Unbelievably, my Captain Clevedon effort for Curzon Cinema Clevedon's Art On The Tiles project has already received 3 bids. That's more than the home furnishings I'm trying to sell on eBay, people are strange.
Bid away, it helps conserve Britain's oldest continuously-running cinema (and check out the other tiles, which are really worth the money)
Alright, alright, we've all had a bit of a laugh and a giggle - and I'll be honest I cannot remember ever before having read so many bad reviews of any one movie - but beware. Remember The Greatest Showman.
Does no-one recall how it was ridiculed on release, how Hugh Jackman's dream project was called "often ropy in its execution" (Peter Bradshaw) and worse and only got luke warm critic reviews. Then the audience kept coming and it became the biggest film musical of the decade.
Also Cats itself is Marmite. I refer back to when my sister Jude got it for Christmas (on VHS, yes that long ago) and we all had to watch it. It had no story, the people in cat costumes looked ridiculous, and unless you like that kind of song it is very long narrative-free two hours. The epitomy of "you had to be there" theatre which, when you take it out of that context, left some sort of magic behind that I certainly couldn't comprehend.
And it's the longest running musical in Broadway history.
So take it easy with all your snickering, you could be giving a boost to a movie phenomenon of the 2020s. For my part, I am really hoping that Cats beats the (boring sounding) Star Wars exercise. Wouldn't that just be the dogs?
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Do you get excited by mundane bits of punctuation? Watch this space .
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Am I the only person who's never yet "bought" a streamed movie. I've rented them, all the time. But when Virgin tells me I have to get a movie from their "Store" and pay a tenner instead of a fiver to do so, I refuse. Because I don't believe I'll get to keep it. And where do I keep it anyway?
I'm already used to the TV shows I was keeping from a few years ago (ie my own TV apperances) all having vanished when we updated our Tivo box. I have yet to find a way of making hard copies of these things (and good luck finding an old episode of The Apprentice and a 2009 BBC local news story online).
And in the last week alone I've been grateful for my DVD collection, having been able to watch Abigail's Party and the BBC Shakespeare, things which are either unavailable online or would charge me 3 quid a time to watch them, every time I wanted to watch them.
Streaming is great (eg we watched Woody Allen's Love and Death last week and it looked and sounded better than the DVD) but is limited (eg if we wanted to watch most of the other half dozen movies in that Woody Allen box set, they're nowhere to be found). So a mixture of both will always be necessary, unless you're mad enough to believe that things you'd hidden away in someone else's "cloud" will still be there when you look in ten or twenty years time.
Who knew that Getting On (the Jo Brand & Vicki Pepperdine series) had been remade in the states, and that Janis Ian (At Seventeen) guested in an episode, and Alex Borstein (Mrs Maisel) and Laurie Metcalf (Roseanne) were in it? Well now you know.
(And who knew the original BBC series was directed by Doctor Who and Michelle off of Eastenders? Boy, the research you can get into when you're supposed to be working)
Am I the only person who’s heard the phrase “Fairly do’s”?
I’ve got a character saying it, now I’m wondering if it’s something anyone’s ever said ever. Who’s heard “fairly do’s” before?
Patrick Gallagher I've said it... and I can remember Marc Rilely saying it... and possiblly Mark Radcliffe, too.
Kev Sutherland It seems I've inherited the phrase from Marc Riley, when he was on Radio 1 as part of Mark & Lard. Would you Adam and believe it?
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Thinking Like It’s 20 Years Ago, a wee blog
Forgive me this indulgence, it was the shower conversation I had with myself this morning. My basic theory was that peoples’ main point of reference is 20 years ago, so they make decisions based on that, and it turns out different.
So, in 1914 we entered the First World War thinking it would be like The Boer War. We were wrong. It was war run on an industrial scale, with tanks, bombs, planes and mass slaughter.
After it things had changed. There was the radio and jazz. It was quite radical.
In 1939 we entered a war thinking it was like 1914, a cock up by otherwise civilised nations. We were wrong. It was a war with a mission, run by dictators intent on genocide and world domination.
After it things had changed. There was TV and rock & roll. It was quite radical.
In the 1960s we voted for Wilson & Kennedy, thinking it would be all post-war Welfare State and New Deal. We were wrong. There was a Vietnam war for reasons no-one could explain then an oil-driven economic crisis and international terrorism.
After it there was colour TV, and rock bands who made more money than entire countries. It was quite radical.
In the 1970/80s we voted for Thatcher and Reagan, thinking it would be a return to McMillan & Ike’s conservative never-having-had-it-so-good. We were wrong. These were in fact quite radical governments that introduced Neo-Liberalism and monetarism, putting profit above social cohesion more than anyone before.
After that things changed. There was satellite TV and CDs and rave & hip hop. It was quite radical.
In the 90s we voted for Blair, thinking it’d be Harold Wilson giving power back to the unions and MBEs to The Beatles. We were wrong. He was really a conservative, who went into an inexplicable war and put more power into the hands of the rich than they’d had before. (Some argue that Iraq & Afghanistan put an end to terrorism and did nothing to exacerbate the International refugee crisis, but I’m not so sure.)
After that things changed. There was the internet and social media, and music that you didn’t have to pay for, the most popular of which was Ed Sheeran.
So in 2019 we voted for Boris Johnson, thinking he’d be Tony Blair, for whom we were now quite nostalgic. Whatever happens next, we will have been wrong.
And whatever the 2020’s equivalent of the internet, satellite TV, the radio, jazz, rock & roll, hip hop or Ed Sheeran will be, we can only wait to find out, with varying degrees of trepidation.
Thanks for listening.
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