Category Archives: Television

Christmas TV

Posted on by

Well that’s the birthday meal over with and it went down well with all five of us. Especially the Kinloch Castle Tomato Soup the recipe for which reached me in a convoluted way – via Peggy Ann’s Post, somewhere in the US but I’m not sure where exactly, maybe the Appalachians. Anyway thanks for the recipe Peggy, I’ll be making that soup regularly I’m sure. Don’t you just love the internet! Peggy is the only person I’ve ‘met’ who reads George MacDonald’s books, there don’t seem to be many of us about nowadays.

I haven’t had much time for watching TV at all but I did manage to watch all of The Young Victoria a couple of nights ago and I did enjoy it apart from the bit where Albert jumps in front of a bullet aimed at Victoria. There were quite a few attempts on Victoria’s life over the years but why add details which are just untrue. Then I saw that it had been written by Julian Fellowes, that man just can’t stop himself from embroidering history. Between Fellowes and Philippa Gregory the kids of Britain will be convinced of historical ‘facts’ which are just historical nonsense.

As usual the Christmas TV seems to be pretty dire. The one thing I hope to be able to watch is The Borrowers which is on on Boxing Day because I don’t think I’ve ever seen it from beginning to end, I loved the books by Mary Norton even although I didn’t read them until I was an adult.

Is there anything good on TV which you are looking forward to watching?

New Carpet

Posted on by

carpet and boots

I had wanted to do a before and after photo of the dining-room but it wasn’t to be. So here’s a photo of the new carpet which as you can see is a sort of oatmeal colour and has a slightly textured pattern on it which you can’t really see here. The carpet fitter was absolutely brilliant at his job – how often can you say that – and I’m really pleased with it especially as it won’t show up the crumbs so much! The old carpet was charcoal grey, a big mistake as it showed up every speck.

The boots are new too, I bought them when we were in England recently. My legs are normally covered up, this is a rare outing for them. My Dad always commented that he didn’t know I had legs whenever they got an airing! I’m not a shoe person at all, in fact I view shoes as objects of torture because I’m always bleeding from my heels and blistered so I tend to avoid them and wear clogs and flat boots all the time and then my feet are fine. I couldn’t walk in high heels to save my life. As a kid I dreaded the start of the new school term and new shoes. Those Clarks shoes were agony, I might as well have worn biscuit tins!

I haven’t been able to blog or visit blogs much for the last few days as I’ve been doing so much running around and trying to finish off things in the house before everyone gets here. So tomorrow I just have to bake the birthday boy’s cake and make the birthday meal – and then it’s Christmas! I hope your Christmas plans are on schedule.

I usually do a wee Winter Solstice blogpost, but not this year as I was so busy. The 21st here was indeed the darkest most dismal day and I could’ve been doing with a party then to cheer me up . It was one of those days when you needed a lamp on all the time – positively dreich. I’m so looking forward to having more light soon.

In Scotland we’re being encouraged to dose ourselves up with vitamin D, the easiest way is to take cod liver oil (yeugh). Apparently it’s the lack of sunlight here which gives us the highest rates of MS in the world. I’m going to be making my way to the health food shop soon and on that cheery note – cheerio.

If you’re in need of a bit of a laugh at the moment, give yourself a treat and watch good old Dick Emery. If I wore high heels I would walk like the ‘charming young lady’!

Dorothy Paul – Scottish Comedienne and Actress

Posted on by

I completely forgot to watch the most recent episode of Kirstie Allsopp’s Homemade Britain programme so I thought I’d watch it on the Channel 4 playback thingy. Then it wouldn’t work so I wandered off elsewhere in the internet and somehow, don’t ask me how, I ended up on classic Scottish TV where I found a bit of a Dorothy Paul show which we went to see when she took it to the provinces about 20 years ago or so.

Dorothy Paul is a Scottish comedienne who is really talented and deserves to be better known than she is. Anyway, here she is playing the part of a cleaner in the Pavilion Theatre in Glasgow, it’s one of those things which has Scottish ‘celebrities’ in the audience. I find it quite annoying that they feel the need to show the audience laughing all the time.

This is just a small part of the show and she’s really just getting warmed up here but it’s funny all the same – if you can understand what she’s saying!

http://youtu.be/mNHLO6krOdY

I did eventually get to see the latest episode of Handmade Britain and then discovered that it was being repeated today anyway.

Downton Abbey

Posted on by

I missed the first ever episode of Downton Abbey and for some reason I never managed to watch that series so when ITV repeated it all before the second series was broadcasted I took the opportunity to watch it.

I love period costume dramas and I’ve seen just about all of them, the first one I remember is the 1960s black and white BBC version of The Forsyte Saga, I must only have been about nine years old then. I’m thinking that possibly I’ve got to saturation point with them because although I’ve watched Downton Abbey I haven’t been as enthralled by it as everybody else seems to be. I know – it’s tantamount to blasphemy in some circles to say something like that.

