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 I nearly* 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...

I was just thinking about you...

Richard Dawkins explained in a book, several back and possibly Unweaving the Rainbow, but possibly not, how Uri Geller (could be David Blaine or the other one...) makes people believe he can mend their old watches with the power of his mind.



It's all to do with mass media and maths.

The fact that most people are taken in by mass media, believing everything and anything ("Eoghan" is pronounced "Owen"), helps him achieve the (effect of the) supernatural. But mainly it's that people are generally thick when it comes to maths which nails it.

The argument goes something like this... (I've probably got the figures wrong; it's a while since I read it...)

Imagine five million people watch Uri and he instructs them all to go and find an old watch from a cupboard somewhere in their house. Imagine only two percent of the people watching that programme go and find their old watch. That's still 100,000 people digging around in their "paper bag, cling film and fuses" drawer. *

Watches work by winding them up, or with a battery. Eventually, the winder winds down or the battery fails. Some end up in the drawer. When these 100,000 people find their watches and Uri says "hold it in your hand, rub it, think deep thoughts" etc, the heat from their hands changes the temperature of the winding mechanism or the battery and, momentarily, and because of physics, not because of Uri, the watch works for a few seconds.

Imagine this only happens to one percent of the people who actually find a watch. That's still 1000 people whose watch suddenly works because "Uri says it will"- It's a Kind of Magic!

Uri then says "if your watch worked, phone us!" A mere one percent of the people whose watches ticked for a bit phone up.

Uri still gets to talk to ten people. Plenty to fill the show and, more importantly, all seen by the five million people watching in the first place.

It all rests on these tiny percentages, where coincidences happen, and their effect on the large percentages of people who are open to any suggestion, however stupid, because of their previous experience, ignorance, personality flaws, special needs, religion etc. (Including the very unlikely scenario in which Uri Geller mends your old watch through the TV by pulling a concentrating face and talking with an accent. **)

"Engineered" coincidences for the purposes of entertainment, coercion, gain etc. are one thing, but I guess coincidences don't arise spontaneously all that often. We only think they do because we're more likely to single them out from the background chaff of our lives and remember them.

I only mention this because I seem to have been the on the receiving end of an unexpectedly high number of them recently. Picking just three, some of them were to my disadvantage...

• the woman in the Post Office to whom I complained and whose cloud of "customer un-service" still surrounded her when I saw her again in a restaurant in the evening. So much so that the waiting staff ended up throwing a glass (nearly) at me...

...some of them were to other people's advantage...

• Someone I sold a raffle ticket to won the very prize he took the piss out of. (If it needs mending, Chris, see above...)

...and some of them were to my absolute advantage...

• My nephew was born, unexpectedly, two days ago, in the brief window of time I was around in the North to see him...

Perhaps that was just 2008.

But I'm going to be monitoring in 2009... Happy New Year.

(* "Man Drawer" / ** "I'm sorry, I can't do the accent" - Both © Michael McIntyre - unaccountably missed last year and caught only on DVD...)

Meet your chickens...

As Magda said...




..."it's bad enough having to read most of the crap that's written, without 'avin to look at a photo of the bastard that wrote it..."

Well, now it's poultry with egos too...



All I can say to Tesco is that I feel it's ethical enough to buy the locally sourced, Shiny Happy Farmers Free Range eggs, without 'avin to look at a photo of the chickens that laid 'em...

At last!

Wishes can come true...

Long, Long Ago in Sherwood...

I suppose I'd be looking grumpy too if I'd been on pause for 14 and a half days...



My Sky+ obviously has issues and clearly I have a lot of catching up to do before I can watch X-Factor...

Hello Auntie...

I went on an official tour of BBC Television Centre yesterday.



Well, some it.

There are bits you don't get to see. You don't get to see the Blue Peter garden. Presumably in case you vandalise it, or dig up the time capsule or tell everyone about Petra. And you don't get to go inside the news studios, in case you are a lesbian and Nicholas Witchell has to sit on you. (This was the official reason given by the tour guides, Simon and Debbie *)

We start with the very low budget Walk of the Dead Entertainers...



Dame Thora, Arthur Lowe, Ernie Wise, Marti Caine, Jon Pertwee... Bruce Forsyth and Tess Daly **

And then on inside, where no-one could accuse them of cashing in on recent remakes...



