Recently in Television Category

I made a promise to my Father just before they went on their extended holiday. I promised him that I would record the six subsequent episodes of Spooks as he would miss all of them. I checked last night, and out of five broadcast (the final one being next week) I have managed to record two. WTF? How did I forget? We've watched them all. We haven't missed a single one. How was I so absent-minded? I was asking everyone at work today that I thought was cool enough to watch Spooks whether they had recorded it. No - one seemed to even watch it, let alone record it. Arse was my response each time. Arse.

I've ordered the Series 7 DVD, and I think I'll do him an IOU type thing for Christmas, as well as apologise. Apologise indeed as the DVD isn't released until the end of February. It's annoying because I've put so much credence into this series and not missed an episode, as I truly believe that despite pretty good ratings, it will probably be the last series. Honestly, how many times can you go over similar terrorism-related stories? It's been running for 7 years now, there are only so many times that you can accuse Al-Qaeda, Iran or Russia of launching some kind of nuclear/terrorist attack on Britain. Surely they are running out of potential countries to use as enemies? It'll either come to an end because it has finally run its course and there's nothing left to talk about, or because they'll kill off Harry Pearce. I'd be pretty pissed if they killed off Harry, because he's lovely.

Now I'll spend the next 10 days trying to work out how to deflect my Father's questions about "did you record Spooks for me?" into something like "I'm working on it".

I was going to write so much more. I had it all in my head, and suddenly, it's gone. I was going to bitch about the Mother in Law, having read a newspaper article, but I think I'll leave that for another time.

There's a part of my nature which distresses me. I'm far too capricious. For a while now, I've thought that my attempts at getting a degree would be of great help, and that I really and truly did want to go on and get a PhD. Well, I ruminated over a doctorate, and have done for quite a while. However, I am beginning to wonder if it's just my poor attempt at shunning proper, real-world work for another four years? I have these thoughts that maybe I'll do a PhD, and then become a lecturer or get into publishing or something. You know, the kind of thing that slots nicely into society and what other people think I would be good at or should do. That kind of thing that people on the outside of your life think is perfectly acceptable, and would not only suit you but fulfill your every wish and desire of a job. However, my outer role, that which I portray to everyone else but those closest to me is a million miles from that. I don't want to fit into some predefined slot and idea that others have for me.

My parents never had any 'dreams' for me. They never expected me to go into any kind of job in particular. Perhaps that was because I have always been too fickle and would flit between things readily? I've said many times over many years what I would like to be, but when it has failed to materialise, or I have the realisation that I am not capable, those ideas subside. My parents were sensible in not pushing me, not inflicting their ideas of what they thought was best for me as an adult. Doing that would have been wrong. Selfish perhaps. Instead it is entirely led by me. In fact, my life in general has always been led by me. With two parents who I hardly ever saw because they worked 16 hours per day, of course my life was going to be independent and entirely led by me. It still is. Just because I'm married or in regular contact with my parents does not mean that I desire to fit to anyone's boxes. I am still an independent, almost free spirit in terms of where my learning and work desires lead me.

But then come the doubts. It's when I start to doubt my capabilites in certain skills. Or when I don't enjoy a topic for a while and I start to ponder if that's because I'm crap at it, rather than the subject currently sucks. Or when other people make some glib comment either about me or other people. I start to wonder if they really meant it, if it was a snide attempt at pulling me down a couple of rungs. I'm not the type of person that is outwardly affected by criticism. Inwardly I can be a little bit, but I try to put it down to someone not knowing me well enough. Then I start to doubt that excuse and tell myself that maybe they're right on the money, after all.

It rears its head when someone asks me why I'm doing this degree. I say that I don't know, truly. It is true, I don't really know. I could reel off a list as long as my arm of things that I would like to do. I could then reel off a list as tall as me about why I am not capable of doing any of those things. It would be a list of doubts. We all doubt ourselves. I am sure that I am not the only person in the world whose doubts stop them from doing things that they are more than capable of doing. I don't fear being laughed at - not at all. I fear letting myself down, and that's far worse than being laughed at.

