After last night's steamy incident with the pots and pans, I decided to heat up a Ristorante ham, salami and mushroom pizza and it's probably the first time I've made one in halls.
It wasn't too bad although I'd still prefer Dominos or Pizza Express any day as I'm rubbish when it comes to making or heating up pizzas.
I spent the rest of tonight watching tonights SCD results show where Jodie Kidd and Lisa Snowdon ended up in the dance off, with the judges making the right decision to keep
Lisa and Brendan in the show. I'd definitely say that Jodie's been my least favourite contestant in the series and although she wasn't as rubbish as Kate Garraway last year,
I didn't think she was that interesting.
It was good to see a few familiar faces in the audience including Philippa Forrester who must be 40 odd now but she still looks the part.
And there was also a performance by John Barrowman which is probably a good excuse to show him in a past life as one of the presenters of Live And Kicking back in 1994 which was definitely proof of the old saying "Three's A Crowd".
Or four if you count the computer generated cat Ratz who's voice bares a resemblance to a certain Ross T.
Thankfully by series two they demoted John to the entertainment news section
"Electric Circus" allowing Andi and Emma to form more of a partnership alongside the
ever amusing sketches from Trev and Simon. The most memorable being the dry cleaners
Don and Dougie Draper with the catchphrase "We Don't Do Duvets!".
I'm not sure if anyone agrees but I've always found John just completely false, especially as a presenter.
I'm hoping it won't be long before he ends up being humiliated on a show like "I'm A Celebrity Get Me Out of Here" and if it hadn't been for Doctor Who allowing him to come back into the limelight then I'm certain that he would be one of those in the jungle this series.
As for Ant and Dec's joke on tonight's about themselves becoming contestants next year I reckon it will be at least 10 years before they have to take that route.
Tonight's edition was entertaining for many reasons including Timmy Mallett's trial in which he managed to do well, but still hasn't discovered how to stop laughing innapropriately or even uttering his catchphrases at any given moment, "Hello wide awakers!", "Utterly, utterly, brilliant!" and so on.
There was also David Van Day's attempt at writing a song about the experiences in the jungle which sounded like a rip off of any Eddie Cochran song, in an attempt to follow in the footsteps of Peter Andre's "Insania" and the rap by Toby Anstis and David Guest two years ago.
Oddly enough it emerged that Peter had actually written "Insania" five years before taking part in the series although when it was released as a single, it wasn't as good as we all hoped.
I'm not sure how he'll take to this but Peter reminds me of Michael, one of my flatmates last year who does TV in the second year, and lives with fellow radio student Keeley who thinks he bares more of a resemblance to Timmy Mallett!
Then again Michael does have an Australian accent in all fairness, although he was brought up in Mersea in Essex for most of his life.
I'd love to see him more often and find out how his mother Jaqui is getting on as I used to love it when she used to come over and Michael would cook some of the loveliest meals. Definitely one of the few highlights of my almost third year at University.
I've no idea what I plan to do tomorrow apart from Happy Mondaze at the Undercroft later on.
None of my planned interviews take place for at least a week so I guess it will be a case of trying to find even more people with interesting personal pastimes.
Sunday, November 23, 2008
"So They Want Me To Star In It, Write The Feem Toon, Sing The Feem Toon"
I've finally managed to finish my dissertation proposal although I seem to be changing the title every 10 minutes as it's difficult to think of anything that will stand out. Or at least grab the attention of a potential supervisor who I will be happy to work with.
That aside, I've managed to discover TV Cream's Music Scene podcast off of the website of the same name where Ian Jones and Graham Kibble-White spend just under an hour dissecting music used on television past and present.
These include a look into theme tunes aimed to prepare the audience of what to expect within the programme with some of the worst examples including "Give Us A Clue" from the late 80s and the dreadful theme used when Larry Grayson hosted
the Generation Game which I'm sure many people have forgottten.
There were examples however that were difficult for me not to join in with such as Broom Cupboard favourite "Around The World With Willy Fog", "Going For Gold" and the ever explanatory "Chain Letters".
It's worth mentioning the rather cringeworthy stings used throughout the daytime game show such as "wi-nner so-far!" which didn't make sense at all when played at the end of each round.
The theme sandwiches are very clever as well and it appears I'm not the only one who thinks that the middle of "Please Sir!" is exactly the same as "Blankety Blank".
I'm surprised the late Ronnie Hazelhurst wasn't sued.
There's also a look into the theme tunes used by Tomorrow's World throughout the 80s. I only really remember the orchestral one from 1985 onwards by Paul Hart which they re-arranged in 2002 when the programme was on it's last legs.
I was never sure about the Johnny Dankworth theme from the 1970s however in terms of fitting in with the subject matter of the programme despite it being a stunning tune overall.
One of the other features is a top 10 of Paul McCartney songs which have made me realise that I've underestimated him as a solo artist with such brilliant compositions as "Beautiful Night" from 1997, "Take It Away" from the early 80s and a duet with Stevie Wonder called "What's That You're Doing" and is a fuck of a lot better than "Ebony And Ivory".
I also rather like "We All Stand Together" as the arrangement is just spot on with the
full orchestra half way through, although it's a bit of an anti climax at Number 1 with
"Pipes Of Peace". Not a bad song but compared to all the others it's not as good.
The best part of the podcast however has to be a feature on songs that are used or should that be over-used on television with examples such as Calvin Harris, Lemon Jelly, and the worst offender being "Hoppippola" by Sigur Ros. Oddly enough, I haven't heard the Kill Bill music used once in the current series of the X Factor which can only be a good thing.
I'm hoping Ian and Graham will produce more podcasts of a similar nature and I'm very tempted to buy their book on Breakfast Television as well as Jack Kibble-White's book on Saturday Night Television which may come in handy for my dissertation.
Ideal reading for the television enthusiast.
That aside, I've managed to discover TV Cream's Music Scene podcast off of the website of the same name where Ian Jones and Graham Kibble-White spend just under an hour dissecting music used on television past and present.
These include a look into theme tunes aimed to prepare the audience of what to expect within the programme with some of the worst examples including "Give Us A Clue" from the late 80s and the dreadful theme used when Larry Grayson hosted
the Generation Game which I'm sure many people have forgottten.
There were examples however that were difficult for me not to join in with such as Broom Cupboard favourite "Around The World With Willy Fog", "Going For Gold" and the ever explanatory "Chain Letters".
It's worth mentioning the rather cringeworthy stings used throughout the daytime game show such as "wi-nner so-far!" which didn't make sense at all when played at the end of each round.
The theme sandwiches are very clever as well and it appears I'm not the only one who thinks that the middle of "Please Sir!" is exactly the same as "Blankety Blank".
I'm surprised the late Ronnie Hazelhurst wasn't sued.
There's also a look into the theme tunes used by Tomorrow's World throughout the 80s. I only really remember the orchestral one from 1985 onwards by Paul Hart which they re-arranged in 2002 when the programme was on it's last legs.
I was never sure about the Johnny Dankworth theme from the 1970s however in terms of fitting in with the subject matter of the programme despite it being a stunning tune overall.
One of the other features is a top 10 of Paul McCartney songs which have made me realise that I've underestimated him as a solo artist with such brilliant compositions as "Beautiful Night" from 1997, "Take It Away" from the early 80s and a duet with Stevie Wonder called "What's That You're Doing" and is a fuck of a lot better than "Ebony And Ivory".
I also rather like "We All Stand Together" as the arrangement is just spot on with the
full orchestra half way through, although it's a bit of an anti climax at Number 1 with
"Pipes Of Peace". Not a bad song but compared to all the others it's not as good.
The best part of the podcast however has to be a feature on songs that are used or should that be over-used on television with examples such as Calvin Harris, Lemon Jelly, and the worst offender being "Hoppippola" by Sigur Ros. Oddly enough, I haven't heard the Kill Bill music used once in the current series of the X Factor which can only be a good thing.
I'm hoping Ian and Graham will produce more podcasts of a similar nature and I'm very tempted to buy their book on Breakfast Television as well as Jack Kibble-White's book on Saturday Night Television which may come in handy for my dissertation.
Ideal reading for the television enthusiast.
Soul And Struggles
Another Sunday morning and the perfect excuse to have a lie in whilst listening to Robbie Vincent on Jazz FM as usual. Once again there were some pretty good tunes on offer such as Rose Royce and their underated "Still In Love", a superb live version of Lee Ritenour's "Countdown" which could be a rather topical record, and "Evening Of Love" by Main Ingredient.
Next week it's a Marvin Gaye special although to be perfectly honest, I've never really been a fan of Marvin and find most of his material rather dull and in some cases played to death.
There have been some good covers of his work however such as Tom Browne's jazzy cover of "What's Going On" and more recently Michael Cooper's version of the lesser known "Since I Had You" which was co-written by Leon Ware.
I reckon it may be an even longer lie in next week.
At the moment however I'm procrastinating with regards to writing about what literature I'm going to use despite the fact that the whole aim of the dissertation is to fill the gap the of the lack of literature written about entertainment on television. I'm bound to find something however as the "Interpreting Television" book is my own copy and not one I found in the Harrow library so it may involve looking in other places as the only media related books seem to be ones based around, for the upteenth time; "poncey theories".
I may end up referrring to to my lit review when writing it as a "clit review" in my blog posts.
I know it's snide but it's going to be a bugger to write.
Moving along I've been meaning to upload this rather embarrassing audio from Wigan based station Wish FM where the presenter manages to produce what has to be the most toe curling exchange between two people, in this case being the newsreader, digging more and more deeper.
If you thought the Les Ross interview with Hardeep Singh Kohli was bad, then this is a thousand times worse.
Whether any action has been taken I'm not sure although you really wouldn't think a presenter would go that far.
Next week it's a Marvin Gaye special although to be perfectly honest, I've never really been a fan of Marvin and find most of his material rather dull and in some cases played to death.
There have been some good covers of his work however such as Tom Browne's jazzy cover of "What's Going On" and more recently Michael Cooper's version of the lesser known "Since I Had You" which was co-written by Leon Ware.
I reckon it may be an even longer lie in next week.
At the moment however I'm procrastinating with regards to writing about what literature I'm going to use despite the fact that the whole aim of the dissertation is to fill the gap the of the lack of literature written about entertainment on television. I'm bound to find something however as the "Interpreting Television" book is my own copy and not one I found in the Harrow library so it may involve looking in other places as the only media related books seem to be ones based around, for the upteenth time; "poncey theories".
I may end up referrring to to my lit review when writing it as a "clit review" in my blog posts.
I know it's snide but it's going to be a bugger to write.
Moving along I've been meaning to upload this rather embarrassing audio from Wigan based station Wish FM where the presenter manages to produce what has to be the most toe curling exchange between two people, in this case being the newsreader, digging more and more deeper.
If you thought the Les Ross interview with Hardeep Singh Kohli was bad, then this is a thousand times worse.
Whether any action has been taken I'm not sure although you really wouldn't think a presenter would go that far.
Saturday, November 22, 2008
"It's Heaven Knocking At My Door"
For the first time in the three years I have been in Harrow Halls I ended up setting the fire alarm off as a result of my saucepans overboiling producing a rather smoky kitchen.
It didn't cause too much hassle but rather annoyingly the security guard took a very long time to actually come over and switch off the alarms and then started going on at me in his "shattered" English trying to explain why I shouldn't have the door open if the kitchen is in such as state.
That's just nonsense as it's practically impossible to even have it open unless wedged which I doubt anyone would actually do. Then again I'd best make sure that I don't leave things bubbling for too long in future.
It didn't ruin what was an OKish Saturday night in front of the box starting off with SCD which really felt like a different show without John Seargant taking part.
I was disapointed that judge Len Goodman didn't give out any sevens although Bruno Tonioli uttered the infamous catchphrase when giving his score for Christine Bleakley and Matthew Cutler who scored the lowest out of the judges results.
Here's hoping the public take One Show co-presenter Adrian Chiles's advice of voting for her "even if she is rubbish".
On the plus side Tom Chambers did have a bit of stubble on him this week which made things slightly better. Personally I think it makes him look at bit more rougeish.
Tonight's X-Factor was also enjoyable as well with all the contestants performing
Take That songs. Alexandra was my favourite who did a great rendition of "Relight My Fire" more in the style of the original Dan Hartman version, and Ruth managed to do well with her performance of the lesser remembered "Love Ain't Here Anymore".
JLS weren't as good this week choosing to perform "A Million Love Songs" which is more of a solo song, considering Gary Barlow wrote it before joining the band. It turned out that Louis had wanted them to perform "Rule The World" which Dannii apparently "stole" for Rachel Hylton to perform.
It's difficult to associate that song without thinking of ex radio student Pete saying "what he'd like to do to Gary Barlow" whilst watching the video at Denis's old house last year.
Anyway, other standout performances included Eoghan's take on "Never Forget" where he was struggling to hit the high notes on the chorus. Thankfully he kept within his range when it came to the line "We've come so far, and we've reached so high...".
The two acts who ended up in what will be the final showdown this series were JLS, and Rachel once again. Both of whom gave great performances with JLS performing a medley of "Stand By Me" and the rather inferior "Beautiful Girls" by Sean Kingston although I felt the need to sing to both as the former has to be one of the only songs I know every single word to apart from Dead Or Alive's "You Spin Me Round" and "Teenage Kicks" by the Undertones.
Rachel on the other hand gave a performance of the stunning "And I'm Telling You I'm Not Going" by Jennifer Hudson although it was orignally performed by another soul singer who's name I can't remember.
Invevitably the judges sent Rachel home which I thought was the right decision as if she ended up winning the series, they would probably turn her into another Amy Winehouse. And we wouldn't want that, would we now?
The results show also had the new singles from two of last years acts, them being the rather pompous (or made to look that way) Rhydian, and brother sister duo "Same Difference" who got a standing ovation from all the judges apart from Louis Walsh.
Having said that, none of the tunes were that memorable and it's probably just as well that Leon Jackson won the series as he's definitely taken a superb musical angle with his album.
In between both the main show and the results there were the latest goings on in "Celebrity" where David Van Day gave a rather poor performance in his trial collecting only five stars in the mole hole.
There was also another Bush Battle where Simon Webbe, Brian Paddick and Carly volunteered to see who could spend the longest on a spit roast. Brian was the first to give in but Simon ended up falling off his wooden panel so it was decided that both Simon and Carly would be immune from the first vote off along with Joe Swash.
Simon's also been excused from tomorrow's trial which ended up going to Timmy Mallet who has to spend time locked in a coffin invaded by bugs.
That's bound to stop him laughing.
As an aside I really enjoy reading the live blogs at Media Guardian.co.uk for shows like Strictly and The X Factor, written as all the events happen.
Rather bizarrely I could never imagine doing that myself as I prefer to watch a show in its entirity and then write an irreverant taken on things, but you have to hand it to those who can multi-task whilst watching the box.
And long may it continue.
It didn't cause too much hassle but rather annoyingly the security guard took a very long time to actually come over and switch off the alarms and then started going on at me in his "shattered" English trying to explain why I shouldn't have the door open if the kitchen is in such as state.
That's just nonsense as it's practically impossible to even have it open unless wedged which I doubt anyone would actually do. Then again I'd best make sure that I don't leave things bubbling for too long in future.
It didn't ruin what was an OKish Saturday night in front of the box starting off with SCD which really felt like a different show without John Seargant taking part.
I was disapointed that judge Len Goodman didn't give out any sevens although Bruno Tonioli uttered the infamous catchphrase when giving his score for Christine Bleakley and Matthew Cutler who scored the lowest out of the judges results.
Here's hoping the public take One Show co-presenter Adrian Chiles's advice of voting for her "even if she is rubbish".
On the plus side Tom Chambers did have a bit of stubble on him this week which made things slightly better. Personally I think it makes him look at bit more rougeish.
Tonight's X-Factor was also enjoyable as well with all the contestants performing
Take That songs. Alexandra was my favourite who did a great rendition of "Relight My Fire" more in the style of the original Dan Hartman version, and Ruth managed to do well with her performance of the lesser remembered "Love Ain't Here Anymore".
JLS weren't as good this week choosing to perform "A Million Love Songs" which is more of a solo song, considering Gary Barlow wrote it before joining the band. It turned out that Louis had wanted them to perform "Rule The World" which Dannii apparently "stole" for Rachel Hylton to perform.
It's difficult to associate that song without thinking of ex radio student Pete saying "what he'd like to do to Gary Barlow" whilst watching the video at Denis's old house last year.
Anyway, other standout performances included Eoghan's take on "Never Forget" where he was struggling to hit the high notes on the chorus. Thankfully he kept within his range when it came to the line "We've come so far, and we've reached so high...".
The two acts who ended up in what will be the final showdown this series were JLS, and Rachel once again. Both of whom gave great performances with JLS performing a medley of "Stand By Me" and the rather inferior "Beautiful Girls" by Sean Kingston although I felt the need to sing to both as the former has to be one of the only songs I know every single word to apart from Dead Or Alive's "You Spin Me Round" and "Teenage Kicks" by the Undertones.
Rachel on the other hand gave a performance of the stunning "And I'm Telling You I'm Not Going" by Jennifer Hudson although it was orignally performed by another soul singer who's name I can't remember.
Invevitably the judges sent Rachel home which I thought was the right decision as if she ended up winning the series, they would probably turn her into another Amy Winehouse. And we wouldn't want that, would we now?
The results show also had the new singles from two of last years acts, them being the rather pompous (or made to look that way) Rhydian, and brother sister duo "Same Difference" who got a standing ovation from all the judges apart from Louis Walsh.
Having said that, none of the tunes were that memorable and it's probably just as well that Leon Jackson won the series as he's definitely taken a superb musical angle with his album.
In between both the main show and the results there were the latest goings on in "Celebrity" where David Van Day gave a rather poor performance in his trial collecting only five stars in the mole hole.
There was also another Bush Battle where Simon Webbe, Brian Paddick and Carly volunteered to see who could spend the longest on a spit roast. Brian was the first to give in but Simon ended up falling off his wooden panel so it was decided that both Simon and Carly would be immune from the first vote off along with Joe Swash.
