Marty Baines is my spirit animal.

 Or why Unforgotten gets autism sort of right. Spoilers ahead for the current season of Unforgotten, if you're watching along, be warned. 

So Unforgotten finished last Monday. A deeply unsatisfying end where the lecturer's daughter killed off her dad because he was a *wifebeater, the gaylord illegal stayed and the Irish bird resigned. Incidentally there is no way in the world the ungrateful SJW kids in her class would have accepted her apology IRL, I know how the left operate, and she would be persona non grata online and a pariah off, look at Graham Lineham and his stance on trans issues for massive bridge burning, psychopathic left wing rage. 

No what I'm really going to say here is that Marty Baines played by Maximilian Fairley is my quintessential good portrayal of Autism, I believe he, like me is a fellow Autist, Checks, yes he is and it's  a hell of a good debut, too. If he doesn't win awards for this I'll be sad.

We see him part of a right leaning Incel forum and  try to deal with social services ,who either don't care of massively overstretched. He gradually loses the plot, not helped by fact he has to care for his mum (Betty from Some Mothers do have 'em). Most shows seem to see us as savants or non verbal, so to see us as we truly are, broken, barely functional but still human. It's a rarity. I know how much I hate chipper sods like the guy from Big Bang theory. Or quirky, childlike personalities as in some movies. Here is someone who speaks for me.

He has unconventional ways, likes to break and enter, is scruffy and is very much isolated. He also has a love of planes and right wing politics. Including believing in absolute bollocks such as the WEF, and other conspiraloon theories. But I've never seen someone approach autism like this. The total no future, no guts no girl, no glory that this disability is. Also the awkwardness of it all, the amount of times I've screwed up in life is unreal, thanks to not being able to read a person. In the end to retreat and family are often your only friends. 

In the end, with his mum in hospital (wouldn't this be Bucklands as its set in Deal / Dover I had an aunty live and work for Bucklands.) and there is the brief carrot of some help on the horizon, social workers and perhaps a way off the pills he's prescribed. 

* I've never actually seen a show where its the woman who's the violent one for once or a mix of the two like my old neighbours were. Especially if alcohol is a major player in the relationship.  Kicking and yelling and beating lumps out of each other. I tell a lie Father Ted for the last one and they put on a front where Ted shows up and resume when he's out of shot. 

CSI Vegas

 This should probably go up at the end of the year with the best and worst, but it won't as Alibi finally have a new CSI, this is a reboot of Crime Scene Investigation AKA CSI Vegas.

Like every new show there is a United Nations of a cast which is really weird. They have a black woman in charge, but its OK she's cool, and the only white guy is pretty sketchy. New coroner is OK and there is a Chinese guy on the team (whatever happened to Archie Kao the film Tech) final member is some English Indian lady, as a Brit I know many of them are more English than the English so her accent throws me a bit.  Finally we get Jorja Fox and William Petersen return as Sara Sidle and Gil Grissom and no one else.

Willows has retired and what ever happened to Greg and Nick we never find out. Its been a few years there must be a few people there from the old show. But it seems to be an all new cast. We don't even get Lindsay Willows as a cop.

The case revolves around a cold case that could turn out to be potentially damaging for a lot of old cases, (Hodges keeping a lock up full of old case data that may or may not be a coverup.) Its not bad and we find out that Jim Brass the coppers cop has retired and has some visual degenerating disease. He also shoots dead some guy who tries to assault him, not bad for a half blind old guy. 

Hope they keep the quality up and don't go down the identity politics route or being total wank such as CSI Cyber. I saw the original ads for this while I was coming off of the Coof so, here's hoping it keeps up its quality.

EDIT. Current episode is based in gaming, women dev is killed and of course they namecheck gamergate.

8 years on and they still can't let it die.

Last ever review of the year.

 Well, I thought I didn't do this, this year. Turns out I did do a preliminary best worst of 2021, and forgot about it halfway through the year. 

Oh and Happy new year, before I forget, and yes I've already put a placeholder best / worst 2022, already.

Best TV.

A Night at the Museum Channel 5.

Looking at my old stomping grounds of the Natural History Museum in South Ken. They preserve a giant squid, clean a dinosaur's bones and talk about the Humming bird exhibit. My favourite remains the Cassowary, which I always made a beeline for.

Delia Derbyshire The Myths and The Legendary Tapes.

You want a good documentary, looking into legendary sound engineer and pioneering Dance music artist. Delia Derbyshire. You want it played (and directed) by Doc Martin's wife from Doc Martin. Caroline Catz.

Seriously this is well thought out, overall. Down to giving Cosey Fanni Tutti from Chris and Cosey full props to remix and rework sounds from the collection. A definite thumbs up.

Worst TV.

Naughty Cats make you LOL. Channel 5.

Do you want click bait style lowest common denominator style garbage that would be considered low tier, even on Youtube. You want Jo Brand looking a bit like Harold Lloyd. You want unfunny commentary. Watch this. But please don't.

Olympics Japan 2020, BBC

The year when everyone stayed home and it was played behind closed doors due to a SARS2 electric boogaloo spike. The Beeb sent Claire Balding and some other bird to round up supposed funny bits to Mario Music. In other words a time to shout BAKAYAROU at the screen over and over till it goes away.

