Another rather delightful pair, or should that be pair of pairs made their debut on the Westminster airwaves, that being first year students Alice and Nicola with their appropriately titled show "Here Come The Girls" which was good fun overall.
Alice was one of those present on the Circle Line pub crawl yesterday where quite a few of us started singing "Alice is here, Alice is here" etc to the tune of the "Aled is here" song on the Chris Moyles Show.
For the benefit of those who don't or refuse to listen to the programme, it basically involves Chris and Dave singing "Aled is here" repetitively to the theme to Blue Peter which has caught on in the last couple of months.
An example of one of the first outings can be heard here.
The same could be done with second year student Alice Robertson but I don't think she's deserving of the amount of stick she gets.
There's also another "almost" new show to the schedule as the "Show 25" boys have been promoted to a live Thursday night slot which should be enjoyable, especially as one of the team members provided what has to be the best line I've heard on the station this year through a comment about unsigned bands although I won't mention it here.
Having spoken to Sophie about the goings on last night on the pub crawl, it turns out that she didn't really do as much drinking as expected even resorting to orange juice.
It also made me realise how strong a word "notorious" is as a few years ago on a television presentation website, someone made a comment about a BBC announcer being "notorious" for talking over the music during the end credits of a programme which resulted in a bit of trouble when the said annoucer happened to visit the website himself.
Thankfully they sorted the issue and the site's still going strong.
Tonight's going to be another excuse to stay in with another celebrity booted out of the jungle, followed by the final episodes in the current series' of "8 Out Of 10 Cats" and "Russell Brand's Ponderland". Plus Mark Watson will be taking the reigns as guest captain on this week's "Never Mind The Buzzcocks" which I'm hoping will be enjoyable and hopefully for this week at least Simon Amstell won't go "What about so and so on the show!" which really irritates me.
There are some times when sarcasm just isn't funny.
Thursday, November 27, 2008
"Chasing The Clouds Away"
Today's been a bit better as having a lie-in in the middle of the day really helped.
Apologies if the last few posts have been rather negative but I just don't like rudeness or incompetence.
Things however have to be said but I appreciate that there is a balance between saying what I really think and upsetting others.
To be honest though, I only start to feel in a negative mood when I'm in the surroundings of other people who are unhappy for whatever reasons. I've more or less learnt since the beginning not to let really difficult assignments get me down or whatever which can be alleviated by either planning ahead and working on essays from home.
It's those who come in who are really stressed because an assignments due in and they've barely even started working on it, thus resulting in them being in a negative mood and therefore makes me feel depressed.
I don't really need to be up here all the time anyway, especially when I've got tons of stuff on my hard drive to listen to, such as the entire discographies of Shakatak, George Duke and Earth Wind And Fire. I'd heavily recommend them to anyone else in a similar sort of mood who needs a bit of brightening. And a lot of people may criticize those bands for being cheesy, but so are the High School Musical movies.
With regards to EWF a few of us were arguing about what Philip Bailey is actually singing in the chorus with a lot of people thinking it's "Party On" rather than "Ba de ya" and the former makes a lot more sense. To prove it I've managed to find the lyrics on one of the many websites providing such solutions.
Once again if you're in the first year or thinking of starting the radio course, have a look at the course handbook beforehand as to what happens each year and then it won't be anywhere near as stressful.
Apologies if the last few posts have been rather negative but I just don't like rudeness or incompetence.
Things however have to be said but I appreciate that there is a balance between saying what I really think and upsetting others.
To be honest though, I only start to feel in a negative mood when I'm in the surroundings of other people who are unhappy for whatever reasons. I've more or less learnt since the beginning not to let really difficult assignments get me down or whatever which can be alleviated by either planning ahead and working on essays from home.
It's those who come in who are really stressed because an assignments due in and they've barely even started working on it, thus resulting in them being in a negative mood and therefore makes me feel depressed.
I don't really need to be up here all the time anyway, especially when I've got tons of stuff on my hard drive to listen to, such as the entire discographies of Shakatak, George Duke and Earth Wind And Fire. I'd heavily recommend them to anyone else in a similar sort of mood who needs a bit of brightening. And a lot of people may criticize those bands for being cheesy, but so are the High School Musical movies.
With regards to EWF a few of us were arguing about what Philip Bailey is actually singing in the chorus with a lot of people thinking it's "Party On" rather than "Ba de ya" and the former makes a lot more sense. To prove it I've managed to find the lyrics on one of the many websites providing such solutions.
Once again if you're in the first year or thinking of starting the radio course, have a look at the course handbook beforehand as to what happens each year and then it won't be anywhere near as stressful.
Wednesday, November 26, 2008
Writing On The Wall
It doesn't get any better. The girls in my flat are hogging the oven at this rather antisocial time, and I haven't had a chance to do any cooking since getting back, leaving me bloody starving.