Shakespeare had it so very right when he wrote this in Act 1 of Measure for Measure:

Our doubts are traitors,
And make us lose the good we oft might win
By fearing to attempt.

I looked at Play.com today. Here's a screenshot.

Seems pretty innocuous, right?

Then I noticed this:

Yeah Mr. Ross. At the moment, I bet you are wondering why you say these things.

Right, yes, I said that I would write about this.

On Tuesday 13th May we attended a recording of QI (as it is known to its friends, it is Quite Interesting to everyone else) at The London Studios on the South Bank. And what a cracking night it was.

We turned up approximately three hours before the recording was due to start and joined the queue. That's what the British do best. After a few worries that we weren't going to get into the recording as the line of people with Priority tickets got longer, we were finally admitted around 7pm.

We took our seats. A little while later the warm up comedian came out and warmed us all up. He was quite funny. Then he introduced a man known only as Stephen Fry. The audience, myself included clapped this tall, dark haired, bereted man who stepped out before us. We all clapped for a bloody long time actually, must have been a couple of minutes. He spoke for a little, then commented that he was babbling nonsense and began to introduce the guests. In order of appearance:
Hugh Dennis
Jo Brand
Phil Jupitus
And of course Alan Davies.

This was the point at which we found out that the show was about France and The French. We couldn't have guessed though - they were all wearing Berets and garlands of onions around their necks.

And so the next two hours followed with an almost perfect recording which required no pick-ups or retakes at the end. A rare occurance according to one Mr. Fry.

And you know what, I'm not going to tell you all of the detail because that will spoil the show when it is eventually aired in the Autumn, however I will mention a couple of things that I believe will not make the final cut. We were after all warned by the warm up comic (a one Mr. Stephen Grant) that most of what we would see would not even make the DVD edit because it would be too dirty or too libellous to broadcast. And when you think about it, out of a two hour recording, they only end up broadcasting a quarter of it.

There was comment made about smoking, which had Jo Brand whipping out...(you and your dirty minds!) her packet of fags (Marlborough menthol I believe) and flaunting them on camera, because of course in Britain there is a smoking ban and we cannot show or talk about these things on television. "Fags! They're fucking lovely!"

There was also comment passed upon Vanessa Feltz and her appetite for "personal trainer cock". Oh yes, far too bad to be broadcast. Her bad fashion sense was also touched upon. Cannot stand the woman myself, so I had a hearty laugh.

However, the best bit, which I can almost guarantee will not be broadcast, and will be very unlikely to be put onto the DVD came from a joke about a rather questionable Japanese sexual practice. I was one of a very small handful of people (probably about 10 in total) in the 500 strong audience that laughed at it. I laughed very loud. The response given by Fry to those members of the audience who laughed very loud was "All of the members of the audience who just laughed at that, leave now". There then followed a conversation amongst the panellists about what it was, or rather Hugh Dennis asked what it was, Fry went to answer and then told him to Google it. Jupitus told him to erase his history afterwards, Davies said he knew a good bit of software that could do that part for him.

All in all it was a bloody funny evening, with five of the greatest comics that Britain has to offer. Each one just had great anecdotes, or in the case of Alan Davies, was funny while messing around, which is what seems to make him so lovely. It firmly cemented in my mind just how funny they all are, and what a lovely, lovely, lovely gentleman Mr. Fry is (it kind of helped that I had seen Stephen Fry: 50 Not Out the previous evening).

I am thoroughly looking forward to seeing the "F" series in its entirety, and particularly this episode on France and The French.

QI, The "F" Series will be shown on BBC Four and BBC Two during the Autumn schedule in 2008. Most likely from the end of September until Christmas.

*Cough*.

I think I'll stop there.

The only reason that I write today is to say that we finally got tickets for QI. Whoop!

It only took two requests (for different dates), one e-mail and two phone calls.

