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Last night's telly

09:47 / 30.10.03

I've been meaning to start this thread for ages. Did you watch TV in the UK last night? What did you see? Was it good?

For example, the bowdlerised BBC2 version of the second episode of Buffy season 7 was on last night, what did you think? And does anyone here have to leap to turn over after the Simpsons to avoid the fresh prince of Bel-fucking-air? ("Oh, this is a story all about how my life got flipped turned upside down...")

The joy of it is, the thread will never be obsolete! There'll always be last nights telly to talk about, good or bad! Like a virtual water cooler!

09:50 / 30.10.03

I watched some of that Kay Mellor one-off drama Gifted, about a footballer who drugs and rapes women. It was pretty crap, though. No tension, no empathy with the characters, workaday acting. I lost interest about half way through and just sat on the sofa wearing my new parka.

Tryphena Absent

10:04 / 30.10.03

That's ridiculously cute.

I watched the news after getting back from seeing George Galloway speak (it was very good) and I laughed about IDS and then I watched some bad channel 4 programme about fuck buddies for about 15 minutes.

10:07 / 30.10.03

Parka yay!

I watched 1001 things found in the Human body, no I'm not proud of it.

10:10 / 30.10.03

Not so much watched as listened to vaguely while i did other things -

TV
The News (as much as possible to get maximum amusement of of the the demise of IDS)
The Bill
a C5 documentary on advertising

Our Lady of The Two Towers

16:39 / 30.10.03

Last night I was pretty boring, watched The Simpsons on Sky, News 24 for a few hours (while doing other stuff as well I hasten to add), then Newsnight until I fell asleep.

Tuesday night was the indescribably brilliant 'Little Britain' on BBC3 then the uncomprehensibly fantastic 'Mark Steel Lectures' on BBC4. Then Newsnight. Kirsty Walk gives me the horn.

17:46 / 30.10.03

I never watch TV at the time it's on, for some reason.

Last night I watched half of the Wicker Man which I taped on Monday. I still don't get how it's a horror film - I wanna live on Summerisle, it looks cool.

There was one moment of horror, though - realising I hadn't put the video clock back, so I missed the documentary which followed it...

Tonight, I'm taping QI; Never Mind the Buzzcocks for smug Oxbridge types, yet very entertaining for it too...

[pedant alert] is Kirsty Walk related to Kirsty Wark? [/pedant alert]

17:55 / 30.10.03

I watched 'Are you being served?' on UK gold then went to the cinema. Finding Nemo was shit. I've missed the first AYBS tonight, but if I hurry with scannign my hard disk, I might catch it on+1.
I admit I mainly watch it for John Inman and Mrs Slocombe's pussy.

23:25 / 30.10.03

CD UK Hotshots.

However, this will be tomorrow night's telly by the time anyone reads it...

Anybody else a Weir's Way fan? I love the guy. I also just totally dig the idea of someone walking around Scotland and waxing lyriacal about it. The history!

13:48 / 31.10.03

that night there was a programme (its title escapes me) put together by an Indian guy, arguing that multiculturalism is leading to segregation here in the UK. it wasn't awfully good, though the sympathetic portrayal of the British National Party (he had a drink with Nick Griffin) was worth watching for sheer rareity value.

14:38 / 31.10.03

Buffy is on three nights a week! Last night, Spike's bad blue sweater and the scary Narl, if they keep it up at this rate they'll finish the seventh and last series by Xmas! That means I can legitimately talk about it without having to ask everyone in the room if they've seen the last series, yay!
Then a bit later watched a video as there was nothing on (Harry Potter & the stone) and found that there are disturbing paralells between Quidditch and the benefits system...

14:42 / 31.10.03

What channels do you people watch? I mostly see things on BBC2 and channel 4, and as a terrestrial that's pretty much it. If I were to get cable (Gods forbid) what channels would I like? Or would I just end up watching more crap?

13:22 / 03.11.03

Last night the plans for a future war was all I saw on Channel 4.

13:25 / 03.11.03

Wasn't quite last night but a couple of nights ago I watched Threads anyone else watch that (some of the older Barbeloids might remember it when it was first on) - bloody hell that was scary!

13:40 / 03.11.03

yesterday the rugby the abyss (underwater documentary)
documentary on killings perpetrated by the Israeli defence force
Einstein's dream documentary
and the Sky at night...
oh and audition
and a documentary on the sex industry -

just call me mr non-fiction...