However as there are no deadlines and no appointments I'll stay up as long as I can, even if it kills me as I really can't give a bollocks about anything.
There's too many things that are irritating me as I type, the flaws within the radio rooms and the over-protective running of the station itself have been annoying me.
Then again I won't be at the station forever although many people will reckon that I've outstayed my welcome for a lot longer.
Of course I learnt that the hard way that a great position (and I relished almost every minute of it) went out of my hands, as when I went into mania I was in such I state that I even ended up removing my name on Facebook as the person in charge of station sound at Smoke Radio.
This was because I didn't even think I would be returning to Uni at the time and with all the backside licking going on, it took a hell of a long time to settle back into and enjoy the goings on at Smoke Radio.
I'm sure things will improve, but the station really needs to get out there and show how great we really are one of the best student radio stations in the country.
Autumn's usually a struggle however as it's usually Spring when all the big things start to happen like RAG week, the SU Elections and our 24 hour marathon which is always a good laugh.
That's when we may start making stuff that could potentially win awards.
As for the rest of tonight Robert Kilroy Silk was the first to leave "I'm A Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here" in what appeared to be a very close vote between Brian Paddick.
Whilst I'm gutted to see him leave (for entertainment reasons obviously) it's good that some of the even bigger egos are still left in the camp including Nicola and David.
I should also take back what I said about Carly being the first to go out as she happened to win one of the Bush Battles earlier on.
Timmy Mallett however is still continuing to be a caracature of the absolute twit (possibly a typo) he really is shouting out his catchphrases and singing that bloody song about the bikini.
It turns out that it wasn't even his voice on the song as one of the free London newspapers revealed that a 45 year old headmaster, then sessions singer actually sang the vocals on the number one hit. I was rather surprised about that as it's perfectly in his range, although a bit lower than you'd expect but it's definitley not him doing the "Ah, Yeah!"s in the chorus as you could hear that on just about every dance record around the time.
However it is true that the record was produced by a certain Andrew Loyd Webber which I suppose is just another reason to hate him.
I was also rather irritated when they bleeped out even the mildest of swearwords in George Takei's rendition of the now infamous "Ollie Ollie Ollie" song which was nonsense and further proof that post "Sachsgate" or whatever they're calling it, most broadcasters apart from Channel 4 are becoming rather weary of certain words that should go out.
According to that same free newspaper, either London Lite or The London Paper, the BBC are planning to introduce a move that involve the station controller having to approve a programme with particular words that may cause offence before broadcast on their station.
It even irritates me when words such as "twat" get bleeped out which is stupid considering that just over 10 years ago Lee and Herring got away with it being used on their live show at midday on a Sunday. Then again it was a one off and they were probably not that famous enough to have a backlash started against it although it was actually Kevin Eldon who uttered the word under the guise of the "False Rod Hull".
Of course this will probably mean that Jonathan Ross's chat show will be affected with a drop in swearing and sexual innunendo which will be disapointing for me at least.
Returning to the jungle and immediately after Kilroy bid farewell I switched over to Five to watch the documentary on the series as mentioned earlier. It included interviews with past contestants such as Toby Anstis, Christine Hamilton, Uri Geller, Nancy Sorrell (wife of the even more uncharismatic Prick Reeves), and the definitive king of the jungle Tony Blackburn to name but a few.
The programme looked at how incidents such as Myleene taking a shower in series 6 managed to skyrocket her career, Paul Burrel's torture in the hellhole challenge resulting in Ant & Dec cracking up behind his back and what has to be my favourite moment of the series ever which took part in series 2 when Antony Worral Thompson lead a revolt with every single member of the camp walking out over a fuss that they'd only been given 9 sausages as their meal.
The funniest part was when they encountered the production crew on the studio set and one of the crew tried to calm things down by saying "we measure everything out, everything's carefully added..." with an irate Antony responding
"Well you're fucking useless at measuring!, I know perfectly well, I'm a chef!".
I've still got that show as part of my mountain of VHS's along with the one from the first series where Rhona Cameron gave her now legendary "Sometimes" speech which is memorable for two things.
The first being Tony Blackburn's discouraged facial expression when Rhona mentions that "he's slightly slow" and Rhona having a go a Darren Day for getting annoyed about being compared to "Frank fucking Spencer". This resulted in Ant making a joke in the next link saying "I never knew Frank Spencer had a middle name!".
I never actually saw that episode go out as I was in Venice at the time on the first of many visits to the Film Festival but Mum and Dad happened to tape it off their own accord, so it was a case of lucky timing.
I was impressed that the programme was edited close to transmission allowing most of the contributors to say who they thought would win the current series and to give the producers an excuse to make jokes about Brian Paddick's backside.