At least it now confirms that the hotel was not booked in vain. While seats in the recording are not guaranteed, if we get there early enough, we hope to get a seat, and therefore we will be happy. Of course have no idea who the three other panelists are. I am quietly hoping that it may be Sessions. Yeah, now that would be great.

All this excitement, and during term time too.

You live dangerously girl.

Oh yes, do not doubt that the weekend just gone was well spent.

What did we do you ask?

On Saturday we had to go out and look for a new fridge as ours has died again. Don't buy Bosch fridges. They're shit. We get the new one on Friday, and that will be our third fridge in less than two years. So fucking much for German engineering.

Then when we returned and we watched Stella Street, Series 1. How wonderful. Actually it was. Had us laughing in the aisles.

Sunday rolled over, as did the clocks - that reminds me, I must reset my Jeeves clock before I go back to work. Yes, Sunday we spent part of in B&Q in Chelmsford, and also in Wyevale now the birds that frequent our garden should be happy with the food that they are particularly fond of.

When we returned we watched Stella Street, Series 2. Hahaha. Haha. Manical laugh there. We're just waiting for the movie to arrive. If it arrives this week we will probably watch it over the weekend.

And today, because one of the clips from Stella Street was so god damn motherfucking good, the Boss requested that I rip it off the DVD and make it available to him to show someone at work. Yes, I started doing that at 9am today. I had finished it by approximately 2pm. The rather long intervals between being able to do things I was writing my latest essay which has to be submitted by Friday. (It's all coming together now, just a few more words to add, and one last read through). I tried so much in terms of software to get this fucking clip that I almost went crazy.

Getting the video off the DVD is fine. I must have tried fifty different pieces of software to convert from .VOB to something that could be used and edited, in my case MPEG. One piece of software that I tried seemed to have worked really well, took its time over it, but seemed okay, then I played the video - it had dropped a few frames per second and was making me feel sick. Not good. I couldn't find anywhere to edit FPS, so that piece of software was rejected. Yes well, once that conversion was done (and I used a rather spiffy piece of software called FX MPEG Writer), I had to cut the clip down to the couple of minutes that I wanted. At this point it was required of me to try another fifty different pieces of software to do that. "Why not just use Windows Movie Maker?" I hear people cry...because I tried that, and for some reason, rather than just leaving the original MPEG video intact, it split it up in approximately thirty seperate pieces, of which eight or nine made up the sketch that I wanted. Towards the end of that sketch the video, in Windows Movie Maker, just stopped for seconds on end for no real reason. I couldn't use that. Crock of shite piece of software.

Eventually I found a bit of software that allowed me to do exactly as I wanted. Fuck me, could it have taken much longer? Honestech Video Editor worked, in fact, FX MPEG Writer and the Honestech Video Editor may just be worth buying the full versions of once the trials expire. Anyway, I got the video ripped, encoded, edited and fully finished ready for viewing. How wonderful. I don't think it has been shown yet, but I do hope that my slight toiling for five or so hours is worth it. News Just In! They found it funny. Thank fuck for that. Maybe one day I'll get it on here.

It's a cracking sketch. Joe Pesci saves Mrs. Huggett from being sent to a retirement home. Utter genius. It's the Pesci laugh that truly cracks me up.

Sorry I don't got no biccies!

It's the Easter weekend and I have done very little other than play PGR4. I feel bad for that. I could have been reading this whole time. I could have finished this latest book. But no, I have been completely mindless and have decided to spend it racing silly cars and attempting to get lots of Achievements which mean nothing because I don't have an xBox Live Account.

The other day I said that we would watch some stuff over the weekend. Not a single thing. Although, while Duncan is out I may just look for the DVD of Stella Street. I'm sure it's on the TV stand - he isn't. It's been years since we watched any of it. In fact, it was only shortly after we met that we watched a little of it, and that was four, yes FOUR years ago. Later this year we will have been engaged for four years and married for two.

