I found it very odd that Antiques Roadshow and Mythbusters were nominated for the reality TV category at the Emmy Awards. Based on the vocabulary I grew up with, these are not ‘reality TV’. I doubt many of us over a certain age would think of The Gong Show or New Zealand’s Top Town […]
Category: UK
Posts relating to the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, and to her territories.
Bingo! Merry Christmas!
Here’s a Christmas treat, an hour in to Christmas Day in New Zealand. Bing Crosby’s Merrie Olde Christmas, filmed in 1977 33 days before the crooner’s passing, featured a duet between Bingo and David Bowie. Taped on September 11, 1977, the special aired after Crosby’s death, on November 30. The set is supposedly the […]
Starting Upstairs, Downstairs this weekend
I know I did this on November 23 on my Tumblr, but I have to share this joke with the Ashes to Ashes fans out there. Will the opening of Upstairs, Downstairs on Boxing Day on BBC1 (at 9 p.m.) begin with the Alexander Faris theme tune (see also below), or will Keeley Hawes […]
Giving a toss about web hosting: Americans 2, Brits 0
© Generally, I turn a blind eye to people who use thumbnails of our work or take an excerpt from an article and link the rest to us. Pity, then, that so many of these sites are splogs, but at least they stop short of outright piracy. It’s when someone takes an entire article, […]
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A new Eric and Ernie clip
I wonder if I should get part of the Broadcasting Fee, the way I promote the BBC. I like real-life dramas, particularly about recent history. BBC2’s Eric and Ernie, to be shown on January 1 at 9 p.m., looks very good. A new clip came out on YouTube 12 hours ago. The earlier […]
BBC drama, this autumn and winter
Don’t know how I could have missed this. Oh, yes I do: I was running for office. Now that I’m not, I want to give the BBC a bit of a push, because these dramas look awesome. Aurelio Zen, with Rufus Sewell, looks like my sort of drama, and begins the first week of […]
Johnny Foreigner might be better at running a car company in Shanghai
As I made links for the last post, I noticed there were a lot of comments on AROnline about the replacement for the Roewe 750, the Chinese car that is based on the old Rover 75. The replacement will be on the Opel Insignia platform, owned by GM. It’s been followed by a lot […]
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Roy Axe gives a sincere look at his career
Keith Adams is well known to many motorheads out there. We probably encountered him initially at his excellent AROnline, formerly The Unofficial Austin–Rover Resource. More recently, some of us have got to know Keith as a writer for Octane, where his well researched articles remind me of some of the best motoring journalists’ work. They […]
The Julian Assange affair looks like a Smith and Jones gag
In the news: Julian Assange. While the prosecutor in Sweden is denying it, the lesson here seems to be: publish a Wikileak naming anti-Taliban Afghan sources and risk getting them killed, and nothing happens to you. Publish a Wikileak embarrassing the United States, and get the whole media talking, while you’re charged with rape. […]
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Yay for Paul Henry!
During the Paul Henry débâcle, I was surprised to find that I had friends who joined the pro-Henry groups on Facebook. This included friends whom I thought were cosmopolitan and internationally minded. It dawned on me that they were probably supporting the first Paul Henry who many of us encountered, when we were watching the […]