Be Excellent To Each Other

BBC 4: Cornwall's Red River

Peaceful thirty minute stroll from the source to the sea of a river critical to understanding Cornwall's industrial past. Takes in the flora and fauna of the watercourse as well as the environmental impact of mining.

A brief escape from the troubles of the world.

Anyway, for all the things you said, tell me why does the river run red?

Twenty five years we’ve been waiting to find that out!

Anyway for all the things you've seen tell me when will the river run green

Yes, interesting. Mrs W and I stayed in Camborne for a couple of nights last summer, when visiting our ex-neighours who moved to Redruth about 18 months ago. I saw a few of the derelict mine buildings as we travelled around, but like most other people, neither saw nor was aware of the red river.

Watched the last episode of Trigger Point last night.

It was crap.

Watch the curse! Period crime caper by the people just do nothing crew, it's excellent!

We’ve been watching a couple of the Harlan Coben drama/mysteries on Netflix. The two we’ve watched both star Davpaz.

10/10, excellent Davpaz-ing by Richard Armitage, especially in The Stranger.

Overall 8/10. Solid mystery. Great performances in the whole, especially by the younger kid in The Stranger.

Hang on, I don't remember starring in any Netflix dramas!

You’re in at least two!

I don’t know if anyone else sees it, but the actor really reminds me of you. Maybe not so much in his portfolio head shots, but when he’s actually acting he really does look like you (I think).

You think Richard Armitage looks like Davpaz?

I really can't see that (and I think everyone looks like everyone)

I do! I don’t know why, but it just makes me think of him

Maybe on a good day... 15 years ago... from a distance... in a really dark room...

I do think mostly of you as the you from ten years ago when we went to the zoo, but I think you’re probably the same age/younger than him so it’s not because you were younger then.

hmmm,

I can actually see that in those shots!

In my mind He still looks like he does in Robin Hood, Spooks or The Hobbit

He's 9 years older than me

But thankyou. I'll take it as a compliment and move on

I said ‘or younger than’

Anyone over the age of 25 is ‘about 43 years old’ to me, until they reach about 60.

I don’t think I’ve seen/known him in any of those things. I mean, I’ve seen The Hobbit film, but didn’t know who he was in it.

Ok, I’ve just googled it and yeah, that’s a different look

BBC 2 : Banned! The Mary Whitehouse Story

Fascinating portrait of one of the most prominent campaigners and pantomime villains of post-war Britain. Interesting to see how she created the image of the ordinary housewife despite being a strident activist throughout her life.

It makes good use of archive clips, marred only by unnecessary recreated shots of the back of her head watching something she disapproves or of her hands at the typewriter.

Disappointingly. the show makes no effort to uncover what particular show she claimed to have watched at 6:30 one Thursday evening, despite that being one of her most memorable speeches. I also felt the "but perhaps she was right" aspect felt a bit tacked on, unless they explore this further in part two.

We watched episode 1.

Then gave up on it. I seem to be doing this a lot on recent dramas.

One episode in , and series two of Bridgerton is off to a flier.

We're on ep5 tonight I think, enjoying a nightly dose of posh birds.

I think I'm going to give that a miss as well.

Maybe I should just stop watching TV altogether.

The milky-milky character made me laugh back then, but I'm not sure how funny it would be to me now.

Mentioning Jupiter's Legacy in the movie thread - we started Guardians of Justice the other day. It's also "I'm not Marvel but want to make a superhero show anyway" but done well. Part Watchmen, part Scott Pilgrim, part Spaced.

I'm pretty sure it's got Diamond Dallas Page as the lead too.

I think it's great anyway - I'll be watching the rest of it on my own

Bridgerton Series 2: bloody excellent, and a great final episode.

Brilliant episode of Taskmaster this week. Really warming to the cast, none of whom (with the exception of Father Dougal) have I come across before.

Highlights were the prize task, the annoying round, and the cones.

A bit taken aback by the content warning at the start, with the announcer warning that it had been filmed before the war in Ukraine, so naturally I watched with increase interest as to what that might have been.

I missed the first two minutes of this, so didn't see the content warning.



I loved Bridgette Christie before, and she is amazing in this series, and completely stole the episode. I had recently been introduced to Sophie Duker about a year ago, and quite like her humour and am also liking her in this.

Ardal O'Hanlan seems to be quite competitive in the studio and wants to find holes in everyone else's achievements, which is unexpectedly funny. Not really seen the other two before, I don't think I'll be actively seeking out their stuff, but they both have their moments.

Ncuti Gatwa is the new Doctor Who. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-61371123
Only seen him in Sex Education but he's very good in that.

Oh, he’s great in Sex Education. I hope they make it good again. I always want to watch but I just find it boring.

Russel T Davies is taking over running it again, so it has a chance of being pretty great. Here's hoping

To be honest, I don’t necessarily like the good ones. I just like some Doctors, and not some others, and the knew I do like aren’t the most popular Sylvester McCoy and the recent one with the big ears who liked fish fingers and custard.

