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Mick Harper
Site Admin

In: London
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The Regime has become a bit soap-operish. But it may be because the latest episode was directed by someone other than Stephen Frears so I'm sticking with it.
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Wile E. Coyote
In: Arizona
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Somewhere in California.
" It's a story about a codpiecce and a hunchback"
"Love it, a deformed bell-ringer turns ito Superman and falls in love with a a gypsy dancer "
" That's not quite it"
" Has it a Cathedral?"
"Emm, we have a strong clerical theme"
"Great, Love it!" "Plenty of dark Gothic mystery, no doubt"
"Well yes" "I mean" "Hell YES!"
"Set in Europe?"
"We can do that if you like, a fine sprinking of Euro Castle Disney"
"What's the working title"
"Shardlake"
"Hmmm. You might need to work on that, still love the concept, get me Sean Bean!"
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Mick Harper
Site Admin

In: London
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Bean There, Done That
I've been listening to Shardlake on R4X with only a limited amount of engagement but I am now bereft of all streaming services so I am reliant on your daughter for further intelligence.
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Mick Harper
Site Admin

In: London
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Changing Ends (ITV-1)
Not the sort of broad comedy I would watch (or I would watch and keep quiet about it) but this has two oddities that commend it (1) a real football manager, Graham Carr, of Northampton Town (of the seventies when the series is set) and (2) the adult Alan Carr acting as a fourth wall device.
Check it out and tell me I'm not wrong.
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Mick Harper
Site Admin

In: London
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Mark Urban is reporting from swing-state Arizona. Lots of local fruitcakes, a new factory churning out Biden chips, a bit on immigration, all the usual. He wraps up the piece standing in front of USS New Jersey -- a mothballed battleship not a swing state -- using it as a metaphor for a mothballed Joe Biden. And so to bed...
Hang on. Arizona has no coastline. How do you get a fifty thousand ton battleship there? Have they turned the Rio Grande into the Kiel Canal? Jimjams off, telly back on. Oh, they'd cut to Washington without telling us. Telly off, jimjams on.
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Grant

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Newsnight tonight.
Someone died because of turbulence on a flight so Newsnight is leading with an article about it.
Apparently it's increasing because of, you've guessed it, global warming.
Two have now died on scheduled flights in the last 27 years.
Meanwhile six people a year in Britain are killed by cows
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Wile E. Coyote
In: Arizona
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Grant wrote: |
Meanwhile six people a year in Britain are killed by cows |
I don't know what the answer is. Tragically another two died at our local Romsey and Ringwood rodeo.
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Mick Harper
Site Admin

In: London
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I was struck with why they were leading with a tuppenny-happeny air death. However we all learned that death-by-turbulence is a one-in-a-decade event (worth knowing) and that turbulence itself is increasing because of global warming (worth knowing). That just about earned its place in the schedule.
Weirder--but just as typically--they had an item on what the latest economic figures presaged for Sonny Jim and his election prospects. Why they can't wait a day for the actual figures to come out when they will be saying all the same things over again, is a mystery of scheduling. Something slightly similar occurred with the What-Will Post Office Paula Say Tomorrow. Let's wait and see I would tell the Newsnight editor.
The whole of Newsnight is due for a shake-up next week, and not before time on this form, but I won't go on about it until I've waited and seen.
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Mick Harper
Site Admin

In: London
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Dispatches: The Truth about Temu (Channel 4)
We settled down for a razoring of the world's second biggest shopping app. [I'm assuming this Chinese Amazon isn't bigger than Amazon.] We weren't disappointed, a baby holder dumped a baby on the ground--or anyway a bag of sand that was standing in. Then...
That was it really. A whole bunch of stuff about regulatory infractions but no more babies dumped. Thanks, Dispatches, I'd never heard of this outfit but I'm signing up pronto. Ten million Brits have got there before me so if this is all you've got there's safety in numbers.
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Mick Harper
Site Admin

In: London
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They've Got My Number (as usual)
From: [email protected] Fri, 31 May at 10:05
What's next, Michael? Finished My Sexual Abuse: The Sitcom? Here are some shows we've chosen just for you.
Katie Price: Trauma and Me: Katie Price speaks candidly about her mental health and diagnosis of PTSD
Spacey Unmasked: People go on the record about their experiences with Hollywood actor Kevin Spacey
A Paedophile in My Family: Surviving Dad: A successful businesswoman and mum confronts a childhood of sexual abuse by her dad
Jeremy Kyle Show: Death on Daytime: The inside story on the scandal behind the hit TV series
Let's Talk: Child Sexual Abuse: Comedian Jonny Pelham examines how we deal with child sexual abuse in the UK |
You scarcely have time to do it for real these days.
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Mick Harper
Site Admin

In: London
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Michael Moseley is someone I listen to regularly on the radio, mainly because of his Just One Thing when he recommends something or other you can do fairly easily for health reasons. I have taken up at least one of his suggestions, the intermittent fast.
But news of his disappearance on a Greek island is worrying. If it is suicide--which I suspect it will turn out to be--perhaps I should give up intermittent fasting at least. On the other hand it was 35 degrees so maybe not. Let's hope not all round, something of a national adornment.
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Mick Harper
Site Admin

In: London
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They are preparing to ditch Newsnight. This new format is so threadbare it will be consigned to the scrapheap with few regrets within the year. This is more than a late-nite rejig, it calls into question the whole nature and purpose of the BBC.
* It cannot compete with the streaming services for the big ticket items
* It cannot compete with the cable channels on the fluffy stuff
* It cannot compete with anyone for sport
* It will have to compete with ITV, Channel 4 and 5 to divvy up the terrestrial immediacy material
So if it's not even going to be in the high end current affairs strand, what's left?
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Hatty
Site Admin

In: Berkshire
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The BBC could try to emulate Al-Jazeera's Inside Story, with a presenter talking via Zoom or similar to three guests on a topical subject. But they'd need to find people to present such a programme as the ablest contributors to Newsnight left long ago.
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Mick Harper
Site Admin

In: London
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There's also the question of rounding up some decent guests. The BBC's habit of relying on academics, ex-diplomats, old soldiers and moderate liberals (or swivel-eyed non-liberals) means I currently fast forward through them. And now, there's not much else.
My rule of thumb is, if you know what they are going to say, leave them in the filofax.
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Wile E. Coyote
In: Arizona
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Folks have been deserting Newsnight for years, there was simply no incentive for top politicians to go on, after it became clear the presenters (Paxo being a prime example) saw it as a golden chance to conduct gotcha interviews. Politicians were invited on to defend their record, and the BBC had an incredible total of 60 dedicated staff to show that they were either total bastards or idiots. Net result: no top politicians going on Newsnight. So the audience drops.
It makes no sense to have 60 dedicated staff producing a programme now watched by just 300K. So the BEEB cut the staff numbers. As anyone would.
It is self inflicted.
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