Actually, the last one is Gordon the Gopher. They keep him in a glass-fronted cage now. Perhaps they could do the same with Andi Peters.

We got to see TC1, which is a really big studio where they were rehearsing for Dance X, and TC8, where they were recording the Catherine Tate Christmas Special. In July. "Whadda f***in' liberty!!"

It's all a bit pedestrian. These days no-one really needs the whole "don't wear blue if you're a weather forecaster" thing explaining to them...



...but they do it anyway. And they let you read the news...



(Lisa Kaplinsky)

...of course they show you where Roy Castle did the tap dancing...



...and you get a good look at the Holby Plastic People (don't look if you are of a nervous disposition...)



Now... dinner time!

* Simon is what happens when you're no longer convincing sitting on a bar stool in the background of the Queen Vic, and Debbie is what happens when you're too old to present CBeebies.

** Well, it can only be a matter of time for one of them, and the Strictly Tragic Accident where the other gets a good kicking and falls forever into Len Goodman's handbag is not far off.

Grrrr...

Yes, all right, dear...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/6625581.stm

Now learn to talk...

Haven't I seen that on "Friends"...?

Yes, you probably have...

Most of what you see in New York is familiar to you because you've seen it all before on the television or in films. You can walk round almost any corner and see one of those iconic shots that they slip in for a few seconds to remind you that you're there, even though it's all filmed in a studio in Hollywood.

Friends is a perfect example because it's littered with them... (You can do those accompanying bits of "Ross and Rachel on a break...", "Phoebe slightly weird..." incidental music in your head as you look at them...)



North up 5th Avenue, 16 blocks to Broadway and the Flatiron Building, another 10 blocks to the Empire State Building and another 11 blocks north (and a couple west) to Times Square....



Washington Square Garden (it's rectangular, but is a garden) with its miniature Arc de Triomphe, a staple of the Friends library shots. But you can watch 10 series (on E4 over the course of about a week, probably) and not see any of them actually walking past any of these places.

And, of course, the corner of Bedford and Grove Streets in Greenwich Village.

("Where?" I hear both readers asking...)

You see you'll recognise it now...



It's their apartment building. No honestly, it is...

When you are there, it doesn't look much like it, but that's 'cos you've only ever seen it in 2-D. It was only when I looked at the photo on the digital camera screen that I was sure we were in the right place.

If you just want a sit down and a coffee when you get there, what you might expect some telly-savvy entrepreneur to have rebranded as Central Perk is actually still the very bijou and refined Little Owl restaurant.

So take a flask.

Your Starter for Ken...*

It's been a while since I watched University Challenge...



...but clearly things have changed.

*I'm really sorry about the post title.

Spot the difference...

Zoe spent most of the weekend with her head in this book...



On closer examination...

"That's not my monster! It's nose is too bobbly, eyebrows too hairy, ears are too rough..." etc

...it seems that the book is actually the preliminary script ideas for...



That's not my monster! It's CGI is too ropey!

That's not Torchwood! It's a low-budget ITV rip-off!!

That's not an actress! It's the rough-looking one from S Club!!!

I shall say zis ernly wernce...

Has anyone else noticed that Sarah Louise Platt is turning into Mee-chelle of ze Rezis-tonse...?



It seems to have passed Grace Dent and Charlie Brooker by, and they are normally very keen observers of these things.

BeretWatch continues...

Out with the old...

Just a couple of things to get out of the way before the year is over.

Firstly, I'm not looking forward to getting back to Southampton if this weather forecast is anything to go by...



I'm hoping the snow will have gone and the temperature risen by about 20 degrees by the time I get back tomorrow. Or perhaps Google just got it wrong...

Secondly, a bit of a rant. I spent most of yesterday complaining loudly about one particular aspect of the New Year's Honours list. That particular aspect being that June Sarpong, here depicted in all her uselessness...



...has been awarded an MBE. For services to broadcasting. Even though it's the lowest of the BEs, I will remain astounded by this well into January and probably beyond. She will just get on my nerves more and send me diving for the remote control much more quickly than she did before.