I don’t want to say too much about the details because I know that people in other countries haven’t seen the second series yet. Suffice to say that Jack and I have laughed at bits of it which have been shudderingly cheesy. It is predictable and the writing is really not very good. I was particularly annoyed when those famous words uttered by the dreadfully snobbish but vulgar MP Alan Clark, about the sort of people who had to buy their own furniture, were put into one character’s mouth.

I think the writing is embarrassingly lazy and this has turned Downton Abbey into something of a comedy for me. I wonder what I’ll think about the next costume drama which comes along!

The Great British Bake Off

Posted on by

I was having a look at You Tube – as you do – I was hoping that there was a clip from STVs The Hour programme of the Scottish author Gordon Ferris, but no such luck. It was Judith (Reader in the Wilderness) who alerted me to his existence, he’s a crime writer and his books are set in Glasgow. I’m going to try them out in the hope that he manages to capture the great character of my birthplace. I read just one book by Denise Mina and I was disappointed with it because she failed completely on the Glasgow front, but maybe that’s only noticeable if you know the city.

Anyway, back to You Tube, I noticed that there are some videos of The Great British Bake Off on it. I never watch any of these reality/competition things, Big Brother and ‘Strictly’ type things just don’t appeal to me. But I must admit that I started watching the Bake Off, well the first one was on in the background when I was on my Netbook and I kind of got dragged in.

At first I was amazed that some of the contestants had been daft enough to bring in shop bought things to add to their celebration cakes. It’s the sort of thing we all do for kids cakes but surely not in a competition! Then I was less than impressed that they all seemed to make their pastry in machines and some of them had never made pastry before. Machine made pastry was not a success. My boys got cookery lessons at school, including hand-made pastry and there was still time for all the academic stuff.

Mind you when they got to the bread making bit I was full of admiration because the couple of times that I’ve tried to bake bread have been disastrous. I couldn’t even have put the results out for the birds because the RSPB would have done me for cruelty! My bread was so heavy the only possible uses for it would have been as doorstops or even anchors.

Anyway if you’re interested in baking, or just looking at food you might like to have a wee keek! They’re starting off with cup/fairy cakes. Kids stuff!

On the Gordon Ferris front – all of his books are out in my local library so he’s obviously popular, I might have to put in some requests.

Flambards

Posted on by
Flambards cover

I loved the TV adaptation of K.M.Peyton‘s Flambards which I watched way back in 1979. It doesn’t seem to have been repeated since then. Anyway for some reason Flambards popped into my head just before I went to a local library book sale earlier in the year and I was quite amazed to see a copy of the first book in the series sitting unloved and unwanted in the children’s section. It was still there at the end so I decided that it must have been meant for me and I bought it. It was first published in 1967 and the Flambards quartet was the runner-up for the Carnegie Medal.

The story begins in 1908 and Christina who is an orphan has been sent to live at Flambards, the home of her widowed uncle. He has two sons the eldest being Mark who is arrogant and selfish like his father and they are both obsessed with horses and fox-hunting. I know, the unspeakable in pursuit of the uneatable. Christina’s uncle is an invalid and unable to walk and ride due to a riding accident and they are obviously a lot poorer than they used to be. It’s supposed that he plans to get Christina to marry his son and heir Mark so that they can get their hands on Christina’s money when she comes of age. The younger son Will is completely different from his brother, he has no interest in horses. Machinery is his obsession and in particular, flying machines!

Will is bullied and beaten by his father because he isn’t the sort of son that he wants and a close friendship grows between Christina and her cousin Will, despite the fact that Christina has caught the horse obsession.

There’s a lot of horsey stuff in the shape of hunting and point-to-points so this series is bound to be of interest to the many girls around who are into horse riding. I never was but my schoolfriends Vivian and Lorna just lived for horses.

This book takes us up to 1912 so there isn’t much about flying in it but I’m going to be seeking out the other three books in this series which, if they’re anything like the TV series will feature the estate of Flambards as a First World War flying base.

Hampton Court Palace Flower Show

Posted on by

I had really been looking forward to this show but I don’t know what happened. I completely missed it on TV. I think it was on too early for me as I tend not to watch anything in the early evening during summer.

Anyway, luckily you can watch it on the internet nowadays so I’ve been trying to catch up with it.

Take a look here, if you are interested in gardens and plants.

The Barchester Chronicles

Posted on by

I was lucky enough to be given the DVD’s of The Barchester Chronicles as a Christmas present and I’ve just finished viewing it all. I think this was one of the few classic book adaptations which I saw on television before I had read the books, so I had no idea if the BBC had done a good job or not.

I just knew that I really enjoyed the series, well you can’t go far wrong with such a brilliant cast I suppose. It was the first time that I remember seeing Alan Rickman in anything and he made a wonderful job of portraying the ghastly Obadiah Slope. Barbara Flynn looks so young too, it was made in 1988, which I can hardly believe.

Donald Pleasence, Nigel Hawthorne, Geraldine McEwan,Susan Hampshire and Clive Swift are the main players.

