Category Archives: Television

TV – a great new season – so far

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There have been times fairly recently when I thought I had really fallen out of love with television as I never seemed to bother to watch most of the new things which were being broadcast. I gave up on Downton Abbey because of the greed of ITV which meant that there were more commercials being screened during Downton time than actual Downton Abbey. It put me right off commercial TV altogether.

I’ve always enjoyed watching The Bake Off. I’m not a big fan of Paul Hollywood, I don’t find him objectionable though, I am quite a fan of Mary Berry however, since watching her on a TV cookery programme which was on in the afternoons in the 1970s. It was partly her old-fashioned oh so proper Englishness (but not snooty) which I liked, but now I like her for being so positive and determined to try to say something good about some aspect of the contestants’ efforts. I’ve come to realise that in life one of the most important things is to be kind, or at least not to be vicious, some people seem to think that that’s entertainment, pulling someone’s best efforts apart, but it’s not my idea of comfy viewing.

The Bake Off is the only thing of that sort which I’ve watched. I’ve never seen ‘Strictly’ or any of those jungle/island/Big Brother things, frankly I’d rather do just about anything else. I sometimes feel a bit odd, not quite part of society as all these types of programmes feature so highly in day to day living, but I don’t even recognise most of the names of the people involved in them.

So I was watching very little of ‘new’ TV and was almost always watching re-runs of old programmes if anything at all, but I’ve been drawn into new things this season and really enjoying them, despite sometimes being quite determined not to like them. The programme which comes under that category is Cradle to Grave which is apparently about the teenage years of the DJ/entertainer Danny Baker, never a favourite of mine, but it has been a really nostalgic step back into the 1970s for me, the time when I was a teenager too.

Doctor Foster was well trailed as a must view so I gave it a go, mainly because I really like the actress Suranne Jones, and I’ve not been disappointed although I just have to shout advice at her on screen, she’s not taking any of it though!

The new series of Doctor Who is fab, Missy played by Michelle Gomez is wonderful and I’m warming to Peter Capaldi as the Doctor. I love it when they both start speaking in their normal Scottish accents, but David Tennant will always be my favourite Doctor.

I’ve been enjoying watching Boy Meets Girl which is about a young chap who happens to start dating a transgender woman/man. It’s funny and very well acted, with an actual transgender person acting in it. It’s very brave apparently for the BBC to take on this subject, brave it might be but it’s definitely entertaining.

Countdown to Life: The Extraordinary Making of You is a series about how foetuses develop and what happens when the development goes wrong, fascinating for the science and the people involved who have gone bit wonky in the womb but it hasn’t got them down.

I see that on Wednesday there’s a new Simon Schama series – The Face of Britain which looks like it’ll be interesting. There’s a book to go with the series and you can read the Guardian review of it here.

On Thursday BBC 4 there’s Oak Tree: Nature’s Greatest Survivor, a year in the life of an oak tree.

On Friday BBC 1 – The Kennedys has been tipped by the Guardian as a pick of the day. The setting is again the 1970s, so I think it’ll be another nostalgia trip.

It looks like I’ll be doing nothing but watching the telly, but I promise you I’m still getting plenty of reading in, just don’t look at the state of my house!

Have you been watching anything good on TV recently?

Rumpole a La Carte

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Rumpole a La Carte by John Mortimer is a collection of six short stories featuring of course Rumpole barrister-at-law and his wife Hilda, more often known as She Who Must Be Obeyed. I think most, if not all of these stories have been dramatised for TV and I loved them when they were on during the 1980s. They were/are very faithful to the stories and I think that they were very well cast. Hilda fondly refers to Rumpole as being a character but the Law Chambers is full of odd characters.

John Mortimer was himself a barrister and he wrote with wit about what he knew – the BEnglish justice system and the people who frequent it.

Have a peek at the You Tube Rumpole episode below. It’s preceded by a clip of John Mortimer talking about his creation.

The Debate and – call me Dave

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The photo below is one which appeared on the front page of the Guardian the day after the much debated debate took place. As soon as I saw it I said to Jack ‘That man still has his hand in his pocket!’ It could have been worse, it’s usually both hands which ‘call me Dave’ has hidden away. I dread to think what they’re doing.

This seems to be what they learn at Eton, along with it being acceptable to walk around dressed as a Nazi – a la Prince Harry. To me it all looks like the height of arrogance, and to be fair, that is probably what people do send their offspring to posh private schools for – cultivating an air of superiority. It doesn’t go down at all well with me though.

aDave's hand

So I was really happy when I got to Steve Bell’s Guardian cartoon to see that he obviously had the same feeling about the photo as I did, as you can see below, he should have kept to the usual hand in pocket stance though.

Elsewhere on the internet, there’s a wee girl who thinks Cameron looks like this Thomas the Tank engine train, who apprently goes under the name of Spencer the silver express. I sort of see what she means.

We’ve got over a month to go of all this shenanigans, I’m going to attempt to keep myself sane by having a laugh!

Top Gear: Not Top Bloke

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I must admit that I gave up watching Top Gear about a lifetime ago, in recent years I’ve only seen bits of it when I’ve been flicking to something more interesting.

