My Thoughts

Now, I've just returned from a holiday in Mallorca and, despite the appearance of the picture to the left of this, it wasn't one of those kinds of holidays. The... interesting (for want of a better word) setup of the picture is simply the corollary of heat and a pool tournament. However, while on this holiday, a number of strange thoughts cropped into my head, mostly the fault of other people.



Thought Uno is this: I think we value certain jobs a little too much. A prime example in the current climate would be bankers, what exactly do they do, except piss our money up the walls. Another is pilots- don’t get me wrong, it’s a job that requires incredible skill and years of training and practice, but on the flights to and indeed from Mallorca, we had some delightful passengers in our section who insisted on providing impromptu rounds of applause for takeoff and landing. Yeah, congratulations Mr. Pilot on doing your job. I don’t mean to detract from pilots, but if he’d done anything other than takeoff and land successfully, I would have been seriously disappointed... and probably dead.

Thought Dos is this: The man in charge of the hotel's entertainment every night was a jovial Spaniard named Justo. He spoke excellent English and German and yet myself and every one of my friends overlooked this for the simple fact that instead of saying 'give them a big hand' or 'let's have a round of applause' he would say (I'll spell it phonetically) 'Bigaplows'. This was a source of much hilarity to us and forced us all to look past the man's remarkable charisma in 2 languages that weren't his mother tongue. There were numerous jokes made- 'What was your favoured method of agriculture again, Justo was it smaller ploughs or...' or 'This field has been fallow for too long and yet these small ploughs make barely a dent in the sod, what is it that we need, Justo?'

Thought Tres is this: Despite being generally a good linguist, my area of expertise lies in German and not in Spanish which meant that me and my friend Tommy (the man 'giving' in the picture) decided to dub channel Cuatro's big money dating show Eligeme with our own comments (mostly about Herpes, mostly because the Zovirax advert had an unfortunate use of Spanish in it, which led to the famous cold sore cream being advertised as 'creme labial'). Now this show was everything that's wrong with all the rubbish reality television that we regurgitate in this country... only in Spanish and hosted by the lovechild of Hugh Jackman and Richard Madeley (see clip for details). http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PqLWLBNypKs. Essentially, a dashing (or otherwise) bachelor is paraded in front of a panel of women who rate him on his physical appearance initially and then on his promo video, job and skills, before he brutally cuts them down, based on their physical appearance and a witty caption, none of which I understood. In my time there I saw a man dressed as a Stormtrooper and Zoro, a permed ginger rocker and a rip-roaring bender (or closet homosexual as common decency would have me say) all waltz out of the studio with a bronzed, young Spaniard on their arm. It's like Blind Date on narcotics... and not blind. It was obviously mental... and yet I do find myself missing it somewhat.

Anyway, those are my thoughts for the week, yet more self-indulgent than usual. Excellent.

Total Perfect Recall

When I returned to my house after a preposterous bus journey that somehow transfigured a 15 minute trip into a 50 minute one, I slumped in front of the television and was greeted by tea-time Channel 4 quiz show Wogan's Perfect Recall, a harmless mid-afternoon test of memory and general knowledge. Or so I thought...

Now I have no problems with Wogan, the great raconteur that he is, in fact I am one of the millions throughout the land who choose to 'Wake Up to Wogan' (well on the days which I wake up before 9.30 that is ((and those are rapidly decreasing in number))), however I don't know of any other gameshow that includes the host's name in the title of the show and has a title sequence composed entirely of a picture of the host's face. It's typical gameshow fayre: Four contestants are reduced to one, who plays for the big-money final round, with one subtle difference- it isn't about the show's contestants, but about its jocular host, the indefatigable Mr. Wogan. Sometimes he delivers the questions directly to the camera and not to the contestants, in what is (I imagine) a futile attempt to drag in more punters, giving the show an 'interactive' (still a buzz-word after all these years) feel.


Now I do enjoy a lot of crap telly. I quite liked Step Up To The Plate (du Beke and Grossman, together at last!) and the magnificently unpopular Identity, fronted by Donny Osmond. The memory of Donny, baring his Hollywood smile, pointing his finger at a guest and delivering the immortal line: 'Is that your Identity?', which he said in an identical manner every time, is one that I shall struggle to erase. Still that's enough nostalgia for one day...

