Month: June 2006
-
Connie Dies
If you’ve read any of Le Carré’s Karla novels then you’ll be familiar with the character of Connie – memorably portrayed by Beryl Reid in the TV versions. She was quite probably based on Milicent Bagot, a real-life spook who’s just died aged 90. Read The Times’ obit.
-
Five on Freeview (and Top Up TV)
Finally, the launch of the new [channel] Five stations has been announced. Five US will show, well, lots more US shows. I guess that means wall to wall CSI and Law & Order, although both series are broadcast on other channels besides Five currently. Five Life will be the lifestyle channel. It’s not immediately obvious…
-
Channel 4 Radio
Channel 4 Radio has launched today. Channel 4 has not made a secret of wanting to get into radio, and with a new national DAB multiplex forthcoming, everyone expects Channel 4 to want to have some part of it. They’ve obviously got a lot of programmes that they can use for radio. That includes spin-offs…
-
Entourage Season 3
Entourage is the best US series that still hasn’t found a home on UK television. I find that quite incredible considering the number of channels we now have, all fighting for the best of US TV (We’re at the end of the LA screenings now, when, after the networks have announced their plans for the…
-
Brilliant!
Don’t you just hate that word? Brilliant. Well, not the word, so much as its constant misuse in the media. These days everything sounds like it’s a sketch from The Fast Show. Brilliant! Now I know I’m not completely immune from using the word, but more often than not, I’m using it ever so slightly…
-
Amazon Fishbowl
Amazon.com has just launched a new online only chat show featuring stand-up Bill Maher, called Amazon Fishbowl. British viewers will know Maher from… er… They won’t know him. But he presents a weekly chat show for some of the year on HBO called Real Time. On HBO you can say anything and it’s a notaly…
-
A Train At Night
The other day, some mindless vandals smashed a window at my local station. But it did allow me to point my camera through what would normally be a relatively opaque window. A couple of long exposure’s followed which I rather like. Particularly the second one.
-
Live Via Buffering on the Internet
Office workers of the UK are rejoicing. In a pair of announcments, the BBC has revealed that it’ll be simulcasting all its live World Cup games on the internet. To UK viewers only of course. They’ll also be providing the full interactive option for Wimbledon too. Fantastic. Nobody will get any work done in the…
-
Mobile Phone Footage of Raid
Wow. ITN and the Daily Express spent £65,000 on a mobile phone video clip of the police entering an East London house in a raid this morning. To say that the quality is dreadful really doesn’t do it justice. It’s not even as though it reveals anything substantial apart from the fact that a lot…
-
Monday Lottery Cash Strapped
It seems that the Monday Lottery is struggling. I’m not surprised. A dreadful television advertising campaign lead to server meltdown on their first draw night, and then… nothing. The ad money had been spent and consumers quickly forgot about it.
-
Ed Reardon on BBC 7
With just 10 months to go until it gets an audiobook release (!!!) those who’ve so far missed out have an opportunity to hear the first series on BBC Radio 7 from next Thursday – at 2.00pm, and again at 6.00am on Friday mornings. Yes I know that’s slightly strange scheduling, but BBC Radio 7…
-
jPod
One of my favourite books, and possibly my first Douglas Coupland novel, was Microserfs published back in 1995. jPod is essentially a sequel. Not in the sense that it has the same characters. But in everything else it is. Except that we’re all older and wiser. Well not the characters. They’re still mid-twenties to, maybe,…