Simon's also been excused from tomorrow's trial which ended up going to Timmy Mallet who has to spend time locked in a coffin invaded by bugs.
That's bound to stop him laughing.
As an aside I really enjoy reading the live blogs at Media Guardian.co.uk for shows like Strictly and The X Factor, written as all the events happen.
Rather bizarrely I could never imagine doing that myself as I prefer to watch a show in its entirity and then write an irreverant taken on things, but you have to hand it to those who can multi-task whilst watching the box.
And long may it continue.
"We Can Ride On A Star"
It's been just a normal Saturday so far, with the afternoon spent listening to PY on Jazz FM where this week he was playing a selection of songs associated with Aretha Franklin performed by various artists. These included Beverley Knight who performed who of her songs on her "Music City Soul" album last year which was apparently recorded in just one take. Also included was a version of "Think" by Lonnie Smith, not to be confused with Lonnie Liston Smith, and Stevie Wonder's original version of her song "Until You Come Back To Me".
I was disapointed that Adeva's 1989 cover of "Respect" wasn't included and whilst it may not be timeless, it really gives you more of an idea of what the song's about, especially with Monie Love's rap in the middle of the extended version.
One to play on my show this Wednesday I reckon.
As for tonight, a large amount of viewing is set to take place starting off with "Hole In The Wall" where one the guests taking part happens to be Radio 1's Scott Mills.
It's followed by Strictly Come Dancing where John and Kristina will be returning to the show to perform their final dance which will be their waltz, although I'm sure they'll be remembered more for their paso doble where John appeared to be dragging Kristina across the floor.
The highlight however of tonight has to be this week's Take That themed X Factor which so far I've avoided finding out the songs that will be performed. I'm hoping they'll perform some of their older ones from albums such as "Everything Changes" and "Nobody Else" although it's unlikely we'll get any of them performing "Once You've Tasted Love" or their first top 40 record "Promises" that around the time I always used to get confused with Gary Clail's "Human Nature".
And of course sandwiching the main show and the results will be the goings on the in the jungle and here's hoping David Van Day gets stuck in the mole hole in his Bushtucker Trial.
After last week's disastrous visit into Central I know that Saturday's really are a staying in night.
I was disapointed that Adeva's 1989 cover of "Respect" wasn't included and whilst it may not be timeless, it really gives you more of an idea of what the song's about, especially with Monie Love's rap in the middle of the extended version.
One to play on my show this Wednesday I reckon.
As for tonight, a large amount of viewing is set to take place starting off with "Hole In The Wall" where one the guests taking part happens to be Radio 1's Scott Mills.
It's followed by Strictly Come Dancing where John and Kristina will be returning to the show to perform their final dance which will be their waltz, although I'm sure they'll be remembered more for their paso doble where John appeared to be dragging Kristina across the floor.
The highlight however of tonight has to be this week's Take That themed X Factor which so far I've avoided finding out the songs that will be performed. I'm hoping they'll perform some of their older ones from albums such as "Everything Changes" and "Nobody Else" although it's unlikely we'll get any of them performing "Once You've Tasted Love" or their first top 40 record "Promises" that around the time I always used to get confused with Gary Clail's "Human Nature".
And of course sandwiching the main show and the results will be the goings on the in the jungle and here's hoping David Van Day gets stuck in the mole hole in his Bushtucker Trial.
After last week's disastrous visit into Central I know that Saturday's really are a staying in night.
The Best Top Of Hour Ever?
Following on from the post made yesterday about sung news idents, The Power FM 1993 news intro courtesy of Iain Johnston at Jinglemad which has to be the perfect example of a sung news jingle and accompanying bed with a superb finale designed to kick into the first record of the hour.
With the station only just relaunched as Galaxy South Coast 103.2 due to the Global takeover, this will be a testament to the station in it's prime especially as it nears its 20th anniversary.
With the station only just relaunched as Galaxy South Coast 103.2 due to the Global takeover, this will be a testament to the station in it's prime especially as it nears its 20th anniversary.
Beyond The Broom Cupboard
I'm about halfway with writing my dissertation proposal as just need to write a section on the literature I'm going to use and an indicative bilbliography. That's going to be a bit of a task but I'm sure I'll come up with a few relevant examples with the books I've manged to get out of the Harrow library.
Last night however I discovered tons of videos on Youtube of more gems from
Children's BBC in the early 90s and I thought it would be appropriate to do something I haven't done in a while, by giving an irreverent history lesson related to the summer strand "But First This" or BFT as it became to be known.
The acronym caught on quite quickly however, as seen in this introduction from it's second outing in 1988 with presenters Andy Crane and Colin Heywood, the latter went on to be part of pop duo "Yell!" who had top 10 hit with a cover of "Instant Replay".
I don't understand why the presenters don't talk over the menu as the music contains some superb punctuations that would work well, in the same way as the chart rundown on Top Of The Pops around the same time.
The strand was a bigger deal than The Broom Cupboard in terms of production, as there were pre-recorded items done on location with the presenters, allowing them to get out and about and really making the links between the shows count.
The shows themselves included "Silas", the long established "Why Don't You" (featuring a young Ant McPartlin) as well as Playschool which stayed on as usual.
However the most questionable programme shown was represented by the decision to wrap around BFT with "Five To Eleven", a dreadful programme involving actors reading short poems that would be better off being scheduled before closedown.
The result can be seen via TV-Ark which is definitely worth the watch to see how presenters Sue Devaney and Andy Crane handle it, but I'm more than happy to provide a transcript below.
Sue Devaney: "What's yellow and white and travels at 80 miles per hour?
A train driver's egg sandwich... Right, thank you very much for that!
Let's have a look at 'Five To Eleven'"
Five minutes later, after Phillip Madoc finishes droning on cue Andy Crane:
AC: "I loved that joke about the train driver's egg sandwich...."
Overall it shows how the BBC schedulers couldn't always get it right back in those days.
Moving on two years and the 9th of July 1990, the same day as my younger brother was born and BFT makes a return with a submarine themed set and a rather superb theme tune as composed by Stock Aitken and Waterman. I was never too sure about the ending however.
Simon Parkin and Andi Peters were the hosts along with two new faces, one of them being Philippa Forrester making her first appearance on television and the other being Claudia Simon who at the time I found rather attractive.
There was even an article promoting it in the BBC's Fast Forward magazine and despite being only five I was rather excited by it all.
This was also around the time I began to listen to Radio 1 more reguarly as Mum was busy looking after Olly and I spent most of the time in the front room listening to the likes of Gary Davies, and Steve Wright where I reckon the most played record around the time was MC Hammer's "U Can't Touch This" which even today sounds fresh.
That track can be heard in a compilation of out-takes from the final day and also includes quite a lot of the other links. By this time they had abandoned the idea of using the presenters linking into "Five To Eleven" although there were a few other questionable choices of programmes such as the American drama "Our House" which reminds me of many Sunday afternoons during the summer of 1989, not least because it included the infamous Lorimar Telepictures sting at the end which can be seen in the above video.
There's also the original titles to the O-Zone which I haven't seen for a long time which alternated throughout the week with Andi Peter's magazine "TNT" which stood for "Tuesdays 'n' Thursdays" due to the days it was scheduled. I was particuarly excited by the programme as it used the same music as in the BBC's trailers for the Radio Times, which was a soundalike of Scritti Politti's "Boom! There She Was".
Phillipa became used even further throughout 1990 and 1991 becoming the first female in four years to present from the Broom Cupboard. Claudia however didn't seem to impress the likes of editor Paul Smith and disapeared although she was one of the many presenters of the "Year Zero" era of Top Of The Pops in 1991-1992 alongside the likes of Mark Franklin, Tony "Laters" Dortie, Adrian Rose and Femi Oke who went on to become a weather girl for LWT.
As an aside I swear that Phillippa and her cheeky sometimes flirtatious presenting style reminds me of our very own Potty Lottie on the radio course. I'm not sure how Lottie herself would take to that but she's still my favourite member of the team running the radio station.
Christmas in 1990 saw the links being presented on the same set as CBBC on Sundays that year with Andi, Simon and Phillipa taking care of proceedings. It also turns out to be the last appearance of the original O-Zone titles as a new look was brought for 1991 involving silver heads that turned round and robotic clapping hands.
The highlight however has to be near the end where they play the stunning 2 Brave theme tune in it's entirity for the final link. I'd still love to see the opening theme although the rather bizarre titles can be seen during the credits.
And I still don't get the grunting noise near the end which also appeared in the 1992 titles when Toby Anstis joined.
The summer of 1991 saw another new look and a new addition to the team, that being Esther McVey in the days before she attempted to become a Conservative candidate.
The titles featured a memorable orange character called "Jet" although I don't really think the theme music is as good as the 2 Brave and SAW themes used beforehand.
The 2 Brave theme however was used during the rather superb competition Alphabet Attack in which two contestants had to name certain objects, people, characters with a randomly selected letter of the alphabet.
Quite often the phones wouldn't work but rather than get fake callers, they would put the presenter up against the caller and give them really difficult letters such as X or Z to make sure the contestant on the phone would win.
Once again the user behind the videos has uploaded a compilation of the highlights from 1991 along with the titles to the O-Zone as mentioned above.
They used the titles again at Christmas where Simon, Phillipa and Esther went to Lapland and I have clear memories of Andi Peters in the Broom Cupboard sternly telling Edd The Duck and Wilson the Butler that they would not be going much to their chagrin.
Esther ended up getting the boot after Christmas and Simon left shortly after allowing the strand to get a fresh new look in Easter 1992 with presenters Phillipa Forrester and Toby Anstis at the helm. The titles can be seen here (at around 1:52) from New Years Day 1993 which are a variation on the 1991 titles but with a much better theme tune by
2 Brave who also composed the music used in the Broom Cupboard used from that era onwards, replacing a less memorable sig tune introduced that previous autumn.
This era's also memorable for the competition "Maggot Moments" a game of which can be seen here with further proof the Phillipa Forrester reminds me of Potty.
I'd say she's definitely the best female presenter of CBBC and it certainly showed as she managed to stay there for four years.
As for Toby Anstis, I used to think I bore a resemblance to him in terms of my radio voice but I reckon he sounds more similar to a certain Phil Harris. I'm not sure if that's compliment but Toby's still doing pretty well as a DJ nowadays at London's Heart.
And for those into the geeky computer stuff, a clip from TNT where Andi Peters finds out how they created Mervyn the Maggot.
It just goes to show that editor Paul Smith did a lot more than stick his hand up a squeaky puppet alongside Phillip Schofield and for me is one of the finest figures in television.
Also worth having a look is Greg Taylor's fab website The Broom Cupboard.co.uk giving an account on CBBC between 1985 and 1992, along with some great interviews with Simon Parkin and Andi Peters.
Last night however I discovered tons of videos on Youtube of more gems from
Children's BBC in the early 90s and I thought it would be appropriate to do something I haven't done in a while, by giving an irreverent history lesson related to the summer strand "But First This" or BFT as it became to be known.
The acronym caught on quite quickly however, as seen in this introduction from it's second outing in 1988 with presenters Andy Crane and Colin Heywood, the latter went on to be part of pop duo "Yell!" who had top 10 hit with a cover of "Instant Replay".
I don't understand why the presenters don't talk over the menu as the music contains some superb punctuations that would work well, in the same way as the chart rundown on Top Of The Pops around the same time.
The strand was a bigger deal than The Broom Cupboard in terms of production, as there were pre-recorded items done on location with the presenters, allowing them to get out and about and really making the links between the shows count.
The shows themselves included "Silas", the long established "Why Don't You" (featuring a young Ant McPartlin) as well as Playschool which stayed on as usual.
However the most questionable programme shown was represented by the decision to wrap around BFT with "Five To Eleven", a dreadful programme involving actors reading short poems that would be better off being scheduled before closedown.
The result can be seen via TV-Ark which is definitely worth the watch to see how presenters Sue Devaney and Andy Crane handle it, but I'm more than happy to provide a transcript below.
Sue Devaney: "What's yellow and white and travels at 80 miles per hour?
A train driver's egg sandwich... Right, thank you very much for that!
Let's have a look at 'Five To Eleven'"
Five minutes later, after Phillip Madoc finishes droning on cue Andy Crane:
AC: "I loved that joke about the train driver's egg sandwich...."
Overall it shows how the BBC schedulers couldn't always get it right back in those days.
Moving on two years and the 9th of July 1990, the same day as my younger brother was born and BFT makes a return with a submarine themed set and a rather superb theme tune as composed by Stock Aitken and Waterman. I was never too sure about the ending however.
Simon Parkin and Andi Peters were the hosts along with two new faces, one of them being Philippa Forrester making her first appearance on television and the other being Claudia Simon who at the time I found rather attractive.
There was even an article promoting it in the BBC's Fast Forward magazine and despite being only five I was rather excited by it all.
This was also around the time I began to listen to Radio 1 more reguarly as Mum was busy looking after Olly and I spent most of the time in the front room listening to the likes of Gary Davies, and Steve Wright where I reckon the most played record around the time was MC Hammer's "U Can't Touch This" which even today sounds fresh.
That track can be heard in a compilation of out-takes from the final day and also includes quite a lot of the other links. By this time they had abandoned the idea of using the presenters linking into "Five To Eleven" although there were a few other questionable choices of programmes such as the American drama "Our House" which reminds me of many Sunday afternoons during the summer of 1989, not least because it included the infamous Lorimar Telepictures sting at the end which can be seen in the above video.
There's also the original titles to the O-Zone which I haven't seen for a long time which alternated throughout the week with Andi Peter's magazine "TNT" which stood for "Tuesdays 'n' Thursdays" due to the days it was scheduled. I was particuarly excited by the programme as it used the same music as in the BBC's trailers for the Radio Times, which was a soundalike of Scritti Politti's "Boom! There She Was".
Phillipa became used even further throughout 1990 and 1991 becoming the first female in four years to present from the Broom Cupboard. Claudia however didn't seem to impress the likes of editor Paul Smith and disapeared although she was one of the many presenters of the "Year Zero" era of Top Of The Pops in 1991-1992 alongside the likes of Mark Franklin, Tony "Laters" Dortie, Adrian Rose and Femi Oke who went on to become a weather girl for LWT.
As an aside I swear that Phillippa and her cheeky sometimes flirtatious presenting style reminds me of our very own Potty Lottie on the radio course. I'm not sure how Lottie herself would take to that but she's still my favourite member of the team running the radio station.
Christmas in 1990 saw the links being presented on the same set as CBBC on Sundays that year with Andi, Simon and Phillipa taking care of proceedings. It also turns out to be the last appearance of the original O-Zone titles as a new look was brought for 1991 involving silver heads that turned round and robotic clapping hands.
The highlight however has to be near the end where they play the stunning 2 Brave theme tune in it's entirity for the final link. I'd still love to see the opening theme although the rather bizarre titles can be seen during the credits.
And I still don't get the grunting noise near the end which also appeared in the 1992 titles when Toby Anstis joined.
The summer of 1991 saw another new look and a new addition to the team, that being Esther McVey in the days before she attempted to become a Conservative candidate.
The titles featured a memorable orange character called "Jet" although I don't really think the theme music is as good as the 2 Brave and SAW themes used beforehand.
The 2 Brave theme however was used during the rather superb competition Alphabet Attack in which two contestants had to name certain objects, people, characters with a randomly selected letter of the alphabet.
Quite often the phones wouldn't work but rather than get fake callers, they would put the presenter up against the caller and give them really difficult letters such as X or Z to make sure the contestant on the phone would win.
Once again the user behind the videos has uploaded a compilation of the highlights from 1991 along with the titles to the O-Zone as mentioned above.
They used the titles again at Christmas where Simon, Phillipa and Esther went to Lapland and I have clear memories of Andi Peters in the Broom Cupboard sternly telling Edd The Duck and Wilson the Butler that they would not be going much to their chagrin.
Esther ended up getting the boot after Christmas and Simon left shortly after allowing the strand to get a fresh new look in Easter 1992 with presenters Phillipa Forrester and Toby Anstis at the helm. The titles can be seen here (at around 1:52) from New Years Day 1993 which are a variation on the 1991 titles but with a much better theme tune by
2 Brave who also composed the music used in the Broom Cupboard used from that era onwards, replacing a less memorable sig tune introduced that previous autumn.
This era's also memorable for the competition "Maggot Moments" a game of which can be seen here with further proof the Phillipa Forrester reminds me of Potty.
I'd say she's definitely the best female presenter of CBBC and it certainly showed as she managed to stay there for four years.
As for Toby Anstis, I used to think I bore a resemblance to him in terms of my radio voice but I reckon he sounds more similar to a certain Phil Harris. I'm not sure if that's compliment but Toby's still doing pretty well as a DJ nowadays at London's Heart.
And for those into the geeky computer stuff, a clip from TNT where Andi Peters finds out how they created Mervyn the Maggot.
It just goes to show that editor Paul Smith did a lot more than stick his hand up a squeaky puppet alongside Phillip Schofield and for me is one of the finest figures in television.
Also worth having a look is Greg Taylor's fab website The Broom Cupboard.co.uk giving an account on CBBC between 1985 and 1992, along with some great interviews with Simon Parkin and Andi Peters.
Friday, November 21, 2008
A Night's Worth Of Viewing (Almost)
With the BBC Trust giving their verdict on the Ross/Brand furore, they made a few fair points although what really irritated me was when Michael Lyons said that the show "shouldn't have been recorded".
That's just a bullshit statement as you wouldn't be able to predict what would happen in the show prior to recording although given that Head of Specialist Music David Barber and Controller Lesley Douglas didn't listen to the offending parts of the programme before broadcast it probably highlights why senior executives at Auntie aren't doing their job properly.
Tonight's exploits in the jungle involved a bit of aggro over Timmy Mallett's over the top laughter at Robert Kilroy Silk's trial. Whilst he may have overdone it, it's more or less what you'd expect from someone with such a crazy personality.
