Paddy: what happened next
Paddy the kitten has been re-homed. It was a difficult decision for us, but one that had to be made. His relationship with Pepper worsened last week. She started attacking him. As we'd only got him in the first place to cheer Pepper up after Chilli, it started to feel counterproductive, especially as he was such a bundle of optimistic, friendly joy. To see his advances knocked back, literally, so often and with such repetition, was becoming painful to witness. We started to worry that Pepper's aggression was not only damaging to his spirit and joie de vivre but was actually becoming physically dangerous to him. We worried that we might come home and find him badly injured, and decided that something had to be done before a) he got too old to re-home (we all know that a ten-week-old kitten is easier to place than, say, a six-month-old young cat), and b) before Pepper left home and didn't come back, feeling usurped and unloved. Paddy's demands for lap-time of an evening, pushing Pepper out of her rightful throne without meaning to, only served to heighten her aggression. We couldn't very well confine him to his room again after showing him the freedom of the house. So we made that call.

He went to a lovely re-homing charity near us, where he was immediately among other boisterous, jolly kittens (two of them) and puppies. Much more like the house he was born into than ours. We agreed that if we kept him any longer we would get too attached and would be unable to let him go. It was hard saying goodbye, but having only had him for a couple of weeks, it was bearable for the greater good. Pepper cheered up as soon as she was convinced he wasn't coming back. We missed Paddy, but it was heartwarming to see (and hear) Pepper being her old self. And I mean her old self before Chilli. She quickly reclaimed her old stamping grounds, and her tail was back up, like a dodgem car. She moved about the house like she owned it, which she does, and always did. It sounds harsh, but our experiment had failed. We did what we did in the best of faith. We wanted to stop her from being lonely. (Even though we enjoyed Paddy, he was never a vanity project for us. We missed Chilli, and still do, but his role was not to fill a gap in our lives, but to improve the vibes of a ten-year-old cat who'd never lived alone, in cat terms.)

The tale becomes even more cautionary though, and on a different level. We gave a donation to the re-homing place, and passed on all of Paddy's paraphernalia and spare food - "posh pouches" as the lady at the charity called them! - and, having spent a happy first night there with his new, responsive pals, he was chosen by a family with young children, looking for a kitten. Paddy was re-homed in record time! This made us feel much better about the upheaval we had inadvertantly caused him. But . . . we had a call the following day from the cat charity lady that was unwelcome. The family had taken Paddy home, but he had become listless and wouldn't eat. They took him to the vet, who found an ulcer on his tongue (hence the lack of appetite). The vet panicked, worried that it might be a rare but recurrent virus, and his new family started to talk about returning him. He was put on a drip to make up for the food he wasn't eating (poor lad!) and was to be given tests for these crazy-named viruses, one of which was a cat flu. All of a sudden, it looked as if Paddy had gone downhill.

Our considered guess (and one of us is a qualified nutritionist) was that the ulcer was simply a reaction to the stress of moving house, aggravated by a change in food. We had fed him on "posh pouches", which are 70 per cent meat, and no cereal. At the re-homing place, for reasons of economy and practicality, he will have been put onto regular, cereal-heavy cat food. Not a problem if that's all he'd ever eaten, but a shock to the system after nearly all meat, sufficient to give him a reaction. (I don't eat wheat. If I do, I can guarantee I'll get a mouth ulcer. It doesn't take a professional to join the dots.) Also, and this is a real bugbear in our house, the minute he arrived at the re-homing place, he was given a worming tablet and vaccinated. Imagine all of that, combined with the dietary switch from good to bad, on the system of a tiny, ten-week-old boy. No wonder his immune system went into freefall. Obviously, it's indiscreet to say any of this to the nice re-homing lady, as she is a saint in many ways, like all who work for animal charities, and her heart is in the right place, but unless you question conventional medicine - the medicine of intervention - you might not see the potential pitfalls. He was given antibiotics as well, which destroy infections, but only in the same way that a mallet destroys grapes in a fruit salad.

Luckily, there is a happy ending, just like the chaffinch story. Paddy improved. His mouth got better. His appetite returned. No blood tests were required. The family, realising he didn't have a scary virus whose name the vet couldn't even spell (calici), kept him. He is now living - we must assume happily - with a new family, and with no grumpy older cats who whack him in the head because they don't appreciate his overtures.

There is peace again in our house. Pepper has lost the cross, narrowed-eyes look she had for the whole time Paddy was here, and she's stopped sitting in the box, looking out. She's back on the lap and her favourite chairs. She seems as happy as she was in March. This makes us happy. If there is a moral, it's don't risk bringing a new kitten into a house with an older cat unless you're sure the older cat will be able to deal with it. And think hard about vaccination. I know it's a radical stance to take, but I can't help thinking, from all the literature I've read, that introducing disease into a small body, when a small body should be building up its immune system naturally, is counterintuitive. If Paddy had stayed with us, he wouldn't have been fed wheaty food and he wouldn't have been vaccinated. Sometimes nature must take its course. (Our reason for taking this course is that both our cats were plagued by skin conditions which surfaced a day after they were vaccinated as kittens. Pepper's ears are still not right.) To really understand about vaccinations, follow the money.

Thank you for all your helpful comments about Paddy and Pepper. I hope you understand why we let him go.

"That's the best bit of play we've seen all evening."
"Only."


England 3 Hungary 1
Pre-World Cup friendly at Old Trafford, BBC1; just the ticket to get us in the mood, and a good chance to see England's form. Especially useful if you don't follow league football and never see players like Peter Crouch or Joe Cole (I don't even know who they play for!), and a nice way of getting back into recognising the ones you remember from Euro 2004. This is the beauty of being an England fan. The abject misery of the same is the way they play, and the first 40 minutes of tonight's match were a parody of the frustration inherent in this weird, non-nationalistic loyalty: they just couldn't get past Hungary's red shirts. And then, out of the blue, Michael Owen (who's really growing into his face) missed a cracking cross from Beckham and in the confusion, Steven Gerrard fell over and England were awarded a penalty they didn't deserve, which Frank Lampard had the decency to miss. But at least it woke everybody up, and the next thing we knew, after what must have been an inspirational half-time team-talk from the Swede who doesn't punch the air, Gerrard (on his 26th birthday - although he looks about 36 with that lined face of his) scored off another Beckham cross. John Terry, the defender with no surname but a pair of recently-delivered twins, took us up to 2 by rubbing his hair off the ball sufficient to knock it in. The Hungarians pulled one back while I was out of the room, probably checking MySpace but - following a couple of experimental substitutions (Gerrard and Owen off for the freakish Crouch and 17-year-old whizz kid Theo Walcott) - England nailed it with a third. This came from giant Peter Crouch, whose limbs seem to just swing around behind the rest of his body, but managed to do so behind the ball at just the right moment. Beckham got a yellow card just before the end to prove he isn't Gary Linecker.

In all, an entertaining match, despite commentator Mark Lawrenson's gloomy comment which I have used as the headline, uttered at the end of the first half. I got sick of seeing the electronic adverts for Pepsi with "NO SUGAR" (yes, but just have a look at what else it's got in it, idiots!) and some of the passing was as maddening as is traditonal, but it was good to see this Walcott boy on the pitch, and breaking a record too, as he's actually 17 and 75 days old, and Rooney was 17 and 111 days old when he made his international debut. Let's hope Sven gives him a run next Friday against Paraguay, when, let me see, yes, we're down to win. Joe Cole looks like Johnny Knoxville. Owen Hargreaves can't be serious about that hair. And Mark Lawrenson doesn't like any of the World Cup songs. He said so. John Motshon (correct spelling) said this after Terry's goal - "He's recently given birth to twins, but this was a very different kind of ... " he actually said, " ... ocassion," but he wanted to say, "a very different kind of ... birth. Through the canal of football, with a placenta of goal."

