AE on Telly News (NEW CONCEPTS)

[Mick Harper]

At the other end of the social scale, did you know that putting your three hundred grand Ferrari in a secure underground carpark with an immobiliser and one or two other safety devices attached is not enough to keep it safe? Not when balaclavered ruffians armed with machetes turn up in the dead of night. I'm selling mine immediately.

My Ferrari, I mean.

[Mick Harper]

Fare Dodgers: At War with the Law Season 3 (Channel 5)

You know the formula is getting stale when you have to go to Nottingham (where the hell's that?) and feature their trams (what the hell are they?) experiencing problems with schoolkids (who should be travelling free anyway).

But on a technical note: fare dodgers would be well advised not to use too many loopholes in journeys they're undertaking on a daily basis. Even the doziest Revenue Protection Service is going to pick you up eventually if you are (a) double-gating out in the Surrey sticks (b) buying a ticket from Vauxhall for the short hop to Waterloo using (c) a child card when you're in your mid-thirties.

Sure, you're going to save a coupla gees and only get fined a coupla centuries but think what a criminal record will do to your chances of promotion in the Ministry of Justice. 'I wanted to see the problem from both sides, Chief Secretary' is only going to wash once.

[Mick Harper]

The Netflix algorithm is a lot smarter than the Metropolitan Police

[Mick Harper]

[Mick Harper]

E-Economics

You may recall my news about a YouTube Arsenal fan channel that I watch being sold to Gary Neville for 'a million pounds'. Given what YouTube (and sponsors) pay, I found this hard to credit. But hats off to a nobody who is more beguiling than professional.

Last night I learned that my step-niece's husband had, a few years ago, started up a website that made buying tickets for intra-European train travel easy. That was later sold for 'several millions' to SNCF, the nationalised French rail company. Easier to credit but still mildly astonishing. Chapeau to a total hippy.

He's gone into my rolodex for when my own plans to set up an AE channel on YouTube come to fruition. For technical advice, you understand. I wouldn't dream of touching him up for some seed capital.

'Oh, all right then, if you insist, but only forty-nine per cent.'

[Mick Harper]

[Mick Harper]

[Mick Harper]

E-Economics (cont)

It's hard to credit but my e-coincidences continue. I sent the previous post to a mate of mine because I knew his daughter's boyfriend had been busying himself setting up a footballing YouTube channel. I got the latest news of the common-law son-in-law's efforts

[Mick Harper]

The day I was dreading finally arrived

A near-incomprehensible Virgin lady in Bangalore (o.n.o.) bearded me in my den to tell me all my discounts and special offers have run their course and the package I have been enjoying all these years would be costing me £235 a month rather than the £140 I had got used to. (Well, you do, don't you? It's only money.)

We went at it hammer-and-tongs -- her for long periods about things I did not entirely grasp, me saying 'OK' whenever she paused -- until we agreed I could carry on paying £140 for two more years with everything I have at the moment, but only if I allowed her to boost my internet speed from 250 mbps to 500 mbps. Which she thereupon did.

That means having to type these posts twice as fast but in the end I reluctantly yielded to force majeure.

[Mick Harper]

[Mick Harper]

Your Railway Questions Answered

[Mick Harper]

Two of us -- her a driver, me a non-driver -- were watching Motorway Cops: Catching Britain's Speeders. I remarked, "Can you tell me why cars capable of travelling faster than seventy miles an hour are available for sale in Britain? It is illegal to do so, so it appears to me a blatant invitation to break the law.'

She got quite angry about this. I have noticed motorists generally do. Or at least shrug. Since motorists are a de facto majority, I do not anticipate any change in the present situation.

[Mick Harper]

Panorama (BBC-1)

The old warhorse was trying to get some juice out of the bones of 9/11. And they had a British angle to justify it. Despite wasting a quarter of the twenty-five minutes running time on the obligatory victim-porn, the programme makers (it looked a bit glossy to be an in-house production) had compiled some interesting material alleging:

* Saudi embassies and consulates in America gave cover, money and support to the 9/11 conspirators, either wittingly or implicitly or maybe it was gross negligence or maybe there were rogue elements (it was never made quite clear).

* The alleged head honcho of Saudi Intelligence/ West Coast, was thick as thieves with two of the 9/11ers while they were training as pilots in San Diego.

* He went off to London before 9/11, presumably as a routine posting, where he was identified after 9/11 because he had guaranteed the pilots' tenancy agreement at the block of flats where he and the trainee pilots lived.

* Pursuant to an extradition request from the FBI, the Met arrested him, questioned him at Paddington Green for seven days but, because the FBI hadn't provided enough evidence, they had to let him go, whereupon he flew off to Saudi Arabia.

This was all, according to Panorama, because of
(a) The Saudi government being up to its elbows in 9/11 and
(b) President Bush being up to his elbows with the Saudi government.

What it demonstrated was
(c) If you are a Wahabist state with too much money some of it is sure to trickle down to Wahabists you don't approve of and
(d) Texan oil dynasties often have close ties with Saudi Arabian governments.

[Wile E. Coyote]

Ludwig (BBC1)

Ludwig is getting worse with each episode, the main problem are the puzzles, episode 5 was dreadful, the puzzle was that a murder has taken place in a sushi restaurant, with the victim picking poisoned food from a moving conveyer belt. The puzzle for Ludwig was how did the muderer know that the victim would voluntaraily select the poisoned dish from the circulating conveyer belt.

Anyway our supersleuth works out that the murderer has observed all the restaurant goers for 5 months, written his/her observations (of their diverse eating choices) down in code on a napkin, and then left these workings (whoops) at the crime scene.

Cosy crime at its very worst, normally substitutes, intricate over-clever plots, and comedy for believable characters, this series has given up on clever puzzling plots altogether, there is little in the way of comedy, it's a hellish descent into twee.

The good news for Ludwiig fans (there are many) is that it has been recommissioned again.

[Mick Harper]

The problem for intellectuals like us is not the working out of the puzzle -- I probably would, you probably wouldn't -- is that the hour and a half spent on it is out of all proportion.

If this was the mere McGuffin, all well and good, but as you say the bits in between are not judged on their entertainual quality -- say, a rather odd Play for Today -- but on the ingenuity of the puzzle.

My family, to whom I read out your critique, would no doubt have endorsed this view but stopped me halfway through. "Don't tell us, we haven't seen it yet." "You don't watch that bollocks, do you?" "What's it to you, fuckface?" etc.