The main reason for the break has been one of circumstance. As you know, I’m in Oxford until 12th April when my lovely new flat will be ready for me. I’d say ‘habitable’, but those who’ve seen photos of the kitchen may call me a fantasist. Being in Oxford, and (what’s more) having Freeview, you might think that I’ve a long list of things to rant about. Well… to be honest, I din’t feel I’ve done that much TV watching. Maybe I actually have (in fact, I’m sure I have!), but I’ve certainly felt I’ve not had much inspiration.

Yes there’s been the Apprentice launch (itself a pot of bile and embarrassment from which to draw ranting breath), the dire Enders plot lines (Max and Tanya’s ridiculous burial storyline had me seething), the wondrous, brain frying Ashes finale (so why was he shouting ‘Tim! Tim! Wait a minute’? And how did the evil dude know they were playing Ashes To Ashes in the car? And if Gene Hunt really does exist, then how does that all tie in with Sam and LoM? etc, etc). But to be honest, I’ve just not been able to find the words to type this all. Or maybe I can (clearly) find the words, but I just can’t be arsed (something to do with having more pressing things on my mind at the moment…). Or maybe I just have writer’s block.

Another reason for the break is that it’s now become more difficult to physically blog in a practical sense. The only available internet connection I have is in Oxford and by the time I get home, I’m shattered and don’t particularly feel like venting. And anyway, there’s TV to be watched!

So I’ve decided to take a small BMTV sabbatical (for a month or so) until I sort things out good and proper and can dedicate myself to this ‘ere blog again. I do love it dearly, and have really enjoyed people’s kind comments over the years and especially lately. I’m sorry to leave you, and I do hope you return soon.

BM x

I love coming back to Oxford. Even though I have recently come to terms with the fact that Bath is actually more beautiful (Oxford’ has let itself go over the years), Oxford is still, and will always be, my home. My reset button. Coming back to Oxford is coming back to the womb and I always feel recharged and more myself afterwards. And I’ve never needed to rediscover who I am again more than now.

 Enough of ramblings about me, and on to last night’s wondrous Conscripts gig at the Jericho Tavern, Oxford. Yes, they’re just another local band with a MySpace page, but they’re more than that. I sat there listening to their lyrics, melodies and juggling of rhythms, intruments and genres and thought, “How is it possible for this to have been created from nothing?” It just floored me. I love how each member of the band are immensely talented in their own field and their own genre of music. There’s hip hop, swing, jazz, blues, pop, funk – even a bit of 90s jungle! But fused together something wondrous is created.

They were ten times better than last time I saw them – good to know that Dan and his decks really are needed! Please please seek them out. Go to a gig and give them some love.

So The Apprentice Does Celebrity Sport Relief (or whatever it was called) was on last night. Not sure it really worked this time for a few reasons. One major flaw was that fact that Siralan hardly appeared at all, and he’s the jam in the Apprentice sandwich, you see. Without his looming presence and sarky, impatient thoughts it was just a load of celebs bickering about colours. Secondly, the task was dull. It was yet another ‘organise a party and sell stuff’ task.

I’d much rather see them schlepping to France to sell them black pudding, or designing a building to maxmise profits. This time it was very much, ‘who has the most rich contacts’. Louise Redknapp got her rich footballer mates involved with one kind man giving £100K for one ticket (this, instead of leaving me warm and fuzzy, made me angry that anyone can have that much money to throw around). Bernie Ecclestone promised to double whatever the Boys made, while his braying son (?) seemed to buy everything they were selling anyway, so it was really the Ecclestone Clan vs the Girls.

The Girls were clearly going to win from the start. As the Boys admitted, they didn’t have an adult on their team, and the Girls had Ms Anne Summers herself, Jacqueline Gold, so a retail task was going to be right up her street. Talking of streets, Kirsty Allsopp found herself in a very odd location location (see what I did there? I should so write for the Sun – er… that’s not a good thing, is it?), finally venting her pent up anger at Gold for being a control freak. And that’s another problem with the Celeb version. You just don’t see the winding up process because they’ve had to boil everything down to an hour. As far as I was concerned, Jacqueline just had a few comments to make about the logo and the decor of the shop. Fair enough; she was team leader and had the most experience.

Now on to Lemsip Opratt vs Hardeep. The only times I’ve seen Hardeep was when he did a very unfunny ‘comedy’ sketch about poker, in his reports for The One Show and an occasional documentary. I find him hugely unfunny (mainly because he thinks he’s sooooo hilarious) and very very annoying. His “It’s my japati and I’ll cry if I want to,” one-liner said it all really. Likewise, Lemsip comes across as being the wettest man in the world, slimey, awkward, creeping… My skin’s crawling just thinking about him. This is a guy who claims not to “have authorisation” to bargain with the Girls when he’d been appointed team leader. It’s no wonder the Lib Dems never win anything (nor ever will if they have people like him as their poster boy). In the end I had to side with Hardeep. Yes, Hardeep was being an attention-seeking prick, but Lemsip couldn’t lead an army of lemmings.

