The Omen, BBC1, Saturday
The TV is still rubbish. I don’t know whether, writing this after the grim dark month of January is just ending, it’s just me at this stage. Perhaps I enjoyed the Christmas telly too much (that’ll teach me to get my hopes up). Perhaps all men should be lined up against the wall and shot (although I did meet a nice one last week, so may reprieve y’all for a bit yet. I said "may").
Or maybe, perhaps I should give up on the TV page, and in fact other such mundanities as work, paying rent, and trying to get out of bed in the mornings (seriously, what for? It’s winter). I keep eyeing my backpack in a wistful, pathetic fashion, imagining it in its proper home on an Australian beach rather than crumpled up at the bottom of my wardrobe.
And what do the TV gods crap upon our heads just as we’re all miserable and depressed and have no money to go out? Crap, that’s what. Striptease what was Channel 4 offered us on Friday night, after School of Rock, which isn’t a bad film but which wasn’t good enough for a Friday night. I was in worse form because I only got home from work at 11pm (damn you, Cassidy’s after work pints), and had a choice of Striptease, Jonathan Ross, Newsnight Review or The Late News.
Thank the gods once again for 4 On Demand, where I watched the last two episodes of the brilliant Peep Show I’d been keeping for just such an emergency, and dipped into different series of Drop the Dead Donkey, which now comes across as a bit dated but which is still very chucklesome if you work in a newsroom.
About the only thing I went out of my way to watch this week was Monday night’s Panorama, where former Blur bassist Alex James went to Colombia to investigate the effects of the cocaine trade there. James was apparently qualified for this as he spent a million quid in his Blur days on champagne and cocaine, so received a letter from Colombian president Alvaro Uribe Velez inviting him to Colombia to see first-hand how taking cocaine in a Western society impacts on the country of origin.
Colombia supplies 80 per cent of the world’s cocaine, to an annual value of £56 billion, and as such is subject to "official" government led measures such as coca crops being routinely sprayed from the air to destroy them, as well as the violence, murder and trafficking the industry creates. James went out with the spraying teams, met coca farmers and dealers, and talked to the Colombian president about what he thought could be done to address the problem.
But the programme was quite disappointing in the end. Given just half an hour, it was only possible to skim the surface of an extensive problem, and sending a celeb instead of an investigative journalist in what just looked like a gimmicky stunt by Panorama, considerably lessened the impact of the debate. James didn’t address at all the issue of legalisation, which, no matter what your views on drugs, would seem a likely way to end the violence and misery caused by trafficking.
He was also very weak on the practical issue of a farmer making $550 per month growing coca, as opposed to $132 a month growing other crops - if the Colombian government, and the White House in their ubiquitous "war on drugs", were serious about ending the trade, they should be asked if they are willing to make up this shortfall to the farmers who grow the coca in Colombia, or the poppies in Thailand and Burma.
James was there much more as an observer rather than a journalist, something which seriously marred the programme in not having these questions asked, and, not too sound too much like Disgusted of Tunbridge Wells, not what I expect from a supposedly serious documentary such as Panorama.
Saturday TV was just as bad as Friday’s (thank the gods for the Crescent Arts Centre monthly night this Saturday so I don’t have to suffer again this weekend). I was babysitting my goddaughter and her brother on Saturday night, making me rue the day I’d offered since it meant a few mates were actually going out at last but I was going to miss it. (But maybe that’s why I was asked to babysit.) The kids were quiet so it was fine, and as my mate has cable I was able to watch Police Academy 3 on ITV4 as well as rifle through his Family Guy DVDs (I think he had the "real" stash hidden).
But then I made the mistake of watching The Omen (BBC1), which was somewhat inconsiderately shown just before midnight, making those of us in other people’s houses and thus not knowing where all the creaky noises were coming from cower under the duvet and think about "accidentally" waking the kids up to use as a shield between me and any anti-Christ type figures lurking at the window.
Although I’m now a committed atheist - yes, yes, "should be committed, more like", move along - The Omen still has the power to scare me witless. Being brought up Catholic means that I actually believed that stuff as a kid, and that even now as an adult I can’t watch something like The Omen without a disturbing thought of "But what if...?" creeping into my overtaxed dome. It’s the music as well. As soon as it starts I have a Pavlovian dog reaction of goosebumps rising, heart hammering, and thoughts of going to mass the next day. My fears were not calmed when I feel asleep on the sofa and was woken at 3am by my scary-looking goth mate arriving home and knocking on the living room window.
Still, great stuff. But I have no idea why the powers that be then decided to remake the film a few years ago. There’s nothing wrong with the original, and that kid as Damien is the most creepy looking youngster I have ever seen. Yes, even more than the ones I was babysitting.
