almost witty

I’ve been watching a lot of Comic Relief programming this week. Forgive me if this sounds as if I’m sat on my sofa with a blanket wrapped around my lap smoking a pipe and shaking my cane at the teen tearaways across the road - but it all seems a bit too slick these days. And (whisper) not actually that funny.

When the only comedy moment out of the incredibly unfunny and dull Comic Relief single, Comic Relief does the Apprentice and Comic Relief does Fame Academy is musing on what Tara Palmer-Tomkinson was on when she was sweating profusely, one has to realise someone’s taken the comedy out of Comic Relief. Which rather defeats the “unique” spin on what is essentially a telethon. Shame, really.

Still, I’ll be tuning in tonight, making the odd donation, looking at pictures of a man who painted himself red and buying Shaggy Blog Stories, essentially a book collection of 100 funny stories from around the UK blogosphere with proceeds going to Comic Relief. I really should have offered one of my oh-so-hilarious anecdotes but I’ve only just noticed.

Shame the-powers-that-be behind Comic Relief haven’t tried to capture the UK blogosphere in the same way - there’s not even a banner you can splash on your webpage.

Why do I have a particular interest in this? It was central to one of my favourite nights at work some eight years ago, when I was behind the scenes on the web coverage for Comic Relief:

- “blogging” from behind the scenes via live web updates, in the days when blogging and broadband barely crossed the lips of even a savvy web developer (whither blog this year, web chaps?)
- encoding and uploading Doctor Who videos in full Quicktime quality live as soon as they’d been transmitted
- hanging out in the infamous BBC canteen and marvelling at how big Dawn French actually is (the camera took away pounds with her then!)
- helping out on the Comic Relief webchats
- watching the frantic goings-on behind the scenes, and realising they weren’t that frantic
- marvelling at my boss’s then new-fangled hands-free thing for his mobile phone, thinking what a prat he looked in them, and how they’d never ever catch on
- being so tired and irritated (at what, I have no idea now!) at the end I didn’t go to the wrap-up party. One of those decisions I shall regret forever.

I really wish I’d done some screencaps.

I have two claims to fame regarding myself and new Doctor Who head honcho Russell T. Davies:

1. During a fire alarm, I had to walk behind him to the fire exit. He’s a very very tall man. (And no, I didn’t approach him. Being at work I’m sure the last thing he needed was a fanboy going on about Doctor Who and all that)

2. Like him, I was often to be found on a Friday night on the train leaving Cardiff for Manchester - although I never bumped into him on said train, and usually had to get off at Crewe.

However, it seems that Russell never liked the train journey. In this Telegraph interview, he described the journey as “Four hours of hell. It’s like Calcutta - sitting on a box of chickens with peasants hanging from the windows outside.”

This strikes me as rather strange, since it’s actually quite a pleasant rail journey. A peaceful four hours riding up the Welsh countryside, with none of the usual hassles of train journeys (changing trains, drunken hooligans) to worry about. Once the masses of commuters get off at Newport, it’s a very relaxing ride in which you can read books, play silly games, watch downloaded TV on your laptop, whatever. And I would have thought that busy man that he is, he’d relish the chance to spend three to four hours by himself catching up on the world without having the hassles of mobile phone coverage.

Ahh, train travel. I do rather miss it these days.

Picture the scene.

One checks out the BBC’s Doctor Who website on a Friday afternoon. On a whim really. Only to spot that they’re proudly showing off a new teaser, with a graphic of the Doctor and new companion Martha running away from a huge fireball.

So with a shrek of delight that deafens Miss R, I click on download. And wait.

And wait.

And wait.

(continue reading…)

News reaches me from The Pissed Kitty that there is a Pussycat Dolls reality TV show, whereby wannabe-starlets compete to become the next Pussycat Doll. Pussycat Idol, if you will.

Call me dense, but where’s the fun in that? The raison d’etre of the Pussycat Dolls is to watch five attractive lithe-if-a-wee-bit-skinny women pouting, strutting, singing and dancing their way through a song. They’re Hot Gossip with a modern Hollywood makeover. You don’t watch the Pussycat Dolls to ascertain their personality, or hear their witticisms. It’s eye/aural candy, pure and simple.

The fun of reality TV shows, on the other hand, tends to consist of being soaked in the mire of the wannabes - their life story, the idiotic things they’ll do to get to where they want to be. In short, you find out about them as human beings. And do we really want to know the difference between the blonde, the redhead and the singer with the Pussycat Dolls? Admittedly, I actually do but I’m a naturally curious human being, and most Pussycat Doll fans I wager wouldn’t give a flying toss.

(Incidentally, while trying to find The Pissed Kitty’s website, I came across thepissedkitty.com, which promises to be your one-stop resource for pissed kittys - while linking you of course to hot adult action websites galore. Isn’t the Internet marvellous?)

Amidst all the current media furore of the trend towards Size Zero (US measurements), ITV thoughtfully provided a 90-min documentary last night where former pop star Louise Nurding / Redknapp tried to get down to size zero in a month.

Now most documentaries try and at least give a semblance of neutrality in their commentary - oh no, not this documentary. Even given the sad reality that half its’ audience was probably watching for diet tips, the constant emphasis on how bad and evil this was, how damaging it was to her etc. - the constant biased commentary really annoyed me. Indeed, my main thoughts running through the documentary were:

- Louise is very easy on the eyes. Why would she want to fit into that dress?
- That dress is not very good-looking. Why would she want to fit into that dress?
- She was quite tiny at the start. Why would she want to get smaller?
- She has got to be quite determined to want to go down to size zero and risk her health and wellbeing for a dress and a TV programme
- She goes in the gym every day. There’s one determined lady. I can’t even go once a season.
- She went down from a D-cup bra to a B-cup bra. Why in Gods’ name would anyone want to do that ?!
- She flies to Los Angeles for the final push to size zero. God knows what the carbon footprint alone for that was like.
- After being a size zero, she’s not so easy on the eyes. And probably far more miserable to boot.

Then again, on BBC3 there was Freaky Eaters, featuring a British man who had only eaten spaghetti hoops and toast for his entire life. Faced with the notion of eating a peeling off a carrot, he vomited. I know Mosh will vastly prefer to eat KFC to anything else, but this is ridiculous.

Am I a freak for pretty much eating whatever’s in front of me? Then again, I’ll probably eat the plate too…