Music.

It seems all I had here then was bad shit from Kiss. but putting the olympic stuff up reminded me, due to rona exploding over there they couldn't do a live thing, that and Cornelius getting cancelled. They replaced it with a good amount of Vidya game themes, full list in that link previous.

Bad.

Commitment issuses Central Cee.

Yet more piss poor rap. I don't hate rap personally but these grime / drill guys aren't bringing their best, and irony of ironies Intergalactic is playing some smacked up Memphis style shit which will knock it out the park. Something about bri'ish rappers being shit.

Riton Friday

Yeah there's a good phone list of people on this but Jesus, remember when Riton used to be good, stuff on Kitsune, and Ed Banger. Looking on you want a version of Push The Feeling on slurred by a bunch of drunk people. There's nothing to redeem this. Nothing.

And I'm done, enjoy 2022. 

Review of the Year Pt2

 This is our annual round up of what was good part and bad in the year, but part 2. Traditionally focusing on all things TV.

The most depressing thing is that there is hardly any good stuff now its all middle of the road crap. If there is a bunch of adverts in here its because I've got more enjoyment out of these more than anything else, over the year.

First of all the good.

Inspector Dalgleish mysteries Channel 5.

A nice reboot of the P D James mysteries in a style similar to Endeavour but set somewhat later in the mid 70's. Not that woke and with a nice attention to detail. And for once didn't sleep through it.

Vermin Media ad. My old mans a junglist. 

Thanks for reminding me of an era in pirate radio where every cunt, and I mean every cunt wanted to be an MC. Feels like the end of old pirate radio and this is its epitaph. And yeah its on point that his daughter would be a grime MC and not a junglist. 

Marc Jacobs Daisy.

This has a strange vibe almost like an old Chriddof parody, I've been playing Safely remove parasites and their eggs over the music and it works pretty well.

K Dolce and Gabber gabber hey. ad.

Don't care for the ad just tab off and play bring the noise by public enemy and thank me later.

Miranda awards for televisual effluence.

The Watch.

Do you want a woke version of Terry Pratchetts the Nightwatch / Guards Guards. Where half the characters appear for oppression Olympics points. You do, how about we Kill off Detritus the troll after episode 1. Make death look like shit, Vetinari is a woman and fuck it. Memory hole Sergeant Colon and Nobby Nobbs. Cos those stories are all about Colon and Nobbs, and Keel.

Oh and CMOT Dibbler is a fucking cripple. Its shot on a budget of 20p and if that is not bad enough its a fucking mess if you've ever read any of Pratchett's work. Oh and before I forget Commie goblins literally before snuff, and the football one made them.

Round up 2o2o the everything else.

 I spoke too soon when I said there was no bad music in 2020. I forgot non binary retard, Sam Smith did his own version of I Feel Love by Donna Summer. A totally unnecessary edit and a complete train wreck.

Oh and if you're just joining us here, this is the bit were I shoe horn in all the bits I've forgotten over the last few days, and add sundry other bits and pieces like books and Youtube

First up is forgotten stuff and also ran bits.

Travels to To Oishii Tokyo. 

A sort of food unwrapped with a scandinavian bird in place of Kate Quilton. Its on NHK world and the one we saw concerned Konjac root. How it is and what its used for (mostly Oden stew and choking people, it's banned here.)

I'll add 4 seasons in Japan as well, just for focusing on so much obscure wild life. A big brown sea slug in a bay and several crabs in a lagoon were just one of the highlights of lockddown for me. but there are loads of episodes just like this.

Youtube.

Been deep in the comicsgate hole for most of 2020, so if you want action and adventure and no one talks about orange man bad or pronouns in  your comics, look into some of those guys. 

In fact I have a few good series for you to check. 

Theramintrees for one of the best demolishings of Christianity ever.

Looking into the work boy and getting it to run via the original software hosed out from the gigaleaks.

And speaking of gigaleaks. The out of the blue leaking of a whole load of Nintendo roms and info, has to be the best thing this entire year. Includes smug link from Links Awakening. Proto art, beta roms for a load of gameboy and Snes games along with some tools and a bit from Yoshi's Island where he bombs a village in helicopter mode.

Finally got round to looking at the His Dark Materials trilogy and its doesn't disappoint. The show is good, but has taken a few woke pokes including Mrs Coulter of all things that aren't in the book but I'm not going to argue against casting here. Its spot on, all leads are good, and we get Moriarty as Stanislaus Grumann.. Which is cool.

Review of 2020 continues.

 Yesterday I put up our annual review of the year. 2020 which of course sucked. So you'll be wanting a lot of television to take away your pain and... well that was knacked as well.

SARS2 did in a lot of live stuff and on a positive note killed off Eastenders for a while before coming back, much as it was. 

If you want our Miranda awards they're at the bottom of the page under the good TV.