Apologies for the recent lack of activity...

I've been busy listening to TMS as England snatched an excellent, a remarkable, a thoroughly swashbuckling... draw. Still, us English love a good draw, don't we? Surely it's better when there are no winners, then no-one's disappointed (or both sides are, but I'm determined not to be a pessimist).

I've also been following proceedings on Twitter, where a number of people (well 4) including myself and the comedian Lloyd Woolf have been picking the choice phrases delivered by the golden tongue of the magnificent Henry Blofeld and tweeting them for all to see. Both Aggers and Bumble have joined Twitter and they were swiftly followed by CMJ, but don't expect to see Geoffrey Boycott on there anytime soon...

Still, that explains my recent lack of activity, in case anyone was wondering, which is unlikely, I don't think the number of people who have read my blog has even reached double figures.

Davro's Fleece

I've finished my pizza and now I sit, alone and dejected, with naught but a coffee and Bargain Hunt Famous Finds to console me. Oh, it's light-hearted family fun, or so I thought...

Before I go on, I must confess to a half-truth, dear reader. While I am watching BHFF with a coffee, I am also attempting to listening to the excellent Test Match Special, which would prove an infinitely preferable soundtrack to my evening. However, the accursed internet apparatus is currently preventing me from doing so. Still, I am not here to wax lyrical about TMS, but rather to subject myself to Bargain Hunt (the things I do for blogging...).

I summarise thus:
Bobby Davro adjusts his hefty fleece and laughs maniacally over a mildly amusing statue of a cat and a dog. The woman he is partnered with (is she famous?) swoons over a tiny porcerlain couple, who lie, frozen in time, carefree and bereft of the pitfalls of celebrity culture. And the lot they choose to put forward? Davro's fleece. Seriously, the fleece.
'I can sign it, if it'll add any extra value.' Gurns Davro.
One can hear the collective thoughts of experts, Tim and indeed the entire audience at home. 'It won't' the deafening silence seems to say.
Meanwhile Helen Lederer makes a loss of £50, hope for Davro's fleece after all. The expert bounces up and down with all the grace of an incontinent wrestler, anticipating the money-shot, the fleece. The porcerlain couple make £10 profit and Davro punches the air. Davro models the fleece himself. Bidding starts at £20 (the tension is palpable now, one could cut the atmosphere with a spork) and makes it all the way to a massive, an amazing, a thoroughly contemptible £32. Their total loss: £58. Not even Davro's fleece could save them. The little man looks heart-broken, a personal failure adding to financial loss and as the credits roll, having just witnessed 3o minutes of the stuff, I know exactly how he feels.

This Week

So, here I am watching This Week, BBC 1's irreverant look at the political and newsworthy issues of the previous week, or so I thought...
Quite frankly, despite the presence of two politicians AND Andrew Neil, This Week is more akin to The One Show than The Daily Politics. Alright, so what's the problem with that? Well, I have nothing against a light-hearted look at serious issues, however the show does spend an excruciating amount of time focusing on Abbot and Portillo who are sat uncomfortably close (to the point where it seems that they should be holding hands) on a sofa that is patently big enough for Portillo to scoot several times to his left. Abbot jokes about the Credit Crunch, while Portillo sits, louche and brooding- so louche, in fact, that one expects him to scratch his crotch at any given moment. Neil watches proceedings with an air of disinterest, presumably thinking 'roll on next week's PMQs'. And who can blame him?

Anyway- rant (and indeed show) over. This is the first post in what I hope may be a mildly amusing blog for your delectation (though in reality it is a glorified method by which I can subject you to my sometimes witty, often vitriolic and always controversial opinions). Hope it didn't get too Machiavellian for you- let me know what you think by leaving a comment or dropping me an email and feel free to send any suggestions for blog topics, I shall endeavour to rant endlessly about whatever your particular likes, dislikes, gripes, gropes and indeed grapes (sour, of wrath, or otherwise) may be.

If you have been, thank you for reading.