Author Topic: feeding the octopus leaves

sam

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feeding the octopus leaves
« on: May 13, 2008 »
Rupert Murdoch may not actually be the antichrist. That's the best I can say about him.

Recently our freeview digital channels disappeared. Turns out to be leaves interferring with the signal. Nothing we can do about it until autumn; fortunately just in time to watch The Daily Show's coverage of the presidential elections, including Jon Stewart's always welcome skewering of the media. (But no Stephen Colbert? That's just cruel.)

Strictly speaking there is something we can do about it: get a dish. The cheapest option by far would be to have Sky install it, with their "pay once watch forever" freesat scheme.

We can't. It's annoying enough seeing Sky News in public places, like train stations in London. I'm not paying one single p to feed the octopus if I can help it.

sam

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[insert rationalization]
« Reply #1 on: March 05, 2009 »

sam

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Re: feeding the octopus leaves
« Reply #2 on: March 06, 2009 »
My only solace is that the cost of the equipment and installation couldn't have net them much profit. Their cunning plan to hook me on reruns of The Wire on FX will not come to fruition.


sam

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mad men and women
« Reply #3 on: April 10, 2009 »
Fortunately FX is now superfluous to requirements. And the BBC continues to run Mad Men, for my money currently the best thing on the tube.


sam

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bite me
« Reply #4 on: November 28, 2009 »
I've long been a fan of Armando Iannucci productions, the historical problem with them being that they usually run on the noncommercial BBC and there are few lulls for toilet breaks. Thank God for iPlayer and the ability to pause, seeing as my VCR refuses to talk to the skybox.

Lately I've been playing catchup with The Thick of It, featuring Peter Capaldi as the fearsomely spinning Malcolm Tucker. Here he is in the early 80s charmer Local Hero to the left of Peter Riegert:


ouch


His character Oldsen likes bunnies and falls for a marine biologist who could probably beat Malcolm at mud wrestling.

Iannucci describes The Thick of It as

Yes Minister meets Larry Sanders. Whenever I watched Larry Sanders it was very funny, but I also thought that it showed what it must be like doing a chat show in America. It was a sitcom but it didn't feel like one. The characters felt real.

In series 3, episode 5 Malcolm is given an appropriately decorated birthday cake: 



Episode 7 sees Malcolm and Secretary of State for Social Affairs Nicola Murray not very politely discussing candidates to put a public face to a health campaign.

The Beeb has come a long way.

Peacock?

sam

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no angel
« Reply #5 on: January 17, 2010 »
I just discovered Nurse Jackie on BBC2! With Edie Falco! And Paul Schulze! (They meet again, but this time without all that manicotti in the way!) And now I've used up my quota of exclamation marks for the year.


sam

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what YOU want?
« Reply #6 on: February 23, 2010 »


If EastEnders is half as entertaining as this review, I've been missing out.

sam

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Shameless
« Reply #7 on: March 10, 2010 »
An acquired taste, like tripe.
- Patty Croker



Tickets this way for the Chatsworth Express!
Come and watch pikeys making a mess
Of the lives they were given by Him upstairs
And kids, they're convinced, aren't actually theirs.
What sounds on earth could ever replace
Kids needing money? Or wives in yer face?
'Cause this, people reckon - and me included -
Is why pubs and drugs were kindly invented
To calm us all down and stop us going mental
These are Chatsworth Estate's basic essentials.
We are worth every penny for grinding your axes
You shit on our heads, but, you pay the taxes.
Imagine a Britain without Chatsworth buccaneers
Who'll cum on your face for the price of a beer...

Make poverty history! Cheaper drugs now!
Make poverty history! Cheaper drugs now!



Libby to Frank: "You had me at 'I'm a twat'."

sam

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888
« Reply #8 on: April 14, 2010 »
A trio of eights summons subtitles from the British teletextual service, faithfully manned by expert transcriptionists who work for the satisfaction not just of helping the hearing impaired, but of allaying the anxieties of people like me who find that words are all too easily lost in the ether and require an imprint in


sam

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idiot vox
« Reply #9 on: May 14, 2010 »


Post-election edition

Best rebuttal to Do you feel betrayed by the LibDems?, a narrative the media is keen to promote:
"The choice was between 'betrayal' and irrelevance."

Most amusing spectacle:
Confused and indignant flapping all around in answer to the question What would you have had happen given the way the vote went? Runner-up: Who could have possibly imagined that a coalition means that there has to be compromise?

