Firetop

This week we’ve begun an interesting experiment in my house; the television has been sold, replaced with an LCD HD monitor and a PC laptop. Everything that we watch is now downloaded via 8mb broadband using the BBC iPlayer or commercial offerings such as Channel 4’s on Demand service. Without any means of watching ‘live TV programmes’ from the BBC we no longer need a TV license… so we’re cancelling it. From what I’ve read this won’t go down too well with TV licensing but is perfectly legal, it seems they may wish to inspect our home but I’m quite open to that eventuality if and when it occurs. The BBC are not apparently expecting to see droves of people cancelling their TV licenses, in most cases they’re probably correct, but in an age where mass media is replaced with personalised services we’re definitely jumping on the cheaper, advertising free, optimimal viewing experience. (more…)

It’s been quite hard to get away from the US election in the British media, hardly surprising in my opinion as this is about electing arguably the most powerful person in the world. With Super Tuesday occurring tomorrow (and you thought it was just Pancake Day) the main candidates for the Democrats and Republicans will be decided. Poor Suzie_Q has been forced to watch ‘The / A Daily Show‘ with John Stewart on More4 for the past two weeks - worth a watch even if we do get it with a 24 hour delay. Tonight after watching the global edition I thought I’d see which of the two Democrat candidates (Clinton and Obama) were leading the Google search race in the US - and it’s Barack Obama. (more…)

I was very sad to learn tonight that Jeremy Beadle MBE had passed away after suffering from pneumonia - that after a number of years of battling against cancer and leukaemia. As a child of the eighties I believe Beadle WAS Saturday night entertainment (well… there were only four TV channels back then so that may have helped!). Whether it was in ‘Game for a Laugh’ with Sarah Kennedy, Matthew & Henry Kelly, or later his own show ‘Beadle’s About’ in which he would play practical jokes on people by setting up fake scenarios, Saturday just wasn’t Saturday without him (or the A-Team). (more…)

On Saturday morning, with a baby to send off to sleep, I popped down to Dorking Museum to see the long awaited Dalek which is featuring as part of the Doctor Who exhibition. Not the most mind-blowing Dr Who exhibit I ever came across; a collection of old toys and memorabilia in a large glass cabinet, as well as costumes which had seen better days (from the old episodes of the 1980s). No cybermen - just lots of monsters I didn’t recognise - nothing that would pass for special effects these days! However - for an entry fee of just £1 you can’t really go wrong, especially taking into account what else is on exhibit at Dorking museum. (more…)

I don’t know about anybody else but we still find watching many of the Freeview channels almost impossible due to a poor digital reception in our area. We’ve tried various different digital boxes over the past few years sadly to no avail. With the 2012 analogue signal close down fast approaching I’m wondering if it will ever get any better, perhaps we’ll have to give up watching television for the Olympics? Another thing I’ve noticed is that all of our tried and tested digital boxes seem to be psychic devices which wait until the most crucial moment of a TV programme before going into a glitching frenzy, causing me to go into fits of hysteria and throw things. (more…)

It must be hard to be the Marketer for eggs – they’re not unusual, everybody buys them, almost everything we bake contains them… and then there’s Avian Flu and Salmonella to contend with. When I read today that the Broadcast Advertising Clearance Centre (BACC) has banned a re-run of some old 1950s egg TV commercials on the grounds that ‘the concept of eating eggs every day goes against the principle of eating a varied diet’ I was a little surprised. However, upon watching the old Tony Hancock adverts I was even more surprised at how good they were, and as a new owner of Chickens this week… quite encouraged to eat more. (more…)

On Sunday evening, whilst collapsed in the sofa following the exhaustion of steam-cleaning the carpets AND relocating household furniture (again), I came across something to take me way back to my childhood. There on ITV3 was Michael Praed as Robin of Sherwood - complete with that absolute classic sound track by Clannad ‘Rooooobin…. the hooded man‘. It wasn’t that long ago I watched an episode of the BBC’s latest attempt at a Robin Hood series and switched it over moaning about it not being as good as it was in my day. To my absolute joy I was able to put that theory to the test and see that I was indeed quite correct, Robin of Sherwood was better by a million miles (if now a little worn around the edges and featuring some very ’80s’ scene transitions). (more…)

So it’s time for the 2007 Eurovision song contest already; in my family the annual ‘Sit around the telly with a score card’ bonding session. Unfortunately I’m going to miss the finals again this year attending a wedding – so that’s two finals I’m missing on Saturday (my beloved Stevenage Borough FC are in the FA Trophy Final at Wembley). My mother remarked to me this week that she’d read an article saying that the United Kingdom would never win the Song Contest again because of the geographic break up of Eastern Europe and subsequent social voting collusion. As I’m putting a cash spread bet on Eurovision this year I looked for a method of winner prediction similar to that which I use successfully for the Grand National. I found some extremely useful information… (more…)

We were obviously very disappointed that we didn’t get a phone call from a researcher this week offering us tickets to ‘Making Your Mind Up‘ on BBC1 tonight. Two of my colleagues did get tickets, but neither of them wanted to go anyway so those went unused (non transferrable). Having tuned into BBC1 tonight to watch the show from the comfort of our living room, it did seem to be a bit of a farcical show from a voting perspective; after the first round of telephone voting Terry Wogan announced that Big Brovaz were going home in favour of a French woman called Cyndi - the studio audience were shocked, Suzie_Q and I were sitting stunned on the sofa. At the end of the final round of voting Terry announced that Cyndi was the winner to much cheering and indoor firework exploding, whilst Ferne Cotton had to tell him (and us) that the winners were actually Scooch and try and reverse the out of control situation. (more…)

Last Thursday I watched a documentary on Channel Four which I found to be the most enlightening programme I’ve seen in quite some time. Controversial in it’s topic for even suggesting that global warming might NOT be manmade, ‘The Great Global Warming Swindle’ covered just why there is no correlation between CO2 increases in the atmosphere and rises in global temperature, apparently quite the opposite is true (albeit with a lag of a few hundred years due to delayed changes in sea temperatures). (more…)