And from a television point of view I was pleased that they mentioned LWT on-screen when crediting clips from the first few series of the programme although it's difficult to imagine such a heritage name with a modern day reality show.
Not in a negative way of course, but then again the settings of the programme aren't exactly London-centric.
However as there are no deadlines and no appointments I'll stay up as long as I can, even if it kills me as I really can't give a bollocks about anything.
There's too many things that are irritating me as I type, the flaws within the radio rooms and the over-protective running of the station itself have been annoying me.
Then again I won't be at the station forever although many people will reckon that I've outstayed my welcome for a lot longer.
Of course I learnt that the hard way that a great position (and I relished almost every minute of it) went out of my hands, as when I went into mania I was in such I state that I even ended up removing my name on Facebook as the person in charge of station sound at Smoke Radio.
This was because I didn't even think I would be returning to Uni at the time and with all the backside licking going on, it took a hell of a long time to settle back into and enjoy the goings on at Smoke Radio.
I'm sure things will improve, but the station really needs to get out there and show how great we really are one of the best student radio stations in the country.
Autumn's usually a struggle however as it's usually Spring when all the big things start to happen like RAG week, the SU Elections and our 24 hour marathon which is always a good laugh.
That's when we may start making stuff that could potentially win awards.
As for the rest of tonight Robert Kilroy Silk was the first to leave "I'm A Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here" in what appeared to be a very close vote between Brian Paddick.
Whilst I'm gutted to see him leave (for entertainment reasons obviously) it's good that some of the even bigger egos are still left in the camp including Nicola and David.
I should also take back what I said about Carly being the first to go out as she happened to win one of the Bush Battles earlier on.
Timmy Mallett however is still continuing to be a caracature of the absolute twit (possibly a typo) he really is shouting out his catchphrases and singing that bloody song about the bikini.
It turns out that it wasn't even his voice on the song as one of the free London newspapers revealed that a 45 year old headmaster, then sessions singer actually sang the vocals on the number one hit. I was rather surprised about that as it's perfectly in his range, although a bit lower than you'd expect but it's definitley not him doing the "Ah, Yeah!"s in the chorus as you could hear that on just about every dance record around the time.
However it is true that the record was produced by a certain Andrew Loyd Webber which I suppose is just another reason to hate him.
I was also rather irritated when they bleeped out even the mildest of swearwords in George Takei's rendition of the now infamous "Ollie Ollie Ollie" song which was nonsense and further proof that post "Sachsgate" or whatever they're calling it, most broadcasters apart from Channel 4 are becoming rather weary of certain words that should go out.
According to that same free newspaper, either London Lite or The London Paper, the BBC are planning to introduce a move that involve the station controller having to approve a programme with particular words that may cause offence before broadcast on their station.
It even irritates me when words such as "twat" get bleeped out which is stupid considering that just over 10 years ago Lee and Herring got away with it being used on their live show at midday on a Sunday. Then again it was a one off and they were probably not that famous enough to have a backlash started against it although it was actually Kevin Eldon who uttered the word under the guise of the "False Rod Hull".
Of course this will probably mean that Jonathan Ross's chat show will be affected with a drop in swearing and sexual innunendo which will be disapointing for me at least.
Returning to the jungle and immediately after Kilroy bid farewell I switched over to Five to watch the documentary on the series as mentioned earlier. It included interviews with past contestants such as Toby Anstis, Christine Hamilton, Uri Geller, Nancy Sorrell (wife of the even more uncharismatic Prick Reeves), and the definitive king of the jungle Tony Blackburn to name but a few.
The programme looked at how incidents such as Myleene taking a shower in series 6 managed to skyrocket her career, Paul Burrel's torture in the hellhole challenge resulting in Ant & Dec cracking up behind his back and what has to be my favourite moment of the series ever which took part in series 2 when Antony Worral Thompson lead a revolt with every single member of the camp walking out over a fuss that they'd only been given 9 sausages as their meal.
The funniest part was when they encountered the production crew on the studio set and one of the crew tried to calm things down by saying "we measure everything out, everything's carefully added..." with an irate Antony responding
"Well you're fucking useless at measuring!, I know perfectly well, I'm a chef!".
I've still got that show as part of my mountain of VHS's along with the one from the first series where Rhona Cameron gave her now legendary "Sometimes" speech which is memorable for two things.
The first being Tony Blackburn's discouraged facial expression when Rhona mentions that "he's slightly slow" and Rhona having a go a Darren Day for getting annoyed about being compared to "Frank fucking Spencer". This resulted in Ant making a joke in the next link saying "I never knew Frank Spencer had a middle name!".
I never actually saw that episode go out as I was in Venice at the time on the first of many visits to the Film Festival but Mum and Dad happened to tape it off their own accord, so it was a case of lucky timing.
I was impressed that the programme was edited close to transmission allowing most of the contributors to say who they thought would win the current series and to give the producers an excuse to make jokes about Brian Paddick's backside.