So it has been something of a mystery to me that the carrying on of those three chaps makes headlines from time to time, with their disciples grumbling when the bad behaviour goes over the top in case they get the sack.

Surely though it’s obvious to everyone that the latest nonsense happened because they were about to negotiate new contracts with the BBC. Obviously the fact that the programme is sold all over the world makes a lot of money for the BBC and those three presenters probably felt that they should be getting paid more than they were.

I know I’m a cynic but surely everyone realises that the whole fracas was orchestrated with the intention of getting away from the BBC and on to pastures new which have much more lucrative remunerations.

Stand by for those three chaps appearing on Sky or some other commercial station, on a programme with much the same premise as Top Gear, but the name of – Vrooming Brilliant or something similar, fill in your own idea for the new name!

The whole thing reminds me of those people who want to get out of a relationship but don’t have the guts to dump their partner because they don’t want to be perceived as being nasty. So they behave badly until their partner eventually dumps them. Result! they shout as they skip off footloose and fancy free, claiming to have been badly treated by their ex-partner.

Those Top Gear guys just don’t want to be seen as being greedy by their fans, who might not be able to afford to see them on whatever commercial platform picks them up. If you want to know what fuels Jeremy Clarkson, his raison d’etre, just have a look at his appearance on Who Do You Think You Are? that programme which looks back at family trees. The only thing which he was interested in was – where’s the money!

Poldark and the burglar alarm

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I know that some fans of the original Poldark series have decided to give the new adaptation a complete swerve, but I decided to watch it for the glimpses of Cornwall, more than anything else. It’s a 600 mile journey from Fife, so it’s not handy for me. I’ve only had one holiday in Cornwall, and it rained most of the time! But I do love it there, especially that green colour of the edges of the sea which I’ve never seen anywhere else. And I have spied that green shade in the background in quite a few scenes.

Poldark - BBC adaptation showing burglar alarm

But I must admit that I’m mainly watching the new Poldark for nit-picking purposes because I loved the first series so much I didn’t think it could be improved. So I have been sitting grumbling about the gangliness of the new Demelza who is about the same height as Ross and the foppishness of George Warleggan who was supposed to be rather rough looking as befitted his more plebeian antecedents and who was so well played by the sadly now late Ralph Bates. Ralph Bates as George Warleggan

George Warleggan and Ross Poldark were forever having fights of the fisticuffs variety and the new Warleggan looks like he couldn’t fight his way out of a wet paper bag.

I live in hope of this series getting better but I somehow doubt it will as they have made such glaring mistakes as having a burglar alarm in full view on a building, as can be seen in the first photo above. Oh dearie me!

The Guardian Review

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I’ve been so busy over the weekend and yesterday that it wasn’t until this morning that I had time to sit down and read Saturday’s Guardian review. I thought I would share a few of my favourite articles, just in case you haven’t seen them.

Perfect Wives in Ideal Homes: The Story of Women in the 1950s by Virginia Nicholson was reviewed by Tessa Hadley here.

Top turrets. Gothic or fairytale castles are everywhere in fiction. Jessamy Taylor chooses 10 favourite fortresses. You can read it here. My favourite real Castle is Stirling Castle but I’ll have to think about fictional ones.

There’s a new exhibition on at the V&A of Alexander McQueen’s designs. You can read about it here. I’d love to go to London to visit several exhibitions but the thought of actually staying in London is more than I can contemplate, oh for that beam me back to my own bed at night gadget!

And finally, Poldark by Patrick Gale which you can read here.

I managed to watch Poldark yesterday on the iplayer. I’m one who loved the original series and then adored the books and I wasn’t impressed with the new choice of actor to play the part of Ross Poldark, nor did I think that the choice of the new Demelza was up to much, for one thing she’s far too tall, just not waif-like as she should be. I’m usually a big fan of Phil Davis of (shake me up Judy fame) but for me he doesn’t cut it as Judd, he and Prudie are far too clean looking, you could just about smell the original Judd through the TV, and the Phil Davis grumbling isn’t a patch on the original. I also don’t think they’re being historically accurate as a lot of folding paper money was being waved about, but I’m sure that the story begins before paper money was introduced, Winston Graham made a point of writing about that in one of the books.

I’ll continue to watch it though, because I love Cornwall, but I’m not even sure about that, I don’t think that all of the filming was done in Cornwall, which is a shame as the buildings there are so like Scottish buildings, grey and solid stone. Buildings in Gloucestershire and Wiltshire are just not going to look right. I’ve no doubt though that there’ll be a whole new generation of fans, many of whom will name their first son Ross – just as before.

Geraldine McEwan

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Sadly the actress Geraldine McEwan died on Friday, aged 82. There are some photos from her past here. You can read her Guardian obituary here and an article by the Guardian’s theatre critic <ichael Billington here.

She first came to my notice when she played the part of Miss Jean Brodie on TV and as far as I was concerned she got that Edinburgh accent perfectly, although someone from Edinburgh might not agree with me.

Reading those articles about her, I realise that there were so many things which she acted in on TV, but I never saw for some reason, so it looks like I’ll still have a lot of viewing to catch up on.