14:18 / 03.11.03

I completely refuse to ever watch Threads again in my entire life. It's by far the scariest thing that's ever been on telly, ever.

18:44 / 03.11.03

I watched Audition, for the second time, last night, and that string-theory stuff, which was okay.

19:27 / 03.11.03

Yeah, the string theroy thing, I watched it. Thought it was gonna be crap, what with the bad american voice-over and the "amusing" bits (Man tries to explain string theroy to a dog! The hilarity!) but as soon as they mentioned "quantum phyisics", it got good.

10:33 / 12.11.03

On the Simpsons last night there was a classic moment between Ned Flanders and mister Burns on the mansion doorstep;
Ned: "..so recycling is our way of giving mother nature a big hug!"
Burns: "Mm, that does sound fun. I can't wait to start pawing through my garbage like some demented raccoon.. (sotto voce: Release the hounds, Smithers!)"

13:50 / 13.11.03

Ah, Buffy...
great season 7 episode where 'Cassandra' eats herself inside out, liking the series more and more as I rewatch it.

I'm starting to realise this thread is a no-hoper because A)most people talk about last nights telly with boring people so why do it again on Barbelith and B)most TV is shit.
Ah well.

15:06 / 13.11.03

nunsense! kim and aggie back last night. i love watching the dirty selfish fuckups try to justify their scumminess. some of them are so proud of their own shortcomings in that dreadful middle england way - as if being a lazy filthy bastard's some great expression of individuality, not just an inability to operate like an adult. kim and aggie have none of it, they just walk up to these no-hopers and tell them what shit they are, clean their house for them and fuck off. brilliant stuff.

15:37 / 13.11.03

'How Clean is Your House?' is a wonderful programme, it's cleaning pornography!

16:04 / 13.11.03

Bah, I keep missing that and it looks great. I just caught a minute or two of the return visit bit in last night's prog, where the lady with the bun hair was threatening to eat her dinner out of the toilet, or something. It looks to be the only one of those "Sort it Out, You Hopeless Loser!" programmes that will have me cheering for the prosecution, instead of wishing someone would punch the 'experts' face in. The reason being, there's no umming and ahhing to be done over cleanliness, is there? Plus they're not trying to turn the defendant into a flipping lifestyle mag clone, and there's none of the usual tuppence-a-ton amateur psychoanalysis rubbish. Speaking of which, I wish that Life Laundry was still on, I'd like to have had a whinge about that.

16:10 / 13.11.03

Tut. You can't whinge about Life Laundry, it's a fabulous programme. Car crash TV which actually makes you cry.

16:13 / 13.11.03

Wonderful programme. Fabulous programme.

*Sigh.* That's obviously shamefully about the extent of my critiquing.

14:23 / 04.12.03

Last night I did watch:

Bodysnatchers - I hesitate to say I enjoyed this, cos of the awkward mix, ie entertainingly disgusting bits about relatively harmless tapeworms and maggots being pulled out of peoples faces, with genuinely upsetting - rage inducing - bits about debilitating and life-threatening parasites in Africa, South America and Asia. It's a real eye-opener (for me) to discover just how widespread they are, and how many people it affects - and how f---ing grotesque is it that, as the commentary says: "there is little interest in developing a cure for these because there's little money to be made from it", while Western scientists are studying parasites in the third world to develop cures for modern, western allergies (asthma etc)?

Imagine: Martin Parr - Great series, this. Alan Yentob walking about looking stern and serious, meeting an artist or people who know about an artist. Was really looking forward to last night's one, as I was keen to find out if Parr really is just taking the piss out of his subjects, or celebrating them, or what. The subject was tackled, but not as directly as I'd have liked - I wanted Yentob to say: "So, are you taking the piss, or what?" to which Parr should then have replied either "Yes" or "No." As it was, I came away thinking Parr is doing the usual (critically correct) bit of both. Anyone else see it, and have a view on this? He made some statements which supported the "taking the piss / isn't this disgusting?" theory, and some which supported the "making a document / isn't this weird and cool?" theory (I'm thinking about his comments about his obsessive nature).

It was great to see his extensive collections of tat, which also support the idea that he's not vehemently anti the stuff he photographs, even if he is vaguely disgusted or amused by it. Btw, didn't he look and move a lot like Hugh Cornwell's version of Jimmy Hill on Stella Street?

