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Whilst discussing the Eurovision Song Contest with colleagues at lunch today (which involved describing what exactly Eurovision is to one of our American team members) I discovered that tickets for the finals in Helsinki have been all sold out since December. However, on the plus side I found out that BBC1’s ‘Making Your Mind Up’ show - where the UK Eurovision entry will be chosen, takes place this coming Saturday at studios in Maidstone and free tickets are available! (more…)

At 5:30am on Sunday, having loaded our vehicle the day before, we drove down to Dorking Station to set up our stall for the car boot sale and sell lots of items recently superseded by newer wedding gifts. It’s still dark at that time, but that doesn’t stop the keenest bargain hunters armed with torches, grabbing things whilst you unload and set up. We’d expected this early-arrival hassle – it goes with the territory… but what we hadn’t expected was for BBC1’s daytime classic ‘Car Booty’ to set up a pitch right opposite ours. (more…)

It first got my attention a few weeks ago, there on an advert at King’s Cross tube station were Mark and Jeremy from Channel Four’s ’Peep Show’ - Mark claiming to be a PC and Jeremy an Apple Mac. Then I opened the Metro newspaper and there they were again on a double page spread. Actors David Mitchell & Robert Webb have sold their souls to Apple to help kill the PC with a UK equivalent of a campaign already run in the US and Japan. At first I wasn’t sure if Apple aligning their brand with a good for nothing, lazy, pot smoking lay-about ‘Jeremy’ was a positive thing, but now, having seen the Mac vs. PC adverts online I think it’s a move of genius (whether they were deliberately aligning with character Jeremy rather than actor Robert Webb I’m not 100% certain). (more…)

This week having read a review in the ever thinner ‘Free London Paper’ I bought and watched the League of Gentlemen’s latest release ‘The League of Gentlemen… Are Behind You’. I thought it was pretty funny, and certainly well put together, but not as funny as their Drury Lane DVD… worth buying (or borrowing from me) all the same though. The League’s depressing potholing character ‘Mick Macnamara‘ did remind me of something I hear from time to time in every day life when he said to the Hammersmith audience “If you hear an instruction on loud speaker please be calm, it might take the shape of a non alarming statement such as “Mr Flames is rushing through the building”. It made me think - once in a while at Victoria or King’s Cross stations I hear the announcement “Would Inspector Sands please come to the control room immediately”

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Last night I finished watching the first two complete series of HBO’s Deadwood and found it addictive viewing, if a little slow to begin with. Deadwood is a lawless US gold mining town established in ‘Red Indian territory’ beyond the reach of the government in Washington. Established by Al Swearengen (Ian McShane AKA ‘Lovejoy’ – no he doesn’t talk to the camera anymore…) the town is unofficially ruled by him from his whorehouse ‘The Gem’ - with the aid of his henchmen and whores. (more…)