And from a television point of view I was pleased that they mentioned LWT on-screen when crediting clips from the first few series of the programme although it's difficult to imagine such a heritage name with a modern day reality show.
Not in a negative way of course, but then again the settings of the programme aren't exactly London-centric.
Drunken Imcompetance
I am not the happiest of people, due to the fact that my show didn't go out as a result of the bullshit arrangement with the faders in Studio 4.
Basically there's a desk which controls all the main equipment in the studio such as the mics and the playout but there's also another mixing desk which I don't understand what it's use is apart from switching off the CD players which is nonsense as they're on the same faders as the RCS playout controls.
As the Shuffle boys hadn't turned up for their show beforehand for whatever reason and without notice, I went on as normal forgetting about the complicated set up. On arriving at the studios and due to the fact that nobody was around I tried to switch studios to Studio 6 only that the petty techies had taken away the panel on the stack in RP2 that allows you to switch studios.
I think it's safe to say that they won't be getting any Christmas presents from me this year.
It was a pretty good show as well which included a remix of Mary J Blige's "Just Fine" by Moto Blanco and the final two tracks from Maysa's album "Metamophosis" including an uptempo one for a change called "Let's Figure It Out" (A Song For Bluey) dedicated to the musical genius himself.
I guess the only positive thing that came out of today was the Circle Line Pub Crawl for the ever delightful Rob Crowther on his 19th birthday where myself, Alice, Matt, Manish, Mattie I.D, Jade and Elad headed eastbound across the Circle line which I was pleased about as it was en-route to my neck of the woods. We stopped off at some pretty good pubs with my favourite being at Liverpool Street where the music played inside was pretty good with one of the tracks being a hard to find remix of Kelly Marie's "Feels Like I'm In Love". Oddly enough that happened to be featured on the soundtrack of Shane Meadows' "Once Upon A Time In The Midlands" which wasn't one of his best films but it proves that it must be around somewhere.
As I'd also had quite a lot to drink by this time, I used it as an excuse to vent my spleen on the current state of Radio 1 which I doubt everyone will agree with but if you find someone shouting "Flash Flash!" to the tune of "In The Mood" entertaining then that's not a problem.
And we all thought "Wack Wack Oops!" was annoying.
I parted company at Monument and got the Northern Line train from Bank and arrived back to the studios just in time although I wish I'd stayed on now judging by my misdemanours.
Then again I've heard that Alice and Sophie from the second year have joined in the shenanigans and Sophie is known, dare I say notorious for being the "worst drunk" on the radio course so I expect it will be really chaotic.
I hope they get back safely but it's going to take me a long time to get over the errors that took place tonight and the fact that there are no fucking instructions on how to operate that mixing desk in the studio.
Fingers really need to be pulled out.
Basically there's a desk which controls all the main equipment in the studio such as the mics and the playout but there's also another mixing desk which I don't understand what it's use is apart from switching off the CD players which is nonsense as they're on the same faders as the RCS playout controls.
As the Shuffle boys hadn't turned up for their show beforehand for whatever reason and without notice, I went on as normal forgetting about the complicated set up. On arriving at the studios and due to the fact that nobody was around I tried to switch studios to Studio 6 only that the petty techies had taken away the panel on the stack in RP2 that allows you to switch studios.
I think it's safe to say that they won't be getting any Christmas presents from me this year.
It was a pretty good show as well which included a remix of Mary J Blige's "Just Fine" by Moto Blanco and the final two tracks from Maysa's album "Metamophosis" including an uptempo one for a change called "Let's Figure It Out" (A Song For Bluey) dedicated to the musical genius himself.
I guess the only positive thing that came out of today was the Circle Line Pub Crawl for the ever delightful Rob Crowther on his 19th birthday where myself, Alice, Matt, Manish, Mattie I.D, Jade and Elad headed eastbound across the Circle line which I was pleased about as it was en-route to my neck of the woods. We stopped off at some pretty good pubs with my favourite being at Liverpool Street where the music played inside was pretty good with one of the tracks being a hard to find remix of Kelly Marie's "Feels Like I'm In Love". Oddly enough that happened to be featured on the soundtrack of Shane Meadows' "Once Upon A Time In The Midlands" which wasn't one of his best films but it proves that it must be around somewhere.
As I'd also had quite a lot to drink by this time, I used it as an excuse to vent my spleen on the current state of Radio 1 which I doubt everyone will agree with but if you find someone shouting "Flash Flash!" to the tune of "In The Mood" entertaining then that's not a problem.
And we all thought "Wack Wack Oops!" was annoying.
I parted company at Monument and got the Northern Line train from Bank and arrived back to the studios just in time although I wish I'd stayed on now judging by my misdemanours.
