Podcasts, Radio, TV, Books, Cycling, Photography and More
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Recent Books
It feels like ages since I wrote about some of the recent books I’ve been reading. Let’s try to put that right with this handful of recently finished books. Taipei Story by Rebecca F. Kuang I first discovered Rebecca F Kuang when I read her fantasy epic Babel a couple of years ago. Her lastest…
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Screenwipe
Hurrah! Charlie Brooker’s Screenwipe is back, and the first episode featured Ian Rowland, the acknowledged master of cold reading. He was part of a sequence that tore into one of the most exploitative programmes currently being made – Psychic Private Eyes – in which vulnerable people are told complete bollocks by so-called psychics who are…
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News About Someone Else
I always like to keep abreast of news of my namesake.
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It Was National Gorilla Suit Day The Other Day
(Obviously – that’ll have been “national” in the sense of US national – but nevermind)
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Gotta Love Dave Barry
He live blogs 24 each week, and boy is he a prolific blogger by the way… But there’s a great quote from him about the Superbowl which is being held in Miami this Sunday: “[The Superbowl is] the biggest sporting event in the world, unless you include other parts of the world.” (via Mediaguardian)
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A Hypothetical YouTube Case
YouTube, it’s reported, is working on an advertising revenue sharing mechanism that rewards creativity and generates cold hard cash for people who include advertising in their videos. The offer applies only to people who own the full copyright of the videos that they are uploading to the YouTube website. Right. But surely they’re not suggesting…
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Quiz TV
This morning’s Guardian had a fantastically ascerbic column from Emily Bell about Quiz TV programmes, and in particular the appalling ITV Play channel and programme block that runs through the night. I’ll just give you a flavour of it by reproducing the last paragraph: Michael Grade, the incoming executive chairman, should be judged on how…
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TV On The Internet
As this week’s BBC >Click show gets excited by the growth of TV torrenting, legal alternatives are finally presenting themselves. The BBC is all ready to roll (I was a beta-tester back in 2005, although somehow failed to blog about it), but is having to go through a public value test. Ofcom last week published…
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Ryszard Kapuscinski
Sad to hear that veteran Polish journalist Ryszard Kapuscinski died last week. I first came across him when I started reading Granta many years ago. To be honest I was intrigued by a magazine that came in a paperback book format. But two writers from those early editions really stood out for me: James Fenton’s…
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Multiple DVDs
I really am getting fed up with DVDs being constantly re-released in Directors’ Cuts or whatever, with additional extras all the time. Case in point is Alexander, the Oliver Stone film. Now I didn’t think it was all that bad – certainly better than most gave it credit for. It came out a double-disc DVD…
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Back To Square One
If it weren’t for the fact that I’m going to be at the match, I’d be tuning in to BBC Radio Five Live Sports Extra this Sunday to hear an alternate version of the commentary. As this piece explains, back in 1927 from the first radio commentaries, each week’s Radio Times would publish a chart…
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Channel 4 and the Celebrity Big Brother Dabacle
Channel 4 was created in the 1981 Broadcasting Act. Its programming remit, which has remained largely unchanged, was cemented in the 1990 Broadcasting Act, with the station required: [to] contain a suitable proportion of matter calculated to appeal to tastes and interests not generally catered for by Channel 3 and that innovation and experiment in…
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Hot Fuzz
Hot Fuzz is the new Simon Pegg/Nick Frost/Edgar Wright film. You know? The people who brought you Shaun of the Dead, and more importantly, Spaced. This time around we have Simon Pegg’s diligent Sgt. Angel being transferred from the Met, where he’s showng everyone else up with his tremendous drive and arrest rates, to rural…
Hadrian’s Wall
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