Green Wing ready

After a Channel 4 build-up that would make even The IT Crowd jealous, Green Wing returned this evening. My experience of watching it has been retropsectively tainted by what happened to one of our cats almost immediately afterwards (more news on that when we know what's happening), but I'll try to be objective about the programme.

I loved the first series, pretty much from note one. The speeded-up-slowed-down camerawork never irritated or distracted me, as it did some people, indeed it struck me as emblematic of the show's storming self-confidence and willingness to bend the rules. The hour long episodes much surely create as many headaches for the writers as opportunities, but I've never sat through one thinking, "They're padding this one out a bit." At the end of the day, an eight-episode run is the equivalent of 16 half-hour sitcoms, and we're banging our heads on the wall trying to write six. So all credit to the invention of the writers, led by Victoria Pile, and the fluidity of the direction by Dominic Brigstocke, but let's be honest, the genius is in the performances.

It's a kind of forced naturalism that's become the norm in British TV comedy, from The Office and People Like Us to Man Stroke Woman and The Thick Of It, but that said, Green Wing's lithe and unfettered cast take it to a bendy, stuttering new level. I am particularly fond of Michelle Gomez as Sue White, who seems to be operating within a spin-off programme all of her own, Stephen Mangan as Guy Secretan, who delights in every act of oily arrogance, and Mark Heap as Dr Statham, who has found the perfect outlet for his twitchy Englishness. This first episode, over-dominated by the coma of Dr McCartney and his hallucinations (although you had to love the Star Trek bit), gave everyone plenty to do, and its killer moment occured, as they so often casually do, in the HR office, where everyone was mimicking the pregnant actions of Harriett (Olivia Colman). Top quality clowning.

I have every confidence that Episode Two will be better. I'm in for the series.

Can I just get this off my chest?

Where's the bloody apostrophe? I can just about cope with the band not knowing how to punctuate (they are, after all, pretenders to the Oasis throne, whose titles include Round Are Way and Standing On The Shoulder Of Giants), or the desinger of the sleeve, who's probably in his twenties and thus a victim of the decline of comprehensive education during Thatcherism, but nobody at any stage of the production of the artwork?

Let's assume the title means a law of nature, a law belonging to nature - then it's Nature's Law. If it's a law belonging to many natures, it's Natures' Law. But it's only Natures Law if it's a law pertaining to, but not belonging to, a number of natures (ie. if it was a law pertaining to onions, it might be Onions Law). The lyric runs: "You should never fight your feelings/When your very bones believe them/You should never fight your feelings/You have to follow nature's law."

I rest my case, and weep for the future of mankind.

The Apprentice: Week Six

[SPOILER ALERT! Blah blah blah . . .]

At last. She's gone. It was a close-run thing, in that it wasn't clear until the final weigh-in which team had made the most commission selling used cars in Slough, and I had money, as it were, on Sharon's shambolic team being kept behind. But thanks to shifting more Ribena-proof upholstery treatments, they pipped Ansell's team by over a hundred quid and were sent down the Thames on a casino boat to stuff their faces and have a steaming, stand-up row over something Syed said to Michelle about what Paul had said about Sharon, I think. Meanwhile, Ansell dragged Jo and Samuel back in so that the world could breathe a huge sigh of relief that's been building up like gas these past six weeks. Ding dong! Jo is dead! ("I'll stay a good person," she blubbed, inevitably, in the cab home, deluded to the end.)

We saw some sights along the way tonight. Ruth pulling one out of the hat and doing what can only be described as a damn good job. Syed getting a "bollocking", which he called a "consultation" (remember that one) for what can only be described as lying to a customer while qualifying a potential sale. His family are originally from Bangladesh, by the way, and he worked his way up from nothing, you know. Jo "taking it on the chin" for leaving the word "SOLD" scrawled across the windscreen of a car that was "ACTUALLY NOT SOLD" for four hours. Seeing her actually chasing customers away with her brand of Coventry-accented hysteria. Sharon, the spiritual sackee, who knew nothing about cars, or, apparently, about when and when not to call someone away for an important meeting ie. when he's actually seconds away from closing a deal.