Then again I've heard that Alice and Sophie from the second year have joined in the shenanigans and Sophie is known, dare I say notorious for being the "worst drunk" on the radio course so I expect it will be really chaotic.
I hope they get back safely but it's going to take me a long time to get over the errors that took place tonight and the fact that there are no fucking instructions on how to operate that mixing desk in the studio.
Fingers really need to be pulled out.
The Booze Tube
I've sorted the running order and the CDs needed for tonight's show and am more or less set to spend the rest of the day (until 8pm) visiting a selection of the pubs that inhabit the Circle line.
I don't really feel all that up for any drinks as such as I write but by the time we get going I'm certain I'll be in a better state. Or possibly worse.
Apparently second year radio student Amy has asked us to pop in to see her working at her pub near Baker Street station, only we don't know where it is. I'm guessing that was the intention.
Whatever happens, I aim to get back before 8pm although failing that it won't be too much of a problem as I doubt too many people will be listening.
I also aim to get back to the flat straight after to see who the first celebrity is to leave the jungle. Even if any of the contestants that I dislike stay in there, it doesn't matter as it will still make great television if it continues to be heated.
Basically if you've barely got any personality, you'll get booted.
I don't really feel all that up for any drinks as such as I write but by the time we get going I'm certain I'll be in a better state. Or possibly worse.
Apparently second year radio student Amy has asked us to pop in to see her working at her pub near Baker Street station, only we don't know where it is. I'm guessing that was the intention.
Whatever happens, I aim to get back before 8pm although failing that it won't be too much of a problem as I doubt too many people will be listening.
I also aim to get back to the flat straight after to see who the first celebrity is to leave the jungle. Even if any of the contestants that I dislike stay in there, it doesn't matter as it will still make great television if it continues to be heated.
Basically if you've barely got any personality, you'll get booted.
Tuesday, November 25, 2008
Never A Complentary Word
Today was even less productive than yesterday as I just spent most of the afternoon in the SADiE room while Denis, both the Phils and Stoobie were trying to sort out their dissertation proposals.
I would have thought they'd have done their's by now but their still pondering on what their title should be and what books they should include in their literature review.
Especially as the Harrow library hasn't had the sense to order any new books since 2003 or so it seems.
I spent most of the time making rather snide comments on things, mainly aimed at people making fools of themselves, including Stewart himself who left his Facebook profile opened so we decided to replace his profile picture with an image of what I'd like to describe as "a bald badger". whilst changing the language of his control panel to Chinese or a similar language.
Stewart could actually be another possible subject of my advanced feature as he has a habit of drawing pictures on flashcards and handing them out to people. He did one for Alice which had her falling off her chair which really did happen earlier on, whilst my one had musical notes and the words of the now infamous resing I have of "Five" by TM which in all honesty I am rather sick of.
I don't play it on air that often nowadays to be honest.
I'm having a pretty easy night as tomorrow will be the circle line pub crawl for Rob's 19th birthday although I need to sort out tomorrow's playlist for the soul show before then.
It's the last week I will be featuring the latest release by Maysa as this month's featured album before moving onto December and one that passed me by due to it being released when I was absolutely dreadful.
That being "Day Into Night" by the ever superb and underated Jiva which I'm certain will bring 2008 to a delightful and forward looking end.
I would have thought they'd have done their's by now but their still pondering on what their title should be and what books they should include in their literature review.
Especially as the Harrow library hasn't had the sense to order any new books since 2003 or so it seems.
I spent most of the time making rather snide comments on things, mainly aimed at people making fools of themselves, including Stewart himself who left his Facebook profile opened so we decided to replace his profile picture with an image of what I'd like to describe as "a bald badger". whilst changing the language of his control panel to Chinese or a similar language.
Stewart could actually be another possible subject of my advanced feature as he has a habit of drawing pictures on flashcards and handing them out to people. He did one for Alice which had her falling off her chair which really did happen earlier on, whilst my one had musical notes and the words of the now infamous resing I have of "Five" by TM which in all honesty I am rather sick of.
I don't play it on air that often nowadays to be honest.
I'm having a pretty easy night as tomorrow will be the circle line pub crawl for Rob's 19th birthday although I need to sort out tomorrow's playlist for the soul show before then.
It's the last week I will be featuring the latest release by Maysa as this month's featured album before moving onto December and one that passed me by due to it being released when I was absolutely dreadful.
That being "Day Into Night" by the ever superb and underated Jiva which I'm certain will bring 2008 to a delightful and forward looking end.
Constant Wake Up Calls
There are so many irritants that are happening within Halls and University in general. One of them being Caroline who lives in the room next door to mine as her alarm has been going off all morning and her door is locked so there's no way of switching it off. As I'm probably going to be spending more time in my room as the year progresses I may have to have a few words with as this really can't go on.