Joe Swash managed to win the first "Bush Battle" which has resulted in him being excused from the first vote-off next week whilst taking part in tomorrow's Bushtucker Trial "Holy Moly" is a very deserving David Van Day.
However I'm pretty certain he'll do rather well.
The 1983 programme which followed was your bog standard show involving acts from back in the day reuniting to perform their past hits although some of the performances weren't too bad, such as Heaven 17 performing "Temptation" and I could finally make sense of the chorus as they didn't have Carol Kenyon singing with them. There was also a superb performance by Tony Hadley and a live band and a superb version of what I reckon is a very overplayed track, that being "True" which was a great finale to the show.
There were a few other odd moments such as Nik Kershaw which had me thinking during the song "who does he remind me of?". It turned out that he bares an almost exact resemblance to Gary Glitter in his current state which is ironic as Nik used to be known as one of the shortest men in pop throughout the 1980s.
I was also disapointed that Paul Young performed "Wherever I Lay My Hat" rather than "Love Of The Common People" or even better "Come Back And Stay", the latter of which was the final record to be played on Leicestershire's Centre Radio before it went bust, the first ILR station to do so.
It had only been on air for two years launching with a certain Timmy Mallett as it's breakfast presenter who was sacked after six weeks, although we all know who had the last laugh. Or in his case one too many laughs.
I followed this by catching up with this weeks editions of Buzzcocks and HIGNFY on iPlayer.
Buzzcocks wasn't at it's best due to Simon constantly plugging the Stereophonics Best Of album due to Kelly Jones being a guest, and the rather ridiculous jokes about Craig David's "obsession" with rabbits.
It was good to hear EWF's "September" featured in the intros round which surprisingly I didn't get until they revealed the answer and the jokes about Tess Daly on SCD were more or less spot on.
Even Natasha Kaplinsky had more personality than her when she covered in the first half of series 2 when Tess had her first baby.
HIGNFY was slightly funnier however with Frank Skinner taking a bit of ribbing for being in Paul Merton's place, especially with the joke about him finding out he was on the show after the end credits. They also made jokes about John Seargent, and the fact that Hitler really did have just one testicle.
I'm hoping Paul recovers and makes a return soon although Frank wasn't that bad.
With "Live At The Apollo" starting next week featuring Dara O'Briain and Frankie Boyle, they'll be truly decent comedy back on our screens.
That's just a bullshit statement as you wouldn't be able to predict what would happen in the show prior to recording although given that Head of Specialist Music David Barber and Controller Lesley Douglas didn't listen to the offending parts of the programme before broadcast it probably highlights why senior executives at Auntie aren't doing their job properly.
Tonight's exploits in the jungle involved a bit of aggro over Timmy Mallett's over the top laughter at Robert Kilroy Silk's trial. Whilst he may have overdone it, it's more or less what you'd expect from someone with such a crazy personality.
Joe Swash managed to win the first "Bush Battle" which has resulted in him being excused from the first vote-off next week whilst taking part in tomorrow's Bushtucker Trial "Holy Moly" is a very deserving David Van Day.
However I'm pretty certain he'll do rather well.
The 1983 programme which followed was your bog standard show involving acts from back in the day reuniting to perform their past hits although some of the performances weren't too bad, such as Heaven 17 performing "Temptation" and I could finally make sense of the chorus as they didn't have Carol Kenyon singing with them. There was also a superb performance by Tony Hadley and a live band and a superb version of what I reckon is a very overplayed track, that being "True" which was a great finale to the show.
There were a few other odd moments such as Nik Kershaw which had me thinking during the song "who does he remind me of?". It turned out that he bares an almost exact resemblance to Gary Glitter in his current state which is ironic as Nik used to be known as one of the shortest men in pop throughout the 1980s.
I was also disapointed that Paul Young performed "Wherever I Lay My Hat" rather than "Love Of The Common People" or even better "Come Back And Stay", the latter of which was the final record to be played on Leicestershire's Centre Radio before it went bust, the first ILR station to do so.
It had only been on air for two years launching with a certain Timmy Mallett as it's breakfast presenter who was sacked after six weeks, although we all know who had the last laugh. Or in his case one too many laughs.
I followed this by catching up with this weeks editions of Buzzcocks and HIGNFY on iPlayer.
Buzzcocks wasn't at it's best due to Simon constantly plugging the Stereophonics Best Of album due to Kelly Jones being a guest, and the rather ridiculous jokes about Craig David's "obsession" with rabbits.
It was good to hear EWF's "September" featured in the intros round which surprisingly I didn't get until they revealed the answer and the jokes about Tess Daly on SCD were more or less spot on.
Even Natasha Kaplinsky had more personality than her when she covered in the first half of series 2 when Tess had her first baby.
HIGNFY was slightly funnier however with Frank Skinner taking a bit of ribbing for being in Paul Merton's place, especially with the joke about him finding out he was on the show after the end credits. They also made jokes about John Seargent, and the fact that Hitler really did have just one testicle.
I'm hoping Paul recovers and makes a return soon although Frank wasn't that bad.
With "Live At The Apollo" starting next week featuring Dara O'Briain and Frankie Boyle, they'll be truly decent comedy back on our screens.
The Guffaw Gongs
Hours after the new hosts of Countdown have been announced, another question has finally got a long awaited answer, in this case being the host of the 2008 British Comedy Awards.
Angus Deayton will be compering the ceremony and he's definitely an ideal choice who will be able to continue the irreverant nature of the show, especially the opening speech which for me is the best part of the show itself.
Angus actually made his first TV appearance after his sacking from HIGNFY on that very show in 2002 which got a good response from the audience and it's not the first time he's hosted an awards ceremony having hosted the BAFTA TV Awards in 2001 with mixed results.
Hopefully they'll be showing the awards on a Saturday this year which alongside the X Factor can guarantee good ratings.
I'm starting to feel rather nervous about writing my dissertation proposal as I could end up writing any old rubbish but hopefully by tomorrow morning I'll be in a better state to write it.
I can never work on assignments during the later hours of the day but in this case, nothing is set in stone and changes can be made to what is written in the proposal later on.
It shouldn't really be too hard considering the word length being a minimum of 1,500 words.
Angus Deayton will be compering the ceremony and he's definitely an ideal choice who will be able to continue the irreverant nature of the show, especially the opening speech which for me is the best part of the show itself.
Angus actually made his first TV appearance after his sacking from HIGNFY on that very show in 2002 which got a good response from the audience and it's not the first time he's hosted an awards ceremony having hosted the BAFTA TV Awards in 2001 with mixed results.
Hopefully they'll be showing the awards on a Saturday this year which alongside the X Factor can guarantee good ratings.
I'm starting to feel rather nervous about writing my dissertation proposal as I could end up writing any old rubbish but hopefully by tomorrow morning I'll be in a better state to write it.
I can never work on assignments during the later hours of the day but in this case, nothing is set in stone and changes can be made to what is written in the proposal later on.
It shouldn't really be too hard considering the word length being a minimum of 1,500 words.
Televisual Reading
I've returned from the library where I've brought quite a lot of television related books that I hope will come in useful when writing my dissertation.
One of them being "Presenting On TV And Radio: An Insiders Guide" by Janet Trewin, which isn't necessarily connected with what I want to look at but a very interesting book nonetheless having used it before in my first year.
Janet used to be one of the presenters on Top Gear in the early 90s, as well as presenting BBC Radio 4's travel magazine "Going Places" around the same time and too a lesser extent, as a newsreader on BBC Radio 1 in the 80s.
You only have to listen to this example featuring Robbie Vincent linking into the news on his show with that jingle which rather bizarrely enough I never heard on air, but it's the ideal example of how not to do news on the radio.
How Radio 1 got away with using it for 15 years is beyond me, and despite being a fan of jingles, you have to draw the line somewhere as in my opinion, sung jingles into the news don't work, with Radio 1's being a key example. An opinion somewhat different to our old friend Len Groat. They even had one done for whenever a newsflash would happen, which I seem to remember being used on Christmas Day 1989 when Nicolae Ceauşescu and his wife were executed.
Or to be more specific, I don't like jingles that have the word "news" sung in them, as there have been brilliant sung news IDs in the past, such as Power FM's in the mid 90s and the one used by Essex FM later on in the decade, as they just have the station name being sung followed by a voiceover identifying the station.
I guess those running the stations at the time realised that the top of the hour was the most important time to identify the station and they wanted to do it in the best way possible.
Whereas Radio 1 have always done their bulletins on the half-hour (apart from at breakfast of course) and most of their news jingles from 1990 onwards have managed to work well providing a slick transition from the main programme into the bulletin.
One of the other books I got was one looking at the history of Top Of The Pops which will probably be the first one I actually read from cover to cover, although there's also been one published recently to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Blue Peter which may come in useful for the actual dissertation with regards to their contributions to the phone in scandal.
The planning for the feature is continuing to go well as Concha mentioned that as well as Yoga she enjoys sitting in her chair in a particular corner of the room and listening to the same music whenever she goes there. That could be another interesting angle to take with regards to otherwise normal solitary activities.
I'm planning to come back in the first week of December for a short while as I need to have a blood test although on the first Thursday of that month I'm going to see Russell Howard at Wembley Arena which I only managed to get tickets for yesterday at a very good price.
I've heard good things about him from those who have seen him perform, and I'm sure he has even more to offer than what he does on Mock The Week.
With no more actual lectures I'll need to take every opportunity to enjoy myself before University finishes.
One of them being "Presenting On TV And Radio: An Insiders Guide" by Janet Trewin, which isn't necessarily connected with what I want to look at but a very interesting book nonetheless having used it before in my first year.
Janet used to be one of the presenters on Top Gear in the early 90s, as well as presenting BBC Radio 4's travel magazine "Going Places" around the same time and too a lesser extent, as a newsreader on BBC Radio 1 in the 80s.
You only have to listen to this example featuring Robbie Vincent linking into the news on his show with that jingle which rather bizarrely enough I never heard on air, but it's the ideal example of how not to do news on the radio.
How Radio 1 got away with using it for 15 years is beyond me, and despite being a fan of jingles, you have to draw the line somewhere as in my opinion, sung jingles into the news don't work, with Radio 1's being a key example. An opinion somewhat different to our old friend Len Groat. They even had one done for whenever a newsflash would happen, which I seem to remember being used on Christmas Day 1989 when Nicolae Ceauşescu and his wife were executed.
Or to be more specific, I don't like jingles that have the word "news" sung in them, as there have been brilliant sung news IDs in the past, such as Power FM's in the mid 90s and the one used by Essex FM later on in the decade, as they just have the station name being sung followed by a voiceover identifying the station.
I guess those running the stations at the time realised that the top of the hour was the most important time to identify the station and they wanted to do it in the best way possible.
Whereas Radio 1 have always done their bulletins on the half-hour (apart from at breakfast of course) and most of their news jingles from 1990 onwards have managed to work well providing a slick transition from the main programme into the bulletin.
One of the other books I got was one looking at the history of Top Of The Pops which will probably be the first one I actually read from cover to cover, although there's also been one published recently to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Blue Peter which may come in useful for the actual dissertation with regards to their contributions to the phone in scandal.
The planning for the feature is continuing to go well as Concha mentioned that as well as Yoga she enjoys sitting in her chair in a particular corner of the room and listening to the same music whenever she goes there. That could be another interesting angle to take with regards to otherwise normal solitary activities.
I'm planning to come back in the first week of December for a short while as I need to have a blood test although on the first Thursday of that month I'm going to see Russell Howard at Wembley Arena which I only managed to get tickets for yesterday at a very good price.
I've heard good things about him from those who have seen him perform, and I'm sure he has even more to offer than what he does on Mock The Week.
With no more actual lectures I'll need to take every opportunity to enjoy myself before University finishes.
All In The Same Boat
It's now been confirmed about the new hosts of Countdown on the BBC News website so everything will definitely be going ahead.
I'm up in RP1 barely doing anything apart from using Facebook which is impossible to access in halls making things inconvinient. The second years are doing their news and magazine module and one of the groups are doing a magazine programme aimed at lads which they are calling "L.A.D.S." due to being an all male group apart from Lottie who for some reason is absent.
The rest of the group consists of Dan, Jake, Spike, Oli P, Joe Lester from Leicester, Nick SD, and Sammy C. Dan's taken the role as editor and Spikey G is presenting, and along with the other group, they're putting a lot more effort than my group did in the magazine module two years ago, by doing more run throughs than us.
The main reason why we tried not to do too many run throughs apart from the pilot was because the presenters were saying that they would become more scripted if they kept on doing so.
Although in all honesty it's because they were crap.
And so was I in my role as studio producer which is not the sort of role I'd like to have in radio.
If I had had to work with my year on "Breathe London" which was the third year advanced show in 2007, I would have been dreadful as their were too many people and too few roles. Overall I'd have probably got fed up with them.
I'm so glad I went into hypomania, as this semester has been the reverse of everything that happened last year despite it taking a long time to get over being down,
but to coin a tired phrase, there's no ups without downs.
The second year's this year have the advantage of Dave Sharp lecturing them for the magazine part of the module whereas we had Matthew who made rather rude looking facial expressions whenever something went wrong. Charles Carroll's still doing the news part of the module and keeping a tight eye as usual but being constructive at the same time.
Let's hope they don't have another Stewart Paske as the main newsreader.
In response to the rant from Tubers I found last night, it appears that the Vault once again are bringing back the classic countdowns and showing them on a daily basis from December time according to the Digital Spy forums.
Obviously they'll only have one episode a week in the same style as the revived show, as it would be difficult to keep up every day. That will probably give me an excuse to stay in Canterbury for longer over Christmas and the highlight of having Freesat at home.
Unless Denis and that lot don't mind me watching it at their's now and again, as Denis will remember me at one of his do's at his old house last year trying to stay awake in order to watch the episode being shown the next day. Of course I didn't survive after getting too drunk and deciding to give in, almost resulting in me locking myself out of my flat.
I'm being dreadfully lazy as I know I need to get over to the library pretty soon.
I can't see too many people wanting to write a dissertation too similar to mine however, especially with those wanting to base their's on a specific news story which in their case of finding literature could turn out to be a right nightmare.
Then again the key word is empirical and not theoretical, so I don't have to worry about including too many "poncey theories" into the work itself.
I'm up in RP1 barely doing anything apart from using Facebook which is impossible to access in halls making things inconvinient. The second years are doing their news and magazine module and one of the groups are doing a magazine programme aimed at lads which they are calling "L.A.D.S." due to being an all male group apart from Lottie who for some reason is absent.
The rest of the group consists of Dan, Jake, Spike, Oli P, Joe Lester from Leicester, Nick SD, and Sammy C. Dan's taken the role as editor and Spikey G is presenting, and along with the other group, they're putting a lot more effort than my group did in the magazine module two years ago, by doing more run throughs than us.
The main reason why we tried not to do too many run throughs apart from the pilot was because the presenters were saying that they would become more scripted if they kept on doing so.
Although in all honesty it's because they were crap.
And so was I in my role as studio producer which is not the sort of role I'd like to have in radio.
If I had had to work with my year on "Breathe London" which was the third year advanced show in 2007, I would have been dreadful as their were too many people and too few roles. Overall I'd have probably got fed up with them.
I'm so glad I went into hypomania, as this semester has been the reverse of everything that happened last year despite it taking a long time to get over being down,
but to coin a tired phrase, there's no ups without downs.
The second year's this year have the advantage of Dave Sharp lecturing them for the magazine part of the module whereas we had Matthew who made rather rude looking facial expressions whenever something went wrong. Charles Carroll's still doing the news part of the module and keeping a tight eye as usual but being constructive at the same time.
Let's hope they don't have another Stewart Paske as the main newsreader.
In response to the rant from Tubers I found last night, it appears that the Vault once again are bringing back the classic countdowns and showing them on a daily basis from December time according to the Digital Spy forums.
Obviously they'll only have one episode a week in the same style as the revived show, as it would be difficult to keep up every day. That will probably give me an excuse to stay in Canterbury for longer over Christmas and the highlight of having Freesat at home.
Unless Denis and that lot don't mind me watching it at their's now and again, as Denis will remember me at one of his do's at his old house last year trying to stay awake in order to watch the episode being shown the next day. Of course I didn't survive after getting too drunk and deciding to give in, almost resulting in me locking myself out of my flat.
I'm being dreadfully lazy as I know I need to get over to the library pretty soon.
I can't see too many people wanting to write a dissertation too similar to mine however, especially with those wanting to base their's on a specific news story which in their case of finding literature could turn out to be a right nightmare.
Then again the key word is empirical and not theoretical, so I don't have to worry about including too many "poncey theories" into the work itself.
The Fourth In The Line, How Long Is The Time?
According to Teletext it appears that Paul Merton will be absent from this week's
Have I Got News For You due to a kidney infection. It's the first time in 18 years that he's missed a scheduled appearance on the show although it doesn't appear to be too serious and the good news is that they've Frank Skinner to come back and stand in for him.
I hope Hat Trick haven't had to pay him too much money for his appearance.
Jack Dee's hosting tonight so it should be good fun as always.
This is definitely the time of year when TV is at it's best with tonight being no exception, as there's a show on after tonight's "Celebrity" looking back at the music of 1983 celebrating the 25th anniversary of the Now Albums with live performances.
They'll also be looking back at the television that was around then as it was the year when Roland Rat made his debut at breakfast and Bob Holness made his debut at teatimes.
On a similar subject the new presenting line up for Countdown has been announced as according to the Daily Bastard (The Sun), Jeff Stelling off of Sky Sports will be taking over from Des O'Connor alongside newcomer Rachel Riley taking the reigns from Carol Vorderman.
I've never actually seen Jeff present before but he's been in the running since Des Lynam ended up getting the job so I'm hoping it will be successful.
Hopefully it should be confirmed by the more reliable sources later on.
With a lot more spare time I'll definitely need to make the most of the remainder of the current series which this time last year I could not go through a day without watching.
Have I Got News For You due to a kidney infection. It's the first time in 18 years that he's missed a scheduled appearance on the show although it doesn't appear to be too serious and the good news is that they've Frank Skinner to come back and stand in for him.
