclear fuel trains and Eric Clapton created? Who would play Clementine? Would we get Time of the Preacher...?
At least we wouldn't have to put up with Joanne Whalley... Arguably the best thing about her appearance in the original was that she was viciously gunned down in the opening episode. (A punishment that really should have come after Willow, rather than before...) But Emma in the film was less convincing than Yorkshire Emma - less of a terrorist, less in control. And less of a guiding vision for her bereaved father.
The civil servants weren't quite right. You have to be British, with Queen's English and possibly a bowler hat, to do the tortuous bureaucracy required to cover up something politically incovenient. And possibly radioactive. You also have to be called Pendleton and Harcourt. Which the American attachés in the film may have been called, but not noticeably.
Plainly, there was so much that wasn't quite right. The cheesy, uplifting end for a start (or for an end...) I won't spoil what it was. But he dies and is happily reunited with Emma in spectral form. (OK, so I have spoiled it, but no more so than the film does...)
None of the uncertainty and ambiguity of the original, in which both Craven and Grogan face a slow, irradiated death. No particularly prescient environmental message. No Zoe Wannamaker. No black flowers...
But it was OK. No more than that. If you've not seen either, I'll lend you the DVD...
* "Nearly" because my sister nearly wasn't able to get the tickets at the cinema because she signed her debit card over the magnetic strip not the signature strip, rendering it useless in the "Collect your own tickets" machine. Or the "Can't collect your own tickets machine", as it's now called...
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