It's not the first time such a thing has happened however as people in halls have a habit of being careless with their alarm clocks.
Even more discouraging is that tonight's edition of "Celebrity" has been postponed due to the game between Manchester United and Villarreal in the Champions League
.
That does mean however that there's an extended edition tomorrow where the first vote off will take place and I'm pretty certain that Carly will go first as a result of her being this year's equivalent of Nell McAndrew. Then again despite being rather quiet Nell got pretty far but I'm sure you understand where I'm coming from.
The only problem is that I'll miss the first half hour due to my soul show being on at the same time but you can't have it all.
Also on tomorrow, Five are showing a programme looking at the contestants who have benefited from taking part in the jungle in a programme that's produced by Zig Zag productions where one of our alumni Ross Goodlass happens to work for.
I doubt he's actually involved in that show in question as he's managed to blag an even bigger role as an associate producer on a series with Donal MacIntyre
taking him to many far flung places.
Definitely proof that a degree in practical media is not a mickey mouse course.
It's not the first time such a thing has happened however as people in halls have a habit of being careless with their alarm clocks.
Even more discouraging is that tonight's edition of "Celebrity" has been postponed due to the game between Manchester United and Villarreal in the Champions League
.
That does mean however that there's an extended edition tomorrow where the first vote off will take place and I'm pretty certain that Carly will go first as a result of her being this year's equivalent of Nell McAndrew. Then again despite being rather quiet Nell got pretty far but I'm sure you understand where I'm coming from.
The only problem is that I'll miss the first half hour due to my soul show being on at the same time but you can't have it all.
Also on tomorrow, Five are showing a programme looking at the contestants who have benefited from taking part in the jungle in a programme that's produced by Zig Zag productions where one of our alumni Ross Goodlass happens to work for.
I doubt he's actually involved in that show in question as he's managed to blag an even bigger role as an associate producer on a series with Donal MacIntyre
taking him to many far flung places.
Definitely proof that a degree in practical media is not a mickey mouse course.
"Once I Ran To You"
This has to be one of my favourite advertisements although it's probably not that well known in the UK. Directed by Spike Jonze it's a Levis ad set in a hospital where the noise of the heart monitors and ward apparatus prompt the patient and the medical staff to provide a rendition of what has to be one of my favourite pop songs and the result is pretty amusing.
I must get round to playing the Gloria Jones original on the soul show later this year and it's possible I may play it the next time I get to DJ at the Undercroft.
I've no idea what I plan to do for the rest of today apart from head up to radio and convert WAV files into MP3s.
The emptiness of the third year is really starting to kick in but I'd rather be in this position than stressed out about assignments.
Which by next week is possibly the position I'll be in as I just know that my planned interviews will break down in one way or other.
I must get round to playing the Gloria Jones original on the soul show later this year and it's possible I may play it the next time I get to DJ at the Undercroft.
I've no idea what I plan to do for the rest of today apart from head up to radio and convert WAV files into MP3s.
The emptiness of the third year is really starting to kick in but I'd rather be in this position than stressed out about assignments.
Which by next week is possibly the position I'll be in as I just know that my planned interviews will break down in one way or other.
Monday, November 24, 2008
Barely In The Mood For Dancing
The first part of this evening was spent in RP1 where Mattie, and Jade and Ana did their shows as usual. Both the Phils were still trying to sort up their dissertation proposals until around 9:30pm when we decided to head over to the Undercroft for Happy Mondaze.
Phil Harris was clumsy enough to leave his ID card up in M Block which resulted in him having to persuade one of the security guards to open up the department whilst myself and Landers went to the Undercroft where Sammy C and Fiz were DJing with a selection of dance tunes. The only problem was that barely anyone was dancing, despite all the pool tables covered up and moved out of the way.
We met up with Mattie and spoke about the big events due to take place at Smoke throughout the year including the awards where Mattie seems desperate to win a proper one this year.
He suggested that there should be a category called "Biggest Ego" which he claims to have, although there are a few other contenders for that category in my opinion, who I won't mention here.
Mattie also suggested that rather than the station doing a 24 hour broadcast as usual, he should present on his own for 24 hours with other people coming in to lend a hand, although whether Lottie and Alice will approve the idea is another thing.
I never realised that Phil Landers got into trouble for the drunken antics of the Bamboozle boys last year who spent the show effing and blinding, and making negative comments about the elected officers in the SU elections that took place earlier on.
I was in a much worse state however earlier on in what has to be the worst show I've ever done that involved silly string being sprayed everywhere and I overran by about 10 minutes that made things worse.
I've never actually brought any booze into the studio with me as I wouldn't want to risk destroying equipment although earlier on that day, most of the sports teams came up into RP1 carrying pints of beer which was rather chaotic but they were very careful at the same time.
