Month: August 2005
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6 Million Watch Lost
C4 showed Lost last night and did really well, with record audiences watching it. But I suspect that fewer will watch it next week because they continue their foolish strategy of putting the next episode of E4. If you watched episode 3 on E4 last night, and 1.5m did, you’re not going to watch it…
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Selling Radio Downloads
With podcasting and the success of download sites such as iTunes, there’s a growing market for download-only media. Recently, Audible launched in the UK, and the BBC are now selling MP3 CDs of some of their programming. But not every drama or comedy the BBC makes is available to buy. There are obviously criteria which…
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Climber Rescued
The BBC are carrying a report about a climber called Tomaz Humar who’s been trapped on a mountain in Pakistan for several days now. The Pakistani army has now rescued him in a daring high-altitude manoeuvre that involved lifting him off the mountain dangling on the end of a rope. There are some spectacular pictures…
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BBC Three Logo
BBC Three have just relaunched their DOG – that is to say, the graphical logo in the corner of the screen that tells stupid people what channell they’re watching (it comes up on whatever digital box they have anyway) and generally distracts the viewer. Anyway, BBC Three’s previous logo was seemingly too small, because they’ve…
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Space Shuttle Lands
I’ve just been watching the Space Shuttle successfully landing on what NASA are calling a test flight. There’s still quite a lot of questions in the air about both the future of the Shuttle and indeed of manned missions in general. Last week I read a well-argued article questionning the worthiness of what’s been happening,…
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Lost in the UK
Finally Lost reaches these shores tomorrow night. You are going to watch it aren’t you? (At least, if you haven’t like, ahem, some of us). C4 have even scheduled in a nice break to go and cook something nice before you settle down for the second half of the pilot. After you’ve seen a few…
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Chinese Characters
One of those things that really irks me is (and I have to be really careful here because I know I’m going to offend someone) people who get Chinese or Japanese lettering as tattoos on their bodies. Unless you actually speak, and can write, the language yourself, you’ve no idea what you’ve got permamently written…
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The Island
Michael Bay’s latest film, The Island, has seemingly had disappointing box office returns in America, and while I couldn’t call it a great film by an means, it does do exactly what it says on the tin. That’s to say, lots of explosions, big chases, pounding soundtrack, beautiful stars, camera filters aplenty, and a powerful…
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Return To Sender
Return to Sender is a very Scandinavean film, that seems to have been inadvertantly set in the USA. Given that the film’s about death row prisoners, the US setting (Oklahoma) is correct, but everything else about the film shouts “Nordic”. That feeling is obviously aided and abeted by the fact that it’s directed by Danish…
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Wondeful Wonderful Copenhagen
Free Bikes, originally uploaded by adambowie. The above bike is one of between 1,500 and 2,500 (depending on which guidebook you read) bikes that the city authorities put on the streets each year. You simply go up to one parked at one of 150 points around the city, insert a 20Kr deposit in a mechanism…
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Saturday
I’ve only read a handful of McEwan’s previous books. Amsterdam won the Booker a few years back, and I’ve never quite understood why, since it has no really likeable characters. Enduring Love and Atonement are far superior – pleasurable books. So along comes Saturday, which had vast swathes of press devoted it to it back…
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The Art of Murder
Jose Carlos Somoza is the talented Spanish (or maybe Argentinian) author of The Athenian Murders, a very clever mystery set in both present day Spain and ancient Athens. His latest (well, I say latest, but I’m not completely sure of the original Spanish publication dates) is set in the art world. Well I say, art…