I hope Hat Trick haven't had to pay him too much money for his appearance.
Jack Dee's hosting tonight so it should be good fun as always.
This is definitely the time of year when TV is at it's best with tonight being no exception, as there's a show on after tonight's "Celebrity" looking back at the music of 1983 celebrating the 25th anniversary of the Now Albums with live performances.
They'll also be looking back at the television that was around then as it was the year when Roland Rat made his debut at breakfast and Bob Holness made his debut at teatimes.
On a similar subject the new presenting line up for Countdown has been announced as according to the Daily Bastard (The Sun), Jeff Stelling off of Sky Sports will be taking over from Des O'Connor alongside newcomer Rachel Riley taking the reigns from Carol Vorderman.
I've never actually seen Jeff present before but he's been in the running since Des Lynam ended up getting the job so I'm hoping it will be successful.
Hopefully it should be confirmed by the more reliable sources later on.
With a lot more spare time I'll definitely need to make the most of the remainder of the current series which this time last year I could not go through a day without watching.
Spud No Like
I must get out of the habit of eating meals before bedtime as I've been doing for the last few nights.
It's either that or the medication I'm taking that results in me feeling slightly uncomfortable waking up and flatmates Suzette, Alice and Caroline agreed that it wasn't ideal to do so, despite the fact that they were eating at the same time as I was boiling my pasta.
They were having what they told me was their third potato dish in a day as they had already had a potato salad and some other meal that I couldn't remember. I definitely need to buy more spuds although I don't really find them that exciting. Boiled potatoes are nice however as well as baking potatoes when they been in the oven for long enough resulting in the skin being superb.
I had made a pork casserole which I normally have with expensive spiral shaped pasta although tonight for a change I decided to have it with shell shaped pasta.
It wasn't as good.
And that box of sultana fingarellas still hasn't been opened.
I don't know what the plan is for today although I may go into the library to try and find books to include in my indicative bibliography for my disso proposal.
Even if it's not brilliant, it still won't get marked, although I'm rather apprehensive about which lecturer will want to be my supervisor throughout the rest of the module.
As long as it's not anyone along the lines of Mano I'll be happy.
It's either that or the medication I'm taking that results in me feeling slightly uncomfortable waking up and flatmates Suzette, Alice and Caroline agreed that it wasn't ideal to do so, despite the fact that they were eating at the same time as I was boiling my pasta.
They were having what they told me was their third potato dish in a day as they had already had a potato salad and some other meal that I couldn't remember. I definitely need to buy more spuds although I don't really find them that exciting. Boiled potatoes are nice however as well as baking potatoes when they been in the oven for long enough resulting in the skin being superb.
I had made a pork casserole which I normally have with expensive spiral shaped pasta although tonight for a change I decided to have it with shell shaped pasta.
It wasn't as good.
And that box of sultana fingarellas still hasn't been opened.
I don't know what the plan is for today although I may go into the library to try and find books to include in my indicative bibliography for my disso proposal.
Even if it's not brilliant, it still won't get marked, although I'm rather apprehensive about which lecturer will want to be my supervisor throughout the rest of the module.
As long as it's not anyone along the lines of Mano I'll be happy.
Thursday, November 20, 2008
Definitive Video Nasties
Last night's antics that took place at Becmead Avenue have now been uploaded onto "The Big Gay House's" very own Youtube channel which contains all of our attempts at trying to hit the punchbag hard enough to knock over a plastic bottle.
There's also a few videos that I'd rather forget of the silly things I got up to after closing time at the Undercroft on Tuesday, before I got in an even worser state at Trinity.
There's also a set of videos I've found from someone called Tubers93 including a series of rants about one of the best television programmes ever, in my opinion of course.
Basically the first part of the rant is about the Vault's treatment of the sponsored episodes of the Chart Show when repeated a couple of years ago, by taking away the Twix sponsors. There would be a viable reason for doing so but I'm guessing that the guy is so wound up about it because the music (if you can call it that) accompanying the logo was so good and this included the stings accompanying the teasers in and out of the ad breaks.
It appears that the 1996-1998 period was the halcyon era for the fella who's uploaded the rants, although he is a few years younger than me. I was about his age when I first discovered the show back in 1989 with the stunning fairground graphics which are acknowledged although I think the word he's looking for when describing the music accompanying the graphics is "stunning".
I also reckon it was an inspired idea to have actual animations denoting climbers, fallers and non-movers for each chart position prior to a video in the chart rundowns.
The second part of the rant is about the recent revival on the satellite channel of the same name and the overdose on R&B which the accompanying video seems to be suggesting.
I wouldn't say the show is overrated as I doubt it gets many viewers anyway but it's certainly nowhere near as exciting as it was when it was on ITV on a Saturday morning.
The third part is probably the funniest where a deeper voice comes in and tries to argue against the points made and proving a few other points as well suggesting if many of us dedicated fans only liked the old episodes because of the graphics.
Of course the graphics were the stand out part of the programme but as mentioned in many of the blog posts I wrote between late 2006 and 2007 they did show some really good bands and performers such as Lisa Stansfield, The Beautiful South, Al Jarreau,
Super Furry Animals, and a very wide range of acts that just wouldn't be acknowleged nowadays.
The video ends with the 1996 "theme tune" to the Chart Show being played backwards and oddly enough it sounds almost exactly the same as when played correctly even with the deep voice bellowing "The Chaart Shoow".
I'm tempted to have a look at Tuber's other rants including High School Musical and Manchester United who are both pretty high on my list of things I despise of.
May I suggest that the next rant is about Celine Dion, or just to please Steven McIntosh; Leona Lewis.
There's also a few videos that I'd rather forget of the silly things I got up to after closing time at the Undercroft on Tuesday, before I got in an even worser state at Trinity.
There's also a set of videos I've found from someone called Tubers93 including a series of rants about one of the best television programmes ever, in my opinion of course.
Basically the first part of the rant is about the Vault's treatment of the sponsored episodes of the Chart Show when repeated a couple of years ago, by taking away the Twix sponsors. There would be a viable reason for doing so but I'm guessing that the guy is so wound up about it because the music (if you can call it that) accompanying the logo was so good and this included the stings accompanying the teasers in and out of the ad breaks.
It appears that the 1996-1998 period was the halcyon era for the fella who's uploaded the rants, although he is a few years younger than me. I was about his age when I first discovered the show back in 1989 with the stunning fairground graphics which are acknowledged although I think the word he's looking for when describing the music accompanying the graphics is "stunning".
I also reckon it was an inspired idea to have actual animations denoting climbers, fallers and non-movers for each chart position prior to a video in the chart rundowns.
The second part of the rant is about the recent revival on the satellite channel of the same name and the overdose on R&B which the accompanying video seems to be suggesting.
I wouldn't say the show is overrated as I doubt it gets many viewers anyway but it's certainly nowhere near as exciting as it was when it was on ITV on a Saturday morning.
The third part is probably the funniest where a deeper voice comes in and tries to argue against the points made and proving a few other points as well suggesting if many of us dedicated fans only liked the old episodes because of the graphics.
Of course the graphics were the stand out part of the programme but as mentioned in many of the blog posts I wrote between late 2006 and 2007 they did show some really good bands and performers such as Lisa Stansfield, The Beautiful South, Al Jarreau,
Super Furry Animals, and a very wide range of acts that just wouldn't be acknowleged nowadays.
The video ends with the 1996 "theme tune" to the Chart Show being played backwards and oddly enough it sounds almost exactly the same as when played correctly even with the deep voice bellowing "The Chaart Shoow".
I'm tempted to have a look at Tuber's other rants including High School Musical and Manchester United who are both pretty high on my list of things I despise of.
May I suggest that the next rant is about Celine Dion, or just to please Steven McIntosh; Leona Lewis.
Exercise Bordering On Near Injury
One of the best things about the radio course and University overall is that everyday is different. Especially compared to how I was last year.
Whenever I head back to the flat I feel as if I can lay back, then I immediately get asked to be elsewhere.
Tonight happened to be a visit to the Harrow campus gym where I managed to get quite a lot of audio of the caporeira class and an interview with the instructor. It doesn't sound too bad listening back to it although it could have easily gone balls up.
This was partly because I hadn't charged my batteries and we were thrown out of the main hall itself resulting in having to record the interview in the corridor plugging my Marantz into the one normally reserved for the drinks machine.
To make things worse, the plug for my battery charger has only two prongs and I'm not going to risk plugging it in after a dreadful experience I had in New York four years ago when I plugged my adapter into a socket with three holes when the plug only had two pins.
However I've managed to get some good audio overall and I'm hoping there's more to come.
On returning I watched tonight's extended edition of "Celebrity" where the two new arrivals Timmy Mallett and David Van Day rather stupidly fell for an obvious looking man trap resulting in them being trapped in cages for the night, with the rest of the camp refusing to give up their luxuries as a ransom to let them out.
Timmy Mallett has come across rather well so far, but David Van Day no stranger to reality television is still obnoxious as ever and really bitter.
Back in 2003 David, and Therese Bazaar appeared as Dollar in ITV1's "Reborn In The USA" where they were up against has-been bands and performers competing to relaunch their career in America. They got into a bit of a spat with fellow contestant Sonia which resulted in them being the first to be eliminated. The inevitable winner was Tony Hadley.
Returning to the jungle I demand those watching NOT to vote for Nicola to win, after seeing her refuse to give up her mascara as part of the ransom.
She really had it in for David on entering the main camp and I can see him nominated for a few trials pretty soon.
Robert Kilroy Silk was chosen for both of the trials in tonight's show including the live one involving the Jungle Gym. He managed to do really well in both of them proving that he's a still a good sport, whilst at the same time getting what many members of the public feel he deserves.
I'm not sure about everyone else giving him the nickname "Silksy" but I very much doubt it will stick with him after leaving the jungle.
What I found rather irritating was Ant and Dec telling everyone during the live trial not to swear despite the fact the show was being broadcast on a delay so anything they did say got bleeped.
A procedure used by the show since series 3 when John Lydon called the viewers "fucking c**ts" live on air after finding out that they hadn't voted him out.
I've never actually seen that outburst oddly enough.
Immediately after I watched this week's 8 Out Of 10 Cats where the guests included Claudia Winkleman and David Mitchell. With Claudia on the panel they obviously spoke out John Seargant leaving SCD resulting in a hilarious joke from David Mitchell about what he would do if he were to turn the tables on judge Len Goodman.
Team captain Jason Manford also came up with a brilliant line in the final round about London buses saying that "you wait for one... and then you get stabbed".
That could end up as one of the reasons against staying in London after University although there are very few of them.
Whenever I head back to the flat I feel as if I can lay back, then I immediately get asked to be elsewhere.
Tonight happened to be a visit to the Harrow campus gym where I managed to get quite a lot of audio of the caporeira class and an interview with the instructor. It doesn't sound too bad listening back to it although it could have easily gone balls up.
This was partly because I hadn't charged my batteries and we were thrown out of the main hall itself resulting in having to record the interview in the corridor plugging my Marantz into the one normally reserved for the drinks machine.
To make things worse, the plug for my battery charger has only two prongs and I'm not going to risk plugging it in after a dreadful experience I had in New York four years ago when I plugged my adapter into a socket with three holes when the plug only had two pins.
However I've managed to get some good audio overall and I'm hoping there's more to come.
On returning I watched tonight's extended edition of "Celebrity" where the two new arrivals Timmy Mallett and David Van Day rather stupidly fell for an obvious looking man trap resulting in them being trapped in cages for the night, with the rest of the camp refusing to give up their luxuries as a ransom to let them out.
Timmy Mallett has come across rather well so far, but David Van Day no stranger to reality television is still obnoxious as ever and really bitter.
Back in 2003 David, and Therese Bazaar appeared as Dollar in ITV1's "Reborn In The USA" where they were up against has-been bands and performers competing to relaunch their career in America. They got into a bit of a spat with fellow contestant Sonia which resulted in them being the first to be eliminated. The inevitable winner was Tony Hadley.
Returning to the jungle I demand those watching NOT to vote for Nicola to win, after seeing her refuse to give up her mascara as part of the ransom.
She really had it in for David on entering the main camp and I can see him nominated for a few trials pretty soon.
Robert Kilroy Silk was chosen for both of the trials in tonight's show including the live one involving the Jungle Gym. He managed to do really well in both of them proving that he's a still a good sport, whilst at the same time getting what many members of the public feel he deserves.
I'm not sure about everyone else giving him the nickname "Silksy" but I very much doubt it will stick with him after leaving the jungle.
What I found rather irritating was Ant and Dec telling everyone during the live trial not to swear despite the fact the show was being broadcast on a delay so anything they did say got bleeped.
A procedure used by the show since series 3 when John Lydon called the viewers "fucking c**ts" live on air after finding out that they hadn't voted him out.
I've never actually seen that outburst oddly enough.
Immediately after I watched this week's 8 Out Of 10 Cats where the guests included Claudia Winkleman and David Mitchell. With Claudia on the panel they obviously spoke out John Seargant leaving SCD resulting in a hilarious joke from David Mitchell about what he would do if he were to turn the tables on judge Len Goodman.
Team captain Jason Manford also came up with a brilliant line in the final round about London buses saying that "you wait for one... and then you get stabbed".
That could end up as one of the reasons against staying in London after University although there are very few of them.
"All I Wanna Do Is, (Gunshot FX)"
The non-stories continue to dominate with the latest being an incident on last week's
X Factor where Rachel Hylton made a hand gesture in the shape of a gun just before the vote off between her and Daniel.
Apparently Daniel made one at her beforehand as it was part of a joke between the two but the fuss about it all and the fact that people have complained to Ofcom about it is just going too far as I'm sure there was nothing subliminal about it.
On the positive side it only appears to be Digital Spy and a few of the red tops that are covering the story but overall I really don't understand why many people get wound up over the use of guns on television.
I don't condone the use of them in public, but on television it's a different matter with one example springing to mind involving Ant & Dec back in 2001. This involved a sketch on their show "Slap Bang" which was their first unsucessfull attempt to reach a prime time audience and a sketch where Declan attempted to interview soap star William Roache but Ant kept on interrupting him resulting in Dec giving in by using a prop gun and "shooting" him.
This resulted in the ITC upholding several complaints which may be the reason why the Geordie duo have steered clear from doing comedy sketches on Saturday Night Takeway save for the pre-titles sketches.
Why people overeact to such things is just ridiculous.
As mentioned a few days ago I don't like the use of hand held horns for whatever purpose, but rather than complain I just make sure I have my finger on the mute button.
The most recent example being Joe Swash in the jungle having to cope with them in his trauma tank trial although you have to admit that it was amusing, as well as Ant and Dec taking the mickey out of it in their usual style.
As for the rest of this afternoon, everyone's features seem to be going from strength to strength with Sirin the palm tree getting an interview in Oxford next week, Stoobie's arranged one with one the BBC's web editors, and Denis is planning to do his feature on ticket touts which I'm really looking forward to hearing.
Phil Harris seems to be rather down about his one on toilets and sewage as despite getting access to the Toilet Awards (yes there is such a thing) he's finding it difficult to get access to a real sewer which I can understand may be a struggle.
As for myself I'm just about to head over to the gym where second year radio student
Oli P has told me about a caporeira dancing group that takes place their and how some of the members practise it on their own.
I haven't really prepared for it as I didn't really have anything set in stone but I'm sure I can arrange an interview with one of the members for later on.
The way things are going, there's going to be an awful lot of audio that will have to be cut out of the final edit.
X Factor where Rachel Hylton made a hand gesture in the shape of a gun just before the vote off between her and Daniel.
Apparently Daniel made one at her beforehand as it was part of a joke between the two but the fuss about it all and the fact that people have complained to Ofcom about it is just going too far as I'm sure there was nothing subliminal about it.
On the positive side it only appears to be Digital Spy and a few of the red tops that are covering the story but overall I really don't understand why many people get wound up over the use of guns on television.
I don't condone the use of them in public, but on television it's a different matter with one example springing to mind involving Ant & Dec back in 2001. This involved a sketch on their show "Slap Bang" which was their first unsucessfull attempt to reach a prime time audience and a sketch where Declan attempted to interview soap star William Roache but Ant kept on interrupting him resulting in Dec giving in by using a prop gun and "shooting" him.
This resulted in the ITC upholding several complaints which may be the reason why the Geordie duo have steered clear from doing comedy sketches on Saturday Night Takeway save for the pre-titles sketches.
Why people overeact to such things is just ridiculous.
As mentioned a few days ago I don't like the use of hand held horns for whatever purpose, but rather than complain I just make sure I have my finger on the mute button.
The most recent example being Joe Swash in the jungle having to cope with them in his trauma tank trial although you have to admit that it was amusing, as well as Ant and Dec taking the mickey out of it in their usual style.
As for the rest of this afternoon, everyone's features seem to be going from strength to strength with Sirin the palm tree getting an interview in Oxford next week, Stoobie's arranged one with one the BBC's web editors, and Denis is planning to do his feature on ticket touts which I'm really looking forward to hearing.
Phil Harris seems to be rather down about his one on toilets and sewage as despite getting access to the Toilet Awards (yes there is such a thing) he's finding it difficult to get access to a real sewer which I can understand may be a struggle.
As for myself I'm just about to head over to the gym where second year radio student
Oli P has told me about a caporeira dancing group that takes place their and how some of the members practise it on their own.
I haven't really prepared for it as I didn't really have anything set in stone but I'm sure I can arrange an interview with one of the members for later on.
The way things are going, there's going to be an awful lot of audio that will have to be cut out of the final edit.
British National Pratts
The final dissertation lecture took place which was basically an overview on the questions that students have asked about issues such as what happens after the proposal is submitted, how is a lit review structured, and what a methodology chapter involves.
Before the lecture had started, Steven had brought this morning's Sun newspaper that had an article about the leaked BNP list and I was rather shocked to find out that one of the members was former Radio Kent, Invicta Radio and Solar Radio presenter Rod Lucas.