Good TV

Perry Mason. Sky Atlantic

I sincerely hope that this is getting a regular season or at least an update to this. As, fucking hell, it's good. It details his transition from a two bit private eye, to unorthodox public defender via depression era America. So think old cars, segregation, police corruption and revival churches. This centers on a child abduction and murder, kinda like the Charles Lindbergh case. One to catch on DVD. HBO, SKY Atlantic.

Hubble. BBC2

A humble documentary about the troubled star scope. Its just an excuse to see a billion good things that had been discovered by the venerable telescope. Includes galaxies and star clusters. Proving that the BBC can put out a good show if it has to.

White House Farm ITV.

A similar form to Perry Mason. This focuses on the Jeremy Bamber murder case back in the 1980's in which he killed members of his extended family and his subsequent police case and capture. It has that authentic 80's jank that only those that were there will understand. Hangovers of 70's fashion and design with kitsch and earlier heirlooms. Well worth watching.

Tutankhamun in Colour

Final BBC entry here. This is a monumental colorizing job on old photos and film from the Howard Carter / Lord Caernavon expedition to Egypt, where they rediscovered king Tuts tomb. It brings it all to life with some excellent photo editing work. Also Carter was a bit of a hero, giving full props to his native workers and that, when most back then wouldn't.

The Miranda Awards for televisual ineptitude. Worst of 2020.

Twilight Zone. Reboot.

The worst of the worst. A woke reworking of the classic Ron Serling show. Do you want all cops kill minorities no matter what you do story. Of course you don't. Want a meteor storm that turns all men into rapey monsters. Apart from a few low T soy boys and a queer kid. Its depressing and woke, worse of all its fuck all fun. 

Eastenders.

For once they managed to kill it off thanks to SARS2. They ran out of episodes and had to air the glory years such as Dirty Den and Angie and Arfur Fowler stealing the xmas club money. Apart from that, though it sucked. A Marchioness disaster rip off in which Denny dies (yay) and that whole episode from the perspective of mental Ben. Which, apart from sounding like Merzbow in places due to him being deaf, is ruined by it being depressing as usual. 

The final bit is the whole Ian Beale getting assassinated and no one, ever calling it Kill |Beale. Which is a missed opportunity.

Hate and more hate

There is a certain demographic of people that you can hate these days, with  no comeback whatsoever. Call them names, and class them as less than human and no its not any oppressed minority you'd usually suspect.

I'm talking about the working class white male. Most certainly Brexit voting, overweight with tattoos and a big England flag outside their house. They're fair game for the sort of middle class liberal Twitter limpets who post bollocks 24/7 to their feeds. 

They are the sort of folk they look down on. You can call them knuckle dragging, gammons and there's no comeback. They're not a minority but they should be. 

I'm reading up about the anti statue protests up town. It's a mix of the far right, football thugs, patriots, white van man and dare I say it, concerned ordinary working class blokes who decided to protest in London against the far left hysteria.  Of course it all kicked off with the police and that, but the same happened with the BLM marches last week, and they were never branded as such.

To be honest, I hate both sides, The left being vandals and never being called out on their shit, the far right for being violent thugs as mentioned. They make it worse for the centrists such as myself and if you think its some Youtube alt right spiral, well I've held these views since the mid 90's. It's nothing new and in 30 years time will still be going on just with no push back on far left ideas as they take the piss out of the far right (and rightly so.)

Anyway you'll be wanting something to cheer yourself up, after that. I found an old clip on the end of a Bruce Lee tape of the One O'clock news, with a young Michael Buerk reporting on a microlight journey from the UK to Australia. 

A brief bit of searching on line I found what it referenced, here. Its a link to the MAAS museum in Sydney who have the actual microlight as an exhibit. The bloke doing it was an ex journalist and went around the world in a microlight back in 1998. So this is a bit of a dry run for him.

DJ Kat show and a doppleganger

Haven't had much to write about old cable stuff lately. Was reminded of Rod Hulls daughter Catrina Hylton Hull, from a twitter post and now can't remember if we ever wrote about the DJ Kat show.

I hate to be one of those people who keep repeating themselves but there is a good write up on IMDB for those wondering what it was.

Read that, good, here is a few more supplementary facts for you, though facts maybe just random memories and stuff.

Along with ITV they used to show the Super Mario Bros Super show here and quite a few obscure cartoon slots back in the day.  Think Mrs Pepperpot aka Spoon Obasan and the Sylvanian Families along with a few guest spots such as cookery with Lesley Waters.

Sadly as I never taped nothing back in the day, I have sketchy memories of this as well as a few clips on line from people such as Sid N's Youtube Channel (a nice bit of anime for you to prove we're not lying to you.)

Also another mystery has presented itself to me not related to this. I have a double playing acid on IFM live fest. Me with hardware, except its not me and of course didn't stick around to see who it was, have decided to keep tracks on their archive . org profile to see if they upload the set where not me is playing live.  

CSI Worlds End

This is the last post from this decade from me, I know I've been busy over the past few days, so it's time to relax and add a few more I missed out on over the past year and such.

Sigala Strings of Life.

I knew why I blocked this out so much as I knew it would not do it justice. Its an OK remake of a storming techno track. Stick to that Jackson 5 re edit thing he did that was better.

Aphex Twin Live London / Mancland.