Did anyone catch his painfully embarrassing call to his ‘girlfriend’ one-of-the-Cheeky-Girls? I think it’s very clear she’s not actually his girlfriend, isn’t it? Seemed to me like she was treating him like some deranged fan or stalker. Oh, and his, “You’re like a Tic-Tac: you’ve given me a little lift…” to which she replied with a baffled silence. Eek!

As for who to sack, well of course the fault lies heaviest with the team leader. So it’ll be Lemsip and Hardeep in the boardroom, probably with Nick Hancock in for good measure – yes he was also in it, but you’ll be forgiven for not noticing him as he didn’t actually seem to do anything.

*****

In other news, I wonder what The Mighty Boosh make of this…

Shame they didn’t/couldn’t get the Boosh involved if that’s what they wanted to do as their marketing stretegy, as it just comes across as being a right rip off.

Also very happy about this. No cutting = good thing.

I’m so tired of the lazy way the celebrity media make nasty jibes about celeb fashion and beauty mistakes. “Ha ha! Look at her black bra under a white top!” “OMG!!! Her tit tape is showing!!!!” *yawn* Everyone makes mistakes, has moments of “I don’t know what to wear” madness or the odd skirt-tucked-into-knickers mishap. It’s mortifying enough to realise it’s happened without having to see it in print by people who are most probably less well-dressed and lead such dull lives they have to spend it trawling a paparazzi archive of fashion blunders and then bitching about it.
I’m not a Celen Dion fan, but I think she looks great for her age and besides, I doubt any of those who attended her gig could see her face that clearly as she “strutted” during the gig, let alone the (very fine, blonde) hairs on her legs.

And anyway, the Mail article is factually inaccurate (what a surprise!), as she clearly *hasn’t* forgotten to wax her legs – her legs are smooth from the knees down (which is known in the trade as a half-leg wax).

Ms Dion (like 95% of women out there*** I’d be willing to bet) has such fine hair on her thighs that she doesn’t see the point (or expense) in removing them because no one can notice anyway. Not until, that is, you shine a massive, bright light on them, shoot it in close up and then print it in a woman-hating, factually inaccurate, slow-news-day piece of crap.

Who gives a shit? Really?

***Incidentally, any one out there who *does* bother to shave/wax/whatever above their mid thighs, please get in touch.

Oh dear. Not a good week for ITV, eh? First Michael Grade tries to put a brave face on ITV’s 35% loss in revenue by claiming that it’s viewing figures have gone up, then his new hope, Rock Rivals fails dismally in the viewing stakes, pulling in only 3.9 million – beaten by a repeat of Traffic Cops on the Beeb and a repeat of Grand Designs on Ch4. How embarrassing.

But it does make me feel a lot better about the Great British Public™ – perhaps we do have taste after all (although watching a mille-second of Loose Women on my day off today challenges that somewhat).

No, good on us for not allowing ITV to get away with a rip-off of a TV programme that’s now best known for literally ripping its viewers off. Why bother watching a drama of a show about voting for the winner of a talent contest when you can tune into X Factor, which we all (now) know is dramatically engineered by its producers? It’s bad enough anyway that X Factor seems to go on for about half the year anyway, without this dross clogging up the rest of the time. And what makes matters worse is that “Rock Rivals is part of ITV’s bid to claw back some cash in the wake of the phone-in scandals.” So they’re not even trying to hide the fact that Rock Rivals, was meant to claw back money from the same people who got ripped off by X Factor.

Whoever agreed for this to be made needs to be fired forthwith. How patronising, how arrogant of them to think that X Factor viewers would be so moronic as to lap this shite up (as yes, they are morons, but perhaps not as moronic as we may have first thought, even if they did vote for that little Scottish gimp last year). ITV are clearly not on their viewers’ wavelength. They have such disregard for them as consumers that they think this kind of lazy production is acceptable. It’s feckin not and I’m offended and angry to think that they can’t see that – or worse, that they can but they just don’t care.

It’s no wonder quality American dramas like *takes deep breath* Dexter, Damages, Ugly Betty, 24, Lost, Heroes, Brothers and Sisters, CSI, Prison Break, Desperate Housewives et al are stamping all over our British Dramas (with the exception of Dr Who and LoM). This where viewing figures will continue to go if TV execs continue to treat us like monkeys. And it’ll be precisely what they deserve.

