I'm going to ring-rang-a-dong for a holiday

This is going to be my last blog post for a while as, thanks to my employer's policy of making us all have two weeks off when holidays are at their most expensive, I'm going away at the weekend and, along with the fact I'm going to be away for a chunk of August, I'll have limited internet time over the summer. So I thought I'd do a what-I've-been-watching-on-TV round-up.

Let's start with Guesstimation, a dreadful new Saturday night vehicle for Nick Knowles. It won't surprise you to learn that I hate Knowles. He comes across as the kind of idiot who stands at the bar in pubs spraffing off to his pathetic mates about how great he is while mentally undressing every woman who walks into the bar. To compound my hatred I heard him being interviewed on Radio Nottingham last week while trying to promote Guesstimation. While he was at it he thought he'd slip in that he's doing a new reality show. The woman interviewing him stopped him and reminded him that in the past he's slated reality television (while conveniently forgetting that he made his name on DIY SOS, and appeared on Comic Relief Does Fame Academy), well of course he went off on one defending what he'd said and his show. Like I said, an idiot. And have you ever noticed that, apart from DIY SOS, his shows never get past a couple of series before being canned? Why is he still employed by a major terrestrial broadcaster, anyone else would be on QVC by now. Oh, and that permanent 'designer stubble' winds me up a treat an'all.
Anyway, getting back to Guesstimation, it's crap. It surely has to be the dullest game show format ever devised. the aim of the game is, get this, to guess stuff. Well that's not very interesting for the viewer is it? There's no conferring so we have to wonder what two teams of twats are actually thinking. There's nothing for the viewer at home, well, apart from throwing crisps at the telly when one woman guessed that Tokyo was 350 miles away from London. That's the distance form London to Edinburgh.

At the weekend I watched a film on BBC4 called The Mother, it was shown as part of BBC4's season about old codgers. The film's plot revolved around a widow (Anne Reid) having an affair with her daughter's boyfriend (Daniel Craig). I don't know why, but the sight of Ken Barlow's first wife being taken up the Gary Glitter by James Bond has traumatised me and left having nightmares.
The film didn't really go anywhere and at the end I was left feeling worthless and empty. No doubt Reid and Craig had similar feelings when they watched it back. Having said that though, Anne Reid does have nice knockers for her age.

What about Wallander? Have you seen that? I'm not talking about those Kenny Branagh ones from last year, I'm talking about the Swedish ones currently running on BBC4. I've only seen the one, but they're very good. I have to watch them in bursts of a bout thirty minutes at a time though because of the subtitles. Normally when you watch a film with subtitles it's usually French and the action's punctuated with bits of rumpy-pumpy so you have time to give your brain a rest. Wallander's relentless though, the plots moving on constantly so you don't even have time to think that they all sound like the chef off of The Muppets.
Apparently Wallander says an awful lot about modern Sweden. Shame that, I've always fancied going to Sweden, but I don't fancy getting blown up in a bank.

Don't get me started on On Thin Ice, a show where Ben Fogle and James Cracknell try and race other teams to the South Pole. I watch it because I find polar exploration fascinating, but I find the whole thing rather pointless. If you're going there for scientific purposes, fair enough, but to go and race? You need your head looking at. And they're so miserable doing it, especially when Cracknell's foot looks as though it's going to drop off and he wakes every morning to a massive coughing fit. Factor in the fact that you're constantly trying not to get frostbite in your winkle every time you go for a leak, and a happy time is not being had by all. I find it oddly enjoyable though.

Also good to see the return of Only Connect. The contestants are usually overgrown students, but I enjoy it, not least for Victoria Coren. I'd marry her, I would. The problem is she's a shark at poker and I have trouble remembering the rules to snap. Never mind, we can but dream.

While I'm away this blog will celebrate its 1st birthday (a week tomorrow), which is something of a feat for me as my blogs don't normally make it that far. So happy birthday Modern Gutnish! You'll never know how much trouble I had naming you.

Right, that's me then, I'll leave you with my favouritest summer song in the history of the world. Have a good summer and I'll see you in a few weeks. Bye!

April fool

Well, not much to report here. You'll have to get used to more sporadic blog posts as I don't enjoy all the internet access that I used to, and an immediate family member is going through a pretty major health scare at the minute.

Anyroad, have you seen - the incorrectly-titled - Chris Moyles' Quiz Night? If you haven't, then don't. A bigger dog's breakfast of an 'entertainment' show I've yet to see. I've nothing against ugly people on the telly, but I am against ugly cretins on the telly.
What I have been enjoying on the telly though are I've Never Seen Star Wars (and in Fawlty Towers and Dark Side of the Moon, Rory McGrath picked two things I'm a bit of an expert on), Genius (even though I've never previously had much time for Dave Gorman). I've also been watching - the incorrectly-titled - Monty Halls' Great Escape. If you've not seen it, and I don't think any of you will have done, it's about a rather enthusiastic bloke who chucks in his life for six months and goes to live in a crofter's bothy on the west coast of Scotland. Very idyllic. I reckon I could manage that, I don't mind my own company and as long as I had my iPod and stack of decent books I'd be in my element. Besides, the local village, Applecross, seems to have a ready supply of buxom, red-cheeked women who were all clamouring for his attention. I found that he was rather in love with his dog though, which was a worry.