This has lead to him being sacked from his job on Talksport although according to Digital Spy he claims he only joined the party for research purposes.
With everything out of the way and my final ever Uni lecture done with, a few of us decided to head over to Spoons in Kenton where some of us had a full English although I only had a glass of lemonade.
We spoke about possible plans for outings later on in year with the possibility of
paintballing when our dissertations are handed in.
I would be pretty apprehensive about that due to possible injuries although it the others suggested that Stewart would be main target although he wasn't with us to defend himself.
As we were heading back over to Uni, Steven started moaning about Leona again who he dislikes with a passion. I wouldn't say she's the worst female artist but as far as personality goes she is dreadfully wooden, especially when you compare her to someone like Alesha Dixon who is the ideal role model and doesn't need to get in the papers to make a name for herself.
I'm hoping she'll be superb as a guest on Buzzcocks later tonight as proved before.
On the positive side of things it turns out that Top Of The Pops will be making a return at Christmas for not one but two specials on what many are speculating will lead to a revival of the series. One of the things we chatted about on the way to Spoons was that currently the X Factor is the only shop window in the UK for top bands and performers to perform their new singles on television. And possibly Strictly Come Dancing as well as a few weeks ago both shows were fighting over who would get Beyonce on.
I've also found out the two new contestants who will arriving in the jungle later tonight and it will definitely be worth the watch. I don't like to give away spoilers on my blog although one of them was part of an 80s pop duo who ended up running a burger van in Brighton.
This resulted in yet another amusing episode of Buzzcocks where Mark Lamarr and the team gave him a right ribbing and even fellow guest Ricky Tomlinson got in on the act.
I hope I've still got that edition on VHS back in Canterbury.
The other arrival is what can only be described as a cult hero for those of a certain generation.
It will definitely be two hours well spent tonight.
Before the lecture had started, Steven had brought this morning's Sun newspaper that had an article about the leaked BNP list and I was rather shocked to find out that one of the members was former Radio Kent, Invicta Radio and Solar Radio presenter Rod Lucas.
This has lead to him being sacked from his job on Talksport although according to Digital Spy he claims he only joined the party for research purposes.
With everything out of the way and my final ever Uni lecture done with, a few of us decided to head over to Spoons in Kenton where some of us had a full English although I only had a glass of lemonade.
We spoke about possible plans for outings later on in year with the possibility of
paintballing when our dissertations are handed in.
I would be pretty apprehensive about that due to possible injuries although it the others suggested that Stewart would be main target although he wasn't with us to defend himself.
As we were heading back over to Uni, Steven started moaning about Leona again who he dislikes with a passion. I wouldn't say she's the worst female artist but as far as personality goes she is dreadfully wooden, especially when you compare her to someone like Alesha Dixon who is the ideal role model and doesn't need to get in the papers to make a name for herself.
I'm hoping she'll be superb as a guest on Buzzcocks later tonight as proved before.
On the positive side of things it turns out that Top Of The Pops will be making a return at Christmas for not one but two specials on what many are speculating will lead to a revival of the series. One of the things we chatted about on the way to Spoons was that currently the X Factor is the only shop window in the UK for top bands and performers to perform their new singles on television. And possibly Strictly Come Dancing as well as a few weeks ago both shows were fighting over who would get Beyonce on.
I've also found out the two new contestants who will arriving in the jungle later tonight and it will definitely be worth the watch. I don't like to give away spoilers on my blog although one of them was part of an 80s pop duo who ended up running a burger van in Brighton.
This resulted in yet another amusing episode of Buzzcocks where Mark Lamarr and the team gave him a right ribbing and even fellow guest Ricky Tomlinson got in on the act.
I hope I've still got that edition on VHS back in Canterbury.
The other arrival is what can only be described as a cult hero for those of a certain generation.
It will definitely be two hours well spent tonight.
The Unlikely Guitar Heroes
Just before I had finished watching last night's extended edition of "It Takes Two",
Chris gave me a ring asking me if I wanted to pop over to their's where they were having some sort of do. Despite it nearing midnight I went ahead.
All of the housemates were there as well as a few of Danielle's mates and Annabelle, Phil's significant other.
Amongst the things we chatted about were the antics that took place at the Undercroft the previous night at ended up as videos on Facebook which oddly enough I haven't seen due to it being difficult to access in halls.
We also chatted as per usual about the X Factor and all the other big shows on television that I'm obssesed with. Barry managed to bring up the subject of Christine Bleakley on SCD which lead onto the rumours of her taking over from Fiona Phillips on GMTV. Thankfully, that's not going to happen as according to The Mirror and apparently confirmed on the show itself a rather attractive woman called Emma Crosby
from Sky News has got the job.
At least that means that Kate Garraway won't be getting it who's nowhere near as patronising as Fiona but just as irritating.
Kate was one of the guests on "It Takes Two" last night along with dance partner
Anton Du Beke who were in a similar position to John Seargant last year being saved by the public week after week. The difference being was that they really were a joke and Anton came across as a pretty bad loser saying that all his dance partners such as the ever unfunny Jan Ravens in series four, and Lesley Garret (uggh) in the first series were better than some of the others who progressed further than they should have done.
And I know it's been said several times but I reckon that Anton is Bruce Forsyth's son as he's got very a very similar voice and mannerisms. Especially when the two of them did a duet on last Sunday's results show.
Moving along, some of the other things we got up to included playing a load of ridiculous games with a punchbag that the boys had recently added to their house and a few rounds of Guitar Hero III which I was pretty bad at but a few of the others including Annabelle managed to do really well. One of Danielle's mates managed to do really well on one of the harder songs "One" by Metallica which I only know of as it was number 1 in the Rock Chart on the ITV Chart Show 1989 Christmas Special. Rather significant as the band didn't really make videos prior to recording that song.
I left at around 2am, ahead of what will be my last ever lecture this morning and in time honoured tradition it was a bugger getting up. Let's hope I won't have to do this for a while at such an "antisocial" hour.
Chris gave me a ring asking me if I wanted to pop over to their's where they were having some sort of do. Despite it nearing midnight I went ahead.
All of the housemates were there as well as a few of Danielle's mates and Annabelle, Phil's significant other.
Amongst the things we chatted about were the antics that took place at the Undercroft the previous night at ended up as videos on Facebook which oddly enough I haven't seen due to it being difficult to access in halls.
We also chatted as per usual about the X Factor and all the other big shows on television that I'm obssesed with. Barry managed to bring up the subject of Christine Bleakley on SCD which lead onto the rumours of her taking over from Fiona Phillips on GMTV. Thankfully, that's not going to happen as according to The Mirror and apparently confirmed on the show itself a rather attractive woman called Emma Crosby
from Sky News has got the job.
At least that means that Kate Garraway won't be getting it who's nowhere near as patronising as Fiona but just as irritating.
Kate was one of the guests on "It Takes Two" last night along with dance partner
Anton Du Beke who were in a similar position to John Seargant last year being saved by the public week after week. The difference being was that they really were a joke and Anton came across as a pretty bad loser saying that all his dance partners such as the ever unfunny Jan Ravens in series four, and Lesley Garret (uggh) in the first series were better than some of the others who progressed further than they should have done.
And I know it's been said several times but I reckon that Anton is Bruce Forsyth's son as he's got very a very similar voice and mannerisms. Especially when the two of them did a duet on last Sunday's results show.
Moving along, some of the other things we got up to included playing a load of ridiculous games with a punchbag that the boys had recently added to their house and a few rounds of Guitar Hero III which I was pretty bad at but a few of the others including Annabelle managed to do really well. One of Danielle's mates managed to do really well on one of the harder songs "One" by Metallica which I only know of as it was number 1 in the Rock Chart on the ITV Chart Show 1989 Christmas Special. Rather significant as the band didn't really make videos prior to recording that song.
I left at around 2am, ahead of what will be my last ever lecture this morning and in time honoured tradition it was a bugger getting up. Let's hope I won't have to do this for a while at such an "antisocial" hour.
Wednesday, November 19, 2008
Lack Of Appetite, Gain Of Progression
I really don't seem to be having an appetite as it took me a very long time to get through the left over mince and easy cook rice I made. This was despite the mince being slightly overdone resulting in the tomato puree getting a bit more oily than normal giving it a really nice texture.
I don't even feel fit to having a pudding despite the fact that there's an unopen pack of sultana fingarellas in my room which have been there since Sunday.
Whether it's the medication I'm on or the fact that I'm still recovering I'm not sure.
On the plus side I've managed to come up with an angle for my radio feature as it would start off with me trying to find out about those who enjoy solitary activities in London or in the Harrow area and would go on to trying to find out about those in Canterbury.
One person who immediately sprang to mind was our Spanish friend of the family Concha, who was a great help to me when I was recovering from hypomania.
One of the things she did during that dreadful time last October when I couldn't stay still or lie down for more than 10 seconds was encourage me to try Yoga type exercises and was wondering if it would be possible to get her to talk about her interest in the activity.
The big obstacle of course is finding out when or if she is going to Spain for Christmas as she normally does so I'll need to get on the case pretty quickly although I doubt it will be too much hassle.
I didn't expect to have so many ideas for the direction of the feature at this stage in the module although I'm still superstitious about screwing up at the wrong time.
Then again people have made worse mistakes by forgetting to press record on their Marantz/MD recorders although I very much doubt that will be an obstacle despite not having used a Marantz for nearly two years.
I'll take it all steadily although I wouldn't like to leave it until the last minute.
I don't even feel fit to having a pudding despite the fact that there's an unopen pack of sultana fingarellas in my room which have been there since Sunday.
Whether it's the medication I'm on or the fact that I'm still recovering I'm not sure.
On the plus side I've managed to come up with an angle for my radio feature as it would start off with me trying to find out about those who enjoy solitary activities in London or in the Harrow area and would go on to trying to find out about those in Canterbury.
One person who immediately sprang to mind was our Spanish friend of the family Concha, who was a great help to me when I was recovering from hypomania.
One of the things she did during that dreadful time last October when I couldn't stay still or lie down for more than 10 seconds was encourage me to try Yoga type exercises and was wondering if it would be possible to get her to talk about her interest in the activity.
The big obstacle of course is finding out when or if she is going to Spain for Christmas as she normally does so I'll need to get on the case pretty quickly although I doubt it will be too much hassle.
I didn't expect to have so many ideas for the direction of the feature at this stage in the module although I'm still superstitious about screwing up at the wrong time.
Then again people have made worse mistakes by forgetting to press record on their Marantz/MD recorders although I very much doubt that will be an obstacle despite not having used a Marantz for nearly two years.
I'll take it all steadily although I wouldn't like to leave it until the last minute.
Nearing The Final Ever Lecture
Tonight's show went pretty well although I didn't really enjoy this weeks show as much as in previous shows for some reason or other. Maybe it was because I was feeling rather tired after what happened last night.
Afterwards I headed down the Undercroft to see how Stoobie was getting on behind the bar and had just one drink. They were showing the football on the big screen but they didn't have the sound on so I went back to the flat shortly after to watch it there.
John Terry managed to break the tie between Germany and England by scoring a superb goal via a header and West Ham's Matthew Upson was the man of the match who scored the first goal earlier on.
Not the most exciting game but Fabio Capello really has changed England's success since taking over as manager around this time last year and here's hoping it will stay that way.
As for the rest of tonight I plan to finish off the mince from last night with rice, and watch a few things on iPlayer including tonight's SCD It Takes Two to get all the gossip on John Sergeant's departure from the show. I also plan to have a gander at Charlie Brooker's Screenwipe which has just started on BBC Four and will be interested to hear his views on "Sachsgate" or whatever they're calling it.
As for tomorrow it's difficult to get round my head that I'll actually be attending my last ever proper lecture at University which happens to be for the dissertation module.
After that I'll probably start work on my proposal with the aim to have it done by the end of the weekend.
It doesn't have to be perfect but it would be helpful to have a good set of books for my indicative bibliography so I imagine that quite a bit of time will be spent down the library.
This really will be a case of learning to manage my own time so I'm hoping I can do so in a sensible manner.
Afterwards I headed down the Undercroft to see how Stoobie was getting on behind the bar and had just one drink. They were showing the football on the big screen but they didn't have the sound on so I went back to the flat shortly after to watch it there.
John Terry managed to break the tie between Germany and England by scoring a superb goal via a header and West Ham's Matthew Upson was the man of the match who scored the first goal earlier on.
Not the most exciting game but Fabio Capello really has changed England's success since taking over as manager around this time last year and here's hoping it will stay that way.
As for the rest of tonight I plan to finish off the mince from last night with rice, and watch a few things on iPlayer including tonight's SCD It Takes Two to get all the gossip on John Sergeant's departure from the show. I also plan to have a gander at Charlie Brooker's Screenwipe which has just started on BBC Four and will be interested to hear his views on "Sachsgate" or whatever they're calling it.
As for tomorrow it's difficult to get round my head that I'll actually be attending my last ever proper lecture at University which happens to be for the dissertation module.
After that I'll probably start work on my proposal with the aim to have it done by the end of the weekend.
It doesn't have to be perfect but it would be helpful to have a good set of books for my indicative bibliography so I imagine that quite a bit of time will be spent down the library.
This really will be a case of learning to manage my own time so I'm hoping I can do so in a sensible manner.
Empty Spaces
I've finally made it into Uni where it's rather quiet as expected due to all the radio lot taking photos around the campuses. RP1's rammed with postgrads so I'm in the SADiE room again near Studio 4 where Chas and Dave (not Theee Chas and Dave) are doing their show with the door wide open as usual.
In all fairness it does get a bit stuffy in there when you've got a lot of people in there as they normally have two or three other people in there presenting with them.
I've been asked if I want to pop over to Chris, Phil and Stewart's tonight which I'm guessing is for the England game although I'm not sure if I will go as by the time I arrive there after the soul show the game will probably be finished. If I do go I doubt I will have any drinks as I don't want a repeat of last night where I completely lost my appetite and a repeat of this morning which was even worse.
I still haven't eaten at all today and if I go over to Phil's later tonight, the wait may be even longer.
In all fairness it does get a bit stuffy in there when you've got a lot of people in there as they normally have two or three other people in there presenting with them.
I've been asked if I want to pop over to Chris, Phil and Stewart's tonight which I'm guessing is for the England game although I'm not sure if I will go as by the time I arrive there after the soul show the game will probably be finished. If I do go I doubt I will have any drinks as I don't want a repeat of last night where I completely lost my appetite and a repeat of this morning which was even worse.
I still haven't eaten at all today and if I go over to Phil's later tonight, the wait may be even longer.
The Troll Exits The Dancefloor
So it turns out that John Sergeant has departed from Strictly Come Dancing fearing that he may win the show by default according to BBC News, which I'm a bit gutted about but fully appreciate why he wants to leave as it could start to get rather stale if he stayed on.
A very good sport however and he provided much needed comic relief throughout the series as Bruce's jokes continue to get more embarrassing although that's the whole idea.
I'd imagine that this will mean the final will involved two dancers instead of three like they did in the last series when Kelly Brook chose to leave the competition due to bereavement.
I'm hoping the series won't get too dull although it's been going on long enough to prove it's still part of the ideal Saturday night's viewing alongside the likes of the X Factor and I'm A Celebrity over on ITV1.
As it's the England match tonight there will be a two hour show on tomorrow to make up for tonight where once again two new arrivals will be turning up in the jungle. I'm trying my best to avoid finding out who they are although one of them is rumoured to be Su-Elise Nash who was in Mis-Teeq.
Aside from the stuff she did with the band, I can only really remember her on Never Mind The Buzzcocks around 5 years ago where whenever she got a question right in the Next Lines round she would yell "Oi Oi Saveloy!" which ultimately resulted in her team losing.
Speaking of which fellow ex band member Alesha Dixon's making a welcome return to the show tomorrow night where Davina McCall will be the guest captain.
I'll probably watch that on iPlayer later on that night after all the goings on in the jungle.
However with regards to the Germany V England game tonight I'm rather annoyed that it's going out at the same time as the soul show but that won't stop me from giving goal flashes like I did with the Chelsea game as part of the Carling Cup last week where we ended up losing after I went off air and eventually resulted in Drogba being banned for playing for three months as a result of throwing coins into the crowd.
To coin a tired phrase, it should be quite a night.
A very good sport however and he provided much needed comic relief throughout the series as Bruce's jokes continue to get more embarrassing although that's the whole idea.
I'd imagine that this will mean the final will involved two dancers instead of three like they did in the last series when Kelly Brook chose to leave the competition due to bereavement.
I'm hoping the series won't get too dull although it's been going on long enough to prove it's still part of the ideal Saturday night's viewing alongside the likes of the X Factor and I'm A Celebrity over on ITV1.
As it's the England match tonight there will be a two hour show on tomorrow to make up for tonight where once again two new arrivals will be turning up in the jungle. I'm trying my best to avoid finding out who they are although one of them is rumoured to be Su-Elise Nash who was in Mis-Teeq.
Aside from the stuff she did with the band, I can only really remember her on Never Mind The Buzzcocks around 5 years ago where whenever she got a question right in the Next Lines round she would yell "Oi Oi Saveloy!" which ultimately resulted in her team losing.
Speaking of which fellow ex band member Alesha Dixon's making a welcome return to the show tomorrow night where Davina McCall will be the guest captain.
I'll probably watch that on iPlayer later on that night after all the goings on in the jungle.
However with regards to the Germany V England game tonight I'm rather annoyed that it's going out at the same time as the soul show but that won't stop me from giving goal flashes like I did with the Chelsea game as part of the Carling Cup last week where we ended up losing after I went off air and eventually resulted in Drogba being banned for playing for three months as a result of throwing coins into the crowd.
To coin a tired phrase, it should be quite a night.
Bright as Brighton
About five minutes after writing my previous post I ended up going into the loo and wretching up what I can only describe as the exact equivalent of the meal that they served at this year's Student Radio Awards. It felt really awful considering I've not been in such an unhealthy position for a long time but I guess I won't be doing any more drinking this week.