OK, into it now, Official. Match reports promised for all of England's games. These will be easy to ignore as they will have thumbnails of footballers at the top of them.

Nice recovery!



A tale with a happy ending from the wonderful world of nature. At around 7.30 yesterday evening, Julie, sitting in the living room, heard a sound and then saw something drop from above onto the patio. It was a juvenile chaffinch that had clearly flown into the upstairs window. This happens all too often, especially in the spring and summer months when the sun is out. Anyway, he was sat there, on the patio, obviously stunned. We watched him from the living room and the kitchen and he seemed to sit there for ages. He was upright, but one of his wings was outstretched, while the other was tucked in, which made us concerned that he'd damaged it in some way against the pane. It was a heart-stopping moment. We locked the cat flap, and kept watch over him, without looming, and over the next half an hour he veeeeery gradually started to look chirpier and less bamboozled. (He looked very tiny down there on the ground though.) His wing righted itself. He plumped his feathers up. He started looking around. He was just quietly getting over his shock. Eventually he flew up into the apple tree, where, one assumes, his family were. It proves that intervention is very often unecessary and wrong. Nature finds a way. We are stupid enough to invent glass and put it up in the way of innocent birds, but when they hit it and end up grounded, dazed and confused, the best thing to do is hold back, give the little chap space and wait. There is a moral in here somewhere. We think we know better. We usually don't. They do.

By the way, I borrowed the above photo from a man called Bob whose website is all about his Kent garden. I hope he doesn't object.

My World Cup Waste Of Time
ITV1 are getting into the World Cup spirit early. I'm not a big follower of football. I keep tabs on how Northampton Town are doing, mainly thanks to listener Martin Shipperley, who texts in their half-time and full-time scores to the 6 Music Chart every Saturday during the season. But I do turn out to the armchair to watch England when they are involved in the big international or European tournaments. Every two years, basically. I have no problem being a fairweather fan. England are largely useless, despite talented individuals, and following them does not bring an awful lot of pleasure, so they should be grateful that I take the time. I am excited about the World Cup nonetheless. We know the score - England will do well against Paraguay and give us all false hope, then they'll lose to Trinidad and give themselves more stress than they ought in the rest of the group matches, scraping through, only to be knocked out in the semis, on penalties. (See? I don't know much about football, but I understand England's chances all too well. That's why I am wearing this excellent cut-out Wayne Rooney mask that came free in the Sunday People.) Anyway, to business - we sacrificed substantial chunks of Saturday and Sunday to the otherwise cruelly-ignored ITV1. On Saturday, it was the World Cup final. Oh no it wasn't, it was England vs The Rest Of The World in the Soccer Aid match at Old Trafford. (Soccer Aid? Who thought of that? Who calls it Soccer?) I'd caught some of the preamble during the week, which was fairly weak, but the match was the meat and potatoes.


This was well presented by ITV. Ant and Dec made credible live sports anchors (a future career-swerve for them there perhaps?), and the game itself was treated as seriously as a real match. This turned out to be the correct approach, as the celebrities on both teams took it totally seriously too. England won, 2-1, one goal scored by Ferdinand, the other by Jonathan Wilkes, aka Robbie Williams's Official Best Mate, who looked pretty useful. The ROW team pulled one back when a slimmed-down Maradonna pootled a penalty past an otherwise commendable Jamie Theakston, who is a very tall man. (I know. Surreal isn't it?) Other non-professionals of note included Bradley Walsh, Dean Lennox-Kelly off of Shameless and, despite his years, Angus Deayton. Clearly, England had to win, or else captain Robbie Williams would have found another reason to write a self-pitying pop song and release it as a single. In all, I enjoyed this. If you want to donate some money to Unicef, do it here.

Then last night, I am almost ashamed to say I gave 90 minutes of my life not to a football match but to a documentary about a party. That's right, a feature-length documentary about some people having a drink, nibbles and a meal in a marquee in a back garden. Admittedly it was the back garden of Beckingham Palace, for this was Full Length & Fabulous, whose subtitle was corrected punctuated at most of the ad-breaks ("The Beckhams' World Cup Party") but not for one of them ("The Beckham's World Cup Party"), which was odd. Almost as if the Beckhams themselves only had to time to correct one of them. They are busy people. Especially Mrs Beckham, who seemed to be on top of all the other details of this bash, right down to the colour of the wine glasses and the fake butterflies being stapled to the fake trees ("I really like butterflies").

For the record, I have no problem with Victoria and David. They seem to at least quite like each other, and he comes across as a fairly natural, unaffected young man. She certainly has a propensity for sounding like she has no idea what people think of her (she stated with confidence on the programme that men don't fancy her but that women like her - do they though?). My objection to this documentary, and to the half-a-million-costing bash, is that I watched it.

So many rich people in expensive clothes bidding huge sums of their money at an auction for things they don't need, under the moral umbrella of charity. If it cost five hundred thousand quid to lay on, why didn't the Beckhams just give that money to charity? I'm not doubting their commitment to the cause, simply questioning the need for this Roman level of opulence for its own sake. You could say that they're keeping a lot of waiters and flower arrangers in business, but the same could be said of the Royal Family, or the Nazis. Job creation cannot be a justification on its own. You could also say, hey, they provide entertainment for ordinary people with grey lives. Yes, but what kind of entertainment? An hour and a half of having our noses rubbed in the excesses of the wealthy? Look! They can afford to stick their hand in the air and commit a hundred and fifty thousand pounds to have a meal with Puff Daddy! (This was Wayne Rooney, by the way, unless it was an ordinary member of the public wearing the mask from the Sunday People. What is he going to say when he turns up on Mr Daddy's doorstep with Coleen? "Alright, Puff? Where shall we put our cases? . . . You remember! That big party in a tent in the back garden? David and Victoria Beckham? He's a soccer player. Hey, get your hands off me, I've paid my hundred and fifty grand!")

The biggest phony of the night was Robbie Williams, who pretends he's bothered by the cameras, but would surely shrivel up and die if there weren't any to record his sincerity and self-depracation [see: comment below]. Perhaps that's why I enjoyed the football match: Robbie was just one out of 22 men on the field, and the camera sometimes wasn't on him!

Hey, 12 days to go.

OurSpace!

MySpace is a bit weird. Lots of people, mostly young, pretending to be friends with people they've never met and never will meet. It is, at best, harmless. At worst, a great big, revenue-led corporate vacuum sucking up innocent minds on the pretext of being some kind of community project. These were my views until this weekend, when the aforementioned Day The Music Died MySpace page went live. For those that haven't dipped a toe, your MySpace page has your picture on it, and some very basic information. The crux of it is that you can invite people to be your "friends" and then they can accept or reject that invitation. Since our first programme went out at 1pm on Saturday, we have had upwards of 80 friend requests. I have accepted them all, obviously, as it's a way of generating interest in the programme, which has pretty much gone out ignored for four consecutive series, unreviewed, uncontacted. This time our producer Will decided we should get out there and shout about ourselves, and so we did, and . . . it's worked!

The only downside is that I am now personally hooked on MySpace. I care whether we have any pending friend requests or not! I care that the basic mechanics of it are useless! (For instance, it asks for your age but you have to scroll down a list of possible years of birth, which only goes back to 1906, so you can't put your age as 111, which our collective age is. Also, your name appears "in meaningless double quote marks" at the top of your profile. Why? Also, and I am clever, I can't work out how to invite someone to be our friend. This is my fault, obviously, but compared to Blogger it's awfully user-hostile.) Still. WE'VE GOT 90 FRIENDS! AND THEY ARE REAL FRIENDS!

I've started one of my own, here. I really don't know why. This is my space. I control it. It has a little community of its own, with no banner advertising or hidden agendas. You don't have to be my friend. You can comment without even adding your name. I love it and I hate it. Go here if you want to be our friend. Go here if you want to be my friend.