Still working my way through Manchester but damn. these are two brilliant sets. The visuals make this alone with trippy RDJ faces and strobes to trigger an epileptic fit in all but the most hardy of viewers. The music is bang on too a mix of old school and live edits of some new shit, I can hear Abundance from Collapse EP there. Well worth it.

Feature presentation.

This is one of the episodes where Ray Langston (Laurence Fishburne) is boss, and centers on a kid found dead in a storm drain in the height of a storm.   He was excluded from school for being a racist and all round edgelord and pretty much despised by his whole year.

As the case goes on it becomes more and more clear that he is leaving the far right and striking up a friendship with the school caretaker a Rwandan refugee who teaches him about good and evil.  Until the final act pans out that the janitor dude was responsible for a massacre of Tutsi rebels back in 90's and fled to the states to take up asylum. 

It always struck me as a cool story this, there is not much on TV that shows someone as racist getting a non bad guy role. Let alone a redemption arc from the story, which this is.  They are either stupid or evil and it seems that everything in the current year seemed to have a rise of the black shirts, whether it was time travelling Fash in doctor who trying to stop Rosa Parks, to the bastard peaky blinders siding with Oswald Moseley.

There is a good and long talk on Youtube from Literature Devil from this sort of thing. It's called can a hero be racist and puts out the flaws. Looking at the episode itself, it seems that the character himself read a shedload of philosophy books and such like. Kinda like a Sargon does, though I don't see Locke for him to read. There are works by Jung and Heidegger and such like. 

Also with a general move toward non violent actions and such he was leaving the violent world of the Far Right behind. This remains one of my favourite episodes along with anything Lady Heather is in.

This would be Ray Langston's last season and I've still not seen the last episode he was in before handing over to Ted Danson as DB Russell.  Final note here Willows daughter, Lindsay, is really hot, as the school is putting on a show version of Crabaret (Cabaret).

Merry Christmas

This is the one where we talk about good and bad television of the year. Come back tomorrow for best music and the day after for anything I've forgotten which is suspect is everything.

We will start with the traditional good shows.

Ed Stafford Man, Wife, Child.

Marooned on a tropical island (Merak island, Indonesia). Ed has to provide for his wife and his child, this involves killing a pig, and leaping off a cliff. His wife is hot and does the same sort of thing he did, leading a trip down the Orinoco river.

Rise of the Nazis.

BBC2 tour de force explaining the roots of the Nazi party and how thanks to one man promoting them, to essentially own the libs, let in one of the worst regimes of the 20th century.  We learned that Hermann Goering owned a Lion, that the notorious camps were set up for political prisoners first (sorry far right cunts, but they were Jewish political prisoners mainly.)

A great many pale. male and stale experts here to give it the necessary gravitas, and sadly Ash Sarkar as well, delivering one of the greatest lines in this. They killed Communists, now read that with a whiny inflection to your voice.  Class.

His Dark Materials (Northern Lights)

Big Sunday night drama from the BBC here. Never read the books and heard it was pretty good and gives god a right kicking. There are armoured polar bears, daemons and the inquisition killing kids for prevent original sin.  It all hinges on dust in the frozen north and some kid from this world.

Tasmania.

A documentary that I can't really remember much about, but according to notes we have a swaggering platypus in this and massive river lobsters too.

Viking Burial Channel 4

This is focused on Repton in Derbyshire, where a mass grave and tentative settlement had been uncovered.  Radiocarbon dates were screwed up to due to their habit of eating large amounts of fish. If you ever see it around, please take a look, its a good show.


Miranda awards for televisual excressence.

Just as there was brilliant shows there must be absolute bollocks for this to carry on.

The God Code.

A thoroughly horrible documentary. One of the history channel's favourites I'm afraid. It involves looking through more and more ancient Torah's to see patterns for things that may not come true. It opines that the Ark of the Covenant if found will hold the worlds most perfect Torah, if found and a weird Tabula Rasa based on Michael Drosnin's research (not him though.)

The Mary Rose.

Adding woke trash to the uncovering of the titular galleon, raised from the Solent back in the 1980's.  With some weird race based take on the skeletons hauled up from the depths. Apparently two of them were North Africans and a few were Europeans rather than British. 

It ignores the fact that, A. It's a ship and can sail anywhere along the European coast, and B. that London and the other southern port towns were actually quite cosmopolitan back then.

7 Continents

Sad to put an Attenborough down here but, this is a dystopian look at man and his effect on the planet. For every look at a rare and threatened creature we see (Iberian Lynx, Whales resurgent and freezing albatross chicks) there is a sledgehammer of guilt on how we as human's have fucked up. 

If extinction rebellion did documentaries, this is the sort of thing I suspect it would come up with. I guess there are no real answers here, more environmentally friendly power generating sources from renewable supplies, eating bugs and never procreating. Ever.

Honourable mentions.

The music in Killing Eve, Simmons getting pissed in Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. and the worlds oldest mummified cunt on channel 4's Egypt documentary triptych.

BBC Club history.

