almost witty

Random anecdotes and a little thought

Archive for December, 2009

2009 was a very boring year. and I’m perfectly happy with that.

Dec 31

Posted by Andrew in nostalgia

In 2000, I was living in a one-bed flat in West London, working for the BBC and dating an American woman.
In 2009, I am living in the same one-bed flat in West London, working for the BBC (in a different job) and dating a (different) American woman.

However, this is progress, since in the intervening decade, there have been more ups, downs and descents into sheer hell than I had ever really expected. So for 2009 to be a stable year where I stayed in the same place, worked in the same place, and had the honour of dating the same woman is pretty darned cool in itself.

But here’s to 2010, and I hope you have a fab 2010 that brings you most of what you wanted. (Because if you suddenly had everything you wanted, wouldn’t life get terribly dull?)

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Ten years ago today, I was…

Dec 31

Posted by Andrew in Me me me me me, adayinthelife, nostalgia

stumbling across Edinburgh’s Hogmanay celebrations with my mates including Sheff01, watching a couple of Turkish guys begging every woman around them for a kiss, and not getting any. Then again, I wasn’t getting any kisses either.

The best moment though, was coming up to the police barriers – due to sheer numbers, you had to have a special ticket to be allowed into the street celebrations – and watching one woman screaming “I’m pregnant! Let me through!”. So eventually the barriers were raised, and a lady with a large stomach was let through. Once she was past the policemen and the barriers, she lifted her shirt to reveal a six-pack of beers – she pulled one out, opened it, and went on her merry way.

At the stroke of midnight, the fireworks were unleashed over Edinburgh Castle – followed by the fine ash/gunpoweder glittering all our faces. Which beats the year after, when I had to duck and cover from hundreds of bottles thrown over Westminster Bridge on December 31, 2000.

Never mind all that, what you really want to know is what Doctor Who and sci-fi writers (including Russell T Davies, Steven Moffatt were doing on Millennium Eve…

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Things that make you feel old #1…

Dec 30

Posted by Andrew in Television, nostalgia

roll the dice has photoshopped an image of ye olde Thames TV logo to show how it would look for today’s London:

Thames TV`logo by roll the dice.

As a kid in 1980s mid-Wales, I would look excitedly every time that logo appeared, because it meant LONDON! COOL STUFF! AND GREAT TELEVISION! Well, The Goodies in their declining years… or Dempsey and Makepeace… and you don’t want to know the amount of internal yay that happened in my head every time the London Weekend Television ident appeared…

Of course, now it’s different. Almost all the ITV companies have amalgamated into one meaningless whole – and more importantly, there’s pretty much nothing worth watching on ITV these days. But those were the days, aye…

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“Put the f’king lotion in the basket…”

Dec 29

Posted by Andrew in Films, London, Music, adayinthelife

You may have seen a musical clip from the frankly genius idea of Silence of the Lambs: The Musical set to Lego:

Anyway, it turns out the musical is coming to London mid-January! Who’s with me? We can all wear night-vision goggles and adopt cod-Virginian accents! (or surgical masks and cod-posh-Welsh accents)…

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Americans! Spend your Christmas money here!

Dec 28

Posted by Andrew in adayinthelife

Fancy spending some of that Christmas money on lovingly kept books and DVDs on a wide range of topics (from Neil Gaiman to Shakespeare and Superman), and other stuff?

Our very own HyperHam has got tons of things on sale, since she’s foolishly decided to move to London and be with me next year. So help her by buying some of her stuff by going to her Amazon shop!

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East meets emo…

Dec 27

Posted by Andrew in Being British-Chinese, Music, adayinthelife

I’m watching a Chinese Cantopop music video, which has all the stylings of a Mariah Carey / Britney Spears video shoot. Groovy dancers, a wind machine, and a made-up lead singer in a short skirt.

However, the only English-language lyric I can pick up is “Loneliness is my best friend”. Just to reinforce this fact, it’s repeated about 8 times with subtitles underneath, before reverting back to Cantonese.

Fortunately, with a bit of Googling magic, I can now reveal the song is Bianca Yu’s Still A Wonderful Life…

I think I’ve found my new hipster look for 2010.

I’m not too sure Google Translate does a good job with Cantopop lyrics though:

Neighborhood of a person dinner
Lit candles total available radiant
Black linen without a partner
Aroma had a comfortable night with me
Hard to meet the worry-free eating and drinking
Stressed the need to pay attention to Huazhizhaozhan
Fast repair the image of vulnerability
Then instead of hauling your hands I’m ready
Carefree to walk everywhere
* A person is willing to count on cold
Even if a person alone
A cruel diversion program
But I was still a refined *
I do not reason alone a vacation and then the time difference
Concerned about the love off like a light down
There is no road map to do a happy canvas
Random do like my home hotel
No opponent to make ends meet
I am happy every day I received a total shopping
Let me Tim newly installed additional temperament
You do not do not light easily manipulated
Chic is my code

and of course, Cantopop doesn’t have exclusive licence to use the word ‘loneliness’ in inappropriate places:

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I can now say I’ve written for BBC News :)

Dec 26

Posted by Andrew in adayinthelife

Lookie here! (Thanks, @zsk!)

and she has revealed that on Boxing Day, it got 21,500 hits. Now if only I had 1p for everyone who clicked… :)

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My thoughts of The End of Time (SPOILERS GALORE)

Dec 25

Posted by Andrew in Television

The last five minutes of The End of Time had me just staring open-mouthed in amazement at the TV, as this … no, THIS … no, no, THIS … became the most amazing cliffhanger of all. Which certainly makes one hell of a change from the usual Christmas episode where I switch off feeling slightly cheap, used, and disappointed.

But anyway, don’t look any further until you’ve watched The End of Time Part One AND the preview clip of Part Two…

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My Chinese Christmas dinner

Dec 24

Posted by flickr in Being British-Chinese, adayinthelife




Chinese Christmas dinner

Originally uploaded by almost witty

While you all prepare to tuck into your cliched turkey & cranberry Christmas dinner and bemoan that it’s the same meal every year, bear in mind that I wish, that just for one tiny year, that I could have a turkey & cranberry dinner with all the trimmings. Especially roast potatoes!

Not because it’s particularly tasty – any meat that dry should belong in the Sahara, surely? – but because when my parents do Christmas dinner, it’s … rather different. Fantastically tasty, and as with all home-cooked food it’s heartwarming and fantastic, but for once, I’d like to try a turkey’n'cranberry dinner that wasn’t mass-cooked in a canteen or microwaved in a local pub.

They’ll probably cook the same sort of thing this year, but I really must ask how they produce all that food…

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If you’re going to re-do something, do it differently…

Dec 23

Posted by Andrew in Films

I’ve often thought that if you’re going to go to the bother of remaking a film or a song, you should at least do it a bit differently. Like the Pet Shop Boys doing Always On My Mind, or … the Pet Shop Boys doing Where The Streets Have No Name.

Anyway, we now have the new trailer for The Karate Kid, starring Jackie Chan and Will Smith’s son Jaden Smith.


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