One Mop, One Future



Sorry, but I had a moment in Homebase, Reigate, yesterday. I was in there to buy a replacement cleaning head for a Vileda mop. I found the mop aisle. I could not find the correct cleaning head. There were countless mops, many of them by Vileda, and countless cleaning heads, but none was the exact fit of the mop we had at home in the futility room. (Indeed, the latest Vileda is called the Rapid AttrActive, which is a fucking stupid name. It squirts water, which is handy, as filling a bucket with water is so difficult.) What was a man to do? I was forced, by market forces, and the great conspiracy of built-in obselescence, to buy a whole new mop, and with it some replacement heads for the future. But what future? (I bought an Addis mop this time, just to spite Vileda, who appear to be doing what all companies interested in making a profit do, and that's constantly "upgrading" their products, thus creating an artificial demand that they can breezily supply.)

It was at that moment, in Homebase, that I dreamt of State Communism. Imagine it! One standardised mop, manufactured by the state, so that we all have the same mop, and require the same replacement cleaning heads! Less discarded mops! Less stress in the mop aisle! More time for cleaning! A cleaner world and one wiped clean of doubt! (I hesitate to advertise Addis, who are, after all, a company that makes plastic things, thus filling the world with unbiodegradable waste and adding to this with their constant upgrades, but they were the lesser of two evils. In fact, they and Vileda seem to have the mainstream plastic mop market sewn up between them.)

Sometimes market forces are idiots.

*Scarface, where Al Pacino is being questioned by US Customs and Immigration

Happy birthday, happy birthday

It is with a blush of personal humility that I wish TV Cream a happy fifth birthday, for the esteemed TV knowledge and fun site, plus essential newsletter, have chosen to mark the occasion with a truly astonishing not-for-profit Look-In style comic edition. You can download "the whole ruddy thing", as they put it - 36 pages! - in high-res here or, on a smaller scale, download the whole ruddy thing - still 36 pages - in nasty, blocky low-res here. Or subscribe here and have it delivered to your inbox. The reason I'm blushing is because they've rather flatteringly made a comic strip of my life. Here's a bit of it.



Thank you, especially Graham and Jack. And here's another bit of it.



I actually don't know what to say. Subscribe immediately. These people are unique.

Radio 2's best-kept secret!
Yes! The Day The Music Died returns! The topical comedy half-hour that treats the music it loves with the ridicule it so clearly deserves is back for its fifth series.



Radio 2 are nice enough to keep recommissioning us, and producer Will Saunders (who we've watched rise to the ranks of something important in radio entertainment from virtual nobody) is nice enough to keep laughing at our jokes and then telling us to say them again to make it easier for editing. So we were back in what we call The Day The Music Died Studio, but isn't, at radio powerhouse Wise Buddah, to talk over each other and mis-cue the clips and inserts for about 50 minutes that will become a tight 30 under Will's iron thumb.



That's me, Jon Holmes and Robin Ince. The most important thing about this fifth series, apart from the fact that we're trying to make it a bit looser and less scripted (ie. doing less preparation for it), is that Radio 2 have kind of recognised us. We have our first ever photo session - albeit quite a shiny one - and our own BBC website and our own MySpace page.



This clearly means that this is our last series. So enjoy it. It's on after Jonathan Ross (let's see how many of his listeners we can drive away) on Saturdays, starting this Saturday.

Punctuation Mark

I am a great admirer of Mark Lawson, but I'm afraid to say that there was a misplaced apostrophe in his piece on critic-proof products in yesterday's G2: "Julia Robert's current Broadway performance in Three Days of Rain met thumbs jabbed down . . ." Clearly, pieces for G2 are written in haste, often overnight, so I'm going to forgive Mark this slip of the key, but where were the subs? On the bench?

A TV ad for the new Red Hot Chili Peppers' presumably appalling new album Stadium Arcadium features the following caption: "The Chili's first studio album for four years." Actually, it's in capitals:

THE CHILI'S FIRST STUDIO ALBUM FOR FOUR YEARS!

And, as if to destroy my theory that the poor English that now proliferates the media is a result of Thatcherite education policy in the 80s (and subsequent failure to mend it), I've just finished Fred Harrison's book Brady And Hindley: Genesis Of The Moors Murders (as recommended here), published in 1986, and it contains not one but three instances of a house belonging to the singular - eg. "the Smith's house". (On an unrelated note, he also likes a cliche, Mr Harrison, and actually writes, "He would make him eat his words with a knuckle sandwich.")

Be careful out there.

In case you missed the fireworks display that marked its launch, All The Way From Memphis, Radio 4's first rock'n'roll quiz show, compiled and presented by that nice man James Walton, returned to the airwaves for its second series last Wednesday. (I am one of the team captains; Tracey MacLeod the other - our guests in the first show were Mary Anne Hobbs and Dave Gorman.) We must be doing something right, as a man called Trevor Lockwood has posted his feelings on the Radio 4 Message Board:

Radio 4 is a the best speech radio channel in the world. It is not a music channel, certainly not one based upon Memphis. I can just about take Counterpoint, although even that may get a more receptive audience on Radio 3, and Desert Island Disks is a national institution where the music is not really allowed to intrude too much upon Sue Lawley's excellent interviews (who will do the job as well?). I can't take Memphis. It is awful. Full of the usual band of 'here I am being funny' celebrities that most of us have never heard of, led by a man who speaks far too fast for Radio 4 and is clearly related to someone in authority. Move it to Radio 2 - they'll like that sort of stuff there. Leave us with Radio 4 where good language, well spoken, is still hanging on my its fingertips.

It's unfair to pick apart one licence-fee-payer's message, but let's do it anyway. I don't mind him not liking our little quiz show, what I find curious is his inisistence that Radio 4 is a speech station and this cannot take any music, even though Memphis, as he calls it in the rather over-familiar manner of a fan, only uses clips to illustrate questions. Who are the 'here I am being funny' celebrities he's never heard of? Dave Gorman. Me? Mary Anne, a Radio 1 DJ? Tracey, a respected Arts broadcaster and journalist? James, a journalist and Radio 4 presenter? What Mr Lockwood's post tells us is that he finds rock'n'roll a bit distasteful and has very fixed ideas about what Radio 4 should sound like. And he can't spell Discs, the tool. Anyway, I've had my right to reply. The second edition of the show is on tomorrow night at 11pm.

Well, almost. These larks occured on the Russell Brand Show on 6 Music this morning, between 10 and 1pm. I missed the context, but Russell, 6 Music's star signing, and his comedy sidekicks Trevor and Matt were moved to disrobe whilst on air, thus captured by the studio webcams, which take pictures automatically every five minutes. Without the webcams, this would, of course, have been pointless radio, but it turned into something of an event. They even removed their pants at one point, sufficient to be warned by someone high up at the BBC to cease and desist - such censorship very much grist to the crazy comedian's mill. Fortunately, the webcam missed any penis display. I was sitting upstairs in the 6 Music office, preparing for my 2 o'clock show and was moved to email the gentlemen and remind them that other presenters would be using the furniture over which they were nakedly draped.



In this second picture you can see that Matt, the long-haired sidekick, is actually in his pants, but these were later removed, and that is my chair! (In the top picture you can see Julie Cullen, in the green, pre-recording something in the next-door studio. In fact, she was the first to use the arse-chair for The Music Week, which comes between Brand and my show.) I'll admit, even though I was a fan of Russell on Celebrity Big Brother's Big Mouth with his weird Dickensian speaking style and dandyish gait, I was unsure about his arrival at 6 Music, where all before him were expected to bow. And there was a lot of argy bargy to begin with. But, he seems to have bedded in, as they say in radio, and, what with his podcast hovering around the outside of the Top 10 Podcasts after just a couple of weeks, and this pants business, and Noel Gallagher being on the phone again (Russell is a celebrity magnet), he appears to be a juggernaut, and resistance is futile. And there is a huge groundswell of objection to him on the 6 Music Message Boards, so he must be doing something right.