I’m sure it was her portrayal of Mrs Proudie in Anthony Trollope’s Barchester books which started me off reading Trollope, and I’m grateful to her for that as I love his books.

I had always wondered why Geraldine McEwan’s talents hadn’t been recognised officially, by means of a damehood, but it would seem that she was probably offered one and turned it down. That just makes me admire her even more.

If you’re interested you can watch the whole of the Barchester Chronicles on You Tube – with Spanish subtitles!

Mapp and Lucia 2014

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It seems like a long time ago now but what did you think of the new version of Mapp and Lucia which was on the BBC at Christmas? I was sort of half dreading watching it as I’m a big fan of E.F. Benson’s books and I adored the Channel 4 series of Mapp and Lucia which starred Geraldine McEwan and Prunella Scales as well as lots of other great actors. In the end of course I did watch the new version, to be honest there wasn’t much on TV over the holidays anyway, it was even worse than usual I think.

There were only three parts in the series and I can see that there is loads of scope for more parts to come, I suppose they were waiting to see how popular it would be. It was definitely entertaining but I couldn’t stop myself from comparing everything with the earlier series.

I suppose you could say that the Geraldine McEwan version was just a wee bit over the top, but I think that that is exactly how Mapp and Lucia should be played. The costumes in the new version weren’t as sumptuous as those of the Channel 4 series, those ones were a real treat for the eyes and the detail was wonderful, not only with the clothes but the handbags, hats and jewellery too, especially Lucia’s. Georgie in the new series is just not dapper enough, nor finicky and camp enough. ‘Quaint’ Irene has been turned into a make-up wearing masculine woman whereas she should be a tomboy of a girl who has somehow got stuck at the schoolgirl crush stage of life which some females seem to have experienced.

You can read about the making of the recent series here.

There’s a snippet from the McEwan series below and you can see some complete episodes on You Tube if you’re interested.

New Summerhouse and a Verbal Ramble

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I’ve had a totally inadvertent break from blogging for a few days, due to being busy with house, garden and family, not necessarily in that order and also I must admit a slight aversion to doing anything on the computer at all, which I think happens to a lot of us from time to time. Anyway, the blogposts are backing up even although I’m way behind on my Goodreads challenge, but I’m not worried about that because I’ll catch up during the long days of winter.

summerhouse (gazebo)

We took delivery of our new summerhouse or gazebo as the company we bought it from calls it and in no time they had built it completely. There was a bit of confusion as I thought it was going to be rectangular but it turned out to be hexagonal. I’ve decided that I like it though and we are going to line the inside with tongue and groove wood as we did to our old one which we left at our old garden. It makes a big difference when it’s done, I won’t be moving any furniture or books into it until that is completed.

Whilst I was giving the windows a bit of a clean I heard a chattering and screeching noise coming from next door. It turned out to be an altercation between a crow and a grey squirrel. The crow was obviously taking exception to the squirrel sitting on top of a nearby roof. That squirrel wasn’t for moving though, it was enjoying playing king of the castle too much and it stayed there for ages after the crow had flown off. Amazingly a lovely wee red squirrel ran in front of us one day last week as we were walking in Balbirnie woods so they must be making a comeback, they’re much nicer than the grey ones.

grey squirrel

Otherwise I haven’t been up to much. I watched some of Wimbledon but I was sadly disappointed when Andy Murray was knocked out so early on. I’ve seen some of the World Cup although I’m not a great football fan, I generally just watch the penalty shoot outs. Jack has been fairly glued to the screen and has only missed two of the games I think. I’ve seen hardly anything that I intended to watch on TV but I did catch Montalbano last night, it’s good from an armchair traveller’s point of view, I get to see some of Sicily and there’s some murder and comedy to enjoy too. Have you been watching anything on TV which I should give a go on catchup?

Antiques Fair at Ingliston

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Today we went to the antiques fair at Ingliston, Edinburgh. It was really busy, probably because they only have four of them in the year now, and there seemed to be lots of people buying, so for once the stall-holders weren’t all moaning about how slow things were.

We were just going to the fair for something to do really, it was a chance to get out of the house and away from all the boxes which are engulfing the place, preparations for our big house move in April are now in full swing.

My favourite stall was there though, so despite the fact that I had told myself and others that I was just going for a mooch around, I ended up buying more art deco things. Two vases, one planter and a large decorative wall plate were purchased from that stall. Then I bought an old jigsaw puzzle, from the 1950s I think, it’s of an old car race. The last thing which I couldn’t say no to was a length of Sanderson fabric, with a design of cute wee houses, trees, park benches, lamp posts and more, very sweet, a bit pinker than I would normally go for and I have no idea what I will make with it.

Anyway, as you can see, they were filming Bargain Hunt while we were there. It’s actually quite annoying when they’re doing that because they seem to get all over the place and block the passageways a lot. However obviously some people are more worried than annoyed about it because apparently there was a notice in the loos saying that if people didn’t wish to appear in the background of the programme then they should go and tell them, and they would make sure they would be edited out!

I never thought of an antiques fair as an illicit trysting place, but it sounds like it might be for some people.