I really think that since Steve in my year distanced himself from the station there's been a lack of cross promotion between Smoke Radio and the Uni sports teams which is disapointing but that hasn't stopped me attending their special nights at the Undercroft which I'm hoping they'll be more of later in the year.
Anyway back to tonight, and as things progressed, Phil Harris' girlfriend Annabel arrived and they tried to encourage Landers to try and find a woman by the end of the night, whilst at the same time they tried to get me dancing.
I wasn't really up for it as the music mainly consisted of weird electro beats and dance remixes of tunes by the Killers and The Red Hot Chili Peppers.
By the end of the night they started playing a few old favourites including "Tubthumping" and "Rhythm Is A Dancer" although they cut it halfway through before it got to the line "I'm serious as cancer".
I'm guessing tomorrow will be more or less the same as today with an extended lie in although I may make the effort to head over to Sainsbury's and get a few extra wares as my part of the fridge is empty.
I'll also try and find out a bit more about the pub crawl taking place on Wednesday for first year student Rob's 19th birthday which I hope will be good fun.
Phil Harris was clumsy enough to leave his ID card up in M Block which resulted in him having to persuade one of the security guards to open up the department whilst myself and Landers went to the Undercroft where Sammy C and Fiz were DJing with a selection of dance tunes. The only problem was that barely anyone was dancing, despite all the pool tables covered up and moved out of the way.
We met up with Mattie and spoke about the big events due to take place at Smoke throughout the year including the awards where Mattie seems desperate to win a proper one this year.
He suggested that there should be a category called "Biggest Ego" which he claims to have, although there are a few other contenders for that category in my opinion, who I won't mention here.
Mattie also suggested that rather than the station doing a 24 hour broadcast as usual, he should present on his own for 24 hours with other people coming in to lend a hand, although whether Lottie and Alice will approve the idea is another thing.
I never realised that Phil Landers got into trouble for the drunken antics of the Bamboozle boys last year who spent the show effing and blinding, and making negative comments about the elected officers in the SU elections that took place earlier on.
I was in a much worse state however earlier on in what has to be the worst show I've ever done that involved silly string being sprayed everywhere and I overran by about 10 minutes that made things worse.
I've never actually brought any booze into the studio with me as I wouldn't want to risk destroying equipment although earlier on that day, most of the sports teams came up into RP1 carrying pints of beer which was rather chaotic but they were very careful at the same time.
I really think that since Steve in my year distanced himself from the station there's been a lack of cross promotion between Smoke Radio and the Uni sports teams which is disapointing but that hasn't stopped me attending their special nights at the Undercroft which I'm hoping they'll be more of later in the year.
Anyway back to tonight, and as things progressed, Phil Harris' girlfriend Annabel arrived and they tried to encourage Landers to try and find a woman by the end of the night, whilst at the same time they tried to get me dancing.
I wasn't really up for it as the music mainly consisted of weird electro beats and dance remixes of tunes by the Killers and The Red Hot Chili Peppers.
By the end of the night they started playing a few old favourites including "Tubthumping" and "Rhythm Is A Dancer" although they cut it halfway through before it got to the line "I'm serious as cancer".
I'm guessing tomorrow will be more or less the same as today with an extended lie in although I may make the effort to head over to Sainsbury's and get a few extra wares as my part of the fridge is empty.
I'll also try and find out a bit more about the pub crawl taking place on Wednesday for first year student Rob's 19th birthday which I hope will be good fun.
Too Soon For Tinsel?
It's been a rather quiet but nonetheless interesting day up in the radio rooms where most of the first years have started work on the news-writing part of the Basic Radio Skills module under the watchful eye of Charles Carroll. As usual there were the usual problems of getting Burli (the news writing and editing software) to run but everyone else more or less had the hang of things.
In terms of major project ideas, Phil H has come close to abandoning his "toliet" idea due to those who have refused interviews included various sewage companies and London Zoo who are refusing to talk about their large turds that are present in the cages.
This is in spite of getting access to the "Toilet Awards" which happen to be presented by the legend that is Roy Walker out of all people.
Phil's also changed the direction of his dissertation proposal where instead of focusing on community radio, he's looking at how and whether podcasts will change the way we listen to radio.
With podcasts such as Chris Moyles' and Jonathan Ross, I definitely listen to them more as opposed to the shows themselves, mainly because I'm not a morning person and it's not really worth getting up just to listen to big gobs talking bollocks most of the time.
Well not on a daily basis at least.
Having said that I need to make sure that I'm up early on Friday morning to listen to Janet Street Porter as the guest on Desert Island Discs, who thankfully doesn't present on radio but it will be interesting to find out about her favourite records.
Why the Roy Plomley estate won't allow the programme to be included on the iPlayer is just nonsense and it's not like it would do anyone any harm.
