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AE on Telly News (NEW CONCEPTS)
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Wile E. Coyote


In: Arizona
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The Rings of Power. Amazon

Amazon had to suspend its cutomer reviews as they were so bad at 35% approval, and they had spent over a billion on this new adaptation. I have never read or watched a Tolkien, so what do I know? The first 15 minutes were laughably bad, where every elf warrior wants to go home as it's bloody cold and they are attacked by a snow troll, but the head girl, (whoar!) who is seeking revenge for her brother wants to continue to pursue the evil Sauran (satan?).

I guess this was the Director's smart way to keep you watching, do I continue watching on this quest?, Or am I a puny elf? I was the puny elf going for the remote. Mrs Wiley however, was made of sterner stuff, so we kept going.

It was actually pretty weird and good. There has been a lot of criticism it is woke. I don't get this at all, it's the oldest, most religion-inspired thing, I have come across since the Bible. It's like sitting in a massive cathedral, with bright lights shining through great glass widows of dead saints. Jesus.
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Mick Harper
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In: London
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The Bastard of Istanbul (BBC R4X)

So I settled down happily for a two hour wallow. Some dopey narrator in an awful Mustapha Fagg accent sets the scene. It wasn't so much you couldn't understand what he was saying as being distracted by the irritation of having to make out what he was saying. But, OK, it has to be impressed upon us, we're in Turkey. Then a character comes on speaking in an even worse RADA Turkish-inflected accent. All right, it was painful to listen to but she's an old woman, so maybe it's to show traditional values or something. Then another character, young but same Mustapha accent. I fast-forward it half an hour, Mustapha-accent talking to Mustapha-accent. Quick listen to Part Two, wall-to-wall Mustaphas.

I checked the cast list. All impeccable British actors. I checked on the BBC arm responsible to make sure it wasn't the Turkish Division of the World Service but, no, just the good old BBC Drama Department and its motto "Nation shall speak unto nation in bogus accents to ruin your listening pleasure because we hate doing anything straight and be mistaken for hacks, so fuck you."
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Mick Harper
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In: London
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My cup runneth over. Doc Marten is back. I would have laid money against. Don't bother telling me it's a bunch of horse manure, that's the whole point. Every heavyweight intellectual must have his (less often, her) kryptonite soft spot for this kind of rubbish. It's the only way we can keep in touch with popular culture.

In fact one has to watch acres and acres of this kind of formulaic folderol just to keep open that critical chink in one's cultural carapace. You don't think I enjoy it, do you?
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Mick Harper
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In: London
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To all our paediatricians. Check out Casting JonBenet on Netflix. Didn't ought to be allowed.
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Mick Harper
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In: London
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Channel 4 News led with a non-Queen story so I guess the worst is past. I got the impression (I tended to flick forward) it was all done quite well by all. As the man in charge of the Coronation, the Kennedy assassination and Churchill's funeral said, "You don't get a lot of practice in these things."

The only intriguing bit left is that, according to my programme guide, both BBC-1 and BBC-2 have scheduled (at different times) periods of Channel Off Air for the evening of Monday, the day of the funeral. Dunno what that's all about. After Brexit, Covid and the Ukraine War it will be severely disorientating going back to normal. No, wait, there's a World Cup in the desert during winter to get through first, but after that. No, wait, there's ... sorry, I've been sworn to secrecy about that one.
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Mick Harper
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In: London
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Oh all right then. It's the closing of all universities, museums and art galleries following the publication of my book.
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Mick Harper
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Our Friends In The North (BBC4)

I've finally got round to (re)watching this great milestone in British telly drama. Not millstone. Unlike Boys from the Blackstuff it is not contemporary, being written thirty years after the events, and now seen with the benefit of a further twenty-five years of hindsight. The title, for instance, was ironic then but would be risible today. More likely Our Charity Cases In The North. Everything is now too hopelessly clichéd to be able to watch it straight. Get Carter On His Hovis Bike.

When 'high rise flats' meant Ronan Point and watching T Dan Smith at work -- they're too poor to bribe one another nowadays. When 'going all the way (to New Orleans)' meant sexual intercourse. Nobody has stopped at Biloxi for fifty years. One almost expected David Attenborough to turn up and start commenting on the funny ways of these strange creatures. Still, the writing is muscular and the characters are entertainingly formulaic so worth dipping into.
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Mick Harper
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The latest NHS scandal on Newsnight was the death of a young man who couldn't get an appointment to see his GP but was fobbed off four times, over a month of asking for one, with a nurse-practitioner going through his symptoms over the phone (each time apparently de novo). The last of whom, when the bloke's voice was slurred because the infection had reached his brain, concluded he was either drunk or 'out of sorts'. Then she cancelled his next-day appointment for a blood test (itself granted after a seventeen day delay), because 'he might have COVID'. The last chance the poor chap had was gone, and he was shortly thereafter carted off to hospital to die.

