adambowie.com

Category: Misc

  • The SEO of Titles

    I’ve moaned for a long time about the lack of imagination in television programme titles – particularly in one-off documentaries. The producers’ theory seems to state that if you don’t adopt the “Ronseal” approach, then nobody will know what your programme is about. We browse EPGs rather than use the Radio Times or newspaper television…

  • These Words Are Mostly Meaningless and Wholly Untrue

    (Repeated from a Tweet a few days ago, but still true)

  • The Worst Place in the World for a Big Live Global TV Audience

    In a nice piece from Marina Hyde in today’s Guardian, she links to a New Yorker piece from a few years ago that disavows the idea that a billion people might watch the Oscars. Starting from the fact that only 15% of Americans watch their own movie awards, it seems incredibly unlikely that the numbers…

  • Things I Can Live Without in 2014

    Life’s too short. So in 2014 I will mostly* be living without the following: Awards Ceremonies I exclude any awards that I might be nominated for- unlikely though that is. What I means is Oscars, Brits, Grammys, Comedy Awards, Television Awards etc. The only one I’ll miss is perhaps the BAFTAs although the fact that…

  • Is There Room for Horror on UK TV?

    I mentioned that I’d enjoyed Mark Gatiss’ version of The Tractate Middoth over Christmas. And although that is certainly more of a ghost story than a horror story, it made me wonder why we don’t get more horror series on British television. Series like American Horror Story, and arguably The Walking Dead, prove that there’s…

  • Saturday Night Primetime TV Pitches

    Here’s a question: if it takes years of dedication and hours of practice to become decent at a particular activity or sport, why do we believe that a celebrity can become good at it in just 12 weeks? I mean, I know Malcolm Gladwell popularised the idea that it takes 10,000 hours of doing something…

  • Migrating from Movable Type to WordPress

    For a long time now, I’ve been very frustrated with the blogging platform I’ve used since I started properly blogging here back in 2002. At the time, Movable Type seemed to be the “go to” platform. And it was fine for many years. I’m in no way a web-developer but a lot of Googling meant…

  • WordPress Up and Running

    I’ve migrated my blog over to WordPress. With luck most things should be working fine, including feeds – the main way that people see this blog’s writing. You shouldn’t have to do anything, and old links should redirect accordingly. However in the short term, feed readers may re-present some older updates on a one-off basis.…

  • King’s Cross Square Open

    This morning King’s Cross Square was finally open. For many months now, King’s Cross has been a construction site as first they built the new concourse, and then dismantled the ugly 1970s facade. Now the original frontage has been revealed. There’s still a bit of “snagging” to complete – workers rush to finish the last…

  • Space, The World, Fashion and Portraits

    I spent Saturday catching up on a number of exhibitions that I’ve been meaning to see, but which for various reasons, I’d not gotten around to. And there’s the small matter that some of them are closing quite soon. Sebastião Salgado’s Genesis is the result of a massive multi-year undertaking of the Brazilian photographer most…

  • The Drowned Man

    In recent years there has been something of an explosion in immersive experiences. Although these events always sound to me like something I’d probably like, I’ve been quite slow in actually getting involved. Up until now, the closest I’ve got is probably Secret Cinema. I went to one of their earlier productions – Funny Face…

  • Alpe d’Huez

    In anticipation of today’s double ascent of Alpe D’Huez, I made this T-shirt last night. I did make a Ventoux one prior to the weekend too – no photos yet though.