BBC 4's Can You Feel it is a sort of gun to the head of dance music, you know kinda like a cucked version of what Sky Arts did a back last year but on the BBC instead. I can definitely say this though, it  benefits from the BBC's cash input, as rather than a UK centric outlook, you have full access to all the American DJs this time.

I'm currently two thirds of the way through, with the final bit on DJs recorded to watch this coming Friday, but I feel qualified to put in my two pennorth in, just like the old official games mags did from 10 minutes of playing so here goes.

The first part is actually pretty good giving a lowdown of the origins of the 4/4 beat with a healthy focus on pioneers of house.  Never knew Ron Hardy was bi though his whopping smack addiction was skated over but its always good to see them credit a true master (there's a bit of archive stuff of Frankie Knuckles too).  We get the Belleville 3 on racism and forging Techno from the whole cloth of European synth pop and funk via the Electrifying Mofo / Mojo.  Finally we have its all gone Pete Tong  and his single handed introduction of House to the British public via his house sound of comps.

There's a token poke at the North with 808 State (well A Guy Called Gerald and a weirdly uncredited Graham Massey and some other guy who could be Martin Price). Mostly though its the BBC dollar reigning large here as you have talking head shots from Vince Lawrence, Screaming Rachael, Craig Loftis, Steve Silk Hurley, and Joe Smooth talking about house in the old days and such.

First part here.

The second part is where it all goes wrong for me, it big's up the the whole mega club era and EDM bollocks whilst overlooking the whole warehouse rave aspect.

Its still good mind you. From the Loft to Studio 54 and the Paradise Garage complete with Larry Levan at the controls, to the early days of rave in the UK via the second summer of love. 

Its good to know that:

In the old days that you could run stuff from lamp post electricity to power your illegal rave.

Amnesia was just an after hours club in Streatham.

Danny Rampling's Shoom was located in a basement warehouse out of Southwark

That the Factory in Manchester closed due to massive gangster infiltration (sadly also there from the start).

It goes off the rails at the end speaking to Moby about EDM trash in Vegas and that its more of a fairground experience with showpiece bollocks and actors. Also weirdly glosses over the whole criminal justice bill era of raving, though its nice to see Creamfields get a look in.

Second part here.

Like I say, I've not seen part 3 yet though this does not bode well and I quote.

"With in-depth interviews with David Guetta, Steve Aoki, Tiesto, Paul Van Dyk, Black Madonna, Moby and Midland"
and as an afterthought at the bottom.

" Other contributors include Pete Tong, Jeff Mills, Terry Farley, Fabio, Nina Kraviz"
Fuck. My Life.

Police, beauty and K9

Fans of strange TV rejoice, as Propeller tv have picked up Police Beauty and K9 for showing.  Saw this while having nothing to watch on a Thursday and periodically come back to it as its mesmerisingly awful.  

Reminiscent of NHKWorld  a news channel that was a weird mix of News and safe space, this evokes the same feeling as bugger all really happens.  Set in Beijing its an all female dog patrol unit that never fights any crime.  There is You You who is  pretty and I think owns the big Lab Cherry there is also Ni Na who owns a Springer Spaniel (a Howl) but in English her name is the sound of a police siren makes (we don't have much onomatopoeia but we are proud of this).  Oh and did we say that nothing happens.

Tuesday after world cup is case in point, a woman threatens to kill herself because her cat Little Emperor has gone missing after her derpy boyfriend let it out after a row they had. (and they are all its here all critters seem to be genderless but I digress)  The team are mobilised and You You says that her dog can sniff it out, cue brave doggo sniffing out embarrassed kitteh hiding out in a stairwell.  The woman does not kill herself and a lecture is given to them about considering Little Emperors feelings when next they have a barney.

Oh and the voice acting in this is wonderful the boyfriend  comes across as retarded and the girlfriend haughty. If you've ever seen telenovela dubbed you'll know the level of voice acting here.

Back to the show and our girls stop to pick up a run over mutt they spot on the ring road out of town and take it back to their local neighbourhood vets.  In the only piece of drama, their superiour and the vet decide on a name for our injured pupper. 

How about Wonder squeaks one guy.  no it was found on the fifth ring road out of town so why don't we call it fifth ring.  I'm guessing its better in Chinese but our hapless doggo is named fifth ring and the rest of the show is his battle to regain the use of his back legs.

The ending theme is the sort of thing that would grace a romance anime and fits in with the strange incidental music as a whole.

A word of warning there seems to be no English subs up on Youtube at the moment though Propeller are showing it with English Subs and dubs.  Which is how I've been shitposting about it here.

Yesasia have Mandarin TV Box sets for sale if you speak chinese though as noted the whole series seems to be up on Youtube.

Anyway UK viewers its on Sky 185 at 8:45 PM weeknights.

 

Tossa De Mar

We're back, and we feel like hell, as usual as two weeks of sleeplessness and such claw their way back.

We stayed at the Golden Bahia a few ways off the main drag.  A few niggles here and their as their Wi-fi is patchy at best which means you'll need to either be up early or ideally have a Spanish sim to get 4g.  Also worse was the food not in quality or taste but availability as often when you went up you would find half of the things you wanted were unavailable.