In fact I'm going to make more of an effort to stay in over the next few days attempting to write my dissertation proposal and arrange potential interviews for my radio feature as from tomorrow there are literally no more lectures. Well for me anyway.
I don't think I've failed any theory modules....
Anyway I decided to have a read of this week's Radio Times where Gordon Ramsay has written a recipe on how to make a Beef Wellington.
Since the first series of "Hell's Kitchen" starring the man himself, I've been very curious as to how I would go about making one myself as it was one of their main dishes, and I'll make sure I keep that recipe handy.
To be honest there will be no reason not to do any experimental cooking next semester judging by the amount of spare time I will have.
I must also get round to watching "Cookalong Live" on Channel 4 catch-up although I very much doubt I would join in myself as I bet it's a bugger trying to keep up with the
sharp tounged chef.
I also went to see Viju as planned where I talked about my dissertation idea where as always it ended up spiralling into many different areas that could be covered when what I really want to do is narrow it down. Then again the proposal doesn't have to be set in stone and as long as I have regular meetings with my supervisor it should be easier to decide what things I want to cover.
Viju had also spoken to Ann who I used to go and see in Marylebone last year who wanted to know how I was getting on so it's good to know that she's still interested.
I've sorted out my playlist for tonight which will include tunes from the likes of Amy Winehouse in the days before she let herself go, the superb Azymuth from Brazil and Roy Ayers as this week's Positive Pairing.
I probably won't go up to the radio rooms until later today as all Potty and all the daytime people are going round all the campuses taking presenter photos and there's no better day for doing so if you look at it outside.
I really hope the weather is like this for when we go up to Brighton, and I know I keep going on about it but the thought of candy floss is difficult to keep out of my mind.
In fact I'm going to make more of an effort to stay in over the next few days attempting to write my dissertation proposal and arrange potential interviews for my radio feature as from tomorrow there are literally no more lectures. Well for me anyway.
I don't think I've failed any theory modules....
Anyway I decided to have a read of this week's Radio Times where Gordon Ramsay has written a recipe on how to make a Beef Wellington.
Since the first series of "Hell's Kitchen" starring the man himself, I've been very curious as to how I would go about making one myself as it was one of their main dishes, and I'll make sure I keep that recipe handy.
To be honest there will be no reason not to do any experimental cooking next semester judging by the amount of spare time I will have.
I must also get round to watching "Cookalong Live" on Channel 4 catch-up although I very much doubt I would join in myself as I bet it's a bugger trying to keep up with the
sharp tounged chef.
I also went to see Viju as planned where I talked about my dissertation idea where as always it ended up spiralling into many different areas that could be covered when what I really want to do is narrow it down. Then again the proposal doesn't have to be set in stone and as long as I have regular meetings with my supervisor it should be easier to decide what things I want to cover.
Viju had also spoken to Ann who I used to go and see in Marylebone last year who wanted to know how I was getting on so it's good to know that she's still interested.
I've sorted out my playlist for tonight which will include tunes from the likes of Amy Winehouse in the days before she let herself go, the superb Azymuth from Brazil and Roy Ayers as this week's Positive Pairing.
I probably won't go up to the radio rooms until later today as all Potty and all the daytime people are going round all the campuses taking presenter photos and there's no better day for doing so if you look at it outside.
I really hope the weather is like this for when we go up to Brighton, and I know I keep going on about it but the thought of candy floss is difficult to keep out of my mind.
"I Don't Even Like Pasta Anymore"
Or to be perfectly honest anything else that's solid and edible.
As expected, I'm really regretting what happened last night in between getting back into the flat and going to bed as I'm feeling bloody poorly. I reckon it was the mince and pasta that did it for me in that sense as I made far too much penne pasta and the richness of it had made me feeling full up and put stupid thoughts of stupid conseqences into my head on the thought of waking up.
I'm a bit better now having forced myself out of bed and drinking some water and I reckon I'm not even going to bother eating anything all day judging by the way I'm feeling.
On thinking about it however I may still have a few glasses of fizzy diet pineapple and grapefuit which may be the only thing I consume today come to think of it.
I still have't bothered to sort my playlist out for the show tonight but I'll get to work on that before 7pm at the latest or quite possibly even earlier. Now that I've got a credit card I'll be able to buy stuff off Traxsource even though I'm not exactly better off at this time.
Still, after Christmas things will pick up again as always and I know of people who have been about 2 grand overdrawn compared to my current situation of 10 quid.
As expected, I'm really regretting what happened last night in between getting back into the flat and going to bed as I'm feeling bloody poorly. I reckon it was the mince and pasta that did it for me in that sense as I made far too much penne pasta and the richness of it had made me feeling full up and put stupid thoughts of stupid conseqences into my head on the thought of waking up.
I'm a bit better now having forced myself out of bed and drinking some water and I reckon I'm not even going to bother eating anything all day judging by the way I'm feeling.
On thinking about it however I may still have a few glasses of fizzy diet pineapple and grapefuit which may be the only thing I consume today come to think of it.
I still have't bothered to sort my playlist out for the show tonight but I'll get to work on that before 7pm at the latest or quite possibly even earlier. Now that I've got a credit card I'll be able to buy stuff off Traxsource even though I'm not exactly better off at this time.
Still, after Christmas things will pick up again as always and I know of people who have been about 2 grand overdrawn compared to my current situation of 10 quid.
Feeding Frenzy
It's not like me to post a blog so soon after another (apart from before I went bonkers in August last year) but as I write I've ended up with a severe case of munchies.
Despite heating up a delicious concoption of mince, mushrooms, bacon and tomato puree I've ended up helping myself to sharing chips with Suzette and Caroline, two of my flat mates as I've drunken enough to not even care about what I'm eating.
Provided that they're not covered in ketchup, mayonaise or pickle as such but each to their own.
I haven't even started boiling my penne pasta.
This is making me look forward to Brighton even more as I'll feel more relaxed eating such crap as I'm with people who I feel more confident speaking to others and eating socially and there's no better way to do so with really dodgy deep fried stuff.
I really love letting out the real me come out whilst I'm at Uni as I wouldn't dream of doing the same at home.
Then again that's what resulted in me going bonkers in the first place and having to miss out part of what was meant to be my final year at University but that's behind me now.
I hope I've learnt from my errors.
I'm going to feel bad about this blog post when I get up tomorrow morning but this is the ideal drinking cure.
Despite heating up a delicious concoption of mince, mushrooms, bacon and tomato puree I've ended up helping myself to sharing chips with Suzette and Caroline, two of my flat mates as I've drunken enough to not even care about what I'm eating.
Provided that they're not covered in ketchup, mayonaise or pickle as such but each to their own.
I haven't even started boiling my penne pasta.
This is making me look forward to Brighton even more as I'll feel more relaxed eating such crap as I'm with people who I feel more confident speaking to others and eating socially and there's no better way to do so with really dodgy deep fried stuff.
I really love letting out the real me come out whilst I'm at Uni as I wouldn't dream of doing the same at home.
Then again that's what resulted in me going bonkers in the first place and having to miss out part of what was meant to be my final year at University but that's behind me now.
I hope I've learnt from my errors.
I'm going to feel bad about this blog post when I get up tomorrow morning but this is the ideal drinking cure.
"Your Tuesday Night Starts Right Here!"
Whenever I've had a bit too much to drink I end up uttering random catchphrases such as the title of the blog post which pays homage to Dermot O'Leary's rather ridiculous entrance line on The X Factor.
I'll go onto those in a bit more detail later.
The night started off at around 7 where I arrived at the Undercroft at 7 where member of bar staff and Chris's other half Aoife told me to immediatley get on the decks and start spinning whatever I had brought with me.
The tunes I played went down pretty well with those present, which included "Lady Sun" by Earth, Wind And Fire from their 1981 album "Raise" which has to be in my top 5 EWF tunes. I even felt the need to loop the part of the song with the line "shine like, the sun" as it has a superb chord progression, similar to the one in Incognito's "Everyday" where it changes from the more relaxed middle 8 back into the main chorus. Unless your a die hard EWF or Incognito fan you'll have no clue what I'm on about.
Other tunes I played included a tune by Matt Bianco which went down well with a Spanish student who loved their "faux latin rhythms" and "Spiral" by the Crusaders by a fella who recognised the tune immediately despite the fact that I've only known the tune for a few months. I'm tempted to play it on the soul show tomorrow and have got quite a good link to use into it.
Chris and Phil arrived in good time with a few extra CDs and a much needed pair of headphones to make my beatmatching spot on and on the advice of the bar staff I started mixing the soulful stuff with a few up to date tracks from artists such as Estelle, and The Pussycat Dolls.
Chris and Phil took control of the music by the time the Auction went into action with Nana Charlie as the compere.
Those in attendance included fellow TV students Matt, Rupert and "Producer James" who present one of the best daytime shows on Smoke, as well as the majority of Flat 16 who put themselves up for bidding as a collective.
This is where things got a bit too bonkers because as the bidding progressed, whenever they asked for offers at £7, I immediately shouted out "seVEN!" a la Len Goodman which resulted in Chris unable to control himself as well as a few others despite them not being the biggest fans of Strictly as such.
What was even more irritating was that Barry who was present with Denis and the Irish lads was asked to come up but didn't bother although I felt a bit stupid when asking Steven and Caroline if they were putting themselves up for bidding when it's more than obvious that they are an item.
By the time the night ended Phil H was spinning some rather bizarre tunes such as "54-46 Was My Number" by Toots And The Maytals which I felt the need to join in with. The plan was to head up to Trinity but not before helping Sarah, J.C. and the Undercroft bar staff to do a bit of tidying up as well as drinking a bloody revolting shot of The Famous Grousse and tieing me up in festive ribbons.
With that all out of the way we headed to Trinity but not before stopping off at a Barclays to get some money out of one of a "Hole In The Wall". This obviously resulted in me bellowing Dale Winton's infamous line "Bring On The Wall!" and making myself look even more stupid.
When we got into Trinity we met up with those who had spent the night at the Junction.
These included Potty Lottie who I've actually changed the name of her number to on my mobile, Sophie, Alice, Matty I.D and Rob who I've felt the need to start calling "Leslie" as he shares the same surname as the fella who presented "The Price Is Right" before Bruce Forsyth.
The music they played was pretty much contemporary with the likes of The Kaiser Chiefs, Artic Monkeys and a few songs that involved whistling such as Peter Bjorn and John, and Noah And The Whale.
Towards the end of the night they played a few older tunes such as "Help" by the Beatles "I'm A Believer" by the Monkees and "Message In A Bottle" by the Police.
As soon as we left quite a lot of us headed to the kebab shop nearby where Lottie managed to get a quite a bit of grub including a pizza which she accidentally dropped as we were walking past the libray on Harrow campus.
Quite a lot of people were walking back eating rather unhealthy stuff but when you're really pissed you can't blame them.
The catchphrases kept on coming as I said goodbye to everything when I went into my flat by uttering Bruno Brookes' legendary line "Whatever you're doing tonight, have a nice night!", a line that I've more or less stolen for the end of just about every soul show I've done on Smoke Radio.
I haven't even gone to bed yet as I've barely eaten since lunchtime and plan to gorge on some lovely mince and penne pasta as you do.
I've even got to be up at 10:00 for an appointment with Viju in the Harrow counselling department but I know it can be done as I only spent about 3 hours in bed after getting back from the Student Radio Awards two weeks ago.
It's a tough task but someone's got to do it.
I'll go onto those in a bit more detail later.
The night started off at around 7 where I arrived at the Undercroft at 7 where member of bar staff and Chris's other half Aoife told me to immediatley get on the decks and start spinning whatever I had brought with me.
The tunes I played went down pretty well with those present, which included "Lady Sun" by Earth, Wind And Fire from their 1981 album "Raise" which has to be in my top 5 EWF tunes. I even felt the need to loop the part of the song with the line "shine like, the sun" as it has a superb chord progression, similar to the one in Incognito's "Everyday" where it changes from the more relaxed middle 8 back into the main chorus. Unless your a die hard EWF or Incognito fan you'll have no clue what I'm on about.
Other tunes I played included a tune by Matt Bianco which went down well with a Spanish student who loved their "faux latin rhythms" and "Spiral" by the Crusaders by a fella who recognised the tune immediately despite the fact that I've only known the tune for a few months. I'm tempted to play it on the soul show tomorrow and have got quite a good link to use into it.
Chris and Phil arrived in good time with a few extra CDs and a much needed pair of headphones to make my beatmatching spot on and on the advice of the bar staff I started mixing the soulful stuff with a few up to date tracks from artists such as Estelle, and The Pussycat Dolls.
Chris and Phil took control of the music by the time the Auction went into action with Nana Charlie as the compere.
Those in attendance included fellow TV students Matt, Rupert and "Producer James" who present one of the best daytime shows on Smoke, as well as the majority of Flat 16 who put themselves up for bidding as a collective.
This is where things got a bit too bonkers because as the bidding progressed, whenever they asked for offers at £7, I immediately shouted out "seVEN!" a la Len Goodman which resulted in Chris unable to control himself as well as a few others despite them not being the biggest fans of Strictly as such.
What was even more irritating was that Barry who was present with Denis and the Irish lads was asked to come up but didn't bother although I felt a bit stupid when asking Steven and Caroline if they were putting themselves up for bidding when it's more than obvious that they are an item.
By the time the night ended Phil H was spinning some rather bizarre tunes such as "54-46 Was My Number" by Toots And The Maytals which I felt the need to join in with. The plan was to head up to Trinity but not before helping Sarah, J.C. and the Undercroft bar staff to do a bit of tidying up as well as drinking a bloody revolting shot of The Famous Grousse and tieing me up in festive ribbons.
With that all out of the way we headed to Trinity but not before stopping off at a Barclays to get some money out of one of a "Hole In The Wall". This obviously resulted in me bellowing Dale Winton's infamous line "Bring On The Wall!" and making myself look even more stupid.
When we got into Trinity we met up with those who had spent the night at the Junction.
These included Potty Lottie who I've actually changed the name of her number to on my mobile, Sophie, Alice, Matty I.D and Rob who I've felt the need to start calling "Leslie" as he shares the same surname as the fella who presented "The Price Is Right" before Bruce Forsyth.
The music they played was pretty much contemporary with the likes of The Kaiser Chiefs, Artic Monkeys and a few songs that involved whistling such as Peter Bjorn and John, and Noah And The Whale.
Towards the end of the night they played a few older tunes such as "Help" by the Beatles "I'm A Believer" by the Monkees and "Message In A Bottle" by the Police.
As soon as we left quite a lot of us headed to the kebab shop nearby where Lottie managed to get a quite a bit of grub including a pizza which she accidentally dropped as we were walking past the libray on Harrow campus.
Quite a lot of people were walking back eating rather unhealthy stuff but when you're really pissed you can't blame them.
The catchphrases kept on coming as I said goodbye to everything when I went into my flat by uttering Bruno Brookes' legendary line "Whatever you're doing tonight, have a nice night!", a line that I've more or less stolen for the end of just about every soul show I've done on Smoke Radio.
I haven't even gone to bed yet as I've barely eaten since lunchtime and plan to gorge on some lovely mince and penne pasta as you do.
I've even got to be up at 10:00 for an appointment with Viju in the Harrow counselling department but I know it can be done as I only spent about 3 hours in bed after getting back from the Student Radio Awards two weeks ago.
It's a tough task but someone's got to do it.
Tuesday, November 18, 2008
On The Prowl For Ideas
More suggestions have been coming in for my feature and a few potential interviews have come up including one with a jewellery maker who makes jewerellry out of everyday items. The interview's probably not going to take place until early December although I'm hoping it won't be on the same day I have to go back to Canterbury for a blood test.
I'm sure there will be more possibilities that will come up before then and it won't be too much of a rush job. Then again I managed to edit the majority of my Tarot feature within a day and it wasn't too near the deadline either so I only had to make one or two minor changes before handing it in.
Apart from that I've been up in radio all day where at more people have been proposing ideas for features. Phil Landers wanted to do his about the song "He Ain't Heavy He's My Brother" although apparently he was told to avoid doing it as it was "too American" and would be difficult to get hold of relevant interviewees.
Stewart on the other hand was struggling to find websites about geeks oddly enough, which happens to be the topic of his feature although I know that somewhere within the next five weeks, something is going to go balls up with my feature.
As I type most of the second year students are up in RP1 playing Spore on Spike's laptop and playing a game which involves picking random names written on pieces of paper along with random lewd acts which I'd rather not go into too much detail on, especially as my name came out twice.
At around 7 I'm heading to the Undercroft earlier than planned as I've been asked to DJ for the first part of the Body Auction where I will be spinning a bit of the soulful and jazzy stuff, although Chris and Phil will take over when things really start to get going where they'll be playing "grimy hip hop" which I hope won't be too obscure although Phil plans to play a bit of Tribe Called Quest which should be enjoyable.
Everyone else however seems to be going to the Junction in Harrow and we all reckon that they make a hell of a lot more money than the Undercroft. Especially on Tuesday nights where it's pound a pint night and that includes VKs as well.
I really should make more a habit of that in the second semester when there's barely anything else going on.
I'm sure there will be more possibilities that will come up before then and it won't be too much of a rush job. Then again I managed to edit the majority of my Tarot feature within a day and it wasn't too near the deadline either so I only had to make one or two minor changes before handing it in.
Apart from that I've been up in radio all day where at more people have been proposing ideas for features. Phil Landers wanted to do his about the song "He Ain't Heavy He's My Brother" although apparently he was told to avoid doing it as it was "too American" and would be difficult to get hold of relevant interviewees.
Stewart on the other hand was struggling to find websites about geeks oddly enough, which happens to be the topic of his feature although I know that somewhere within the next five weeks, something is going to go balls up with my feature.
As I type most of the second year students are up in RP1 playing Spore on Spike's laptop and playing a game which involves picking random names written on pieces of paper along with random lewd acts which I'd rather not go into too much detail on, especially as my name came out twice.