I thought it was Sunday today. Just as I thought it was Saturday yesterday and was puzzled as to why the Sky Box wasn't alerting us to CSI:NY starting. I don't really like long bank holiday weekends, they always bother me and throw me out of sync. Plus, we have to find something to do, and as this weekend the weather has been utter, utter shit, we couldn't really go anywhere.

We need a new shower curtain. I must do that right now.

Last Easter we were in New York City. The weather was utterly freezing there, it was snowing and the wind was both strong and cold. While it was like that in NYC, in Britain it was 20 - 25ºC and really warm for Easter. Didn't we hear all about it when we got back. Seems to be a little bit of a reversal this year.

------------------------------------------

I wrote that on Saturday before the Boss returned and I couldn't be arsed to finish it. Therefore, I will now.

It is Tuesday now. The Easter weekend felt as though it dragged on for weeks, four days off work is far too long. Why subject us to that each year?! And because everything is closed you cannot go anywhere or do anything, therefore it's really boring. Also, it snowed on Sunday. Shock horror. On the Sunday we went to his Parents' house for lunch - how exciting. I managed to read about 100 pages of my current book because the conversation was otherwise so riveting. Now I'm roughly 100 pages from the end. Not far to go, but I cannot decide quite what to read next.

On Saturday evening I fished out the Shaun of the Dead DVD and we finally watched it. Now we have about 22,377 other unwatched DVDs to get through. I'm sure one day we will. That is if we can keep ourselves off the bloody xBox for a few hours. Sometimes I wonder if it is unhealthy?

Cracking one here, yes. My Parents have been in Tenerife for the past month or so. They called on Sunday I think and joked that they weren't coming back. Then my Father got a bit more serious sounding and said "No really, we're not coming back until April". Oh okay then, you enjoy your extra two weeks out in the Sun while the rest of us freeze our arses off back in Blighty. It doesn't bother me, but it's a little out of character, especially for my Father who usually has to plan everything to exact military precision. Maybe he's becoming a little softer in his old age?

On Sunday and Monday afternoons we watched the Third Series of Stella Street. Why the third series? It's the only DVD we have. He bought it shortly after he met me, so four years ago and it was the only one available on DVD back then. He has since ordered Series One, Two and the movie. It's inspired. The impressions are very good. I'm quite fond of Al Pacino as well as Jagger and Richards. I personally find that Phil Cornwell and John Sessions are better at it than Jon Culshaw and his gang. I like Sessions, I hadn't really linked him to Whose Line Is It Anyway? or Stella Street when I saw him on QI. Some of the women he plays in Stella Street are a little too lifelike. One old woman, the Boss pointed out had a five o'clock shadow going on. I reminded him that some women that age really do have a five o'clock shadow. What I found quite funny about it, was that despite each episode lasting only 10 - 15 minutes, it fits in more swearing than any other previous comedy. And wooyay, it's returning!

The Boss keeps trying to get me to do voices, because he can do all sorts, and all sorts of accents. About ten years ago when I used to do some shitty acting stuff my voice was far more plyable and I could do more voices/accents. However I appear to have become very English and I just can't shake it off. Impressions and accents are not my forté. However, I can say one line in a South African accent. It's not a terribly politically correct line, however. Since when did I care about such a thing? I'm a misogynist bitch, why would I care?

What else? You know, I cannot be bothered to do any studying/writing of essays today. Mutiny. This week is meant to be a week off, but I would like to get the essay done before next week and before starting the new book, if I can remember where I put it. I cannot even remember what the essay is on. Something to do with globalisation. I can't even remember what TMA number it is. Those four days off seem to have really fucked with my head. I feel as though I have lost a month and that I will never get it back. Not all of it was bad though.

What is on for today then? I got called wonderful today by a lady in payroll that I helped. I wouldn't go as far as to say "Wonderful" though, in fact, nothing of the sort. I suppose I will play PGR4 some more. I will probably watch the following video and try to do the Mick Jagger voice too. Only the bit about the Marshmallows - after all, my Father is called Keith. Maybe I'll try the Keith Richards one too? I'll make an absolute arse of myself I'm sure.