Services to broadcasting. I ask you... Obviously being able to speak clearly and coherently and not like you have been on the vodka is no longer a prerequisite for high achievement in broadcasting. Either that, or it was all a terrible mail merge mistake at the Palace - this is my preferred version of events.

I worry that this time next year we might be saluting Dame Heather Small or, as has already been suggested, Sir Jamie Cullum.

Help.

Oooooh!! Ahhhhh!! (Just A Little Bit...)

Can't quite believe it's a been a year since it was a year ago at the fireworks... (?)

Anyway, my experiments with High Definition TV have gone as far as two extremely pixellated mobile phone videos of the display at Lakeside in Eastleigh - have made them small so they look better...

And now, it's Sunday. Hallowe'en is over, we've put the clocks back, done Bonfire Night - time to get into the loft for the Christmas decs! :-)

Just "one" thing...

The BBC has spent my licence fee (and 9,125 other people's) on these, so I think I have purchased the right of reply. And that of judgement. Here goes...

Surfers	The best one...	9/10
Bikes	The noisiest one...	8/10
Hippos	The funny CGI one...	8/10
Kites	The far too new age one...	6/10
Windows	The flashy, but still dull one...	5/10
Footballers	The too techno one...	4/10
Petals	The not actually a circle one...	3/10
Moon	The News and Queen dying one...	2/10

...actually, just one more thing...



...wasn't Robin Hood good?!

(although not as good as Robin of Sherwood...)

Always there... *

Now we might not be in the Premiership any more and we haven't got the Spinnaker Tower. Vosper Thorneycroft has gone, leaving Portsmouth doing ships better than us too. The Titanic and Craig David both sunk. But Southampton still Shows good Boat.

Although you have to approach it all very subversively and with a good dollop of cynicism it's still a good day out.

Small bits of town - old car parks, bits of dockside, Mayflower Park - seem to be able to host a huge show, including 240 tons of borrowed Weymouth Sand, and you only realise exactly where you are when you get high enough up to see...



You can buy virtually anything nautical including...

...boats:



(Look carefully... the price you pay is in the small font. The big price is the Boat Show discount...)

...really big boats with plasma tv screens, several floors and staff:



(This one is soooo expensive and posh that they make you put bags over your shoes just to be allowed on the carpet...)



...astroturf flipflops:



...and a Teletubbies hat:



(This is Tracy incorrectly modelling some manner of onboard storage receptacle. Available from Solent Plastics...)

There were many pirates. These were better than some and did the voices and everything.



(Although they didn't know they had missed International Talk Like A Pirate Day on 19 September. Shiver me timbers, etc...)

And one more shot of the quite spectacular £2.9 million Sunseeker Predator 82. We're there somewhere if you zoom in. And we're flickred too.



*Avril: “If I go ahead with the Barracuda, Charles, you’ll refuse to support me..?”
Charles: “If you go ahead, Avril, I’ll fire you...."
Ken: "You'll get Relton Marine over my dead body..."
Jack: "I'm building Barracuda and bringing the Mermaid Yard into to 20th century..."
Jan: "I have new stock of the orange jump suit with the shoulder pads...."
Leo:"Clip clop clip clop clip clop..."
Clod: "Qu'est-ce que c'est dans la distance??? Oh Merde!!!!!"
Simon May Orchestra: "Daaaaa-da dahh, daa-daa-daaa, daaaaa-da-dahh..."

Day 2 in the (Not Big Brother) House House

24 has finished and its second-rate replacement, The Hades Factor, is hellish. Big Brother is not interesting this year because Nikki will go back into the house, but Pete will win. Unless Glyn does.

So there has to be some interesting addictive TV to watch otherwise I will have to pretend I have read lots of erudite and worthy books during the holidays.

Fortunately, thanks to Nicky Board, I have discovered...

...which I have being watching in 4-hour blocks and will have to keep watching until I have finished all 6 DVDs. (And then I will have to get Series 2 on e-Bay...)

Part of the appeal was to see if Hugh Laurie could carry off anything other than wacky upper-class Englishman against Stephen Fry. And he totally can. Within five minutes you forget it's him and believe he's Dr Gregory House MD. Accent, limp, walking stick, attitude.. all good.