]]> http://r0ck3r.wordpress.com/2008/03/07/itv-think-were-the-arseholes/feed/ 0 r0ck3r rock460.jpg http://r0ck3r.wordpress.com/2008/03/06/take-our-hearts-outside-leave-our-lives-behind-and-watch-the-stars-go-out/ http://r0ck3r.wordpress.com/2008/03/06/take-our-hearts-outside-leave-our-lives-behind-and-watch-the-stars-go-out/#comments Thu, 06 Mar 2008 18:18:04 +0000 r0ck3r http://bmtv.wordpress.com/?p=499 ]]>

As my ex-collegues on Future Music magazine will testify, I’m not really that into music*. My tastes tend to centre around mid-to-late 80s pop and 90s dance (there are some more recent numbers that you might find me bopping to but I’m a creature of habit and I fear change) and I don’t tend to buy music unless I love every single song on the album (and I own far too many ‘Best Ofs’ than is healthy). I don’t read NME, I don’t read everything I can about a band, buy biographies, or random EPs they made before they were signed.

But listening to this little ditty on my way home is proof that you don’t need to have every’worthy’ album out there – or have liked such and such even before they went mainstream – to appreaciate a damned good song.

Just listen to Sarah’s creamy vocals, the swirly twinkles (of stars) and the oh-so-emotive chorus. Just lovely. Makes me feel all warm and snuggly. And safe. I’ve had the priveledge to work with Dubstar song-writer Steve Hillier (he’s the bald one with the dog) on my time at FM, and I don’t mind being terribly un-professional by writing this gushing post (although I’m sorry if I’ve embarrassed him!).

This is what I try and remember the 90s as being like. Those were the days…

PS Those who want to know what Sarah Blackwood is doing now…

*This was actually an in-joke. I don’t mind music, really, I just prefer TV and films.

Can you tell I’m simply bursting with fruit flavour?

“[Viewers will] also get an insight into their home life as All Star Mr & Mrs takes a trip around each of the couples homes.” No. Please. Stop. Stop the excitement I can’t take it.

And which A-list couples are due to make an appearance? Brad ‘n’ Ange? Michael ‘n’ Catherine? Er… Anthony Head and partner Sarah; Christopher Biggins and partner Neil; Kerry Katona and husband Mark Croft; Vic Reeves and Nancy Sorrell; Lembit Opik and Cheeky Girl Gabriela Irimia; Laurence and Jackie Llewelyn Bowen; and Vicky Entwistle and partner Andy Chapman.

Aside from the fact that most of the ‘contestants’ aren’t even a Mr or a Mrs (but hey, who am I to argue semantics in this day and age), do we forget how terrible the format seemed in the 90s with Julian Clary? It was a total flop (insert Clary-style raised eyebrow here). This is going to be even worse.

Instead of ‘normal’ everyday couples who clearly love each other, we’ll be forced to trail the revolting Katona and her fame-hungry ‘husband’ as they show us around their gaudy estate; watch as creepy MP Opik paws over his anorexic, man-in-drag lover; gag as the floppy-haired Llewelyn Bowens try to cover up the fact that Mrs LB has a MASSIVE BEARD ON HER FACE all the while wondering who Entwhistle is.

BMTV’s ironic trivia of the week…
The show’s original theme tune had the lyrics: “Mr and Mrs, Be nice to each other, Mr and Mrs, We’ve got to love one another.” Lyricists Tony Hatch and Jackie Trent divorced soon after writing the song.

Call me biased, but I’d like everyone to head over here and listen to the wondrousness of The Conscripts (featuring the fantabulous musical delights of my brother). Yes, nepotism, nepotism, but as I told one mate just before their Bath gig last Friday, I’d still like them if he weren’t in the band… in fact, I’d maybe like them slightly more (ho ho).

Hadn’t seen the band since their triumphant outdoor gig for the Bath Music Festival last summer. So was gagging for a great night of shimmying whilst all the while being rather smug that “My brother’s in the band, doncha know?”But obviously things never go as smoothly as you’d like – some fecker decided to swoop in and steal my brother’s laptop (and with it all his samples) as they were setting up, meaning he couldn’t play. Gutting.

After a quick shuffle around and an editing of the playlist, the band soldiered (fnar) on and they still rocked the kazbar (albeit with a Dan-shaped hole). I did feel terrible though – they’ve played in some dodgy places before but it’s not until they get to genteel Bath that they have a laptop stolen. Plus it was on my home turf and I felt like Bath hadn’t shown them the best of times to say the least.

But hey ho. They’ve a gig in Bristol this month and hopefully they’ll have resolved their laptop and sample issues by then. I’m planning on heading over there to cheer and whoop and show them that the West is er… best. Who’s with me?