At around 7 I'm heading to the Undercroft earlier than planned as I've been asked to DJ for the first part of the Body Auction where I will be spinning a bit of the soulful and jazzy stuff, although Chris and Phil will take over when things really start to get going where they'll be playing "grimy hip hop" which I hope won't be too obscure although Phil plans to play a bit of Tribe Called Quest which should be enjoyable.
Everyone else however seems to be going to the Junction in Harrow and we all reckon that they make a hell of a lot more money than the Undercroft. Especially on Tuesday nights where it's pound a pint night and that includes VKs as well.
I really should make more a habit of that in the second semester when there's barely anything else going on.
In Search Of Older Participants
The responses on Facebook to my feature idea have continued to come in which I'm really impressed with. Ideally I'd like to get a few people of an older age to interview to make it more interesting and show that I'm not biased towards a particular age group but that's all part of the challenge.
I may need to start researching online and find more websites relating to things like doodling, origami and so on.
There was trouble getting into the SADiE room this morning as the door allowing us to enter both that room and studio 4 wouldn't open due to the keypad being buggered. Neither the Media department or the security people had keys to undo the lock so they had to get someone in to unscrew the door handle. I really hope the security guards don't get uptight about this but then again it's tough as they won't even be able to lock the door!
As an aside I managed to find a superb photo of Len Goodman on Digital Spy holding up a placard with "seVEN!" on it.
I had trouble downloading the image but thanks to Corel being installed on one of the computers I've managed to use the cropping function to make my own copy and am very tempted to print it out and put it into a frame. Then again back in the 80s many teenagers used to do the same with Bob Holness.
As the series gets nearer towards the final I doubt they'll be any scores below 8 or 9
unless John Sergeant makes it their of course.
I was also disapointed in last week's show that none of Bruce's jokes ended with the punchline "I Am Not Doddery, Doddery I Am, NOT!", as those will read the blog will know that I watch the show mainly for the catchphrases.
I'm not sure how to spend the rest of today, although tonight at the Undercroft, Nana Charlie has organised a Body Auction to raise money for the third year TV student's practical project.
It should be quite good fun it plenty of people turn up.
On the downside however I will be missing "Celebrity" for the second night especially as
Joe Swash has once again been asked to take part in tonight's trial. Kilroy it seems is continuing to get plenty of stick but that's what makes the show a lot more interesting as since starting University I haven't really been as drawn to the series due to the rather average contestant line ups.
I may need to start researching online and find more websites relating to things like doodling, origami and so on.
There was trouble getting into the SADiE room this morning as the door allowing us to enter both that room and studio 4 wouldn't open due to the keypad being buggered. Neither the Media department or the security people had keys to undo the lock so they had to get someone in to unscrew the door handle. I really hope the security guards don't get uptight about this but then again it's tough as they won't even be able to lock the door!
As an aside I managed to find a superb photo of Len Goodman on Digital Spy holding up a placard with "seVEN!" on it.
I had trouble downloading the image but thanks to Corel being installed on one of the computers I've managed to use the cropping function to make my own copy and am very tempted to print it out and put it into a frame. Then again back in the 80s many teenagers used to do the same with Bob Holness.
As the series gets nearer towards the final I doubt they'll be any scores below 8 or 9
unless John Sergeant makes it their of course.
I was also disapointed in last week's show that none of Bruce's jokes ended with the punchline "I Am Not Doddery, Doddery I Am, NOT!", as those will read the blog will know that I watch the show mainly for the catchphrases.
I'm not sure how to spend the rest of today, although tonight at the Undercroft, Nana Charlie has organised a Body Auction to raise money for the third year TV student's practical project.
It should be quite good fun it plenty of people turn up.
On the downside however I will be missing "Celebrity" for the second night especially as
Joe Swash has once again been asked to take part in tonight's trial. Kilroy it seems is continuing to get plenty of stick but that's what makes the show a lot more interesting as since starting University I haven't really been as drawn to the series due to the rather average contestant line ups.
Monday, November 17, 2008
"He's Bonkers!
As planned I went to see Matthew to discuss my feature ideas and it turned out that he was more interested in the idea about solitary activities. After putting it into perspective it came about that an ideal plan would be to interview as many people as I could about what they enjoyed doing and then editing them together and adding additional content afterwards.
I managed to send out a message via Facebook which so far has had a pretty good response and I may write down a list of activities which for some reason Matthew wants me to send to him.
I may also see if there's anyone back in Canterbury who enjoys doing similar activities on their own and ideally I'd like to get people from different age ranges as I know that even those of an older range enjoy activities on their own.
In terms of music used in the feature, it's going to be rather tough finding anything appropriate as I really don't want to go for the obvious. Examples being "On My Own" by Michael McDonald and that song by Akon.
Then again there's five weeks to sort it all out although I'd like to have some interviews recorded by this time in two weeks.
At around 5pm I headed into Central and met up with a few people in the Yorkshire Grey who were going to see Ivan Brackenbury, quite a lot of them had jobs within the media.
As soon as we arrived at Broadcasting House I managed to spot a few familar faces who I'd met before at Jinglemad meet ups, them being Stacey, Graham and David and as soon as I got into the bar I managed to say hello to them.
David in particular works as an engineer on BBC South East Today although oddly enough I never saw him when I went to visit the studios just over a year ago.
The actual recording itself was very entertaining although it appears that Tom/Ivan has put on a bit of weight. However it was good to see Ivan being involved in a story which involved him recording his first pilot show for hospital radio whilst having to deal with the manager of the hospital who wanted to shut the station down.
The supporting cast were brilliant too, especially Justin Moorhouse who played one of the co-ordinators of the station who was infamous for his "wacky wind ups" and making rather lewd and non PC phone calls to Ivan's phone in section of the show.
The programme itself is set to go out on the first Saturday of 2009 and I'm hoping it will lead to a series which considering Ivan's success in Edinburgh shouldn't be impossible.
As we were coming out I was chatting to one of the other attendees about how it's easier to get away with hospital based jokes unlike in the late 70s on programmes like YTV's sitcom "Only When I Laugh" which starred James Bolam before he appeared in The Beiderbecke Trilogy and New Tricks.
We then went onto a pub in Great Portland Street called "The Cock" where as in the previous two bars I went to they didn't have anything to drink that I liked that contained alcohol.
That didn't stop me from meeting a few more people who went to see the recording including Matt Deegan who I met at the Student Radio Awards Nominations and who helps to run the website for Jazz FM.
I also had a chat with Stacy and Graham about jingles as you would with certain topics such as how difficult it is to get hold of the Capital Radio 1978 jingles in decent quality as the above audio isn't perfect.
I can't listen to that package without thinking of the Bastard Brothers version of the cut played 30 seconds in which they changed to
"Bruce Springsteen Radiooo, Used To Be Capital, What A Bore" as a response to the station playing a lot of songs by "The Boss" especially on the late Roger Scott's show.
We also spoke about how difficult it is to get hold of the jock cuts that were done to accompany Invicta FM's 1990 package that were resings of Cut 17 from Steamroller.
Basically imagine the words "Caesar The Boogie Man, Invicta EEHHFF-EHHHM!" sung to the above cut which Stacy actually has an off-air copy off that I'm hoping he'll e-mail me.
I only remember the versions done for Tim Stewart and Geoff Fitch which in the case of the latter must have been the shortest version of that cut used on air.
I'd love to get that cut done for myself although I've actually ordered another "seasonal" cut from iJingles as my new credit card arrived this morning. Hopefully it will arrive before my last show prior to Christmas.
I also used the discussion to have another moan about Len Groat's postings on Jinglemad and why I believe that he was just an jingle anorak running a set of radio stations as with regards to the JAM jingles for Trent FM/GEM AM there was no consistensy with the melody logo as a result of "cherry picking" his favourite jingles for the station despite some of them being superb.
Johnny Beerling at Radio 1, and Derek Mills and latterly Ian Purdon at Radio 2 had the better idea as they chose cuts from many different demos but kept the same melody logo within each cut in the package even though the tunes changed over the years.
I'm sorry if that comes across as unfair but I'm pretty certain he has upset a few people on the site by being extremley negative about the current state of the radio industry and what really annoys me is that he's living in Portugal where he doesn't even have to listen for Christ's sake.
We did speak positively about Mike Powell who was the PD for the County Sound network in Surrey for many years who produced some superb JAM packages such as this one back in 1989.
I'm hoping I get to see Stacey, Graham, David and many more like minded jingle fans for a few drinks pretty soon and hopefully in London as well as that's where all the best jingle gatherings have taken place.
At around 9:30 I headed back over to Northwick Park and headed down to the Undercroft where I spent most of the night with Rob and Jade from the first year. Also present were Oli P, Alex Bedford and Jake, who really got into the tunes that Mattie was playing including "Welcome To Paradise" from Green Day's album "Dookie".
That immediately brought to mind an album called "The Moog Cookbook" released in the mid 90s containing synth/muzak covers of rock/metal tunes including "Basket Case" which sounds rather like "What A Fool Believes" by the Doobie Brothers and Michael McDonald (you can probably tell that I'm a fan of his).
There's also a version of "Buddy Holly" by Weezer which Mark and Lard used to use as a bed on their Radio 1 show in the late 90s as well as a loop of Cornershop's "Sleep On The Left Side" which did get rather annoying after a while.
As for tomorrow I'll probably be up in the radio rooms despite not actually having anything to do although I'm certain I'll come across people who enjoy doing bizarre things by their own in there spare time. I'm just rather nervous about ringing people but I'm sure I'll find the confidence and lead to good results.
It's easy for me to forget that the mark I got for the features module in my second year was the highest out of all the practical modules I did even though it wasn't my favourite.
I've definitely got my work cut out here.
I managed to send out a message via Facebook which so far has had a pretty good response and I may write down a list of activities which for some reason Matthew wants me to send to him.
I may also see if there's anyone back in Canterbury who enjoys doing similar activities on their own and ideally I'd like to get people from different age ranges as I know that even those of an older range enjoy activities on their own.
In terms of music used in the feature, it's going to be rather tough finding anything appropriate as I really don't want to go for the obvious. Examples being "On My Own" by Michael McDonald and that song by Akon.
Then again there's five weeks to sort it all out although I'd like to have some interviews recorded by this time in two weeks.
At around 5pm I headed into Central and met up with a few people in the Yorkshire Grey who were going to see Ivan Brackenbury, quite a lot of them had jobs within the media.
As soon as we arrived at Broadcasting House I managed to spot a few familar faces who I'd met before at Jinglemad meet ups, them being Stacey, Graham and David and as soon as I got into the bar I managed to say hello to them.
David in particular works as an engineer on BBC South East Today although oddly enough I never saw him when I went to visit the studios just over a year ago.
The actual recording itself was very entertaining although it appears that Tom/Ivan has put on a bit of weight. However it was good to see Ivan being involved in a story which involved him recording his first pilot show for hospital radio whilst having to deal with the manager of the hospital who wanted to shut the station down.
The supporting cast were brilliant too, especially Justin Moorhouse who played one of the co-ordinators of the station who was infamous for his "wacky wind ups" and making rather lewd and non PC phone calls to Ivan's phone in section of the show.
The programme itself is set to go out on the first Saturday of 2009 and I'm hoping it will lead to a series which considering Ivan's success in Edinburgh shouldn't be impossible.
As we were coming out I was chatting to one of the other attendees about how it's easier to get away with hospital based jokes unlike in the late 70s on programmes like YTV's sitcom "Only When I Laugh" which starred James Bolam before he appeared in The Beiderbecke Trilogy and New Tricks.
We then went onto a pub in Great Portland Street called "The Cock" where as in the previous two bars I went to they didn't have anything to drink that I liked that contained alcohol.
That didn't stop me from meeting a few more people who went to see the recording including Matt Deegan who I met at the Student Radio Awards Nominations and who helps to run the website for Jazz FM.
I also had a chat with Stacy and Graham about jingles as you would with certain topics such as how difficult it is to get hold of the Capital Radio 1978 jingles in decent quality as the above audio isn't perfect.
I can't listen to that package without thinking of the Bastard Brothers version of the cut played 30 seconds in which they changed to
"Bruce Springsteen Radiooo, Used To Be Capital, What A Bore" as a response to the station playing a lot of songs by "The Boss" especially on the late Roger Scott's show.
We also spoke about how difficult it is to get hold of the jock cuts that were done to accompany Invicta FM's 1990 package that were resings of Cut 17 from Steamroller.
Basically imagine the words "Caesar The Boogie Man, Invicta EEHHFF-EHHHM!" sung to the above cut which Stacy actually has an off-air copy off that I'm hoping he'll e-mail me.
I only remember the versions done for Tim Stewart and Geoff Fitch which in the case of the latter must have been the shortest version of that cut used on air.
I'd love to get that cut done for myself although I've actually ordered another "seasonal" cut from iJingles as my new credit card arrived this morning. Hopefully it will arrive before my last show prior to Christmas.
I also used the discussion to have another moan about Len Groat's postings on Jinglemad and why I believe that he was just an jingle anorak running a set of radio stations as with regards to the JAM jingles for Trent FM/GEM AM there was no consistensy with the melody logo as a result of "cherry picking" his favourite jingles for the station despite some of them being superb.
Johnny Beerling at Radio 1, and Derek Mills and latterly Ian Purdon at Radio 2 had the better idea as they chose cuts from many different demos but kept the same melody logo within each cut in the package even though the tunes changed over the years.
I'm sorry if that comes across as unfair but I'm pretty certain he has upset a few people on the site by being extremley negative about the current state of the radio industry and what really annoys me is that he's living in Portugal where he doesn't even have to listen for Christ's sake.
We did speak positively about Mike Powell who was the PD for the County Sound network in Surrey for many years who produced some superb JAM packages such as this one back in 1989.
I'm hoping I get to see Stacey, Graham, David and many more like minded jingle fans for a few drinks pretty soon and hopefully in London as well as that's where all the best jingle gatherings have taken place.
At around 9:30 I headed back over to Northwick Park and headed down to the Undercroft where I spent most of the night with Rob and Jade from the first year. Also present were Oli P, Alex Bedford and Jake, who really got into the tunes that Mattie was playing including "Welcome To Paradise" from Green Day's album "Dookie".
That immediately brought to mind an album called "The Moog Cookbook" released in the mid 90s containing synth/muzak covers of rock/metal tunes including "Basket Case" which sounds rather like "What A Fool Believes" by the Doobie Brothers and Michael McDonald (you can probably tell that I'm a fan of his).
There's also a version of "Buddy Holly" by Weezer which Mark and Lard used to use as a bed on their Radio 1 show in the late 90s as well as a loop of Cornershop's "Sleep On The Left Side" which did get rather annoying after a while.
As for tomorrow I'll probably be up in the radio rooms despite not actually having anything to do although I'm certain I'll come across people who enjoy doing bizarre things by their own in there spare time. I'm just rather nervous about ringing people but I'm sure I'll find the confidence and lead to good results.
It's easy for me to forget that the mark I got for the features module in my second year was the highest out of all the practical modules I did even though it wasn't my favourite.
I've definitely got my work cut out here.
Brighton Calls
The first part of today consisted of a refresher on how to use SADiE which looked pretty much straight forward although I'm rather confused with regards to use the equaliser and reverb facilities. I think I'll stick to Audition with regards to those functions although the whole thing has to be put together on SADiE.
Shouldn't be too much of a task overall.
So that's basically the last time we'll all be together in a practical lecture as from now onwards we're all working on our features. However Sirin's planning a visit to Brighton on Facebook around about December which I think is the perfect time to go as there's something comforting about being on a British seaside in the Winter.
It may also be the ideal excuse to have quite a bit to drink and eat things I wouldn't normally eat as a result.
Chris suggested that we should go to Huntstanton near his hometown in Norfolk despite the fact he won't even be going back there this year as he's doing B.A. work for Classic FM throughout Christmas including on the day itself.
It's definitely worth it for the bob however.
As we were coming out Chris was singing one of the Capital 95.8 jingles stuck in his head as a result of working in the same building saying that it was probably the only decent jingles they've had. As you would guess I was quick to react giving my own rendition of one from the 1987 package by TM although they could do it a lot better than I could.
One of those jingle packages still remembered by Londoners to this day.
With regards to tonight, a few people from the Media UK forums will be meeting up at a pub near Broadcasting House and it will be a good excuse to meet a few like minded people as I haven't really done that for a very long time.
I'm hoping we arrive at the Radio Theatre in time as I don't want to end up not getting in. Luckily that's never happened to me at a BBC recording so I hope tonight is no exception.
Right now I'm up in the SADiE room sorting out audio from Smoke over from the last semester to burn onto DVD-R now that I've managed to buy a CD wallet. The ideal time killer prior to discussing my feature idea with Matthew and I hoping I can talk about my dissertation idea as well so I can narrow it down a bit in order to write a clearer proposal.
After that I guess it's a case of getting on with it.
Shouldn't be too much of a task overall.
So that's basically the last time we'll all be together in a practical lecture as from now onwards we're all working on our features. However Sirin's planning a visit to Brighton on Facebook around about December which I think is the perfect time to go as there's something comforting about being on a British seaside in the Winter.
It may also be the ideal excuse to have quite a bit to drink and eat things I wouldn't normally eat as a result.
Chris suggested that we should go to Huntstanton near his hometown in Norfolk despite the fact he won't even be going back there this year as he's doing B.A. work for Classic FM throughout Christmas including on the day itself.
It's definitely worth it for the bob however.
As we were coming out Chris was singing one of the Capital 95.8 jingles stuck in his head as a result of working in the same building saying that it was probably the only decent jingles they've had. As you would guess I was quick to react giving my own rendition of one from the 1987 package by TM although they could do it a lot better than I could.
One of those jingle packages still remembered by Londoners to this day.
With regards to tonight, a few people from the Media UK forums will be meeting up at a pub near Broadcasting House and it will be a good excuse to meet a few like minded people as I haven't really done that for a very long time.
I'm hoping we arrive at the Radio Theatre in time as I don't want to end up not getting in. Luckily that's never happened to me at a BBC recording so I hope tonight is no exception.