This was quite properly reported by Newsnight as being both exceptional and procedurally faulty but the reason for it all was not covered entirely accurately. They explained -- and I believe them --that phone and video conferencing is in itself an efficient use of scarce resources but omitted to mention

(a) that all these reforms have the curious side-effect of making NHS professionals' lives easier and
(b) knowing you've got instant access to a GP (something that was a birthright for Britons between 1948 and two thousand and something) is an enormous comfort for us all.

As it is we can only look forward to a time when there will be a procedure to go through with a nurse-practitioner bot in order to qualify for a chat with a nurse-practitioner.
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Mick Harper
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Treasures of the Anglo-Saxons BBC-4

I knew it would be too depressing to watch so I flicked through it until the Franks Casket popped into view, to make sure I'd got my facts straight in Revisionist Historiography. Dear old Nina Ramirez warbled

It had lain hidden for a thousand years and eventually it wound up in a Parisian antique shop

There's nothing like blowing the gaff. Nobody's ever admitted it has no provenance before.
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Grant



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The death of the poor man reported on Newsnight was nothing to do with cuts or Covid. It was all down the misguided instructions that antibiotics shouldn’t be prescribed until it’s absolutely confirmed that the patient has a bacterial infection. This crazy idea, designed to combat the exaggerated problem of bacterial immunity, kills hundreds every year.
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Mick Harper
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Yes, strangely, after eating billions of tons of antibiotically-stuffed meat which we have been warned for billions of years would create billions of anti-antibiotically-prevented bacteria if we did, and never, never, stop the treatment halfway through because that will promote the growth of new strains of bacteria and [provide some examples of your own] nothing much has happened apart from the Rise of the Superbugs. Which we don't hear much about since cleaning contracts in NHS hospitals went out to tender and Big Pharma have got round to producing some new antibiotics rather than penis firmer-upperers by accident.

This is relevant to the earlier Pulling Teeth: the End of NHS Dentistry (ITV-1) which pointed out that the government hasn't raised payments to NHS dentists since 2006 so no-one can get NHS dentistry treatment any more. Why so? Well, because most visits to the dentist consists of "I've got toothache." "Open wide." "Ga-ar-agh." "You've got an infection. Here's a prescription for some antibiotics."

Why so? Because we should be able to visit Boots rather than the dentist. "Have you got anything for toothache?" "Yes, here's some antibiotics. £2.95, make sure you finish the course." Thus ensuring dentists come scuttling back to the NHS for anything serious. Or they can work behind the counter at Boots, it's their choice.
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Ishmael


In: Toronto
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I happen to be the only person in the world who knows not only that Darwin was wrong but *why* Darwin was wrong.

Natural selection---including sexual selection---promotes statis, not change. This is why bacteria revert to form once the antibiotic agent is removed. All adaptations rapidly disappear .

That means we have no theory by which to account for the origin of species. I do, however, have an hypothesis. And I'm the only one who knows we need one.
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Mick Harper
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I happen to be the only person in the world who knows not only that Darwin was wrong

That is not true in the sense that I reject neo-Darwinism.

but *why* Darwin was wrong.
That is true as far as I am concerned.

Natural selection---including sexual selection---promotes statis, not change. This is why bacteria revert to form once the antibiotic agent is removed. All adaptations rapidly disappear .

This is very good.

That means we have no theory by which to account for the origin of species. I do, however, have an hypothesis. And I'm the only one who knows we need one.

And on past form, will remain so.
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Grant



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It’s easy to deal with antibiotic resistance:
1) ban an antibiotic for five years. The bug then loses its resistance because the original form of the bug will become more successful
2) fund the development of new antibiotics. The only reason this doesn’t happen is that each new antibiotic costs hundreds of millions in development costs and the pharmaceutical companies can’t make enough money.

Instead, the health authorities think it’s cheaper to concoct yet another scare story.
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Ishmael


In: Toronto
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If you want convincing evidence for Darwin being wrong---and for the true purpose of Natural Selection---read up on the nesting habits of the Albatross, in the windiest corner of the world.
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