Jo deserved to go. We have seen enough of that vacant, toothy, corpse-like grin, and heard enough of her yapping about being too much "competition" for the rest. Ruth has redeemed herself. Paul is sliding down in my estimation: too much testosterone, too much self-belief ("I will be the best"). Sir Alan was on top form, speaking sarcastically of the "Jo Fan Club" and, with regards to the MG Rover part of her CV, muttering, "No wonder they went bloody skint."

The English language continued to take a pasting, with Michelle using the phrase, "As if magic," and Jo storming in with, "Absolutely good."

I'm fired up.



Previous reviews:
Week One
Week Two
Week Three
Week Four
Week Five

Finished!



Worth noting, I think, that I actually finished reading a book last night. In Cold Blood by Truman Capote. It was gripping and inspiring and so evocative that when I saw Capote I felt I'd been inside the Clutter house where the col-blooded murders took place. The attention to detail is now commonplace but must have felt like a whirlwind in the early 60s when it was first published.


That leaves the following books half-read:




Manhood by Australian psychologist Steve Biddulph has now moved up to be my default train read. It's about the crisis in masculinity caused by decades of feminist progress. Biddulph rightly celebrates the reversal of patriarchal society and the emancipation of women, but asks us to spare a thought for the bloke, especially post-New Man. He is, according to this book, a worthless shell, reduced to sperm donor by the advances of female sexuality and made to feel a "creep" thanks to the low, pornographic nature of the mass media. Also, deficient fathering, caused by a crisis in confidence after the pre-war industrial model collapsed, has resulted in generations of boys with no self-respect or direction, reduced to posturing and violence. He certainly doesn't excuse these actions, but he at least tries to mend the cracks by encouraging men to talk to their fathers, to appreciate that women are not always right, to address the thorny issues of lust and arousal and identify what's causing them, and so on. It's a page-turner. It was reading Oliver James' They Fuck You Up that led me down this road. I've never been that big on psychology before, but I'm being sucked in.



Guns, Germs And Steel by Jared Diamond was a recommendation Steve Punt made to me at Christmas. He sold it well. It's a thick one, but then it is a history of humankind, with particular reference to why certain societies developed at different speeds to others, putting the Europeans in a position to go and exploit South America, Africa etc.






Big Pharma by Jacky Law promised much, but isn't delivering. It's a fascinating area - how the pharmaceutical companies are making us all ill - and it appeals to the health conspiracy theorist in me, but this book needs such a major edit. It's bitty and all over the place; it lacks a through-line. The sentiment and the research are there, but it's not gripping me, and it should be, which is why it keeps getting pushed to the bottom of the pile.



Hitler by Ian Kershaw. Let's just say I'm always reading this. I haven't dipped in for a while, and I feel disloyal about that, as I've loved it so far, but I will return. (I managed Simon Sebag-Montifiore's Stalin: The Court Of The Red Tsar in one go.)

Him and his mum
A word about Tony Robinson's brave documentary Me and My Mum on Channel 4 on Monday, which we watched last night. It's part of the channel's The Trouble With Old People season, the sort of thing they do well, and, as ever, the "money shot" (and I call it this with heavy irony), where Tony cries and puts his hand up to the camera to stop filming, was repeated endelessly in trails leading up to transmission. It's clear, to the media-literate among us, that a programme isn't going to get better than this. And indeed, this was the most overtly emotional moment, but the film itself offered so much more than the spectacle of the bloke off of Time Team blubbing. He set out to make a documentary about our disgraceful treatment of old people in this country, both politically and personally (the government grant for those that look after their own elderly or ailing parents is minimal compared to, say, that of a foster parent, and with the ongoing pensions crisis, it's clear that no provision is being made for the future, despite longer life expectancy), but of course it ended up being "about love", as the director said off-camera.

Tony's mum, 89-year-old Phyllis, was in a care home, on the road to dementia but still strikingly lit up by her only son's presence and able to communicate sporadically. It was hard to watch her being lifted in and out of his car for what turned out to be her last day out - she clearly hated it, although whether it was the pain in her old bones or the fuss and indignity we can never know. Tony was conflicted about the situation. He felt guilty for doing what so many of us do: putting a parent in a home. However, his grown-up kids from his first marriage were obviously really cool with their gran and made visits themselves. (Indeed it was Tony's daughter's loving relationship with "Phyll" that broke him up for that shot.) When she developed pneumonia, wiping out her means of speaking, and Tony was advised to let her "slip away", it felt intrusive to see the family around her bedside as she died, but at the same time, it was a worthwhile spectacle to hammer home the programme's points. I had been slightly uncomfortable during the film by how many times the old people in question were spoken about as if they were not in the room. Obviously, they couldn't communicate verbally themselves, but it just felt disrespectful to talk about them while they were still there.