Apart from that the weather wasn't the best for the first week either. Changeable is the watchword here with a few torrential downpours and storms over the mountains to really throw a few fucks into your day.  Not enough to piss you off, unless your'e the sort of scum that lays around the pool all day and gives the English a bad name, then quite frankly you deserve all you get.

We will get the TV done in the first post and then dedicate the second post to Pinya De Rosa garden in Blanes.  The third part is going to be about wildlife which will kill the month off nicely.

First of all some bits and pieces that got away.  A photo of a Michael Jackson impersonator called Garth Field, cue much Lasaga jokes  sadly deleted from my camera with no way to get it back.  A woman I saw on CGTN called Li Ke, which if I still did Youtube Vids would definitely have incorporated at the end with subscribe.  Allo Allo on Ocho, this came on a 7 pm so was at same time dinner started so didn't get the all important question every Allo Allo fan asks.  What does Officer Good Moaning Crabtree sound like... well... we never saw him in a scene so couldn't tell you.  Can say this that most of the people are pretty accurate and at least sound like their original actors (except Herr Flick), double thumbs up to all the seiyuu you did well.

Finally Pudsey dubbed in Spanish even though we took a photo of it trailed we fell asleep and missed it. I suspect it would still be horrible though maybe Paul Rose would get his wish and Pudsey will sound like Ray Winstone.

Ho humnnnnnnn

Nevertheless what I did see here was quite interesting. Apart from an influx of Jurassic Park due to the new film out, and more trails like the above (sin tetas no hay pariaso  (no paradise without tits) and whatever homo zapping was) and throw in a lot of news and world cup fever.  So Trump vs Kim Wilde and the like and a lot of football in various variations, including five aside (Futsal), women's football, under 19's and blind football (and no thats not a joke).  Oh yeah we found your porn channel hiding out on Rac105 (amended to Racist of course) that has a range of strippers and hardcore pron badly edited to be softcore. TBH I've seen better editing in YTP.

Kids channels have either Paw Patrol or some sort of Ladybird super hero which looked piss poor.
I did get to see a bit of Doraemon, more by luck than judgement and spent an enjoyable night time trying to decipher who did it in Detective Conan dubbed into Catalan.

English has the good the bad and the ugly, this includes the good France 24 and Euronews, the bad of course is Russia's Toady and the BBC Worst (World) Service, not exactly ugly was CGTN, which offers a Chinese version of the kind of safe space documentary that NHK used to do before they went all HD and we couldn't get it no more.
Russia had 1TVRUS which of course in a tribute to Resident Evil was named T virus. Its still not great and worse the only other channel was a christian channel, poor ruskies.

Germany did well with a full range of ZDF, RTL and VOX to entertain them with.  Kika is pretty good with some loaf character dressed as Sailor Moon or Robert Smith from the Cure (Harry Potter)

Sailor Loaf

I AM HEAVEN AND I NEED TO BE SLICED.

Also well done for having a few good BBC docs here, I clocked Dan Snow and the ever fit Dr Alice Roberts presenting something around 6 AM.

Tune in next time when I'll give you a low down on Pinya De Rosa.

Royal Wedding

I for one I'm glad this is over and that.  Its not that I don't like em, in fact I like the queen and such and have written about Princess Kates tits before, but fuck me, didn't it go on and on.  Had to resort to plugging in my headphones and blotting it all out, its the only way. 

They had a big screen up of this bastard too, in the town and a carnival atmosphere and its totally horrible.  Blanket wall to wall coverage, it reminds me of when children in need is coming up with the amount of ads you see of it.  Souvenir issues and the like, my favourite so far is the hideous swimsuit with Harry's chin acting as a sort of ginger minge substitute.

Ginger Minge

Mum of course has been watching it just to see what kind of dress Megan was wearing and ripping into  posh spice for looking like a corpse at a funeral.  But me its either shitposting or trying to ignore it completely (and failing).

We need to talk about Apu

So this has come around again, Apu from the Simpsons is apparently voiced by a white guy.  Specifically Hank Azaria who is the voice of chief Wiggum among others (Wiki says  Superintendant Chalmers too, he of the enjoyable luncheon meme) but not Mr Burns as I originally thought. Apparently being a white guy and voicing an Indian character is bad mmkay and you should really give it to an Indian guy because current year and such.

It was always an odd thing to see Apu growing up.   Him behind the Kwik E Mart counter was such an English thing, as there is always an Indian run Corner Shop here.  I never saw any Indians on US TV growing up (what imports we got back then), never any allusions to curry or any other south Asian cuisine and certainly never any Gurdwara or Hindu Temple let alone a small shrine to Ganesh that Apu has in his shop 

I didn't really care about this to begin with, as to be honest, the Simpsons has been dead to me for ages.  Its gone from a definite stop everything and tune in to Sky One at 6:30 to a gradual levelling off of interest, to plain indifference once the new season comes on Sky.  In fact replace Simpsons with Sky one and you'd have my reaction to the channel itself but that's beyond the point.