He's over here . . .



And she's over there . . .



Well, it's been a week since Pepper and Paddy met officially, and he's had the run of the house ever since, so their meeetings have been regular and, I'm sorry to say, unhappy thus far. Here's what usually happens: Paddy is dashing about like a fool, attacking his own tail, playing with his toy mice, leaping onto things that seem too far away but turn out not to be, basically making his own entertainment and apparently growing about an inch a day, and Pepper will come in from outside or enter the room and, instead of keeping a respectful distance, bless him, he'll approach her, keen to make friends. And she will contort her face into that of an alien and hiss at him, in other words: back off. He'll make any number of submissive, cute shapes, but these will have no effect. She's taken to the box, which I put up last week to see how many videos I could fit into one for transportation to the charity shop. She leaps in and stays there, observing Paddy's juvenile antics from the safety of a sentry box. Eventually, she settles down and sleeps in there.

It's frustrating, in that it's so obvious he wants to be her friend or surrogate son. The encouraging thing is that, even after she's attempted to slap him down when he's crossed the line in the sand, he still goes back for more. He has that unquenchable optimism of youth. She can hiss and growl and smack all she likes, he's going to make peace at some stage. This gives hope, but it's a shame to see Pepper looking so grumpy and put out. After all, we got him for her!

I guess it's only been a week. (It feels much longer.) Occasionally she almost seems to ignore him, which is the best we've got so far. It's a long game. I've stopped intervening when she bawls him out, as it's their problem, they need to sort it out. The more they run in to each other, the better. At one stage in the week, we left the pair of them on adjacent stairs (Pepper was on the top, spread out, he was on the next one down, sensibly curled up), and some kind of uneasy detente was temporarily reached. But as I write, she's chased him under the raincoat that's hanging on the doorknob of my office and he is beseiged there. In the words of Rodney King, why can't they just get along? Encouraging words again gratefully received. They are our favourite two cats in the world and we want them to love each other as much as we love them both!

It's not that bad

Suitably whipped up with anticipation, we braved the polite Christian ladies handing out leaflets about our lord Jesus Christ outside and attended one of the first showings of The Da Vinci Code at the Odeon, Leicester Square. Let's get this out of the way first: I like the book. Not being a voracious lover of fiction, I read it two years ago spurred on by all the talk, not expecting to like it - just reading it out of a broader cultural interest. It had me from page one. All the cliches apply: page-turner, unputdownable, a rattling good read. I even read Angels And Demons straight afterwards (not as good, but set in Rome, so fun for anyone who's been). I was under no illusions about its highbrow literary merit, but it struck me that Dan Brown could tell a story, and at least it had a vaguely intellectual core: art, religion, history, that type of thing. I didn't care whether it was true or not, I enjoyed the Catholic conspiracy at its heart, and I fell for the Leonardo clues, eagerly looking up the paintings and examing the positioning of hands and so on. A visit to Paris last March was made more interesting by having read the novel. What harm could it do? What irks me is the way The Da Vinci Code has become shorthand, within the media, for crap. It certainly has narrative holes, and I've read The Rough Guide, with all the inaccuracies and falsehoods helpfully highlighted. That's good sport. In Angels and Demons Brown invents a disgraced British tabloid reporter who apparently worked for the Tatler, then got a job working as the Rome correspondent for the BBC. Preposterous, and indicative of how lazy a researcher Dan Brown can be. But a page-turner is a page-turner and the snobbery against his popularity from the chattering classes is undeserved and patronising to the millions that have enjoyed the book. I like the description of it in the latest New Yorker: "an anti-Christian polemic disguised as a beach read."

The film, ably directed by safe-pair-of-hands Ron Howard, mostly on location in London and Paris at night, with evocative results, is a perfectly serviceable middlebrow thriller. Few going to see it will not have read the book or heard about the conspiracy at its heart, so the big finish will be one of the least effctive since Titanic. This doesn't matter. The tale is well told, and Ian McKellen, as Professor Teabing, brings a welcome sense of camp fun. Paul Bettany is great as the mad monk Silas, too, the character singlehandedly causing a PR panic at Opus Dei, whose conservative Catholic members aren't all like that you know!

The big flaw with the film - apart from the poor desicion to cut to actuality of Mary Magdalene and the Crusades, which is a bit hokey - is Tom Hanks. He just doesn't cut it as a suave intellectual. If he turned up, even with his long hair, to deliver a power point presentation to me about ancient symbolism, I'd be hard pushed to take him seriously. And everyone who's read the book knows that it should have been Harrison Ford. Brown even describes Robert Langdon as looking like Harrison Ford. So where was he? That's the conspiracy.

Some of the reviws, including that of Peter Bradshaw in the Guardian (a man I like and respect) have been based on petty prejudice and mudslinging. The Da Vinci Code is not that bad. Put that on the poster!

A Sharpe Entrance

I told you I don't mind being late on things, but this is ridiculous. Sharpe, based on the swashbuckling novels by Bernard Cornwell that I will never read, has been on television since 1993. Time to watch one of them, then. This latest, something like the 14th, Sharpe's Challenge, was on a few weekends ago, and a clean slate on the schedules tonight allowed us to sit down and luxuriate in what is surely the perfect addition to the Hornblower-loving household's armoury. It's Hornblower on land. Sean Bean made his name in the role of Richard Sharpe, once a grunt, now a retired Colonel, or so it seems, and I understand that Cornwell has actually adjusted physical descriptions of the character in later books so that he's more like Bean. What an honour. This adventure, post-Waterloo, which we're about an hour off finishing, still tired out by the constant chaperoning of Paddy and Pepper, is set in India - and filmed there, I'd wager (look, I've gone all 19th century!) - and assuming it's archetypal Sharpe, it's fine by me. Lots of caricatured British officers willing their own comeuppance upon themselves by being fat, posh, obstinate and drunk, every woman melting at Sharpe's very presence, swordplay galore (good to see Toby Stephens in a pantomime villain role again, fencing against our man in the midday sun) and endless gunpowder being poured into musket barrels. No need to go into plot. Needless to say, Sharpe will sort it out, with his Irish pal Harper. Quite brutal - with men having nails driven into their skulls and then having their heads chopped off - and sexier than I expected (that general's daughter, played by Lucy Brown, captured by the dastardly renegade Indian Maharaja, seems to be there purely to have her dress fall off) - but solid ITV1 stuff built around an iconic performance. I enjoy Sean Bean in Hollywood films, assuming he's allowed to play Yorkshire. I once saw him on Parkinson and he appeared to have no personality whatsoever, unable to form sentences. He comes alive for the camera. The perfect actor.

The Guardian are giving away free wall charts all week. All credit to them for resisting DVDs and teach-yourself-Spanish CDs, but today's Garden Birds chart - the one I was looking forward to (after all, who needs one on sharks?) - is incomplete. Where's the nuthatch?



That's better.

So much to answer for

Final part of Granada's See No Evil: The Moors Murders on ITV1 last night. This was a controversial one, in that many still alive remember the missing youngsters and the appalling revelations of 1965, when Ian Brady and Myra Hindley were caught. (Although such connections pale next to recent TV dramatisations of the work of Harold Shipman and Beverly Allitt.) Some would say I have an unnatural interest in real-life killers. I dispute that. A few years ago, prompted by Happy Like Murderers, Gordon Burn's impressionistic account of Fred and Rosemary West, I started obsessively reading non-fiction books about serial killers, through a desire to understand what makes seemingly ordinary people kill, and kill again. The best of the books I've read have taken a forensic, criminological interest in the cases (Brian Masters writes well on this subject, he did Killing For Company about Dennis Nilsen, and The Shrine Of Jeffrey Dahmer), but this angle almost always falls down when dramatised for TV or film, partly because an abusive childhood is too easy to hold up as motivation, and insanity is difficult to portray. For instance, I've read books on Ed Gein, and yet the only direct film about him, Ed Gein, though slightly chilling and commendably restrained, had little to add, and much to subtract from a greater understanding of this disturbed individual. And Ted Bundy, which I had the misfortune to see in Edinburgh the year it came out, was played for cheap thrills and was an insult to the memory of his victims, and to the study of the criminal mind. Great if you want to see screaming girls in bikinis.

