I enjoyed the Italian Grand Prix very much, with lots of individual battles, overtaking and re-overtaking, strategies working and going wrong. From my point of view, most of the drivers I favour finished well - though I do dislike Alonzo and would like to see Massa beat him occasionally, and Rosberg getting knocked out was a great pity ( Read more... )

I wasn't sure what to expect from this documentary on T.E. Lawrence, broadcast yesterday on BBC2. The presenter, Rory Stewart, had the background to be able to comment with some authority on Lawrence's effect and legacy in the Middle East, but Lawrence documentaries - and books - tend either towards hagiography or a debunk. This was neither - but ( Read more... )

That was what I was yelling at the TV while two supposed members of the Special Forces team on Primeval episode 3.08 sat beside an anomaly, playing cards, then heard a noise and went to 'ave a look unarmed. I mean, how bloody stupid does the scriptwriter think they, and we, are ( Read more... )

In some ways a reprise of last year's opener, with much running around interesting locations shooting at, and missing, a big-bad-monster. Lots and lots of plot holes (in fact, this was a plot-what-plot episode as it seemed to consist entirely of chase-the-monster-with-added-filmic-quotes) most of which have already been pointed out. Everything ( Read more... )

A couple of days ago I saw something I rarely expect to see - an normally rather good 'professional' quiz team (all five of them, in the final round) faced with a quotation ("Things fall apart/The centre cannot hold") from one of the most famous of 20th Century poems - to wit, Yeats' The Second Coming - and a multiple choice of authors, out of ( Read more... )

After watching tonight's BBC4 broadcast of the film of the very last episode where Humph chaired I'm Sorry I haven't a Clue two things are certain ( Read more... )

The new BBC Merlin looks pretty awful, in the recent grand BBC tradition of making people in the past pretty much culturally identical with yoof today.

Not for me, but it should do well with its British demographic. However, I cannot help but remember the fuss about Martha being a servant in the Cornell double episode of Dr WhoI have nothing ( Read more... )

I had ordered the Region 2 DVD of The Streets of San Francisco which was billed on Play.com as 'Part 1, Season 1'. I had therefore presumed that they were going to follow the Stateside version and put out the seasons in 2 parts, then maybe do a collected season 1. However, the price at Play on pre-order was £15.99 which I was happy to pay for ( Read more... )

I am still trying to cope with the idea that the best Outside Broadcast Sports coverage was won by ITV's coverage of the F1 Canadian Grand Prix ( Read more... )

Somewhere in the Big Yellow Storage depot off the A12 at Gallows Corner are several boxes full of books that neither I nor inamac will ever read again. Oh, I tell a lie. There are two that I might...The Vampire Affair by David McDaniel (which petermorwood and I once spent half an hour late at night in the Adelphi quoting at each other to the bewilderment of ( Read more... )