The series is based on the novels The Warden and Barchester Towers, by Anthony Trollope. A newspaper sets out to rid the Church of England of nepotism, using a young local doctor to spearhead the campaign. The reverend Harding, who is well-loved in the local community is targeted by the newspaper and his name is dragged through the press. At times of great stress, Mr Harding (who is in charge of the church music) plays the air cello whilst he is in mid verbal flow. I thought this was a great way of showing how emotional he became and I was pleased to discover that it is in the books.

When the old bishop dies, he is replaced by Bishop Proudie (Clive Swift) and his wife (Geraldine McEwan), with Mrs. Proudie very much the one wearing the bishop’s hat. I think that this might be quite a common occurrence as at the time the series was first aired they were exactly like a certain bishop and wife couple of our acquaintance with a diocese in the west of Scotland.

Throw in Alan Rickman as Obadiah Slope, Mrs. Proudie’s sleazy side-kick and you have a very entertaining series. Don’t be put off by the ecclesiastical ambience of the whole thing.

Trollope seems to have had as much fun with names as Dickens did. One character is called Sir Omicron Pie and there is a Sir Lamda Mewnew, both doctors to the bishop.

It’s a good long while since I read the books but viewing the series again has whetted my appetite so I’m hoping that I enjoy them as much as I did after watching the series the first time.

Delia versus Nigella.

Posted on by

I watched Delia on T.V. during the week and it was just like coming home after a horrendous day out. There’s something so comforting about her, especially the Christmas programmes. Yes, I know that this was going to be a Christmas Free Zone – but we’re in December now so I suppose I should try to get into the spirit of it all.

Delia did go a bit weird at one point and started showing us how to make toast and such like and the tinned mince and frozen potatoes stuff was just horrible, but she seems to be back into normal mode now.

The great thing about Delia is that the recipes are so well researched that they always work, nothing is left to chance. I know that she has a team of people to help with this, it isn’t just Delia. The thing is that the recipes are obviously meant to be tried out at home, that’s the whole reason for doing the programmes. She tells you exactly how to do things and the correct times and temperatures, which is what you need.

It’s nice to see her walking with her husband in his Norwich City scarf too, and I suppose if you are into cats then you’ll be keen on that aspect of it. I wouldn’t mind cats if they stuck to their own gardens.

Nigella on the other hand is a different entity altogether. I watched her programme yesterday morning and yes the whole thing did look luscious but – she doesn’t go into the details of anything. It’s as if the whole thing was just a puff for Nigella and we just aren’t expected to actually want to cook any of the food.

The soup would be easy to replicate I’m sure. Well you can’t go far wrong with soup, but the pudding with the wonderful name of Girdlebuster Pie was the sort of thing that you need to know all the proper weights of the ingredients to get the correct consistency.

Nigella said, “Put some digestive biscuits, chocolate and unsalted butter into your food processor,” – and that was it.

Apparently the Girdlebuster Pie was a staple of American diners in the 1950s and it looked so delicious that I was determined to get the recipe. It wasn’t on the BBC website but my husband managed to track it down for me on The Daily Mail website.

So it seems to me that Nigella is just all about how everything looks. It’s Nigella as the soft porn and the food is her supporting act of pure hard core.

I suppose it’s aimed at men but really the lingering looks and flirtatiousness are taken to such lengths that it has just become laughable. She moves her head very strangely and it was making me feel quite sea-sick. She reminded me of a dusky Lady Penelope from The Thunderbirds. The head movements are just the same but Lady Penelope has an excuse for it – being a string puppet.

So all in all, I think that Delia wins hands down with her home cooking ways. I’m going to have to try that Girdlebuster Pie though. I think I’ll make it for my husband’s birthday cake. He is one of those poor souls who was born on the 24th December. I’ll post a photo of it then.

Scottish Words

Posted on by

I think that the various countries and regions that make up Britain all have dialect words of their own which are in danger of being lost.

My son’s partner comes from Rochdale and the only word which she knows from that area is ‘crockle’ – which apparently means to go over on your ankle. I really like it, but it isn’t a word which you can use very often, unless you’re unlucky enough to have very weak ankles.

I’ve noticed recently that quite a few Scottish words have found their way into mainstream British vocabulary. The words manky and minging spring to mind and I think that possibly we have Justin and Colin to thank for those ones being taken up by the rest of the country. At first my attitude was — they’re nicking our culture, but I’ve decided that it is a better option than the alternative, which is losing the words altogether.

Scottish dialect words tend to be looked down upon by the so called ‘middle classes’, I think they are seen as being ‘common’, and we can’t have that can we? So quite a lot of words have been in danger of dying out, which would be a real shame.

To combat this I’m starting a series of weekly blog posts featuring one Scottish word each week.

This week’s word is – scunnered.

Scunnered means that you are sick fed up with something or someone, you are totally disgusted to the point of feeling ill.
In the childrens T.V. programme Supergran there was a character called Skunner Campbell, slightly different spelling but he had the name because he was a dastardly character whom Supergran was absolutely scunnered with.

I am scunnered with the government because they seem to be letting the bankers away with everything and won’t step in to stop them from giving themselves massive bonuses.

So you get the general idea of scunnered, I’m sure. Use it – don’t lose it.