One thing the ugly Bundy film didn't attempt to do was psychoanalyse. Although See No Evil is in a completely different league - never lurid, fastidious with the facts, and most importantly done with the blessing of the victim's families (we even see the all-too-familiar photo of Keith Bennett used a prop, in a frame on a sideboard) - it similarly sidesteps any speculation about motive. We don't really know why Brady was such an appalling sexual sadist, or why Hindley aided and abetted him. She subsequently claimed it was through fear of what he would do to her family, but the public at large refuse to believe this because of her peroxide hair. What writer Neil McKay did brilliantly was to concentrate not on the unknowable, cold Brady (Sean Harris, previously seen as Ian Curtis in Twenty Four Hour Party People) or even, despite pre-publicity, the iconic Myra (a stunning Maxine Peake), but on her sister, Maureen (Joanne Frogatt) and her malleable husband David Smith (Michael McNulty, seemingly in his first role). This was its masterstroke. It wasn't about Myra, but about Maureen, who suffered enough in her own life, with her first baby dying before her sister's secret life was revealed, and then she had the stigma of being married to "the third Moors Murderer", because David had witnessed the killing of Edward Evans. David's gullibility was very convincingly done. You believed he would find Brady a thrilling character with his long words and his gunplay and talk of bank jobs. He had nothing. (Or at least, he didn't realise how much he had ie. a loving wife.)

There's no way a responsible broadcaster could show the murders of the children, but See No Evil avoided showing even a suggestion of their abduction. Only the murder of Edward Evans, 17, was shown, and only in brief flashes and bloody aftermath. The justification, dramatically, was easy to explain, if you accept that showing Brady's sadism was a necessary plank in the drama (otherwise - he's a wierdo rather than a monster). I actually doubt the necessity to show these scenes. When Brady casually confessed to Smith that he'd killed "three or four. I haven't finished yet. Teenagers mainly. Any younger, it's too much fuss," it was enough to freeze the blood. Did we need to see him with a bloodied axe in his hand?

This was by and large an intelligent and respectful drama, with wind-battered shots of Saddleworth as a fallback option at every turn (how could they not look dramatic?). The performances were spot-on, and the period was keenly captured in set design and in its washed-out layers of brown and beige - all the better to point up the red of a lipstick or the light in Brady's photographic dark room, eerily recreated when he kills the boy. The shot of Coronation St on a black and white telly was very clever, and daring, since this film sough to make a soap opera out of grisly reality (with one or two Corrie and Brookside faces among the cast). Sean Harris didn't have much to work with, and came across as a pantomime villain at times, but Peake was well-judged, bringing depth to a woman seemingly locked forever in that photograph. Looking at the Manchester Evening News message boards, it seems that people in the area are generally happy with the result, even some who had a connection with Brady and Hindley, so it's a job well done, even if we are no closer to knowing why they did it.

Take me to the Moors . . .

Paddy . . .



. . . meet Pepper

Well, it's been emotional, and far from decisive, but Pepper has now officially met the new arrival. We've read all the books, and, despite plenty of clashing advice, they do seem to agree that it's a delicate process, introducing a new kitten to a reigning adult cat. (The reason we got a boy was because adult females are supposed to feel less threatened by them.) Paddy's been in the house for over a week now, largely in his room, but over the last few days we've allowed and encouraged him to explore, while Pepper has been sleeping in her bedroom and thus unaware, or when she's out in the garden. His smell is certainly all over the house now, which must be helpful. She's seen him through the patio doors and looked put out. She also saw him through the glass-panelled kitchen door and gave an unholy growl. This, all the books insist, is normal.

Now Paddy's had the run of the house, it seems unfair to keep locking him back in one room, so we are keen to let him roam, but at the same time, we don't want them meeting unsupervised, and we don't want Pepper bashing him on the head. Yesterday, he wandered into her bedroom while she was under the bed. They came face to face at last. Pepper hissed. (Normal.) She let out a deep, guttural growl. (Normal.) But Paddy's reaction was superb - he approached her gingerly (not bad for a tabby), and respectfully. He didn't cross the line. She kept on growling, but didn't move. He held back, looking about as pert and friendly and unthreatening as a small potential pal could. Eventually, he sat down and spread out, totally submissive and calm. They regarded each other for quite a while. The growl rumbled on.

They met again this morning, in the same place. Again, he was cute and fearless but held back. It's clear he's not scared of her (he was raised well and in a good, noisy house, for his first seven and a half weeks). She is still very unhappy about his presence. She hissed again, every time he approached. He eventually scuttled back his his room.

To his credit, these encounters have not dented his confidence. He still roams the house with head and tail held high. They crossed paths again in the kitchen this afternoon: more hissing and guttural sounds, more devil-may-care olive branch reaction. It's early days yet. We're making sure Pepper knows she is the queen of the house, and reassurring her at every stage. Paddy is bombproof. We don't need to worry about him.

I don't know if anybody else has any stories or experience about socialising cats . . . I'd be interested to hear them. It's quite stressful at the moment, and time-consuming, but it has to be worth it.

The Apprentice: The Final

[BIG SPOILER ALERT! . . .]

Aah. It can only ever be a minor letdown, the final episode, shaded with melancholy that it's all over for another year, and the sinking feeling that there isn't even a proper firing at the end of it. And all that hype. Even people who don't care about the show will know who Ruth and Michelle are by now. I did my bit, giving my considered opinion on Radio Ulster's Arts Extra, despite a terrible line, this evening. But what is there to say? It's all showbiz. It's stage-managed. They're not really the 14 brightest business hopes in the country but those who were most likely to make the best television. It's all clever editing. Of course it is! It's also brilliant. We've invested eleven weeks in it, and this is our reward.

Would it be the Badger (tabloid currency: she likes ladies) or the Blonde (tabloid currency: she likes Syed)? I was always rooting for Ruth, probably due to my soft spot for the Midlands accent, but last week's revelations about Michelle's tough upbringing - music to Sir Alan's gruff ears - put her ahead. For the final task, laying on an evening in a long, thin corridor in Tower Bridge with a fabulous view through some metal girders (a truly thankless task), Sir Alan gently hinted that it could be themed around, say, James Bond or the Moulin Rouge or the can-can, so that's what they did. After all, is this programme not ultimately about pleasing Sir Alan? Michelle went for the "Double-Oh-Heaven" theme and optimistically chose - from the pool of recent firees - two people who disliked her (Paul and Syed) and three who disliked each other (Paul, Syed and Sharon). And so the soap opera came to pass, with Paul and Syed giving us some of the best comedy of the series ("Cock," being the quote of the run). Ruth had the nicer team (Ansell, Tuan and a seemingly self-gagged Jo), but the stupider idea: a murder mystery evening - in a corridor! Sir Alan told them it was shit (I'm not sure I like him personally intervening), and they added some can-can dancers, but not "traditional" ones, in case anyone thought they were just trying to butter him up.