Whilst things are quietening down, there's the possibility that I may get a chance to DJ at the Undercroft once again towards Christmas they want to give the DJ night's a kick up the backside with the end of term approaching. I'll be spinning the soul as usual and hopefully they'll get Chris and Phil to play all the popular Xmas tunes such as Slade, Mariah and not forgetting the Pogues of course.
We'll see how things go as those running the events at Smoke may want to do something of their own, i.e. not having any music related to the theme of the event like they did for Halloween, School Disco etc
As it's my last year at Uni they hopefully won't all be Scrooges.
Christmas has appeared to have come early to Smoke (much to the annoyance of Lottie) where Dan decided to put Shaky on full blast in RP1 which went down pretty well despite it being late November. I think it was Stoobie who told us that Christmas doesn't officially start "until the Coca Cola ads with the truck start showing" which they have done having seen one during the X Factor this week.
However I've heard they're going to pull them in a couple of weeks which makes even less sense.
On a similar subject it's been revealed that to coincide with their new TV special, Wallace and Gromit will be used as part of BBC 1's Christmas idents and trailers for this year. It's not the first time they've been used for such a thing as back in 1995 BBC 2 used them for their idents when "A Close Shave" made it's premiere.
However relating to an earlier post about the fuss over guns being used on television it's worth relating to an incident on Noel Edmond's Late Late Breakfast Show, where he got into a bit of deep water for destroying the 1985 Xmas symbol with a shotgun.
Now I should be offended by that considering that it was my first ever Xmas BBC 1 symbol, and the fact that those birds on there were robins.
However it's Noel's rather cheeky manner in this that makes it rather funny to an extent.
To be honest I can't really remember any of the Christmas symbols used by the BBC until 1989 and BBC 1's "spinning top globe". It was also a time when the trailers used to have an elaborate theme and the one used in 1989 had to be one of my favourites.
It's probably more exciting than the programmes themselves.
In terms of major project ideas, Phil H has come close to abandoning his "toliet" idea due to those who have refused interviews included various sewage companies and London Zoo who are refusing to talk about their large turds that are present in the cages.
This is in spite of getting access to the "Toilet Awards" which happen to be presented by the legend that is Roy Walker out of all people.
Phil's also changed the direction of his dissertation proposal where instead of focusing on community radio, he's looking at how and whether podcasts will change the way we listen to radio.
With podcasts such as Chris Moyles' and Jonathan Ross, I definitely listen to them more as opposed to the shows themselves, mainly because I'm not a morning person and it's not really worth getting up just to listen to big gobs talking bollocks most of the time.
Well not on a daily basis at least.
Having said that I need to make sure that I'm up early on Friday morning to listen to Janet Street Porter as the guest on Desert Island Discs, who thankfully doesn't present on radio but it will be interesting to find out about her favourite records.
Why the Roy Plomley estate won't allow the programme to be included on the iPlayer is just nonsense and it's not like it would do anyone any harm.
Whilst things are quietening down, there's the possibility that I may get a chance to DJ at the Undercroft once again towards Christmas they want to give the DJ night's a kick up the backside with the end of term approaching. I'll be spinning the soul as usual and hopefully they'll get Chris and Phil to play all the popular Xmas tunes such as Slade, Mariah and not forgetting the Pogues of course.
We'll see how things go as those running the events at Smoke may want to do something of their own, i.e. not having any music related to the theme of the event like they did for Halloween, School Disco etc
As it's my last year at Uni they hopefully won't all be Scrooges.
Christmas has appeared to have come early to Smoke (much to the annoyance of Lottie) where Dan decided to put Shaky on full blast in RP1 which went down pretty well despite it being late November. I think it was Stoobie who told us that Christmas doesn't officially start "until the Coca Cola ads with the truck start showing" which they have done having seen one during the X Factor this week.
However I've heard they're going to pull them in a couple of weeks which makes even less sense.
On a similar subject it's been revealed that to coincide with their new TV special, Wallace and Gromit will be used as part of BBC 1's Christmas idents and trailers for this year. It's not the first time they've been used for such a thing as back in 1995 BBC 2 used them for their idents when "A Close Shave" made it's premiere.
However relating to an earlier post about the fuss over guns being used on television it's worth relating to an incident on Noel Edmond's Late Late Breakfast Show, where he got into a bit of deep water for destroying the 1985 Xmas symbol with a shotgun.
Now I should be offended by that considering that it was my first ever Xmas BBC 1 symbol, and the fact that those birds on there were robins.
However it's Noel's rather cheeky manner in this that makes it rather funny to an extent.
To be honest I can't really remember any of the Christmas symbols used by the BBC until 1989 and BBC 1's "spinning top globe". It was also a time when the trailers used to have an elaborate theme and the one used in 1989 had to be one of my favourites.
It's probably more exciting than the programmes themselves.
Sunday, November 23, 2008
"But First!"
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.
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.
"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.
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