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glenatronWe have just watched the new Dr Who. Absolutely great. Exactly what I pay my licence fee for. I'm sure a bunch of people will find something to whinge about, but anyone who does is a compulsive whinger and should dedicate five minutes to thinking about something positive instead. I loved it.
It is a good day for something quirky, entertaining and uniquely british to begin, seeing as we are a year to the day since the last radio performance of messrs Riley and Radcliffe, which can broadly be thought of as the day that Radio 1 died. They still have Jo Whiley (and surely she's too good to last) but Colin Murray, who is half of the afternoon team since Mark and Lard quit is such a smug, self-aggrandising, irritating twat that even thinking about him fills me with intense rage. For anyone who enjoyed their Graveyard Shift many years ago, you may find that Mark Radcliffe's radio 2 show is much the same, although more likely to feature Noddy Holder...
On a totally different subject (but appropriate to
life_of_tom's theme of LJ for ranting) anyone who is thinking about voting in the next election should bear in mind that the Conservative leader, in addition to being a repugnant, opportunistic, point-scoring, immoral rat of a man has a proven track record of deliberately lying to the british people. The mechanism by which he did this (or a mechanism - I'm sure he used many others ) is that when he was Home Secretary he refused to allow any changes to the systems by which crime is recorded. He knew perfectly well that if much-needed changes were made to the recording systems, the number of crimes that were recorded would increase and that people would think crime was on the increase. This is because journalists don't know the difference between a number and something real. Instead, when Labour instituted the necessary changes he immediately jumped on the changes in the figures to claim that society was collapsing under labour. This is not the case- crime levels have hardly changed at all in the last 30 years - but if all the reported crimes are recorded when previously only the ones the police could be bothered to take a note of were recorded then it will look as though crime levels are higher. Similar is his incredibly irritating claim that the British Crime Survey is flawed because it doesn't include murder. To keep it separate from police statistics the BCS is a survey of victims of crime. To get murder victims to participate you would have to be some kind of vile creature of necromancy. Come to think of it, maybe that is somewhere that Howard could make a difference.
It is a good day for something quirky, entertaining and uniquely british to begin, seeing as we are a year to the day since the last radio performance of messrs Riley and Radcliffe, which can broadly be thought of as the day that Radio 1 died. They still have Jo Whiley (and surely she's too good to last) but Colin Murray, who is half of the afternoon team since Mark and Lard quit is such a smug, self-aggrandising, irritating twat that even thinking about him fills me with intense rage. For anyone who enjoyed their Graveyard Shift many years ago, you may find that Mark Radcliffe's radio 2 show is much the same, although more likely to feature Noddy Holder...
On a totally different subject (but appropriate to
life_of_tom's theme of LJ for ranting) anyone who is thinking about voting in the next election should bear in mind that the Conservative leader, in addition to being a repugnant, opportunistic, point-scoring, immoral rat of a man has a proven track record of deliberately lying to the british people. The mechanism by which he did this (or a mechanism - I'm sure he used many others ) is that when he was Home Secretary he refused to allow any changes to the systems by which crime is recorded. He knew perfectly well that if much-needed changes were made to the recording systems, the number of crimes that were recorded would increase and that people would think crime was on the increase. This is because journalists don't know the difference between a number and something real. Instead, when Labour instituted the necessary changes he immediately jumped on the changes in the figures to claim that society was collapsing under labour. This is not the case- crime levels have hardly changed at all in the last 30 years - but if all the reported crimes are recorded when previously only the ones the police could be bothered to take a note of were recorded then it will look as though crime levels are higher. Similar is his incredibly irritating claim that the British Crime Survey is flawed because it doesn't include murder. To keep it separate from police statistics the BCS is a survey of victims of crime. To get murder victims to participate you would have to be some kind of vile creature of necromancy. Come to think of it, maybe that is somewhere that Howard could make a difference.![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 27 Mar 2005 04:39 (UTC)Cunt.
I don't use that word lightly. and you could probably write some fairly interesting article on why it's a disgrace that that word is seen as the worst thing you can call someone, and it's probably rather unfair to women that I'm calling him something female, but there you go. I find it staggering that people have forgotten exactly how much of a victorian he was when he was home secretary. It's staggering that people think David Blunkett was one of the most reactionary individuals to fill that post. I'm rather unimpressed by his latest spate of gyppo-bashing. soemthing that seems to have been overlooked in the debate about traveller sites is that he was the Home Secretary who got rid of a huge number of traveller sites, which, if you are unable to actually get rid of the travellers concerned (something which even he couldn't quite get away with in '90s britain), all that is going to do is make things worse, and make it more likely that travellers will spend time on unauthorised sites.
it's interesting, too, to note that all of a sudden he is now in favour of all rights for those lovely homosexual people, when previously he was a major advocate of that bill banning 'the promotion of homosexuality', whatever that is. Strangely, now society is a bit more tolerant, Howard's all for it. He's done this a lot in other areas, too; he gave an interview to the Big Issue, and made all the right noises about the plight of the homeless, when previously he'd just wanted them out of the way. for all my cynicism regarding the present government, I shudder when I think of the alternative, I really do.
and relax.
How good was Doctor Who? There was a malevolant Wheelie Bin! And a sonic screwdriver! And a grinning plastic Auton man who'll have terrified children across the country! And, what's more, the Auton invasion happened round the corner from where I work (Queen's arcade is in the main street in Cardiff, and the shops that had explosions happen to them can be seen from the windows of my office), how brilliant! the only thing I didn't like was the soundtrack, which was trying just a little too hard to be modern, but to quibble about something like that is a bit like complaining about the wrapping paper on the best christmas present ever.
I can't help but thinking it'll raise the bar on British TV, as well. there's an intelligence in this, and a willingness on the part of the BBC to put it up against lowest common denominator junk on a saturday night. I'm heartened to note that that twat Graham Norton and his stupid fucking lazy dancing program for stupid people to watch got displaced for this. It makes a statement, I think, about what the BBC stands for; Intelligence and originality.
Of course, some people could argue that this revival of an old show is part of a wider pattern of reguritating ideas from a supposed Golden age, and in some ways as conservative as bringing back Dad's Army. But they can get to fuck...
re. Dr Who
Date: 27 Mar 2005 07:25 (UTC)