Edit: Googled it: Matt Smith.

Channel 5 - The Chernobyl Disaster (Pt1). If the story told here is to be believed, it wasn't an accident, it was an avoidable fuck-up caused by incompetence and poor management. I nearly had to give up on it as narrator Ben Fogle referred to 'nucular' power for the first half, but perhaps someone told him to change to 'nuclear' part way through.

Yeah, it was incompetence, poor decision making and a non-trivial amount of hubris that was the primary cause of the disaster.

Although it takes some liberties with the history and people involved, the HBO Chernobyl miniseries is very good.

Thanks to the licence fee freeze, the ailing BBC 4 is being put out of its misery. A real shame, but after multiple budget cuts its glory days past years ago.

Torn about closing CBBC as a linear broadcast channel. I understand the majority of their audience might be online now, but as a public service children's programming should be easily available to those without suitable connections.

I'd missed this. Both enormous losses. CBBC was an immense force for sanity both during lockdown and either side of it.

And I must confess, there has been little on bbc4 that has grabbed me for a while, but it was a comfort knowing it was there

And I must confess, there has been little on bbc4 that has grabbed me for a while, but it was a comfort knowing it was there

Yes I agree, it something that should be there; even if at some point I won't be needing it - others will benefit hugely from it.

However there's also that little whiny voice in my head saying 'in our day, kids TV ran from 3pm to 5.30pm (and then Neighbours was on)'

We started watching Prehistoric Planet (Apple TV) and it is GLORIOUS. It’s just so beautifully made, and obviously David Attenborough narrating just knocks it into being perfect. I’m not sure if it’s available on any other services but I’d say it was worth subscribing to AppleTV for a month just to watch it, or look for a trial somewhere.

I wish it were on the BBC for all to see. It’s really beautiful. A ‘Walking With Dinosaurs’ for 2022 and beyond.

Who's been watching The Outlaws on BBC? You all need to watch the last episode, where you'll get to see the lovely Mrs Squirt give a pivotal performance as "person at fete". Some other actors do some other stuff as well.

I'm looking forward to being part of the club who has seen every film Mrs Squirt has been in. You'll have to get her an IMDb entry now!

In this case you'll absolutely want to watch "The Undeclared War', coming soon to Channel 4, where she plays the vital part of "office worker".

Big recommend for this on iPlayer. I decided to watch it because I realised there was a gap in my knowledge when it came to AIDS and the original outbreak in the UK. I do remember the scary adverts on telly and suchlike, but didn't know particularly the facts around it, and I was young at the time.

This is three episodes of an hour each, starting in 1981 when the disease was brought over to the UK from the USA, going all the way through to 1996.

The main narrative device (as per the title) is they found a load of audio tapes that had interviews with AIDS sufferers from back in the 80s on them. They play the interviews back but have a contemporary actor do lip-syncing to the tape. The people whose voices you hear are dead.

They also have contemporary interviews with people who were there at the time, doctors, nurses, researchers, the people who set up the Terrence Higgins trust, that sort of thing.

Honestly, it's pretty much two and three quarter hours of heartbreak, until finally, towards the end of the final episode which takes us to 1996, the scientists discovered the combination of drugs that could keep AIDS at bay indefinitely, which whilst not technically a 'cure', suppresses the virus to such an extent that even those who are HIV positive can lead entirely normal lives, including having unprotected sex (and not pass the virus on).

There's much to get annoyed about, like the vile, disgusting way the gay community was vilified and demonised, particularly by the gutter press, but against that backdrop the strength and courage of those at the epicentre is something to be hugely admired.

SPOILER ALERT - Towards the back end of the third episode, I'd been used to seeing text on screen along the lines of 'David died in 1986, three years after he recorded this interview', time and time again, you're hearing the voices of people who died horrible deaths in their twenties and thirties. (I didn't realise quite how cruelly varied AIDS could be in terms of its devastation, for example there were young men in their twenties, dying with advanced dementia, who didn't even recognise their partners as they slipped away.)

So another interview came to an end, and I was waiting for the text that read 'Mark died in 1987.... etc', but instead the screen fades to black, and then as it fades back up, Mark walks into shot and sits down, he's still alive, he lived long enough for the treatment to be made available in 1996, and he finishes off his story in person.

Then it does this for another two or three people, and you're so used to everyone being dead, just seeing that some of them made it and are still alive is a blessed relief.

It's not easiest of watches, but I'm glad I gave it three hours of my time, and I feel I understand something now that I didn't before.

Oh, I watched the whole series over the weekend. It didn't quite live up to my expectations, quite a few elements were never explored or explained properly, and the end was rather inconclusive, but other than that Mrs. Squirt was great.

BBC 1: The Real Mo Farah

Very moving account of Mo Farah's early life.