Panelists most deserving of the sweet blessed relief of the TV mute button:
Three-way tie between the Daily Mail's LibLemon sucking Melanie Phillips, Labour wind generator Charles Falconer and New Statesman political editor Mehdi "I admired the LibDems until they actually managed to put themselves in a position to influence policy" Hasan.

Best line of the evening:
Delivered by Michael Heseltine, when asked who should be the next Labour party leader:


sam

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once more into the Alpha Quadrant
« Reply #10 on: July 26, 2010 »
Now on CBS Action, through the wormhole of syndication: Star Trek Deep Space Nine. Sexy Bajoran earrings. Rules of Acquisition. Sis-ko-dic-tion. Odo before he meets Captain Kirk in Boston Legal. Julian Bashir making puppydog eyes at Jadzia and envious of doppelgänger Gaius Baltar for starring in the vastly superior Battlestar Galactica. "Modifying the flight program to compensate for spatial discontinuities." Why do I watch it?


sam

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Little Britain
« Reply #11 on: September 17, 2010 »
This review of The Great Outdoors reminded me of the brilliant but short-lived How Do You Want Me, starring the brilliant but short-lived Charlotte Coleman* married to the brilliant Dylan Moran grumpily coming to terms with inlaws and village life. Also appearing as a love interest from the past is the brill—sorry, the very very good Mark Heap, and other fun to watch actors.



* Whose boyfriend also died young, in a cycling accident

sam

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addictive TV
« Reply #12 on: November 14, 2010 »
I have arrived fashionably late to Breaking Bad, and am now hooked thanks to Amazon/Lovefilm's DVD rental service. Here we see a bit of creative problem solving from season one: what is the best way to secure a former business associate in your basement?



Also works for innocent hostages like Alice Creed.

Co-star Anna Gunn, answering her own question for many viewers:





And then of course there's Weeds: smart, funny, a good source for new music for my ipod -- the whole package.


sam

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shot in the stomach
« Reply #13 on: December 26, 2010 »
A thread about televisual delights and I haven't mentioned Peep Show?



Here's The Dabbler's take on it, because in a Jeremyesque way I'm insufficiently motivated to write my own. In keeping with that theme I've done a minimum of googling to find that link. For the record, my search terms were 'peep show super-ego'.

My subject heading references the episode where Mark and Sophie marry. One of the most unbearable denouements imaginable, this was rerun on Christmas Eve in the delightful British tradition of screening horrifying entertainment for the holidays, e.g. various soap opera disasters, the Men Behaving Badly "tissue" Christmas special of '98, the Queen's Speech, etc.

sam

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Goodnight Betty Friedan
« Reply #14 on: January 08, 2011 »


Every episode of The Waltons, last seen running on a short loop on the True Entertainment channel, starts and ends the same way, with the family conscientiously unpacking Chinese goods and stocking shelves in their hometown Bentonville Arkansas store, then after an honest day's commerce, counting down the register to see if enough profit has been made so that they can give some lucky orphan a trip to Disneyworld a grown up John-Boy plugging the Great Depression, then after a hard day learning lessons in its moral crucible, those members of the family who had benefited the most from the wisdom of the mountain saying goodnight to each other. Thin walls.

Here we see Olivia in a very rare state: uninhibited joy



Having just bought a bike from Ike (who's hard not to like), she practically floats home



into the arms of her tickled family. Only her husband John seems worried, about the impression a freewheeling woman will make on the good townsfolk. Bikespotters: the bike doesn't figure prominently in the story except as a symbol of her apparent restlessness. In the end, Olivia decides that her role as wife and mother is fulfilling enough that cycling is surplus to requirements, and she gives the "contraption" away. We'll have to wait for one of the reunion specials to catch her reading The Feminine Mystique.

sam

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a life more or less ordinary
« Reply #15 on: February 05, 2011 »
I came for the dry wit of Hugh Dennis, I stayed for the improv of Ramona Marquez. Outnumbered is a domestic comedy set in a messy house in west London. It also stars Claire Skinner, who is still handy with a pipe wrench 16 years after Life is Sweet.

then

now

The Christmas special introduced me to The Felice Brothers. See if you can get through that without bang bang banging.

---

I'm also hugely enjoying Charlie Brooker's How TV Ruined Your Life, though it may be necessary to stop watching it while eating dinner for fear of choking and really ruining my life.