I Do Love A Good Ruck
And Gert's been having one about Paul Potts, that opera guy on Britain's Got Talent.
I did see his initial performance in the auditions for the programme (we sort of had it on in the background a couple of nights this week - the audition rounds of those TV talent shows are the only entertaining bits, let's face it). It was entertaining in a "Simon Cowell clearly didn't expect to be impressed but was/Amanda Holden seems cursed to cry at every act not overtly announcing themselves as a comedian" way. I wouldn't have considered judging him as an operatic performer, because I don't know what makes a good one, but it was clear that the (I would assume equally uninformed) theatre audience were very impressed by him. So he's probably good telly, whether he's a good operatic tenor or not.
Just Not Funny
Sometimes, if I get away from work in time, I find myself listening to Radio 4's 6.30pm comedy slot. This venerable institution is the home of well-established and classic shows such as I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue and Just A Minute. Comedy quiz shows such as The News Quiz and the non-comedy 'intellectual' stuff such as the dreadful, pompous Quote, Unquote also figure in its traditional fare, though they now seem to have got the message on this one and put it out to pasture in the early afternoon. That Mitchell and Webb Sound is an honourable latecomer to the slot.
But increasingly there's a tendency towards things that clearly think they're comedy, but are in fact about as funny as having root canal work. Sometimes these are from the sitcom mould, but with the 'sit' significantly overshadowing the 'com', such as Trevor's World of Sport, in which Neil Pearson plays, wait for it, an honourable sports agent! (Ooh, my ribs have never been so tickled). Sometimes, and this is what's inspired me to comment, it's a 'personality' show, in which someone will do a stand-up routine each week, or as is more often the case, a stand-up routine punctuated by little 'vignettes' performed by the assembled cast to illustrate the riotously funny point of social commentary that's being made.
The latest of these, and possibly the least funny I've yet been subjected to, is It's That Jo Caulfield Again, which I've now heard twice, and on neither occasion did it gerenate so much as smile at any point. The Mrs heard the first of these two, and to say that he was also unimpressed would be an understatement. Sample joke; Jo's mother finds Jo's teenage diary and says "I don't know who she is but she's a slut." I know - I'm sorry, I should have warned you that was coming so you could hold your sides in readiness.
And yet the audience apparently find this stuff riotously funny, so perhaps her body language is what sells it. I can't think of any other explanation, because it's certainly not the jokes... In which case it's a fundamentally bad concept as a radio series.
How this stuff gets commissioned I can't imagine.
All Over In A Flash
So the entertaining story of the (non-)flashing judge has reached its conclusion with the man in question being found not guilty because it wasn't possible to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that it was really him. The fact that he resorted to showing a pair of his Calvins to the court by way of illustration how difficult it would be to get his knob out in the circumstances was obviously a comedy highlight of the proceedings (a 56 year old man wears Calvin Klein underwear - I bet their brand people loved that).
But you know, as I listened to the report on the radio this evening I was struck by a couple of points brought out in the BBC story:
They [the judges] said in the absence of any evidence supporting the judge's identification and "for this reason only" they could not be satisfied beyond reasonable doubt.
and;
However, he said the woman, a City worker in her 20s, gave "clear, dignified and truthful evidence".
It's not exactly a ringing and unambiguous vindication of this upstanding (or not, as the case may be) pillar of society, is it?
Moomin On Up
(I'm sorry, I know that's terrible.)
I'm not sure where it came from, but I'm having a little Moomin Renaissance going on in my head. Something recently, a conversation, a reference on TV, I'm not sure what, has put the entire fantastic world that Tove Janssen created back into my mind, and now I have an urge.
Which I am attempting to satiate by ordering five of the books from Amazon, and thereby finally putting some of the wedding present voucher from Lara and Roj to good use. My plan is to take them away on a week in Cornwall we have booked next month and read them all in one big hit.
Comment will follow.
D’oh!
I only just noticed that all my postings for the last week or so have not actually gone live. So I've changed their status and now they're visible. One or three odd things have happened since I upgraded WordPress, but I'm trusting that these are just teething troubles.
Idyllic
What a great day.
In an effort not to slump at home, we took a slightly spontaneous decision to get out of town and went to Hartfield, which sits alongside The Five Hundred Acre Wood (yes, the Winnie The Pooh one), and from which it's a gentle ramble to the original Poohsticks bridge.
Lunch sitting out in the sun of a pub garden, followed by a bit of a sit and read, followed by a lengthy walk across the fields and through the woods, made for a wonderful afternoon.
Note to selves - do that kind of thing more.
Blinking Hell!
Just watched Blink, this week's episode of Doctor Who, and my lord wasn't it good? I still want to do some proper reviews of the recent episodes, so I won't get into it now, but I just had to note my immediate reaction. This was a proper Who horror story, full of creepy moments but also great concepts. The bad guys were a great creation, and I love the description of their modus operandi ("the only psychopaths in history to kill you with kindness. They dump you in the past and let you live to death").
Three episodes in a row that have hardly had The Doctor in them, and they're among the strongest in the series (so far). There really isn't a TV format like this one.
Get-Together
This Saturday, Mark Millar is signing stuff at Forbidden Planet, so an extended group of Millarworlders are getting together for drinking and being merry purposes at the pub across the road. I'm heading along to join them which will be good, as it'll be the first time I've seen a lot of them since around November last year. Various things keep coming up to get in the way of meeting up, including my various travels for work and on the last occasion The Mrs being ill. But this time there's nothing that can get in the way. And it'll give me an opportunity to give a hefty box of old Doctor Who books to Russell, probably at least eighteen months since I first announced I was divesting myself of the bulk of my collection.
On which subject, I've got dozens more left - I'm going to try and get a list of them posted up and then if anyone wants them they can stake a claim. Watch this space.
A Big New Idea
The Mrs has had an idea for a new project, which is very very cool, and which I sadly can't talk about. But it's the kind of thing that might offer the opportunity to turn an interest into a business, and that's always a bonus. And it's looking like the numbers he's getting back on costs could be fortuitous, so I have a feeling it might actually happen.
Sorry, I know this is a bit cryptic and probably quite unrewarding to read, but I'm just registering my excitement on his behalf.
More House
This just gets better.
There's this kink in the boundary wall between 'our' house and the neighbours'. It's about four metres back from the front wall, and it extends their space by maybe 80cms into our front garden. It's enough to give them room for a car in their front, and make our space too narrow for one. We were looking at it with our friend Gareth, who happens to know the neighbours who gain by this kink, and it looks a bit weird, because why would you not build a boundary straight? We joked about maybe wanting to put it straight if it was supposed to be, and thereby having a big row with the friendly neighbours before we'd even moved in.
Turns out, now that the deeds and plan have come through, that there actually is supposed to be a kink in the boundary.
The problem is that it seems it's supposed to go the other way, and give us some extra space, not them.
Note that we're in a conservation area and no change can be made to any of the features visible from the road without planning permission.
This could run and run.