Not as many highlights as previous tasks. The knowledge that our supersalesmen, Paul and Syed, had only sold four tickets at the end of a hard day was chest-tightening, and their Laurel and Hardy act was never less than entertaining. Michelle's droning, humourless, upwardly-inflected voice began to grate on me. She only perked up when kissing Syed, much to his annoyance ("On national television?"). Any woman who can fancy him goes down in my estimation, especially when she starts using his catchphrases ("A hundred and ten per cent") by romantic osmosis. I would have rather stood on the Bridge itself and watched the lights reflected in the Thames than attend either bash, but many did, and on points, the Bond evening looked better. Watching the murder-mystery actors and dancers gamely attempting to stretch out their act by moving down the corridor was painful, as was Sir Alan's face when faced with one of them. It all meant that the series went out with a whimper, not a bang.

The final boardroom, designed to keep us in perpetual suspense, also lacked drama. It could have gone either way, as Ruth had made more money but Michelle's night was more fun, and Sir Alan liked them both, so there was no friction, just a controlled impatience. I liked it when he dismissed Margaret and Nick, that was very dramatic, but otherwise, if it's true that they did actually film two endings, it was also a throw of the giant dice to decide. He went for Michelle, and there really is no point trying to second-guess his motives now. He's not one to have his head turned by a pretty lady, so it's nothing as sexist as that. Simply that Michelle is younger, I'd say. Ruth will no doubt write a self-help book like Miriam did, or get a column on next year's website. Good luck to her. She won't need that sabbatical. As for Michelle, I'm sure we'll see as much of her as we did of Tim ie. not much. It's not about that. It's not about the six-figure salary, in the end. It's about the process. And the process has been glorious.

The Hairy Bikers were good tonight too.


Previous reviews:
Week One
Week Two
Week Three
Week Four
Week Five
Week Six
Week Seven
Week Eight
Week Nine
Week Ten
Week Eleven

Paddy latest



Never mind the collapse of the British government, or the gigantic bluff being called by Iran, or the fact that we in the UK now take 30 million cholesterol drugs a year rather than actually change our diets to prevent heart disease - here are some photos taken yesterday and this morning of Paddy!



Although we've been keeping him in the spare bedroom since he arrived on Friday in order to acclimatise him before giving him full run of the house and introducing him to a remarkably calm Pepper (we've been exchanging their scents, but Pepper doesn't seem that bovvered), this morning we shut the door on a snoozing Peps and allowed Paddy to wander the landing and go down the stairs. No pressure. Indeed, in textbook kitten style, he kept dashing back to "his" room. He's back in there now.



He'll be out again tomorrow, for longer, and eventually, we'll let Pepper see him when he's in the protective pen we've hired from the vet's. (It's massive. I've been inside it already.) Paddy is alert, boundless, humorous, confident and going through that phase of biting your fingers.



I have been sleeping with him in the spare room, so he's not alone during this formative period (after all, he spent the first seven weeks of his life in a house full of kids and other cats and dogs), and I've been waking up in the night with his little face staring straight into my eyes. This means: get up, I want to play. He's a handful alright, and that's the fun of it.



Of all the toys we bought him (and this happened when Chilli and Peps were kits, but you sort of forget), it's the rolled-up ball of newspaper that he likes the most. I imagine this is how new parents feel. Although perhaps, in my case, less asthmatic.

Deer

In a break from kittens, here is a very poor photo I took the other evening of a deer on our patio. We live on a hill, and there is some National Trust land at the top of the hill, and deer occasionally wander down, through the back gardens without high fencing, to nibble at foliage and take fright whenever they hear anything that might constitute a human. They are beautiful, elegant creatures, who can jump over low fences from a standing start. This one, we think, is the female, and she looks as though she's with child. Over the previous two years we've seen her with assorted Bambis, who soon grew as large as their mother, and eventually moved on. (Perhaps they went to college.) One of the more glorious sights since moving out to the sticks has been to see the mother deer relaxing under the willow tree on a summer's day. Anyway, it was quite a shock on Sunday evening when, whilst making homemade beefburgers, I looked out of the kitchen window and saw her deery ears. It's rare that they venture up onto the patio, but she was clearly enjoying whatever climbing vine grows without our intervention in the flower beds. I tiptoed upstairs to get a shot of her (better than a shot at her), but the moment you open a window to avoid flashback, she exits, pursued by nothing at all. I managed to get this shot through the glass, but it's not going to be winning any wildlife photography awards. Thought you might like to see it anyway. And be filled with mercy that I didn't headline this entry, D'oe!

It's there to make you read my review of Krakatoa: The Last Days, which was on BBC1 on Sunday evening.



Now, the very words drama-documentary generally chill my blood. They speak of Crimewatch reconstructions, a pernicious influence on modern telly if you ask me. Give me drama, or give me documentary. I'm a huge fan of both. But don't give me six of one, and half a dozen of the other. I was drawn to this mostly because it's a disaster movie, isn't it? A real-life event, the 1883 eruption of the Indonesian volcano of the same name, situated west of Java (as any fule kno), which brought forth six cubic miles of ash, pumice and shit, killing over 36,000 people, and whose explosion was the loudest ever recorded in history (they could hear it in Perth). The BBC promised, and delivered, excellent special effects. Clearly nothing to have the eggheads at Industrial Light & Magic leaping out windows, but much better than the equivalent one about Pompeii, and, as far as I could tell, based more reliably on factual account.

Also, it starred Rupert Penry-Jones (who has his own handsome, Adam Rickitt-style website), star of our beloved Spooks and the underrated North Square, whose chiselled, blonde good looks made him a shoo-in for a Dutch colonialist who came good under pressure. Normally, these drama-docs are cast from the lower tiers of thespian talent, but, alongside Olivia Williams, who's been in Hollywood films and everything, Penry-Jones indicated that this production was a cut above. And it was.

Well-structured over 90 minutes, with a number of eyewitness accounts woven together, but not too many. Four, in fact. The dialogue might not have been award-winning (first time writers, as far as I can make out), but it told the story well, and the money shots were dramatic indeed, not least the one where the steamboat rode out the tidal wave. There was something lacking, but not as much as I've come to expect from this hybrid genre, and the final scenes, with the survivors blackened and burned in a less-than-cosmetic way, made a mockery of the film Volcano where a light dusting of ash made all the black people and the white people and the Hispanic people of Los Angeles look the same colour, for a stupid point about all ethnic divisions being rubbed out by catastrophe (thus making the people of Hollywood feel great about themselves). No such hijacking here. This ended fairly badly for all concerned, and the shellshock was tangible. Well done, the BBC. But don't do it again. Dramatise, or documentarise, please. And give the special effects team the rest of the day off.

Welcome to your new pad



Ladies and gentlemen . . . I give you . . . Paddy! I am aware that I have now become one of those people who post pictures of kittens on their websites, but really, what a wonderful world.



You'll note that his water bowl stands on yesterday's Guardian, with its predictions for the council elections, thus marking Paddy's arrival in history. I'll try and enlarge these pics on a PC tomorrow. (I'm a bit limited on this Mac.)

Deckchairs

So, the Tories took 317 council seats from Labour. Is that a meltdown yet? It's certainly the worst local election result in Labour history. Quick! Three seconds runaround, n-n-now! The reshuffle - about which Margaret Beckett must have known last night on QT (hence the smug chops) - goes like this: Beckett to Foreign Secretary (Rest Of The World), Hoon also to Foreign Secretary (Europe only), Straw to the ejector seat, otherwise known as Commons Leader (which, in magazine publishing, is called Special Projects), the oily David Milliband to the Environment, Charles Clarke sacked (he declined another cabinet job apparently - a man of character after all - and went to the back benches), the bullet-headed John Reid (sorry, Doctor John Reid!) becomes Home Secretary, a post to which he will no doubt bring a shade more belligerence than Clarke, someone called Des Browne (another Scot) gets to take over defence at what is, for the world, a pretty uneventful time, someone called Alan Johnson (a former union man who thinks Clause IV should be reinstated, the crazy man) takes over Education from the boy Kelly, Hazel Blears (onomatopaeic name) gets the Chairmanship while Ian McCartney spends more time with his heart, and Prescott loses his job but not his position. (Hmm, even saying the words Prescott and "position" in the same sentence now conjures unsavoury images - sorry about that. I wonder if he approves or disapproves of the 63-year-old woman who's having a baby?) The cover of the new New Statesman asks the following question: Is this the end?

