She is simply awesome. I love her character.

Tudor's Marathon!

There was a brilliant documentary series a while ago by one of my favourite current tv historians. It's a history of the home, Concentrating on a different room/purpose each programme, and taking it from the medieval to the modern


Here's part 1 of the bedroom:

Here's fun:

An iconic American actor hosting an Iconic British show. Have I Got News for You, hosted by William bloody Shatner! I know!

And one of the guests is Charlie Brooker. A fave of mine, and a complete geek so most likely undergoing a major fanwank moment right there with Captain Kirk.

P1.
P2. In which Kirk sings...

Thanks for the history of the home video, Dana. I ended up watching all four parts of the "bedroom" series. Though I will say that the Elmer Fudd accent (I don't know the name of it, but it's the same accent Jonathan Ross has,) drove me absolutely nuts. Around here, that's a speech impediment. (To be fair, the lisped S in Argentinian Spanish causes me similar fits.)

She does have a slight speech impediment :p As, I believe, does Ross.


Also, they have slightly different accents, as they're from different parts of the South.


[eta] looked it up, the particular impediment they both have is rhotacism

That was just marvelous, I can see why you like Brooker, and damn! how sharp is the Shat at age 81? Working the room, going from prompter to hand-held cards and being natural as he's ever been, on a show that he claims not to have seen! In a culture not his own! (Well half, he's Canadian so "O Canada" is in his roundhouse)

You might enjoy his 'wipe' series. There's Screenwipe, Newswipe and Gameswipe.

part 1 of Gameswipe, it's a few years old, and a bit Britcentric but still good fun



A random episode of Newswipe which is some of his best stuff:







And some of his drama productions have been awesome.

Trailer for Dead Set (zombie apocalypse begins, only safe place is the Big Brother House




Then there are the three Black Mirror tales he did recently. Twisted but brilliant. Couldn't find any decent clips, but there're complete eps on the tube, and this little interview:

I've discovered a little gem of a sitcom called Spy. It had a six episode run last year, but as I don't have Sky Tv it passed me by. I'm used to ignoring Sky as not being particularly strong on original tv but I really have to update my habits there. This and a couple of other little series show some class.

It stars Darren Boyd, who is a brilliant comedy actor, as a somewhat hapless divorced father. He's in a custody battle with his wife, his son despises him, the 'family counsellor' who reports to the custody hearings is firmly on the wife's side, and his wife now lives with his son's headmaster.

His son is a little bastard. Precocious, brilliant and vicious.

In an attempt to win his son's respect he gives up his dead end job and gets back into the jobmarket to ty and use his degree in computer engineering. Goes for a job interview as a data clerk of some kind and ends up accidentally enlisted into the secret service, under the training of a maverick (insane, alcoholic, dangerous, and very funny) older officer.

He cannot tell his son. The whole series arc is about him trying to win his son's approval, being upstaged by various other, much more impressive men with much more impressive action-jobs than his (data clerk) and being completely unable to let on that he's a spy, with a gun and a telephone number for the 'Cleaners' should it become necessary.

There are other story elements, but that's the core of it. And it's really really funny. the first ep is like...ok, funny, lol moments, but was worried it might be a ne gag show. But it builds brilliantly across the series.

Bedlam is back.
And in a further pleasing alliteration, it is also better.

Laney Turner acts well, although her time in Eastenders has left her mouth with a permanent downturn (see Rupert Grint for similar) when she is not actively smiling.

Smacked-arse-face daughter Charlotte Salt is back, although we're not sure for how long as Daddy has a new Apprentice-style-sidekick in Asian playboy Nikesh Patel. Jack Roth (of Tim Roth fame) plays the understanding flatmate. Damn. He accepts her seeing ghosts and spazzing out. Where was he when I was buying all the toilet paper and feeling like I had to label my cheese?

Lee Mead will be turning up later. Yumyum. Probably not singing though - Will Young didn't get to after all.

So far I am more impressed with this series than the last, because of the acting and also because two characters admitted they would not be able to afford the accommodation without help/ favourable conditions. YES! Cost of housing in the UK is the major factor in the lives of almost everyone I know. Seems like horror/ fantasy programmes are better at acknowledging this than any soaps or sitcoms.

I still haven't seen bedlam....really must give it a go.

Caught the first part of a documentary series about illuminated manuscripts and what they tell us about early medieval kings.

yeh, I know it doesn't sound overly exciting, but it turned out to be really good.

Britain has one of the most well-documented histories in the world. A near unbroken line of record keeping stretching back over a thousand years. Some of the early records were within bibles and psalters, and many if not most of the great illuminated texts were commissioned by kings and princes, and as such we can often see specific kings and other powerful people represented within them.

Some of them are truly beautiful, and steeped in dark age history.Here's the opening segment to part one. Illuminations: the Private Lives of Medieval Kings, episode 1: Ruling by the Book

Another great documentary series:

Legacy: The Origins of Civilization

It's a few years old, and the video quality isn't magnificent, but well worth watching. The historian is Michael Wood (my favourite!) and the first episode deals with Iraq. Really interesting and beautiful, I think. The oldest civilization the first flowerings of human cities.

One more (for now:P). Same historian, from 2004, In Search of Shakespeare

Episode 1:



It's a really interesting look at Shakespeare, as well as the Elizabethan world he lived and worked in. For instance, did you know that Elizabethan England was effectively a 'police state'? With an almost Stasi like approach to information and intelligence. A place of spies and informants.

Brit friend of mine posted this on FB today. In three minutes, it's all you need to know about the Aurora shootings. His point is devastating. But it wasn't aired this week, this is from 3 years ago.

I think he's one of the best commentators on the news, and how it works.