Last weeks prog about the 19th Century Brit architect Soane was great too - not only very interesting but also featured that actor who looks like a creepy blond public school boy, and some lovely architectural fantasy pics, showing what London might have looked like if Soane had got his mitts on a lot more of it.

14:51 / 04.12.03

this thread stymies my creative juices, man. what with the exclusion of american teevee watchers and non-teevee watchers, I feel demoralized, oppressed, and rejected from all sides!

where's the love?

14:53 / 04.12.03

ps I'm only kidding. please don't suggest I start my own thread or otherwise browbeat or abuse me. it's just a shameless ploy to avoid working, I admit to absolutely everything!

15:05 / 04.12.03

the exclusion of american teevee watchers and non-teevee watchers

I like to think of it as a comprehensive digest of all (yes, all) that is interesting on British TV, without the hassle of watching adverts or the programs themselves. I'm watching increasingly less television since all my flatmates ever watch now is property development programs (even though we only have terrestrial TV it is as though they have found a 24 hour channel called "HOUSETASTIC!") and So Graham Norton.

Rereading this has caused me to realise that I, too, am avoiding work...

12:56 / 10.12.03

Not last night at all, but recent-ish, and I'd like to know if anyone else has any views on it:

Matt's Old Masters
A new series in which Matthew Collings strolls around posh galleries looking at works by one of the old masters.

I've always been a bit unsure about Collings (he's got the obligatory "am I taking the piss?" thing x10) but this is great. Apart from the fact that it's nice to see a YBA fan/insider saying nice things about old paintings, there are lots of interesting details about the artist's life, a bit of contextual stuff (ie how the world was different in those days and how people expected different things from art - if that sounds obvious, the specific examples which are given as proof are interesting) and the speculation about the artist's inner world, motivations etc isn't as annoying as it could be.

Favourite bit in the Titian prog - Collings compares the relationship between art and society then with now:

"We expect art these days to be cross with society, we think it should TELL SOCIETY OFF."

That reminds me of my only gripe, which is Collings' sweeping statements about what "we" think about art these days. I kept wanting to shout "speak for yer bloody self, love!" Apart from that, good stuff.

13:52 / 10.12.03

I caught the programme on Rubens last week and really enjoyed it. I don't know much about art (but i know what I'm meant to like...etc), and despite his association with the YBAs, this series seems to show where his real admiration lies. For me too, it was his discussion of how the role of art and artists has changed which really grabbed my attention - the fact that Rubens painted a picture (for Phillip of Spain?) which stopped a war (albeit temporarily). Fascinating stuff.

08:14 / 30.01.04

Last night - 'Garth Marenghi's Darkplace'

Made I larf, it did. But it's bugging me - is this the same guy who did the maniacal evangelical preacher (looked like one of the Polyphonic Spree) on, um, that stand-up show that was on late-night telly last year, presented by, er, that big Irish comedian with the very short hair, the one who guest presented Have I got News for You?

08:21 / 30.01.04

Oh god, Darkplace. Fear not, Saveloy, there will soon be a FTVT thread on this. Thursday nights are wonderful telly night, now; Darkplace followed by Six Feet Under.

The title music! The cat! The wobbly gravestone! The bald actor, so they could use the cheapest rubber head when he exploded! And, best of all, Dean Learner. "Me, Dean Learner. Not acting; telling the truth".

19:52 / 01.02.04

Everyone involved with the current state of UK television deserves to hang upside down above a tar pit in hell for the rest of eternity, watching all this junk that they think they're too good for, cause hey, they're in telly, and you, you asshole, you dickhead, you VIEWER, very obviously aren't. 24, State Of Play, or whatever the latest bullshit show is, all those endless repeats of the same ten episodes of The Simpsons on Sky... They never watch it themselves, of course, they're out every night getting smashed at The Ivy, laughing about everyone who's sad or lonely or bored enough, really, to actually sit down and turn the bastard thing on, in the lame, tragic hope of being in some sense entertained by the evening's schedule. I mean for fuck's sake, honestly, why the hell would I, or anyone else, even vaguely fucking care about some idiot's house in fucking Tuscany, etc ? Or a bunch of fucking in-bred shitheads in Manchester, the East End, or wherever the fuck Emmerdale Farm's supposed to be set ? Or any of those cop shows, or any of those hospital shows, or any of the rest of the inane fucking rubbish we're all apparently expected to just imbibe and then swallow, night after night ? Oh well...
" I'm A Celebrity, Get Me Out Of Here... "
No wonder that everyone in England's just drunk all the time