I've finished Stuart Maconie's new book. For a travel book it left me oddly not wanting to visit many of the places in it. I suppose that's because I come from a smallish town in 'Middle England' and that's, er, what it's about. When you come from somewhere like this you tend to reach out either for the anonymity of the urban sprawl or, being British, for the taste of fish and chips on the seafront. He bigged-up Bath and Leamington Spa, two places I've been to myself and enjoyed immensely. He's cock on about Grantham though. I worked there for four years, and it's a really strange place (about a half mile down the same road as Thatcher's birthplace sits on, which was his reason for going). It's as though someone built a town in the middle of a bypass.
He goes to Cambridge, which is somewhere I've never been and always wanted to go to. I love Pink Floyd and want to go and immerse myself in the fabled Grantchester Meadows. There's a lovely Floyd promo film for the song Scarecrow, which features Syd Barrett and co frolicking on the Meadows. The colours are gorgeous. I might do that over the Easter break, go to Cambridge, it's not much more than an hour's drive from here.

I've also been dabbling in Spotify. I wanted to listen to a new album by a band called The Decemberists, and Spotify gave me it right there and then (I can highly recommend the album, by the way, if concept albums about infanticide and burying the bodies in enchanted woods is your thang). The other day I fancied listening to Deep Purple's Fireball, instead of rummaging around looking for the CD I just pulled up Spotify and set Fireball playing. Will it spell the end for purchased music? Not in my world, I like the feeling of ownership.

I watched Quantum of Solace on DVD last week, someone lent me it. Oh dear. I have to say I thought it was terrible. I couldn't really follow what was going on. It just seemed to be a load of action sequences stitched together with the faintest whiff of a story. There were no laughs, no Q, no Miss Moneypenny, no gadgets. The only light relief came with Gemma Arterton's character Strawberry Fields. That's right, they're naming Bond girls after Beatles' landmarks. What next? Penny Lane? Abi Rhode? And why can Bond seemingly control any vehicle? He was a master in a speedboat, a car, a commandeered motorcycle and a WWII DC3 aircraft.

As I was a Twitter denier, I've gone over to the dark side and joined. I knew it was a mistake the minute I did it and tried to delete my account. It wouldn't let me, "Twitter is stressed at this moment and can't perform that function." I've tried deleting it since and it won't let me. So I'm stuck with it. Why do they treat you like an imbecile? "Twitter is stressed", no it isn't, it's a website, it doesn't get 'stressed'. It's like those smoothie bottles that say stuff like "We've packed thirteen pieces of fruit in here because of all the yummy goodness, and we like to make sure you get your five-a-day because mummy can't be there all the time to make sure you do". I'm not a child.
So if anyone fancies following my mundane life on Twitter, then you can go and find me.

Just a quick thing about the Radcliffe and Maconie show on the 6th of April. Andy Partridge is on it and, if his previous appearances on Radcliffe shows are anything to go by, he makes for very entertaining listening.

Anyway, must go, but here's what I've been listening to just lately:

I love late 60s Rolling Stones, it's a goldmine, Sympathy for the Devil, Gimme Shelter, Jumpin' Jack Flash, this one's my favourite though.



Love this new single. Everyone says they here Kate Bush and Goldfrapp in this, weirdly, I hear All About Eve.




This has had a few plays on R & M. It should have been Britain's entry for this year's Eurovision, unfortunately, he's Norwegian, or summat.



Oasis don't pull any trees up musically. But I love this, they can still release a decent rock single every now and again.



Also listening to something called Kardomah Cafe by a band called The Cherry Boys, which was on the radio the other day. There's no You Tube clip for that though.

Licence to be bored

I gather there's a new James Bond film coming out. Not that you'd notice, I mean I've hardly seen any promotion done for it, have you?
I can't take Bond films seriously these days. After the first Austin Powers film it just all seem so ridiculous. But I guess that ridiculousness is the point. I was listening to Adam and Joe the other week and they had Roger Moore on. They asked him why he never seemed to take Bond seriously, he told them that how can you take it seriously, when this man, who is supposed to be a spy, is recognised in bars and casinos all over the world. And, if he doesn't want to be recognised, why does he drive around in Aston Martin DB5s and Lotus Esprits? When I see either of those cars, while I'm out and about, I always stop and say 'Cor, look at that penis extension'*.
I used to like Bond films when I was a biscuit-cruncher. My little Holy Trinity of Bonds was Goldfinger, Thunderball and You Only Live Twice. Let us, for example look at You Only Live Twice in more detail. For a start it involves a plot that sees an extinct volcano in Japan being used to launch rockets to swallow up other spacecraft. This engineering job to hollow out the volcano must have been massive. But it wasn't just hollowed out, it was also rigged up with all the gubbins needed to launch rockets, as well as a fucking monorail. And how come nobody noticed the lake in the volcano's crater was being replaced by a sliding glass cover to look like a lake? Who are all these contractors who do theses huge jobs for SPECTRE but don't tell anyone? If it was McAlpine's or Wimpey's they'd be crowing from the rooftops about this massive job they'd done in Japan. And what of planning permission? If that was in Blighty a big job like that would more than likely go to a public inquiry.
And why does he always avert some major catastrophe with 007 seconds to spare? Why can he never avert a catastrophe with a tidy fortnight to spare?
Why do we now have this new, serious Bond for the 21st century? I'm sorry, but you can't churn out twenty odd films over forty years - making huge wedges of cash - and then suddenly say 'Hmm, they were a bit silly, weren't they? This is how we think it really should be'.

Oh, and this Bond-related new release is absolutely bloody shocking.

Of course, this post has absolutely nothing to do with the fact that I was listening to this week's Armstrong and Miller Timeghost podcast on my walk to work today. I'm sure passers-by thought I was a bit doolally when I cracked out laughing as they were thinking up names for new Bond girls. Tits McCrikey and Flouncy Minge indeed!


*I'd just like to point out to any ladies who might be looking in that I drive one of those very small Smart cars, if you catch my drift..........