And then you are sucked in. Was the Nun allergic to her tattoo? Or something else? Is that really a tapeworm in the kindergarten teacher's brain? Just how did that woman get African Sleeping Sickness? Did those students really get poisoned by their jeans?

It's a bit like Casualty in that...

Most episodes start outside the hospital, showing the events
leading to the onset of illness for that week's patient. (Wikipedia)

But instead of some (stunt) woman falling off a ladder or rolling (unconvincingly) over the bonnet of a speeding car, House and his team (the dead one from Dead Poets' Society and someone from Neighbours) have to deal with very complex and rare things which they normally solve within the last five minutes, probably accompanied by some very graphic CGI shots zooming internally to focus on organs failing in Dolby Digital Surround Sound.

And then getting better.

Usually watched over by cranky and unbelieving relatives who have to admit, grudgingly, that House was right all along.

Only another 40 episodes to watch before Sky show series 3. Thank goodness for the summer holidays...

RIP Top of the Very Pops

Just watching the very last TOTP (as we call it) and important questions come to mind....

• When was the last time I watched it? Can't remember...
• Why does Dave Lee Travis look exactly the same...?
• Why is Captain Jack Sparrow on it? (Oh, he's not, it's Adam Ant...)
• Why, Why, Why, Delilah?
• Why is Aisleyne on it? (Oh, she's not, it's Beyoncé Knowles...)
• What is Pat Sharp for?
• Ditto All Saints
• Which one of Take That had a thing with Lulu and vomited into her bath?
• Which one was Pepsi and which one was Shirley? And which one married Martin/Gary Kemp? And who did the other one marry? And which of the Kemps has a metal plate in his head?
• Weren't the Wombles good?
• Ditto Smurfs...
• What's so special about "Oasis" soup?
• Wasn't Janice Long Cheggers' sister? Presumably still is...
• What was Victoria Beckham's maiden name?
• When will I, will I be famous? (I can't answer. I can't answer that...)
• What will be on at 2pm on Christmas Day for us to take the piss out of en famille?*
• And (only my Dad and sister will be able to answer this...), didn't Freddie Mercury look like Mrs Spalding???

*edit: Jana "Mrs BBC" Bennett just confirmed there will be a Christmas special. Phew.

A year ago today...

Don't worry, I'm not going to relive the whole of last summer day by day... But this is where I was exactly a year ago:



Today, I am not on my way to New Zealand, rather I am sitting on my sofa having the first lazy day since finishing work. So that's allowed.

Just watched Charlie Brooker's Screenwipe from last night*, in which he pondered how people get on Big Brother...



(*God bless Sky Plus, which you can now programme via text message...)

Sam is the hero next door! (or not...)

Is it wrong that I have some sort of sneaking admiration for the person who made the following complaint to OFCOM? I reproduce it below, probably breaching copyright, so that you can stifle your laughter and make your own mind up...

Fireman Sam - CBeebies, 10 February 2006, 12.45

Introduction

This episode of the long-running children's television series told the story of an old and carelessly stored electric blanket which caught fire. When Fireman Sam arrived at the fire, before he entered the building, he asked his colleague Elvis to ensure the electrical power source had been disconnected. After Elvis had disconnected the source, Fireman Sam went into the bedroom where the electric blanket was on fire and extinguished the blaze with water.

A complainant felt that extinguishing an electrical fire with water sent out an incorrect safety message to young children watching.

Response

The BBC said it had reviewed the episode and felt confident that Fireman Sam and his team followed the correct procedure by isolating the power source first before tackling the fire. As the sequence was short, there was little chance of viewers seeing the fire fighting without hearing of the precaution first.

Even so the programme makers were concerned that a small number of viewers seemed not to have picked up the safety precaution. This had been discussed with senior editors and another episode, which dealt in more detail with electrical fires, had now been edited to reinforce the safety message further. The BBC confirmed that next time the episode complained of was repeated, the additional episode reinforcing how to deal with electrical fires safely would be the next scheduled.

Decision

Although the storyline had followed the correct procedure, we welcome the BBC’s action to reinforce the safety message for young viewers.

Resolved

"Maybe I LIKE the misery..."

...© Mrs Doyle, Father Ted.

Couldn't pass this...



...without thinking that it would be the perfect place for her!