AE on Telly News (NEW CONCEPTS)

[Mick Harper]

Secret World of Your Rubbish (Channel 5)

[Mick Harper]

Most of the schemes for improving the British countryside are done nowadays by Countryfile presenters offering to help. They are quite compulsive about it and the bloke in charge (either gender) is never backward in handing them a dibbler or whatever. Or the keys if it's a major piece of agricultural machinery. I realise it's an age old tradition but I do have two concerns

1. These 'presenters' have already been selected on the basis of age old media traditions -- previously comeliness and expertise, now ethnicity and able-challengedness -- so the presenters are not predisposed to be good with dibblers. Yes, they practise doing it week in and week out but there is no guarantee they will be, as it were, natural dibbler-dibblers. However, I accept these schemes are all political wangles anyway so I'm not going to make a big thing about it.

2. But suppose a new broom takes over at the BBC. Things can only go in one of two directions:
(a) they take the brief seriously and start making serious programmes about the British countryside. Then it's exeunt the current presenters and all dibbling comes to a shuddering halt.
(b) they axe Countryfile on the grounds it is a load of ollocks that nobody watches.

I'm not saying that would bring the political wrangles to a shuddering halt but it would be killing two birds with one stone.

[Mick Harper]

'Israeli government?'
'Yes.'
'BBC Newsnight here.'
'Oh yes, who is it?'
'Faisal Islam.'
'Is there anybody else?'

[Mick Harper]

The Regime arrives (on Monday), heavily trailed and with a no expense spared cast (Kate Winslet). Will it be any good? It's on Sky Showcase, their equivalent of UK Gold, so someone at Sky has decided it isn't.

[Mick Harper]

Path to War (HBO, 2002 to Skymovies))

HBO executive: How's the LBJ project going?
HBO minion: We've finally got John Frankenheimer signed on to direct.
Exec: I hope he's not past it. What A-listers have you got?
Minion: Alec Baldwin, Donald Sutherland.
Exec: Keerist, is this an OAP convention? Which of them's LBJ?
Minion: Neither. Michael Gambon's in the frame.
Exec: Never heard of him. Texan, is he?
Minion: English.
Exec: For why?
Minion: People expect villains to be played by Brits.
Exec: True. Green light it.

[Mick Harper]

I had a great (true) story about Michael Gambon that I spent the morning working into a linked piece for Medium after publishing an expanded version of the above yesterday. On checking the precise name of the film about the Tolpuddle Martyrs he had been working on--the story involved a Dorset cousin moonlighting as a minicab driver-- I discovered it was Michael Hordern.

What made all this wasted effort particularly galling was I had made the same error when telling the story to some bunch of deadbeats (Hatty will confirm, she was one of them) I had made the same error. So this time I felt sure I'd got the right Michael. Such a common name I always think.

[Mick Harper]

The Regime turned out to be surprisingly good (in a low expectation sort of way). It's a bit [Catherine] The Great-lite but fair enough in its own terms. Episode two, I predict, will complete my disillusionment. Still a mystery about it being (a) for exclusive Sky Atlantic but (b) made available for us lowly non-subscribers.

[Mick Harper]

The Great British Train Scandal (Channel 5)

Let's try an experiment, train versus plane: who gets there first?
Thousands of places have train stations, only dozens have airports, so let's choose two places with airports
It's unlikely there will be a direct service between two random airports so let's choose two with a direct service
It's Bristol to Edinburgh, train versus plane
Guess who won?

[Grant]

Centre of towns? Rail

[Mick Harper]

Who lives near or wants to visit main railway stations? The plane won by several hours.

[Wile E. Coyote]

There is something very appealing about K-Drama, I reckon it's because the poor people have not got a welfare state to rely on, there is someting very heart-warming, about a down on his luck, ordinary Kim, who organises a kidnapping of a spoilt rich 11-year old girl to extort her parents with a view to paying for his own sick daughter's medical bills.

It's a reworking of Paper Moon.

The NHS has killed off good UK drama.

The Kidnapping Day. Amazon Prime

Doctors BBC

[Mick Harper]

Newsnight editor: What have we got?
Newsnight reporter: Great news! The high court has just granted us permission to use the Royal Sussex transcipts so we can now run the piece about how they've been murdering the people of Brighton wholesale.
Newsnight runner: (putting head round door) O J Simpson just died.
Newsnight editor: We'll lead with O J.

[Mick Harper]

The Jinx: The Life and Deaths of Robert Durst (Sky Documentaries)

You thought you were sick to death of this New York real estate magnate murdering people and chopping up their bodies but here comes Sky with another seven hours of it. I'm glued.

[Mick Harper]

The Regime "The Foundling" Sky Showcase

I was afeared, from circumstantial evidence, this would turn out to be a dud despite the promising first episode. Going by the second episode it is not only not a dud but it is proving surprisingly subtle despite the hammy nature of the genre. Insightful even. For a start it is demonstrating the nature of courts, where gaining access to the king/ dictator/ whatever is all important, but treacherous. The nature and fluidity of factions. The peccadilloes of the Leader and yet the underlying cunning required of the job. Without it nobody stays at the top very long.

Also some good stuff about the new role of the USA. A giant in its own estimation but a fading power by everyone else's. We must persevere with it. I am still confident it will become soap operetta quite soon.

[Mick Harper]

A new superstar revealed its presence on Newsnight: James Heappey, MP, the Armed Forces minister. He announced he was quitting politics.