AE on Telly News (NEW CONCEPTS)

[Mick Harper]

Well of course that has been an ongoing debate since the National Grid was set up a hundred years ago and since telegraph cables were set up a hundred years before that (o.n.o. x 2) and we have had mains electricity and morse code decoding machines in our homes without respite. No doubt Mr Justice Cocklecarrot is even now in deep conclave with Countryfile (begun in 1951) about whether these new tra-a-actors leave ruts.

[Mick Harper]

Professor T (ITV1)

OK, it's ITV's big summer Sunday night offering. OK, it's a Belgian retread so faithful to the original that one of the two central characters has retained her Flemish name and the other has retained the name T which, I understand, is the same in both the Flemish and English alphabets. They have all moved to Cambridge. Television will soon be running out of Oxbridge universities for cerebral police procedurals.

First let's get the political correctness gone mad bit out of the way. The police have two authority figures, both women, both omnicompetent. One black one, one white one, and one with a bit of ...(sorry, I went all dicky-dido there for a moment). As is also laid down, the women are not unattractive but not eye-candy either. They have two male sidekicks, the embittered middle aged one who is a bit slow on the uptake and the young sexually ever-hopeful one who is a bit slow on the uptake. There are some senior people in the wings who are making noises about doing it by the book which is doing it by the TV policier book.

But in a bid for originality they have made the title-part character a bit quirky.

[Mick Harper]

[Wile E. Coyote]

[Mick Harper]

Excuse me, but you must have been brewing up when the statutory chase scene occurred. So I'd better fill you in. As per, les flics call at the front door, are held up talking to mum/bit of stuff while bloke scarpers via the back door, whereupon the two bleus set off in chase but give up ruefully thus establishing they're good sorts and haven't winged him in the back as les police americains might. In the 1,583 times this scenario has been performed since John Logie Baird first did it (it was the bailiffs at the front door) the fleeing criminal, despite fulfilling all the criteria, has never once turned out to be the guilty party. Except John Logie Baird (default summons issued at Sheriffmuir, Clackmannanshire). [ Just my little joke, he lived in Brighton.]

[Hatty]

[Mick Harper]

Our Family Farm Rescue with Adam Henson (Channel 5)

This is when Adam off Countryfile goes round telling failing farmers how to diversify. As he has done. The programme seemed quite amiable, a bit like Gordon Ramsey without the cruelty to animals, but it was obvious the programme-makers were anxious to widen the demographic. So the first farm featured Adam in voice over

[Grant]

I used to enjoy The Black Farmer sausages. Fine tasty brand and you could congratulate yourself on helping farmers from ethnic minorities.

How disappointed was I when I discovered that although the farmer was indeed black, he was actually an advertising executive and an ex BBC producer.

[Boreades]

The sausages are still available.

https://theblackfarmer.com/about-us/

Just wondering ...

[Boreades]

Has anyone else noticed how many old black & white Paramount Pictures films are now appearing on BBC iPlayer?

I'm looking forward to Harpo's first appearance in Duck Soup.

[Mick Harper]

Not the Black and White Minstrel Show in colour though. Ducks were strictly for foie gras in our family. Chicken soup, yes. Yid penicillin, as my brother used to call it but then he's Jewish so he can get away with that kind of thing. That was before he became a vegetarian of course. Actually it was mum who was the soup comedian of the family. She absolutely slaughtered us one Christmas when my sister asked her if she remembered the time she tried to make consommé. 'Clear as a bell,' said our answer to Les Dawson.

Down memory lane in the soup kitchen.... I'm looking for a title for my autobiography. They have to have quirky ones nowadays after Golda Meir used up the classic 'My Life' said with a shrug. Next on the stocks, last on the stocks, unless Missing Persons breaks all records. Lowish hurdle admittedly. It's on Amazon for pre-ordering by the way. Saying it can be pre-ordered on the Friday when it's out on the Sunday, how does that work? Mind you, it's going to be the devil's own job making 'For the next several decades I was at my desk' seem interesting for the lay audience but that's the writer's task, isn't it? Unless they've got a captive audience. April fool!

[Grant]

[Boreades]

Book? What book?

[Mick Harper]

The Olympics

I feel sorry for people who have to rely on the BBC. I myself have access to the special multi-channel Eurosport live feed because of my contacts in the media world. BBC coverage is mostly anchors dug up every four years interviewing sports people who have never been interviewed before. Proceedings tend to be either halting or gushing. More exciting are the interviews with the people 'back home' -- generally a pub crowd in a midland market town saying how proud they are because Chrissie, their Chrissie, has won Britain's first ever medal in five-a-side surfing. Yes, that's right, the Chrissie that left home all those years ago for a surf scholarship in America.

But mostly BBC coverage is hours of nothing. I promise you, a volleyball match between Cuba and Kazakhstan (I think it was) was shown in full, or so it seemed I was fast-forwarding at the time. This is another point of contention. Since the BBC repeats every British triumph ad tedium you keep having to stop the fast forward to make sure this is someone qualifying for the final in the two hundred individual medley which you have already seen or the same person qualifying for the final in the four hundred metre individual medley that you haven't seen. Or is it the other way round? Anyway she qualified for the final each time.

Eurosport hardly cares about Brits, doesn't dwell on anybody's triumphs and interviews nobody so you can fast forward until you see a distinctive red swimming hat, go back to the start and settle down to watch the race. By the way always refer to 'the IM' if you want respect in the world of individual medley swimming.

[Mick Harper]

On the day Simone Biles walkout is literally shaking the earth, Andersen Cooper devotes the first fifty minutes to the Capitol riot (yes, really, they're still up in arms about some geezers getting past security back in January). Then we had five minutes of Covid, then we got to Biles. Cluck, cluck, he and his co-presenters clucked sympathetically about how pressure from being on the world stage can cause mental health problems. I don't remember them being so sympathetic towards Donald Trump who was as mad as a fruitbat.