In the end, it was an admirable piece of television. Robinson was a warm host, really genuine with the other elderly folk he met, comforting the wife of 84-year-old John, who, after a fall, was confined to hospital, confused. He was much more communicative than Phyll, however, and asked really pertinent questions of his loving twin daughters as they lied to him ("When you're better, you're coming home"). They moved him to a nursing home and within ten days . . . he was dead. This was the actual "money shot" - the door closing on John's room, the echo of empty promises, the memory of his last question, "This isn't permanent is it?"

How can we stand by and watch our own parents and relatives end up in these waiting rooms? Home care should be subsidised for those that can't afford it. It happens to us all. Even the woman who ran Phyll's care home kept half-joking about "taking the pills" when her time came. It's not just about money, it's also about attitude. Look at the old people playing indoor bowls in Sutton in their blazers. Active, socialised, likely to live longer, happier lives. We must not abandon our parents in old age. It's up to us to keep our families together, I think, to encourage them to go on living, not hide them away, or forget about them.

I fear for Tony Robinson. Both parents died of forms of Alzheimer's. He's 59. I hope he's getting enough fish oils.

The people have spoken




Here's a cautionary tale. Last night we decided to eat out. The best Indian restaurant in South London* is currently being refurbished so we cast our net wider and I found one on a London restaurants website in Putney, with great reviews from customers. A big fan of customer reviews (very useful when booking hotels), I looked the place up on a second website, as a kind of control experiment, and the customer reviews were equally effusive. Here is a sample:

9 out of 10
The best Indian meal I have ever experienced. The originality, presentation and taste of each dish was highly commendable. Well worth a visit! ... The food was fantastic - with real real flavour not just heavily spiced foods ... The ambience and service were first class and I am looking forward already to our next visit. Flavour, soft spices, and lovely atmosphere.

10 out of 10
A real gem of a place ... A very different Indian restaurant ... soft use of spices and a great atmosphere. I do believe this is the future of Indian dining in the UK - fashionable, great music, superb food at very good prices. Do try it!

8 out of 10
The food is as good as I have tried in London ... Best Indian food south of the river!

10 out of 10
The best Indian restaurant in London.

First, it was a Sunday evening, often a slow night for restaurants, but that said, when we arrived at about 7.45pm, "the best Indian restaurant in London" was empty. It was also very bright. Too bright for my taste, but we went in anyway. After all, "flavour, soft spices, and lovely atmosphere." It's a canteen-style set-up (bench seats etc.), again, not to my taste, but it was clean and stylish and the welcome was warm. The food, however, was no more than fine. The papadoms were actually cold and a bit stale-tasting. The chutneys - only three instead of the traditonal four - were in tiny bowls. The main courses were nice, although there was way too much rice in a single portion, and the food was decidedly salty. Four other diners arrived during our stay, which didn't exactly whip up the atmosphere. At one stage, the lights were promisingly dimmed, then un-dimmed, then dimmed again, then un-dimmed, almost as if it were a light show. They ended up pretty much the same. The food came quite quickly, the staff seemed slightly disconnected from the place, as if perhaps they were minding the shop for someone else, but at least the music was loud enough to cover up the lack of merry laughter, clinking glasses and hubbub.

I'm giving it 6 out of 10. I don't know why I'm being so coy as to not name the place. It's a modern Indian canteen-style restaurant that opened last year and is very bright. It's in Putney. I don't want this to be an assassination of the place. It's not. It's a cautionary tale about so-called democratic customer-reviewed websites. How can we trust these people? Who are they? Have they actually tasted all the Indian food in London before they made their judgement? Were they sober when they posted their reviews? ("They", of course, being "us".) It's just a perfectly serviceable Indian that fancies itself a bit. I certainly prefer a more straightforward curry house. And I wish the actual restaurant that serves the "best Indian food south of the river" would hurry up and reopen!