And, in other news . . .
We have got a kitten. He's called Paddy and he's a grey tabby, just under eight weeks old. Because he's being introduced into a house with an adult cat already in it, we're keeping them apart until the time is right. Paddy is in the spare room, all mod cons (food, litter tray, scratching post, bed), and he's already squeezed inside the sofa-bed, where he's been all day. He's a bit shy and freaked out but has been playing with some string. It's too early to freak him out further by flashing a camera at him, but as soon as I do, it'll go up here.

Not the meltdown some were predicting

At the time of writing, just after breakfast, Labour have only lost 255 council seats. Could have been worse, they're saying. This is true. It could have been 256. But having lost most of these to the Tories, that's pretty bad isn't it? Ah, no, you see, it's not the meltdown some were predicting. This "meltdown" was 300 seats, as I understand it. And no, technically, it's not that. But the result still puts the Tories at a projected 40% of the national vote, with the Lib Dems at 27% and Labour - hmmmmm - third with 26%. The paradigm shift in voter intention that happened in 1997 does seem to be reversing, with those who switched their allegiance from an embattled Major cabinet to a revitalised, de-claused, de-Kinnocked Labour oppostion (greatly influenced by Murdoch's crossing of the floor), switching back. As scary-faced Margaret Beckett insisted on Question Time last night, before a practically baying audience, this government has a mandate, as does Tony Blair, as the electorate voted them back in last year, but it seems clear that this very mandate, slimmer than Lindsey Lohan side-on, has been greatly harmed by the Prime Minister's refusal to set a date for his departure. So keen is he to see through his legacy (a ruined education system, and a ruined NHS), he will not budge, and this is putting his allies into a flap. They're being barracked and mocked and undermined, and it seems clear that he's lost the confidence of the country. Whether you're one of Polly Toynbee's "clothes peg" brigade or not, he really needs to put himself into the rapid-reaction reshuffle. There is talk that Prescott will be stripped of his bloated portfolio (he's busy enough as it is in the office), and that Ruth Kelly will finally be removed from education because people keep mistaking her for a schoolboy, and that can only mean one thing: further Apprentice style hot-shots moved up the ladder. Good news for the Greens, albeit - in true Greens style - modest. They have gained 14 seats so far. Good news also for the BNP (they're not racist), who took 11 seats in Barking and Dagenham, despite Billy Bragg's vocal efforts, and whose London spokesman Richard Barnbrook (he's not racist), thanked Labour's Margaret Hodge for the free publicity.


More news as we get it. For full details, where better?

You're possibly fired

A momentous day. The first time I have worn shorts and sandals and sunglasses in 2006. Also, there were council elections across England. There are 4,361 council seats up for grabs (nearly a quarter of those in England), in 176 authorities, but what it really means is a litmus test of the country's feelings about Labour. If they only lose 200 councillors, that will be a result. Even 300 would be considered a lucky break after the rumpo-and-foreign-criminal-linked trouble they're currently in. Anyway, my council is Reigate & Banstead, Tory-controlled probably since time began. I walked, in the pleasant late-afternoon sun, in my shorts and sandals and sunglasses, to St Mark's Church, and put my cross in the box. Even though this is an independent blog, I think, as a BBC presenter, I am unable to express a preference. What I will say is that it doesn't really matter who you vote for in Reigate. Unlike a General Election, I don't feel compelled to stay up all night watching Dimbleby and that fabulously unsmiling Canadian bloke from Essex University who does the statistics. We'll see in the morning. We're getting our new kitten tomorrow - that's far more important.

Incidentally, does it strike anyone else as unfair that these foreign criminals that are causing Charles Clarke so much grief should apparently be deported after they've done their time in prison? I don't mind taking it on a case by case basis, but they're not all rapists and murderers - why should they be automatically shipped off on release from chokey? Did I mention we're picking up our kitten?

The Apprentice: Week Eleven

[SPOILER ALERT! . . .]

Possibly my favourite episode, as indeed it was when they roadtested it on the last series: the interviews. The final quartet were really put through their paces by three of Sir Alan's trusted bullshit-detectors, one of whom, the Jack The Lad one, I recall vividly from last year. Not sure about the other two, the bullet-headed middle-aged guy who responded to Paul's "I can get on with anyone," with the withering put-down, "You're not getting on with me," and the beardy one who had something to do with Viglen and was the only one who liked Paul. Cake metaphors abounded.

There wasn't much to it structurally - four interviewees, each one equally ill-informed about what Amstrad does (why? you idiots!) and what they had written in their own CVs; three interviewers - but the editing was supreme, mixing it up with skill and melodrama, and saving some choice clips up for when the four got into the boardroom. Having identified Ruth as my favourite for most of the series, it was interesting to see Michelle shine strongest, despite the observation that she lacks personality and earns too much to really want the job at Sir Alan's. At least she smiles. Also, her tough upbringing made a timely appearance (some bad stuff) - unlike Syed, she's never felt the need to flog this, and it added to her character and determination. Ruth's aggression was a bad tactic over the desk. She enters rooms without knocking and sits before being offered a seat. Ansell, tarred with the "nice guy" brush and the "just a salesman" brush (that's two brushes), struggled to rise beyond this branding. Luckily for him, Paul Tulip, 26 ("I've never met anyone like me") achieved new levels of nauseating bullishness, which backfired on him like a motherfucker. Damned as a door-to-door insurance salesman in a bad suit ("the jacket's going, the hair is gelled", remember?), he fell down on the accuracy of his CV and his motivation (lifestyle? money?). Plus - and this was brilliantly held back by the production team as a pre-denouement own-goal - he took a rather too 1980s swipe at Big Issue sellers. Meanwhile, Ruth baffled all with her refusal to take a sabbatical from her company, a move that was described by Bullet Head as "rash and diabolical." (Steady!) I feared, as I always fear, that Sir Alan's sexism would rear its ugly mush, but no, he saw sense and fired Paul first (quite right - hope he's homeless one day, with his magazines, shouting out, "I think I'm brilliant, I think I'm great!"), and Ansell second, who couldn't believe he'd come this far, leaving an all-female final. Nice grouping - to use Ruth's Tourette's-like catchphrase, without a doubt.

Quite why none of them had used their loaf and looked Amstrad up on the Internet in a bit of downtime over the last 11 weeks, I shall never know. It shows how arrogant they all are. And is it taught on some management training course to ask yourself questions and answer them? ("Do I want this job? Yes I do. Am I a tit? Yes I am.") However, that said, the best ladies won, and it could go either way. The musical chairs is almost over, and we know who sits down without being asked . . .



Previous reviews:
Week One
Week Two
Week Three
Week Four
Week Five
Week Six
Week Seven
Week Eight
Week Nine
Week Ten

The numbers, dude

OK, Lost returns, and as much as I would like to resist the hype, I can't. It's obvious why I like it so much - it's the longest disaster movie ever made: a plane crash, a bunch of survivors thrown together and forced to adopt primal instincts in order to live. Archetypes abound, in true disaster-movie style - the fat one, the boy, the old man, the doctor, the pregnant woman, the rock star etc. - and with the added ingredient of something supernatural and all those flashbacks, it all adds up to my kind of US drama. Not, clearly, in the same league as The West Wing, but what is? It still draws me in.

