Recent TV

With the move of Lost from Channel 4 to Sky, I now find that I have no reason whatsoever to watch Channel 4. This is a shame, because a couple of years ago I did pretty much all my TV viewing on that channel.

In fact, this development now means that I only watch programmes on the BBC and Sky.

Speaking of the BBC, I've been watching the new "Robin Hood" every Saturday since it began. The first episode was simply awful - it made the Kevin Costner movie look like a masterpiece. Fortunately, though, each episode since then has been a huge improvement over the one before, such that Saturday's episode, if rather cliched, was actually good (as opposed to merely 'watchable'). At this rate, and given the rate at which it's shedding viewers, the series finale will be the greatest show ever, and only I will actually watch it.

I have also been watching "Torchwood", a show I had been looking forward to since I heard about it. Well, the first episode was okay, but suffered from the need to introduce everything (hint: no, you don't. Introduce the characters and the premise in your promotional trailers, and start the show in media res. Trust me - I know nothing about making successful TV shows :) ). The second episode was everything that I feared the show would be - the plot featured a 'sex alien' and involved all the usual nonsense. Basically, it was the show that a couple of teenagers would produce to show just how adult they were.

Burnt by the second episode, I considered dropping the show then. However, I watched one more episode, just to be sure, and found that it too had improved greatly. So, that's back on my must-watch list.

On Sky, there aren't too many shows I'm actually watching for the moment. 24 starts in January, Battlestar Galactica likewise, and Lost hasn't started yet (should be in November, though, which might be good - though the second series was rather pants tbh).

I have been watching "The Unit" (on Bravo), which has not been what I expected. However, I'm rather enjoying it, even if they are showing the episodes out of order.

Micro-post 3: Canned Tomatoes

Where the ingredients for your Spicy Chicken Casserole call for a small can of tomatoes, chopped, don't think to yourself "fresh tomatoes taste better; I'll use them instead." It turns out that if you do, your casserole, while still tasting fine, will look extremely off-putting.

Micro-post 2: Veils

1) It was rather unfair to slate jack Straw for his comments that the Muslim veil represents a "visible symbol of separation". He was right, since that is the purpose of the veil.

2) It is absolutely the right of Muslim women to choose to wear said veil if they wish. (There are potential issues to do with some Muslim women being coerced into wearing the veil against their wishes. However, this is a different issue from the wearing of the veil in and of itself.)

3) We pride ourselves on having a 'tolerant' society. When exactly, did merely being 'tolerant' become a laudible thing? All that means is that we're not actively trying to drive the outsider away. No, tolerance isn't enough - if we wish to pride ourselves on the openness of our society, we have to be actively welcoming, and put neither deliberate nor incidental barriers in the way of the incomer finding their way.

4) All that stops short of saying we must cast aside the underpinnings of our society, nor that we must consider the values of the incomer more important than our own values. But there is a balance that should be struck, and we're not striking it.

Micro-post 1: Noisy Adverts

Note to Yahoo!: When I'm working away, listening to something a bit ballad-y on my headphones, and surfing the net in the background, as I do, it is not acceptable for your site to bombard me with loud adverts for some computer game I might have bought otherwise, but definately won't now.

It is further unacceptable for the volume of said advert to follow the standard rules of advertising, and be significantly higher than the noise of my music, which I have carefully selected for optimum comfort.

If anyone meets me in the next few days and find me saying "What?" a lot, it's because I have been deafened by these oafs.

Three Stooges Syndrome

Sorry the updates have been a bit few and far between lately. There are actually so many topics I want to post on that I'm finding choosing just one hard. But, I'll try to clear out the backlog in the near future.

Props to my peeps

You'll notice that, unlike many other blogs I could (but won't) name, this blog lacks a bar at the side linking to various other blogs that I read. There are two key reasons for this:

1) All the blogs I actually read are already known to everyone who reads this blog, making the exercise futile

and, more importantly,

2) I can't be bothered.

However, I was made aware on Sunday that one of my long-time readers, Chris Meikle, has now started up his own blog. And, being a secretive sort, he's hidden it from Google.

So, I thought I'd give a shout out to http://chrismeikle.blogspot.com. It's an intriguing read, even if he has spelled my name incorrectly.