*This is an ironic joke.

I have posted a version of this review on the second website. I hope it at least makes the expectations of future diners more realistic, that's all. Democracy in action. There is a box after the form where you write your review asking if you own or work in the restaurant you are reviewing. All you have to do is tick the box if you do. You don't even have to give a real email address to post a review. You are entirely anonymous. I'm saying nothing.

It's not a scandal. We ate some reasonable Indian food. We came home. We watched The West Wing.

Hello, new studio


Yesterday, after a lazy week off, I pressed START for the very first time, live, in the new 6 Music studio. As you can see from these pictures, it's a vast improvement on the old studio, a studio I loved for four years, but you have to turn and face the strange, and those who fear change will just get left behind. (Actually, I fear change as much as the next person.) Here's the old one, for purposes of comparion:



It was lived in, inevitably, and so dirty it had to be destroyed for health and safety reasons. On most other radio stations they have at least two live studios. At 6 Music, because we are just a little station, we have one, which is a bit like if you only had one towel. It means "handovers" are effected by the previous team getting out and the next team coming in while the last record is playing. This is particularly entertaining after Roundtable and before The Music Week, when a mass two-way exodus takes place. It's never been very graceful. Anyway, that's a lot of teams using the same studio, day in, day out, the only respite being shows from Manchester, repeats and pre-records. As a result, it was pretty grubby: worn carpet, tatty headphones, broken TV, broken webcam, worn faders. I have stated before, and I'll state again, some of the people who work at 6 Music live like students. (I was going to say pigs, but there's nothing wrong with pigs. I'd rather share a workspace with pigs.) The insanitary state of the kitchen in the old Hub - our first point of contact between 6 Music and the outside world, including famous people - was a constant source of amazement to me. These are intelligent adults with jobs at the BBC who are, for some reason, physically incapable of swilling a mug out after use, or throwing out old Marks & Spencer dips before the point at which they start moving about. (No names, no pack drill, as I have no idea who cleaned up after themselves and who expected their mum to come round and do it.) I'm not getting into that now, but the same disregard for basic human decency spread to the studio itself, with mouldy mugs and bits of food and discarded DATs and chewed pens. This is, as the Specials once sang, the dawning of a new-ew-ew-ew era.



I love the new studio. It's clean, it's big, it's ergonomically correct, it has a bigger window looking out on the control room, it has a better webcam, as I hope you can see, and the new playout system is - aside from a few bugs and a badly-conceived "search" - clear and inventive. My first Chart show went without a hitch. I was able to "seg" (segue) idents and trails into tracks without fuss, and the touch-screen jingles are a breeze. I also like the curve of the desk and the vastly adjustable chair. I also have four TVs. It makes you feel like Captain Kirk, which in so many ways you're not. But as Jerry says, "My idea of the perfect living room would be the bridge of the Starship Enterprise: big chair, nice TV, remote control."



As you can see, Leona is much further away, which slightly depersonalises the office gossip, and there is a lot more space hardware between the presenter and the rest of the world, but hey, it's a small price to pay. Ironically, the studio smelt yesterday, because Roundtable and Craig Charles had obviously had a party in there on Friday: the bins were overflowing with beer cans, wine bottles and general shit. Leona had to clear it all away and put it all in a black bin bag and put it outside (obviously something those other intelligent adults were incapable of doing).

By the way, it looks like I am swigging from a bottle of orange in the last pic. I am not. I do not drink orange, as it is believed to aggravate asthma. What it is, in fact, is a bottle of a new drink I have discoverd called Firefly. They call this one "de-tox" (which doesn't really need a hyphen), not something I am impressed by, but the drink is very refreshing: lemon, lime and ginger - it's 66% water, with fruit juices and "botanical extracts". The most important thing is that it comes in a glass bottle, which I can take home and refill with simple, filtered tapwater every day and take back out with me. I am against the bottled water industry. I am also against plastic bottles. Not all technological advance is good.

Oh, and the "coffee-making" station outside the studio has no sink. In many ways, this is infuriating, but at least it will stop people leaving mugs in it for their mums.

Happy Mother's Day
Happy Mother's Day to my mum. Here is a nice picture of her, taken in 1965 on the day of my christening.