Picking up where the first series left off - the opening of the hatch (or The Hatch); Walt kidnapped by pirates - series two had plenty to clear up, and proceeded to clear up very little of it. [SPOILER ALERT - read no further if, for some reason, you haven't seen eps one and two yet, but hurry up!] We now know that there's a Scottish man living down The Hatch with a lava lamp, an old computer and the Mamas and the Papas on tape. We also know that he thinks there's disease out there, which there isn't. He now has John, Kate and Jack hostage. In a wig flashback, we saw Jack bring the bottom half of a woman back to life (the "making love" half, note), as if he were Jesus (episode title: Man Of Science, Man Of Faith), and then run into a Scottish man at a sports stadium, who called him "brother". This man turned out to be . . . exactly. None the wiser, obviously, but that's never been the point of Lost. You must remain, at least partially, lost.

In episode two, Adrift, which C4 showed directly afterwards, we saw much of episode one again (chiz!), with added exposition, but not much. The meat was the raft story, in which Michael and Sawyer bickered like old men in a dimwitted Beckett play ("Oh, I'll just stop bleeding!", "What are you gonna do? Splash me?") while sharks circled beneath. Just regular sharks, by the looks of it. Taken together, these were two of the darkest episodes of any TV series I've ever seen. And I mean pitch black. They were darker than The X-Files, and Michael and Sawyer didn't even have torches. Michael got the flashbacks in two: we saw him bid farewell to a toddler version of Walt and give him a cuddly polar bear (significant? or a red herring? why am I even entertaining this debate?). Was this the first time that we learned that Michael was an artist "with real talent"? I can't remember. Either way, we're left with Estragon and Vladimir back on the island, with pirates moving in, and Jack very confused about the Scottish man. The Scottish man is called Desmond.

Good to have it back, mainly so that I can enjoy my ritual of saying the word "Lost" really slowely, as the title moves langourously and diagonally towards the screen. Stupid, I know, This programme is not as clever as it makes out. It's not as clever as ER or the Wing or The X-Files, but it seems clever, and that's its trick. It's dumb entertainment dressed as something fancy.

Oh, and was anybody else made slightly nauseous by the sight of JJ Abrams popping up in the ad breaks to say, "Hi, I'm JJ Abrams, co-creator of Lost, here's my ass - it's for sale." (or words to that effect), before showing an advert for Mission: Impossible III, which he's directed. We don't need that. He's the co-creator! Who wants to see the co-creator in the middle of the thing he co-created, for which we're attempting to suspend our disbelief? (As if the constant ad-breaks - including one right after the opening credits, American-style - don't make that hard enough!)

It was Charlie who said it's all bollocks. Good fansite here.

Let us celebrate the world of the Mighty Boosh (the Mighty Boo-oosh!)

I have no problems admitting being late. I'm late. Last on the block. I watched the first episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm when it premiered on British TV and I didn't like it. Never mind that I was a fan of Seinfeld, from whence it came. I never watched another episode of that first series. I read the rave reviews. I ignored them. Not for me. It was only when my friend Rob forced me to borrow four episodes from his box set that the pieces fell into place, and within weeks I had purchased all of the three seasons then available, watching them whenever I had a spare half-hour. I now realise it is one of the greatest comedy programmes of my lifetime. The DVD box set is the saviour of the unfashionable latecomer. I didn't like Spooks on first viewing; thought Matthew McFadyen was unconvincing as a spy. Now I have all three series on DVD and accept that it is a compelling and unmissable TV drama. I didn't even watch the first three episodes of The Apprentice first time out, and only joined in because Leona urged me to. I think you know what I think about that programme now.

So it was with The Mighty Boosh. I've always been aware of the Boosh as a double act, and have admired Julian Barratt as an actor, knowing precisely who he was, and where he came from. I also have a track called Midfielding by the Midfield General, on which Noel Fielding basically seems to improvise a tale about gathering up a posse of the animals that never get on nature programmes. It's fantastic. I saw the Boosh TV programme billed and advertised and trailed on BBC3 and just kind of didn't watch it. It transferred to BBC2. Kind of didn't watch it. At Christmas, I met Noel Fielding in HMV on Oxford Street with Lee Mack. He seemed like possibly the nicest, most laid-back man in comedy, and told me he'd really liked my book. It was at that moment that I knew I should get with the programme, literally. Then their tour dates, including a run at Brixton Academy, confirmed that the Boosh were going overground in a big way. They had the NME Reader Factor. Thank God Julie took it upon herself to order the DVD box set of both series on spec. I think we both just kind of knew it was time, to go with them on a journey through time and space to the world of . . .

The Mighty Boo-oosh! We're now almost through series two, and feeling the tug of melancholy that in a couple of days, there will be no more unseen Boosh. This - as I'm kind of guessing you all know - is a comedy half-hour like no other. In the chemistry between Howard and Vince (Barratt and Fielding), TV has stumbled upon something money cannot buy, but years on the circuit can. In their off-the-cuff badinage, redolent of a lot of "naturalistic" comedy of today, they manage to be offbeat and low-key and minor-chord without ever appearing self-indulgent or smug. Theirs is the comedy of joy and silliness and costumes and song and dance. As Lee and I are currently slaving over a hot sitcom where story arcs must be paid off and act-three obstacles placed and overcome, I am filled with pointless jealousy that the Boosh can end an episode by having Mod wolves turn up. There is, as with all the best surreal comedy, a point and a pay-off, but these are secondary to the journey itself - often a literal journey, their stock in trade. Some of the jokes, written down, might even seem easy, but on the screen, they add to a parrallel universe that lives and breathes.

The first series, set in the zoo, was inspired, but so was the desire to break out of that zooniverse for series two and move to a flat, reducing the supporting cast to just Naboo (Fielding's brother, Michael) and Bollo the gorilla. Of course, I miss the spoken red-curtain intros of the first series, and Bob Fossil (although Rich Fulcher turns up in most episodes, in heavy disguise), but the move has freed their minds.


"I hate jazz."
"You fear jazz."

Burrow underneath the deliberate wierdness (that fucking shaving-cream moon for one!), and the twin obsessions with jazz and hair, and you'll find a fairly traditional British sitcom set-up: two losers with high aspirations. It's Hancock, or Steptoe, or Mainwaring, and yet, it's not. It's drugs television that works if you're not on drugs. It's young-person's television that works if you're not young (although I do find myself arguing with myself about who's the best out of Julian and Noel). It's gone-wrong television that works if you've gone right. It's stupid television that works if you're clever (because of course it's not stupid at all). It is my favourite comedy programme. Imagine that!

The randy old sod


The thing that bothers me most about John Prescott's affair with his diary secretary Tracey Temple, is the cliche factor. (I don't know how to do accents on this blog, so I'm afraid cliche will have to be read like quiche). He's a fat, late-middle-aged man in a suit, in a positon of power sufficient to have a diary secretary, and she's 24 years his junior, thus far younger than his devoted wife Pauline, and blonder, and - according to Tracey's diary (she is, after all, his diary secretary) - he started flirting with her round the office, then moved into the arena of what might be called sexual harrassment at a tribunal: lifting her skirt to look at her suspenders when she was dressed for an office party, rubbing her back in the office, telling her what he's like to "do to her" while dancing at said party. Of course, this is all repellent to conjure up in the mind, but compulsive nonetheless and I obviously give thanks to the Mail On Sunday for shelling out a reported two hundred and fifty thousand quid of the money they've made from giving away DVDs and boosting circulation in stupid spurts in order than we, the public who vote the likes of Mr Prescott into office, might read of his misadventures, the "randy old sod", as she describes him. But at the end of the day, did it not once go through Prescott's mind, as he carried his secretary into the bedroom of his apartment, that he was about to become a big, fat cliche? The age difference? The power play? The suspenders? The morning after pill? (Oh, and that he might just one day be found out and made a national laughing stock?)

As we speak, randy old sods of a similar vintage, with similar wives, in similar offices (albeit not ones paid for by the public), are lifting the skirts of similarly risk-hungry secretaries to look at similar suspenders. They are all, to a man and a lady, quiches.