So, I come from Mos-cock!

I've been ill. No, I'm not looking for sympathy, I hate being ill - I just think about all the bonuses and extra day's holiday I'll miss out on. I won't go into it, just let me quote Fawlty Towers and you'll get the gist: "I think those prawns might have been a bit off."



Anyway, that's given me time to watch a load of stuff backed up on my PVR.
It's not all Turkey Twizzlers and crack cocaine here at Ambassador Towers you know, which is evidenced by my interest in military history. I've been watching a documentary series called WWII Behind Closed Doors. Using archive material not released by the Russians until the 1990s, it shows Joseph Stalin's part in WWII. I don't know about you, but Stalin's my favourite 20th-Century-dictator-responsible-for-the-needless-deaths-of-millions. I think it's the bushy moustache and proto-flat top combo coupled with those high-collared safari jackets festooned with medals and red stars ensemble that does it for me. But never mind about that, because it's a serious and weighty documentary, the BBC have made the reconstructions in Russian, hence no embarrassing 'Allo 'Allo style accents. The dialogue in these reconstructions is subtitled, and it was this which made me choke on my dry toast yesterday. Check this for fantastic use of subtitles: Uncle Joe's having perhaps his only moment of self doubt. He gathers the Politburo in a room and speaks "Lenin left us a great legacy, and we, his followers, have fucked it up". Brilliant.

I watched that thing about the department store too (I know Hepworth's blogged about it here). If you didn't see it, it was a documentary about an independent department store in Leyburn, North Yorkshire (watch it on the iPlayer here). When I say department store, I mean department store, as in they sell everything. As opposed to Debenhams who style themselves "Britain's favourite department store", even though their definition of department store is a clothes shop that sells a few tumblers upstairs. The documentary followed the patriarch's retirement and handing over of business to his daughter and son-in-law. Watching it, I'm surprised they ever turned a profit such was their propensity for falling out with each other. For those of you who have watched it, I'd like to make a few points here:

1. The 50% of me with Yorkshire genes got very cross when the daughter apologised first over the chairs incident. She was quite clearly in the right so should have let the mother come to her.
2. If the daughter was in such a thrall to the Playtex rep, why couldn't she blag herself a better bra? At one point, her knockers were pointing in totally opposite directions whilst resting on her stomach. As Gok Wan says "Ladies, get yourself decent underwear; it's the foundation on which you lay everything else. You wouldn't build a house on soggy soil".
3. The 'fashion' show is one of the funniest things I've seen all year. Or perhaps ever.
4. I love the concept of 'bingo trousers'.

Right, as it's Friday, you can have this. I'm reminded of it every time The Killers' rather insipid new single comes on the radio. The intro starts and I mistake it for this, and I think "Ooh, great, I've not heard this Tuesday-dinnertime-chart-rundown-background-music in years". And I'm always disappointed. The video's great, by the way, especially if you fancy the artist. As the artist himself clearly does.