Podcasts, Radio, TV, Books, Cycling, Photography and More
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HBO Max and Paramount+: What It Might Mean For Sports
Today the deal was done, and Paramount took over Warner Bros. Discovery in a massive deal that has much of Hollywood quaking. There were some last minute wrinkles with a deal being struck a couple of weeks ago with a group of US Attorneys General, with the general view being that they folded and didn’t…
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Spring Sunday
On Sunday I went for a walk locally, taking in the farms and fields that are around the green belt near where I live. Today, and the rest of the week are set to be wet and gloomy. So here are some sunny pictures from the weekend! A few more pictures are over on Flickr.
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Vitti and Antonioni
Over the last week or so, I’ve been watching or rewatching the loose trilogy of black and white films that Michelangelo Antonioni made with the actress Monica Vitti released between 1960 and 1962. Each was made in black and white, and each took a profoundly moderning – and sometimes disparing look at the new world.…
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BFI Archives Tour
Note: If any of the images are blurry click through to Flickr. There’s also a much bigger set of photos over there! One of the benefits of being a member of the BFI is that occasionally they do things like have tours. I put my name in the hat for a tour of the BFI’s…
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Clear Skies
On Sunday, as I returned from a late afternoon cycle ride out in northern Enfield and southern Hertfordshire, I noticed the view from The Ridgeway, a road that as it suggests, is quite high up above London. (It’s all relative). Yes – you can normally look out to the City of London, and then across…
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Eye Level
This Sunday sees ITV launch a reboot of one of their most famous detectives – Van Der Valk. Based on a series of novels by Nicolas Freeling, which were mostly published in the 1960s, the TV series began life in 1972 with Barry Foster starring as Commisaris Van Der Walk of the Amsterdam police. Produced…
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Driving Under Lockdown
As the roads are currently much emptier during the UK coronavirus lockdown, in general terms it’s actually somewhat safer out there. The air is clearer and there’s much less traffic. Of course only those who are doing work that can’t be done from home, and those either shopping or doing other critical chores are supposed…
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Red Moon
I’m currently watching For All Mankind on Apple TV+. The series is one of a handful that Apple has made free for a “limited time.” Coming from Ron (Battlestar Galactica) Moore, it was for me the most intriguing of Apple’s launch series, and I’m a little under halfway through it and really enjoying it. The…
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The Nadir of Local TV
Local TV has been a failure since the start. It was started on a fallacy, and has proved uneconomic, with most of the stations licenced (Ofcom has stopped licencing new services) rolled into a single service with minimal local output. But London Live has lived on. Owned by Evgeny Lebedev, also the owner of the…
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Getting By Without Cinemas
I go to the cinema a fair amount, and I suspect from the film industry’s perspective, I’m in the top 10 per cent or higher in my frequency of going. I see a film at the cinema probably every fortnight on average – especially during Oscar season, when we’re deluged with quality films at a…
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Pete Mitchell
It was with great sadness that we learned earlier last month that the radio presenter Pete Mitchell had died at just 61. Pete was a fantastic radio DJ, and an absolutely lovely person. I’m publishing this just before 11am on April 3rd, when Pete’s funeral will be taking place. Unfortunately, due to current circumstances only…
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Making the Most of Life Under Lockdown
Well it’s been just over two weeks for me now living in a lockdown state of mind. It might not officially have been that long, but for me it became apparent when I listened to one of the first press conferences and the imperative that in London in particular all non-essential travel had to stop,…
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Apple and Dark Sky
Yesterday came news that Apple has bought the company who make the mobile weather app, Dark Sky. For those who don’t know, Dark Sky is a particularly good weather app that marries great design with accurate minute-by-minute prediction of things like rain. They began as an iOS app, before making an API available to other…
Hadrian’s Wall
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