To be honest Apu was one of my favourite characters along with comic book guy and Lionel Hutz (voiced by the much missed Phil Hartman) he was always treated fairly and off all the characters seemed to have the better deal.  I grew up around a big Indian community and hung out with the kids at school and  no one really gave a fuck about his race or that.  (they mainly argued religion and the perennial shitness of the England cricket team as a bonus I learned a few curse words in Urdu which is nice).  Its only recently that its become a problem, and which I give you this conundrum.

Even if you get an Asian guy in to voice act, you'll have to keep his accent the same.  Because if you weren't born here (and I remember the episode where Apu takes his citizenship test) you'll keep your accent no matter what.   His kids though should be more American than the Americans as they're born here, just like it is in real life.

Digitiser 25

This year sees the 25th anniversary of the birth of Teletext. I've written before on how I came about this, or at least sure I have anyway.  For the uninitiated Teletext was kinda like a text based internet on your TV, supplying you with information and even rudimentary games and stuff. 
It had a comic strip Turner the Worm which I liked, a music page, a sci fi page and best of all Digitiser a gaming page. 

Coming off from writing a terrible school zine and finding someone doing it with similar tastes in humour on the TV(though mine was more non PC and such) was a revelation.  We only really found out about it due to Super Play magazine championing it along with Fast Show quotes and such. 

Used to watch it while having lunch, which meant channel 4 and having to put up with Channel 4 schools programmes (no hardship, would like to know if any of them survived, specifically the Northern Irish one which went on about the little Whammy) and Friends which is fuck awful.

The best of all was one day they had the Happy Prince by Oscar Wilde, to date the only opera I can stomach.

If you want to relive the first four or so days and such, here are the links to each day.

Monday New years day.
Tuesday.
Wednesday.
Thursday final Day.

End of year missed flipped and skipped edition.

This is our customary missed pile of stuff, stuff I'd forgotten existed until now and with the dance stuff, possibly not my final favourite thing of the year.

TV.

X Company.

Impressive WW2 drama showing for the first time in the UK.  A select team of commandos work behind enemy lines as a resistance cell, to  conduct sabotage or just to kill off Nazis which is always cool.  They have a memory / savant style dude who can memorise data taken in the field and overcomes his reluctance to fight to become a productive member of the team.  Sadly the only drawbacks are they are all Canucks and not based at Bletchley or Whitehall, apparently there was a real Camp X in Ontario, where this was based.

Red Dwarf.

Series ten or so of the space sitcom and its long past its prime.  Not sure why Dave keeps it going now, as this season is the worst its been in ages.  I slept through most of the shows mind which isn't cool but what I was awake for was merely average.

Dr Who.

This has also dragged this season and its not due to the new doctor being a woman.  To be honest my Mum is the only person pissed off that the new Dr is a bird.  Me I couldn't care less, its already nosediving into the ground thanks to a political slant to most of the shows.  I don't need a fucking lecture on social inequality in Regency Britain, or badly shoehorned in gay characters (Bill Stickers), but rather wished the doc had Nardole as his companion.  Best episode was Poirot as a creepy landlord, to a place overrun with space bugs, some real nice audio stuff there.

Ed Stafford Left For Dead.

Final TV pick is this, Survivalist Ed Stafford is dropped with a drone, sat phone and cameras but no survival gear into the most inhospitable places in the world.  He has to make it to a pre proposed rendezvous point within 10 days or he's toast.  Its good stuff, see him eat yams in Madagascar, catch fish with llama sinew line in the Andes and barely make it out alive from a dark cave in Laos.

There is a trailer here if it plays in your country, but will say this check it out, he only has to call to be rescued once the whole time and I'll leave it for you to find out where that is.


Music.

Ed Sheeran Galway Girl / Shape of you.

This is the year, he went from annoying but bearable on Drunk to full on terrible.  Some would say that it has been that way for ages and ages but I did actually enjoy drunk, especially the version Kiss played.  Galway Girl is terrible, Irish pub cod Emerald isle levels of bad, I've taken  to changing the lyrics  to say he fiddles kids in a transit van to get any pleasure out of it.

Advertising.

Nationwide Adverts.

So farewell then Nationwide Adverts

With you awkwardly espoused prose

And ill timed slice of life observations.

On matters family and financial

We never banked with you
And Judging by the ads never want to. 

 E J Thribb. 17 1/2 p overdrawn.

So here it is (Merry Christmas)

Merry Christmas if you're here it means only one thing. A round up of television and the annual Miranda's for television hell.

Blue Planet 2 Eelectric Boogaloo.

The bits I didn't fall asleep through were magic,worth an hour of your time.  Trans Wrasses, Donald Tuskfish that crack clams, Octopodes that hide in Coconuts and Galapagos sea lions corralling tuna in the shallows, totally living up to their names, you can read all about it, here.

Eastenders.

Still not good mind, but its better this year.  Max and Wilmott Brown and their "evil capitalist" scheme to bulldoze the square and kill poor people.  If it was true to life all the white folk would have moved to Essex ten years back, leaving a legacy of Polski skleps, hen cabins, and corner shops, the Vic would have totally become a pentecostal church, having said that though Dot would still be there.

The Orville.