Right now I'm up in the SADiE room sorting out audio from Smoke over from the last semester to burn onto DVD-R now that I've managed to buy a CD wallet. The ideal time killer prior to discussing my feature idea with Matthew and I hoping I can talk about my dissertation idea as well so I can narrow it down a bit in order to write a clearer proposal.
After that I guess it's a case of getting on with it.
Sunday, November 16, 2008
"Let's Croak Up Some Toads!"
Once again I've found two rather impressive video uploads starting off with the opening titles to "Rolf's Cartoon Club" from 1993. This has to be one of the most original theme tunes I've heard managing to put all of Rolf's bizarre vocal talents together although on a low note it's followed by the man himself giving a rendition of "Wild Thing" by the Troggs which unsurprisingly didn't end up being a successful follow up to "Stairway To Heaven".
But an even better offering from the same uploader has to be Andi Peters and Edd the Duck in the Broom Cupboard and Andi's contribution to the established tradition of
"The Broom Cupboard Singalong".
With Phillip Schofield it was "The Mysterious Cities Of Gold" Andy Crane had "Around The World With Willy Fogg" and Andi Peters encouraged viewers to sing along with the theme to "Bucky O'Hare" which I'd say is the best out of all three.
Nowadays it's impossible to find a theme tune that's as catchy as the above examples with the possible exception of "Space Pirates" the CBeebies series that Chris Moyles constantly played on his show partly because newsreader Dominic Byrne provides the voice of Zorst, the traffic reporter known for his dreadful jokes usually followed by him saying "Well if you don't get it just forget it!".
Tomorrow involves a refresher on the SADiE machines with Tim, the more relaxed and tolerant of the technicians in the radio department and I'm seeing Matthew to talk about my feature ideas that I've proposed. Hopefully I'll be able to get a bit further with what I've planned although I don't want it to be too much of a struggle.
The sooner I can get this project completed the better.
But an even better offering from the same uploader has to be Andi Peters and Edd the Duck in the Broom Cupboard and Andi's contribution to the established tradition of
"The Broom Cupboard Singalong".
With Phillip Schofield it was "The Mysterious Cities Of Gold" Andy Crane had "Around The World With Willy Fogg" and Andi Peters encouraged viewers to sing along with the theme to "Bucky O'Hare" which I'd say is the best out of all three.
Nowadays it's impossible to find a theme tune that's as catchy as the above examples with the possible exception of "Space Pirates" the CBeebies series that Chris Moyles constantly played on his show partly because newsreader Dominic Byrne provides the voice of Zorst, the traffic reporter known for his dreadful jokes usually followed by him saying "Well if you don't get it just forget it!".
Tomorrow involves a refresher on the SADiE machines with Tim, the more relaxed and tolerant of the technicians in the radio department and I'm seeing Matthew to talk about my feature ideas that I've proposed. Hopefully I'll be able to get a bit further with what I've planned although I don't want it to be too much of a struggle.
The sooner I can get this project completed the better.
"I'll Do It If No One Else Will"
So, a normal Sunday night in front of the television starting off with this weeks Strictly dance-off.
John Sergeant once again got the public vote resulting in Cherie Lunghi and Lisa Snowdon competing for the judges vote. Although I thought Cherie's dance routine was better than Lisa's I'm happy they've kept Lisa and Brendan on as she is definitely one of the lookers in the competition with more to give.
This was followed by the start of series 8 of I'm A Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here getting off to a strong start and plenty of highlights. These included Robert Kilroy Silk struggling to walk on water and Martina Navratilova managing to jump out of a plane along with the other members of what became the home camp.
However Joe Swash stole the show for me as he was up against Simon Webbe in the "Trauma Tank" trial. It turned out that rather than the dreadful looking creatures inside the tank itself, Joe was more scared of the klaxon going off which was pretty amusing although I would I really wouldn't blame him. You can probably tell I had the subtitles on during that part.
I really don't like it when people refer to what are actually hand-held horns as "klaxons", when the noise it actually makes by that name is more like the noise made when a gunging took place on "Noel's House Party" AKA the best sound effect ever.
And of course to avoid confusion with the band of the same name, in case anyones asking.
I never actually heard that word used on television despite it the above example being a familar noise, until around the mid 90s when Dale Winton would refer to it as the time-up signal when he presented "Pets Win Prizes" which used a very similar sound to the gunge tank.
Anyway returning to the jungle it turns out that Joe has been nominated again for tomorrow's trial against one of the models who's name I can't remember. I reckon Joe's a strong contender to win the series overall with George Takei being a second favourite.
I doubt I'll be able to watch tomorrow's episode however as I'll either be at Broadcasting House watching Ivan Brackenbury record his Radio 2 special or at the Undercroft as normal on a Monday if I arrive back in time.
However it should be a very enjoyable series with a strong line up of contestants.
John Sergeant once again got the public vote resulting in Cherie Lunghi and Lisa Snowdon competing for the judges vote. Although I thought Cherie's dance routine was better than Lisa's I'm happy they've kept Lisa and Brendan on as she is definitely one of the lookers in the competition with more to give.
This was followed by the start of series 8 of I'm A Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here getting off to a strong start and plenty of highlights. These included Robert Kilroy Silk struggling to walk on water and Martina Navratilova managing to jump out of a plane along with the other members of what became the home camp.
However Joe Swash stole the show for me as he was up against Simon Webbe in the "Trauma Tank" trial. It turned out that rather than the dreadful looking creatures inside the tank itself, Joe was more scared of the klaxon going off which was pretty amusing although I would I really wouldn't blame him. You can probably tell I had the subtitles on during that part.
I really don't like it when people refer to what are actually hand-held horns as "klaxons", when the noise it actually makes by that name is more like the noise made when a gunging took place on "Noel's House Party" AKA the best sound effect ever.
And of course to avoid confusion with the band of the same name, in case anyones asking.
I never actually heard that word used on television despite it the above example being a familar noise, until around the mid 90s when Dale Winton would refer to it as the time-up signal when he presented "Pets Win Prizes" which used a very similar sound to the gunge tank.
Anyway returning to the jungle it turns out that Joe has been nominated again for tomorrow's trial against one of the models who's name I can't remember. I reckon Joe's a strong contender to win the series overall with George Takei being a second favourite.
I doubt I'll be able to watch tomorrow's episode however as I'll either be at Broadcasting House watching Ivan Brackenbury record his Radio 2 special or at the Undercroft as normal on a Monday if I arrive back in time.
However it should be a very enjoyable series with a strong line up of contestants.
"Definitely Not Wearing Any Underwear"
Another of the things I brought back from Canterbury was my DVD of Rain Man which contains some very interesting features. One of them looking at Autism in detail and the difference between Autism and being a Savant which in the case of the latter allows people to store large amounts of information and recite it when asked.
This reminds of when the film was parodied in an episode of the Simpsons when Homer was put into a mental hospital with "Michael Jackson" and there was a similar character in their who immediately responded an answer to a maths problem when asked by Homer.
There was also a more obvious send up in the episode "$pringfield" where in the casino a Rain Man caricature started throwing a fit when Homer touched him.
I was rather disturbed by that scene at the time despite not seeing the original film and actually wrote a letter to the BBC audiences department although at the end it wasn't too much of a big deal having actually watched the film pretty soon after.
It's difficult for me to watch the airport scene but I can accept the fact it's an intergral part of the film, and I even ended up using one of the lines at the end of a poorly reconstructed scene from the film I did whilst at college. The line itself is at 1.55 and it's probably the only audible one in the actual scene considering that the edit was a rush job.
Quite a lot of airlines actually refused to show the airport scene apart from Quantas for obvious reasons.
However it's definitely one of the best films I've seen and it's probably one of Tom Cruise's finest considering I'm not a great fan of the actor, especially with all this scientology nonsense.
This reminds of when the film was parodied in an episode of the Simpsons when Homer was put into a mental hospital with "Michael Jackson" and there was a similar character in their who immediately responded an answer to a maths problem when asked by Homer.
There was also a more obvious send up in the episode "$pringfield" where in the casino a Rain Man caricature started throwing a fit when Homer touched him.
I was rather disturbed by that scene at the time despite not seeing the original film and actually wrote a letter to the BBC audiences department although at the end it wasn't too much of a big deal having actually watched the film pretty soon after.
It's difficult for me to watch the airport scene but I can accept the fact it's an intergral part of the film, and I even ended up using one of the lines at the end of a poorly reconstructed scene from the film I did whilst at college. The line itself is at 1.55 and it's probably the only audible one in the actual scene considering that the edit was a rush job.
Quite a lot of airlines actually refused to show the airport scene apart from Quantas for obvious reasons.
However it's definitely one of the best films I've seen and it's probably one of Tom Cruise's finest considering I'm not a great fan of the actor, especially with all this scientology nonsense.
Ever Soulful Sundays
Another Sunday morning was spent listening to Robbie Vincent as usual and it appears the man can do no wrong in choosing the tunes for his show each week.
Highlights on today's show included Azymuth and bassist Alex Maleheiros's daughter Sabrina with one of her own songs, and there was a brilliant tune by Brenda Russell from her album "Paris Rain" released back in 2000 on the Hidden Beach label, also home to Jill Scott.
One of the tracks in this week's "Sunday Long One" was George Benson's version of "Breezin'" but I was disapointed that the string intro was cut off and it just went straight into the main song.
That kind of deviates from the point in it being called "The Sunday Long One" but it was a very good show overall.
On a similar note Stephen H has set up a station on Live 365 called Soul Central which is in it's early stages but contains some superb tunes from the likes of Jazztronik, Jamiroquai and the Sunburst Band to name a few.
I'm definitely looking forward to seeing it develop over the next few months.
Highlights on today's show included Azymuth and bassist Alex Maleheiros's daughter Sabrina with one of her own songs, and there was a brilliant tune by Brenda Russell from her album "Paris Rain" released back in 2000 on the Hidden Beach label, also home to Jill Scott.
One of the tracks in this week's "Sunday Long One" was George Benson's version of "Breezin'" but I was disapointed that the string intro was cut off and it just went straight into the main song.
That kind of deviates from the point in it being called "The Sunday Long One" but it was a very good show overall.
On a similar note Stephen H has set up a station on Live 365 called Soul Central which is in it's early stages but contains some superb tunes from the likes of Jazztronik, Jamiroquai and the Sunburst Band to name a few.
I'm definitely looking forward to seeing it develop over the next few months.
The Eventual Exit
So last night saw the long awaited departure of Daniel Evans from the X Factor and it has to be said that he's been a good sport throughout. I guess Chris Moyles will have a few things to say on Monday.
This week's show was all about "Great British Songs" and there were some pretty good choices including Eoghan performing George Michael's "One More Try", Alexandra giving a great rendition of "You Are So Beautiful" and Rachel performing her signature song "You Know I'm No Good".
JLS performed a medley of Beatles songs which apparently was done by Take That on their tour but I thought it was very similar to one of those in Peter Kay's spoof earlier this year.
The boys obviously got a bit of flack for the performance and Simon immediately identified that it could have only have been done by Louis Walsh.
What I don't understand is why in every single VT package in the show with JLS has to include "Rock Your Body" by Justin Timberlake.
On an even lower note were the performances from Ruth and Diana, Ruth performing "Angels" and Diana giving a very dire performance of "Yellow" by Coldplay which didn't go down to well with the judges.
However it was Daniel and Rachel who ended up in the vote off and I can fully understand why Rachel ended up winning as she gave a superb and unusually lively rendition of U2's "One" as opposed to Daniel's rather plodding "Bridge Over Troubled Water".
It's rather odd to think there's only four weeks left in the series which proves for a change that it's shot by.
If anything could be changed it would be the rather overblown introductions with the music from the Old Spice adverts and Peter Dixon's booming voice that can be heard on almost every entertainment show on television;
"It's Time To Face The Music!"
Maybe it would work on a grand final but not on every single show.
This week's show was all about "Great British Songs" and there were some pretty good choices including Eoghan performing George Michael's "One More Try", Alexandra giving a great rendition of "You Are So Beautiful" and Rachel performing her signature song "You Know I'm No Good".
JLS performed a medley of Beatles songs which apparently was done by Take That on their tour but I thought it was very similar to one of those in Peter Kay's spoof earlier this year.
The boys obviously got a bit of flack for the performance and Simon immediately identified that it could have only have been done by Louis Walsh.
What I don't understand is why in every single VT package in the show with JLS has to include "Rock Your Body" by Justin Timberlake.
On an even lower note were the performances from Ruth and Diana, Ruth performing "Angels" and Diana giving a very dire performance of "Yellow" by Coldplay which didn't go down to well with the judges.
However it was Daniel and Rachel who ended up in the vote off and I can fully understand why Rachel ended up winning as she gave a superb and unusually lively rendition of U2's "One" as opposed to Daniel's rather plodding "Bridge Over Troubled Water".
It's rather odd to think there's only four weeks left in the series which proves for a change that it's shot by.
If anything could be changed it would be the rather overblown introductions with the music from the Old Spice adverts and Peter Dixon's booming voice that can be heard on almost every entertainment show on television;
"It's Time To Face The Music!"
Maybe it would work on a grand final but not on every single show.
Saturday, November 15, 2008
"Nice!"
I can honestly say that tonight had to be the worst live performance I have been during my time here in London over my time at University.
It all took place at Jazz at Pizza Express in Soho where the main act was the David Sanchez Quartet playing as part of the London Jazz Festival, and overall represented everything negative about the jazz genre.
In other words it was made up of unmemorable tunes made up of incomprehensible jamming with one of them lasting around half an hour and it's made me realise from now on not to go to any live music gigs that involve sitting down.
To add insult to injury I found out that representing the festival over at the Jazz Cafe tonight were the Five Quarters Quintet, a Finnish jazz act who also lean towards traditional jazz but in there case they know how to actually perform a tune and at the same time it's possible to have a boogie along to it.
Even worse, tomorrow night at the South Bank Centre will see a performance by the best vocal acappella group in the world, that being Take 6 which I really would have liked to have seen as they are well and truly unique.
I'd imagine the lesson learnt tonight is to make sure I do anything I can to ensure that I am able to stay in London beyond University as the London Jazz Festival really is a big deal and I have really understimated the amount of acts that perform as part of it proving that it's not just those who spend 2 hours making a lot of noise.
On the plus side it was good to see Celia and Alan again as well as Pauline who I don't think I've seen since WOMAD in 2004.
I very much doubt that Celia and Alan will see anything similar to tonight when they move to Devon.
I've arrived back safely and rather speedily as well and am trying to avoid finding out who got booted from last night's X Factor as I taped tonight's show.
Expect a review as usual around tomorrow morning.
It all took place at Jazz at Pizza Express in Soho where the main act was the David Sanchez Quartet playing as part of the London Jazz Festival, and overall represented everything negative about the jazz genre.
In other words it was made up of unmemorable tunes made up of incomprehensible jamming with one of them lasting around half an hour and it's made me realise from now on not to go to any live music gigs that involve sitting down.
To add insult to injury I found out that representing the festival over at the Jazz Cafe tonight were the Five Quarters Quintet, a Finnish jazz act who also lean towards traditional jazz but in there case they know how to actually perform a tune and at the same time it's possible to have a boogie along to it.
Even worse, tomorrow night at the South Bank Centre will see a performance by the best vocal acappella group in the world, that being Take 6 which I really would have liked to have seen as they are well and truly unique.
I'd imagine the lesson learnt tonight is to make sure I do anything I can to ensure that I am able to stay in London beyond University as the London Jazz Festival really is a big deal and I have really understimated the amount of acts that perform as part of it proving that it's not just those who spend 2 hours making a lot of noise.
On the plus side it was good to see Celia and Alan again as well as Pauline who I don't think I've seen since WOMAD in 2004.
I very much doubt that Celia and Alan will see anything similar to tonight when they move to Devon.
I've arrived back safely and rather speedily as well and am trying to avoid finding out who got booted from last night's X Factor as I taped tonight's show.
Expect a review as usual around tomorrow morning.
A Heavy Drop Off
This is quite an achievement, I've made it to 1500 posts so I'm now making it my aim to reach 2000 blog posts before I leave University in June 2009. I'm sure it can be done despite the fact their are no lectures after Christmas but I'll need to find ways of occupying myself in one way or other apart from writing my dissertation.
I've made a stop off back at my flat prior to tonight's visit to the Pizza Express Jazz Club after visiting Celia and Alan's house in Wanstead, probably for the final time as they're planning to move to Devon pretty soon which came across as news to me as they've lived in the East London area since I was born and used to visit us quite a lot when I lived in the same area.
I managed to get back OK as well as they hadn't closed the Met line this weekend so I won't have to go around Central London carrying a rather heavy bag containing a few DVDs including Series 1, 2 and the Christmas specials of the Office, and Peter Kay's Phoenix Nights and Max And Paddy. I'm rather annoyed that I didn't bring back with me the DVD of "That Peter Kay Thing" which was his first proper series for Channel 4 and very underrated.
There's also my large box of MDs that I may spend time transferring to MP3 either after Xmas or during Easter when the radio rooms are empty.
I'm hoping they'll start making recordable Blu-Ray discs more accessible as well as the burning hardware.
I've made a stop off back at my flat prior to tonight's visit to the Pizza Express Jazz Club after visiting Celia and Alan's house in Wanstead, probably for the final time as they're planning to move to Devon pretty soon which came across as news to me as they've lived in the East London area since I was born and used to visit us quite a lot when I lived in the same area.
I managed to get back OK as well as they hadn't closed the Met line this weekend so I won't have to go around Central London carrying a rather heavy bag containing a few DVDs including Series 1, 2 and the Christmas specials of the Office, and Peter Kay's Phoenix Nights and Max And Paddy. I'm rather annoyed that I didn't bring back with me the DVD of "That Peter Kay Thing" which was his first proper series for Channel 4 and very underrated.
There's also my large box of MDs that I may spend time transferring to MP3 either after Xmas or during Easter when the radio rooms are empty.
I'm hoping they'll start making recordable Blu-Ray discs more accessible as well as the burning hardware.
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