The TV is still rubbish. I don’t know whether, writing this after the grim dark month of January is just ending, it’s just me at this stage. Perhaps I enjoyed the Christmas telly too much (that’ll teach me to get my hopes up). Perhaps all men should be lined up against the wall and shot (although I did meet a nice one last week, so may reprieve y’all for a bit yet. I said "may").
Or maybe, perhaps I should give up on the TV page, and in fact other such mundanities as work, paying rent, and trying to get out of bed in the mornings (seriously, what for? It’s winter). I keep eyeing my backpack in a wistful, pathetic fashion, imagining it in its proper home on an Australian beach rather than crumpled up at the bottom of my wardrobe.
And what do the TV gods crap upon our heads just as we’re all miserable and depressed and have no money to go out? Crap, that’s what. Striptease what was Channel 4 offered us on Friday night, after School of Rock, which isn’t a bad film but which wasn’t good enough for a Friday night. I was in worse form because I only got home from work at 11pm (damn you, Cassidy’s after work pints), and had a choice of Striptease, Jonathan Ross, Newsnight Review or The Late News.
Thank the gods once again for 4 On Demand, where I watched the last two episodes of the brilliant Peep Show I’d been keeping for just such an emergency, and dipped into different series of Drop the Dead Donkey, which now comes across as a bit dated but which is still very chucklesome if you work in a newsroom.
About the only thing I went out of my way to watch this week was Monday night’s Panorama, where former Blur bassist Alex James went to Colombia to investigate the effects of the cocaine trade there. James was apparently qualified for this as he spent a million quid in his Blur days on champagne and cocaine, so received a letter from Colombian president Alvaro Uribe Velez inviting him to Colombia to see first-hand how taking cocaine in a Western society impacts on the country of origin.
Colombia supplies 80 per cent of the world’s cocaine, to an annual value of £56 billion, and as such is subject to "official" government led measures such as coca crops being routinely sprayed from the air to destroy them, as well as the violence, murder and trafficking the industry creates. James went out with the spraying teams, met coca farmers and dealers, and talked to the Colombian president about what he thought could be done to address the problem.
But the programme was quite disappointing in the end. Given just half an hour, it was only possible to skim the surface of an extensive problem, and sending a celeb instead of an investigative journalist in what just looked like a gimmicky stunt by Panorama, considerably lessened the impact of the debate. James didn’t address at all the issue of legalisation, which, no matter what your views on drugs, would seem a likely way to end the violence and misery caused by trafficking.
He was also very weak on the practical issue of a farmer making $550 per month growing coca, as opposed to $132 a month growing other crops - if the Colombian government, and the White House in their ubiquitous "war on drugs", were serious about ending the trade, they should be asked if they are willing to make up this shortfall to the farmers who grow the coca in Colombia, or the poppies in Thailand and Burma.
James was there much more as an observer rather than a journalist, something which seriously marred the programme in not having these questions asked, and, not too sound too much like Disgusted of Tunbridge Wells, not what I expect from a supposedly serious documentary such as Panorama.
Saturday TV was just as bad as Friday’s (thank the gods for the Crescent Arts Centre monthly night this Saturday so I don’t have to suffer again this weekend). I was babysitting my goddaughter and her brother on Saturday night, making me rue the day I’d offered since it meant a few mates were actually going out at last but I was going to miss it. (But maybe that’s why I was asked to babysit.) The kids were quiet so it was fine, and as my mate has cable I was able to watch Police Academy 3 on ITV4 as well as rifle through his Family Guy DVDs (I think he had the "real" stash hidden).
But then I made the mistake of watching The Omen (BBC1), which was somewhat inconsiderately shown just before midnight, making those of us in other people’s houses and thus not knowing where all the creaky noises were coming from cower under the duvet and think about "accidentally" waking the kids up to use as a shield between me and any anti-Christ type figures lurking at the window.
Although I’m now a committed atheist - yes, yes, "should be committed, more like", move along - The Omen still has the power to scare me witless. Being brought up Catholic means that I actually believed that stuff as a kid, and that even now as an adult I can’t watch something like The Omen without a disturbing thought of "But what if...?" creeping into my overtaxed dome. It’s the music as well. As soon as it starts I have a Pavlovian dog reaction of goosebumps rising, heart hammering, and thoughts of going to mass the next day. My fears were not calmed when I feel asleep on the sofa and was woken at 3am by my scary-looking goth mate arriving home and knocking on the living room window.
Still, great stuff. But I have no idea why the powers that be then decided to remake the film a few years ago. There’s nothing wrong with the original, and that kid as Damien is the most creepy looking youngster I have ever seen. Yes, even more than the ones I was babysitting.
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