Seth Macfarlane's parody of  Star Trek, and I can't shake the fact its a live action version of American Dad but so far it seems pretty good.  Massively overshadowed in the UK by Keith Harris and Orville, who star posthumously as engineers in episode 3, look out for Cuddles the Monkey as the Duck hating badguy.

Harry Hills Alien Fun Capsule.

Not the best concept, but worth it just to see him rip into guests and youtube footage of pranks and stuff.

Mr Biffos Found Footage.

Not strictly a TV show, but putting to shame many shows this year if only for the shoestring budget its filmed on.  The last episode is the best, being a totally straight sci fi film rather than the absurdist comedy of the previous episodes.  Although if you are into absurdist comedies then the whole "brownaround" episode is the best of the bunch.  TEEEEEEEEEEEEA

Miranda awards 2017.

I should make a note of these just to give you a warning for the hell I go through each year.

Mrs Browns Boys.

We sat through 10 minutes of this shit, while clearing out my aunts place in the summer.  The remote mysteriously locked up and we tried in vain to find new batteries while listening to her schtick.  It felt like an hour.

Michael Macintyre.

Hate him, anything he's in makes the list.  Another place where we were stuck for something to watch and failed.  He isn't funny, and much as I hate political comedy, this seems far worse.

 Len Goodmans Partners In Rhyme.

There is a tenth layer of hell just for this alone.  Len Goodman, Dartfords very own, nice old guy with a horrible rhyming concept. Survived 5 shows before being cancelled.  That says it all.

Memories and the like

Continuing on from last week and thinking about last months Fortean times in particular.  Not this months edition which is 70 years of flying saucers but last month where they discussed Scarfolk and such. 

More specifically a look at the nebulous world of 1970's TV looking at things like Penda's Fen and the Apaches Pif / nightmare fuel source.  My own nightmare fuel source was the  Dark Towers serial from listen and learn from the early 80's. 

The thing that they underline time and again is that it was pretty much undocumented, no real home videoing and such so you rely on archives and faulty memories.  Its pretty much the same business for Sky stuff back in the mid to late 80's.  There are tapes of stuff from DJ Kat show and The Children's Channel back then but even though video ownership crept up back then probably not much has survived.  Would like to see some stuff from the adult channel back then as well as HVC the home video channel its direct to video film showing ancestor.  Would even like to see the cable vision magazine that we got every month that covered cable stuff but I guess that's long gone.

We had cable, as I've mentioned before, because our tv reception is utter shite. They had a set top box that looked like a small safe that you could turn to show various channels like Premiere (19), The Box (02) and Superchannel.  You could see German / Dutch ads for Pro Grainen (pro grain) cereal with a macaw that said pro grainen and Frolic on MTV or was it Sat 1. 

That's the problem, we had a video then (a Ferguson from my Grandad.)  but no one knew how to use it, generally it was a bastard to program back then no on demand streaming and no hard drives big enough for Sky Plus to be viable for another 15 years. 

I'll leave you on a happy note with a german Netto Advert (now no longer with us in the UK) from last year mixing two of my favourite things cats and synths.  Check out that feline version of Magic Fly.

Holiday 17 Tv Rules edition

Quite a lot to discuss here so will be quick and to the point. for once.  Our TV selection was quite small this year with a few things fucked for most of the holidays (CNN and BBC world service) or not tuned in well (ZDF in German). 

Yet again there was no return of the Ruleta del sexo so no stripping and for obscure reasons no psychics either.  The live music had a few things of interest including a bit of classical and someone playing a pin table to some ropey euro house.

Sadly this is as in focus as it gets.

After some digging it turned out to be KZ-26 from Playmatic a Spanish company (who else), there is a Video of some noises and the back marquee here.

They still had BVM and the Tetris quiz show is called Blokken and is still neat for all Flemish / Dutch speakers.

We had quite a few English channels including the main 4 and a selection of odd choices from the freeview pot.  Travel channel mainly showed either Baggage Bandits (cool) Garage Gold which sounds like a compilation I'd own but its more of the same and Alaska shit.

There was a fuzzy Russia Toady and three music channels.  Vintage TV which showed old stuff and wasn't very good.  Now that's what I call 80's which is more of the same but better and Channel A.K.A.  A.K.A. stop playing that gangsta shit and do your cunting homework before I ground you.

Best of all is Afro channel ABN a mix of Joy news, joyless christ mongs, Reggae and highlife music and badly dubbed Telenovelas.  Bella Calamidad (Beautiful but Unlcky or Pretty Unfortunate as I call it) is quite hilarious where everyone has a strong Brooklyn accent and gives off that 10th generation porn vibe.

Spanish channels were OK, mainly news and such. Its a twin skewer of some tragic events including the Grenfell Block fire and a re run of the truck of peace.  They made a big deal of skateboard man, a Spanish guy who lost his life trying to stop the jihadi truck twats.  Good to know that estate means Barrio in Spanish (along with Sesame Street). Sadly didn't see any Doraemon this time which I always look forward to.

I also finally found out the name of the horribly stilted English language program on La Dos which is That's English, where I learned that Pizza means pizza in English and they went to LlanfairPG in Wales. 
In a neat synchronicity they had some welsh speakers on the shuttle bus back home all in all a grand trip.