butane and plastic bags

The links run down;

I've been off-colour and not-blogging, apologies; here's a bunch of TV things quickly that bear further investigation.

- courtesy of Adam Bowie's weblog, news that Adam Curtis's peerless The Power of Nightmares is being edited into a two and a half hour film to be shown at Cannes. The idea that this might lead to showings in cinemas across the US is very welcome.

- There must have been a few sighs of relief at the BBC when Michael Palin revealed that - contrary to rumours - he's not stepping down in his role of chief traveller for the BBC, and will be doing another trip once he's had a year of putting his feet up, which is I think quite reasonable given all the strolling about in the service of good telly he's done previously.

Palin's news, then, might come as a slight blow to Simon Reeve, whose programme, 'Holidays in the Danger Zone' - his pitch for the Palin role - looks pretty ace. There's an interesting article about it in the Guardian, which you can read here:

The Guardian: Welcome to Nowhere.

So this means that it's just David Attenborough that needs replacing, then. I thought last week's candidate, Steve Leonard, who was the dashing and rather manic host of the new 'Journey of Life', was a million times better than Alan Titchmarsh, although he was infuriatingly keen to fill every frame with some exciting movement of his own - a natural history presenter emerging from the sea, dashing in a swimsuit? Whatever next? Hard to imagine the beeb getting Attenborough to produce his own Ursula Andress moment

- While we're on the subject of cult TV - I enjoyed 'Dr Who' a lot this week. Apart from the first ten minutes of the first episode, I think it's been crap so far (although I never watched the show the first however-many-times round).

Anyway, last week's episode, which told of alien space-weapons ready to be 'deployed in 45 seconds', was ace. Not sure I think much of Christopher Ecclestone though - it seems to me that you've got a continuity problem if you have a Doctor who is gung-go and excitable in the face of annhilation, blithe in his dismissal of humanity as 'just getting started' and relatively without fear - and yet is asked to make a sudden emotional speech about his fears of losing Rose. This was the first time Ecclestone has really had to act since the first episode and - although capably executed - was confusing when you compare it to his portrayal the rest of the time. Too much inane grinning kind of undermines the serious moments. Still - a very funny episode, farting gags excepted.

- last thing - tonight; do I watch Question Time with those two tory blokes and Charles Kennedy, or Supersize Me??? Advice appreciated.


Enough TV. Just had an email from funnyman and labour campaigner John O'Farrell, entitled 'Vote Labour or the hamster gets it'. Fucking idiot - it'll take a bit more than that to convince me. A bit more than this, even, although it's fairly persuasive:

Polly Toynbee's Guardian column from yesterday - worth reading.