Spring In The Air

That is metaphorically and actually. Each day that passes, it's getting lighter each morning earlier and earlier and at the same it, it's warmer. Yesterday was particularly sunny and warm.

Wednesday. 3.45 a.m. It's still and quiet on the weather front.

I have contacted Amazon regarding the missing DVD. This, via the online 'chat' function. It is the third attempt at sorting the problem. I am being sent a replacement DVD of the new, Stephen Spielberg directed 'West Side Story.' I have just this minute received an email telling me it has been dispatched and should arrive sometime today. I am still intrigued to know what happened to the first place containing a DVD. According to the Amazon website, it was 'received by the resident.' Not true. The delivery driver wasn't doing his/her job properly if that's the case. We'll wait and see what develops.

9.55 a.m. I was up early and my first outing with Alfie was around 6.20. Why hang around in bed when it's bright outside? Not sunny, but still bright. I don't think Alfie was awake when I went into the lounge to find him curled up in his bed. Never mind. I washed up from the evening before. I can't stand having dirty pots and plates in the sink, so I soon had it all done and put it away. We went out for another trot around the park at around 8.15, and then I thought I might just as well go to Sainsbury's. Go early mid-week and you avoid the crowds you would probably get on a Friday when people have been paid. Then I discovered that some bright spark had decided to rearrange the shelves in the store. I've been shopping in there for goodness knows how long, and you get used to where things are, but to suddenly find it all in different places is somewhat annoying. What is the reason for all this? No doubt they're preparing for something new in the store. I don't think I was the only customer to be somewhat lost as there were one or two others with annoyance written all over their faces. I do think if they are going to do this, they should at least have notices up telling you where the products have been moved too. Surely not much to ask. Never mind. Things will sort themselves out eventually.

1.30 p.m. There is a light rain as I write. Drizzle, I think the word to use is. It was similar to what it was like a few hours ago. Alfie doesn't like getting wet, but still wants to go out, but the moment he feels a raindrop on his back, he'll be back through the door and no doubt be curled up on either my bed or in his little nest beside the television. 

6.00 p.m. The 'West Side Story' DVD arrived at around 4.45 this afternoon! So that issue is now resolved.

There seems to be a rash of new game shows on television at the moment. BBC 1 has Pointless, which seems to be a more or less permanent fixture at 5.15 five days a week and now it's joined at 4.30 by 'Bridge of Lies', which is hosted by Ross Kemp, formerly of EastEnders. Then on BBC2 there's one I hadn't come across before called 'Lightening.' 'Eggheads moved to Channel 5 a couple of months ago and is on at exactly the same time, 6.30, that it was on when it was on BBC2. This might explain why the new kid on the block, 'Lightening' is on at the same time. Then ITV has 'The Chase' on at exactly the same time as Pointless. On ITV they have Tenable, Tipping Point and The Chase, one after the other. It really is taking it too far and totally unimaginative of ITV to just put one after the other. Why no drama in the afternoon schedules? The BBC has done rather well with their drama offerings, with Doctors doing well just after lunch, followed by such things as Father Brown and Shakespeare and Hathaway. Always good to watch that and pick out the cleaver Shakespearian connections, plot devices or character names worked into the plot. But it's a shame that BBC1 stopped showing children's programming in the 4-5 p.m. slot. I know they moved it all onto the BBC children's channels, but to just churn out endless gameshows really shows a total lack of imagination. It's obvious that game shows are cheap to produce, well, certainly when compared with drama. I presume the jackpots on Pointless (and other similar shows.) comes from the Television licence. As for ITV, it's just the slippery slope really, more dumbing down. Some questions on, for example, Tipping Point, are just plain embarrassingly easy, such as 'what colour is grass, or the sky?' Not really going to challenge a child for more than five or six really, or is that how they see their daytime audience? A lot of toddlers? Now, one doesn't expect Open University type programming (No, not like the 1970s lectures which were broadcast at nighttime for students.) Probably produced just up the road, here in Milton Keynes. But come on, at least have more difficult questions.

Daytime Television. The Good, The Bad and The Dreadful

Over the past few months I have watched a more than average amount of daytime television. Probably because Carol has been off sick from work. I have to admit under different circumstances I wouldn't normally watch so much. When she was at work I might watch Bargain Hunt, or otherwise I can find something on catch-up or recorded on Sky Q from the previous day or from a few days or even weeks. Most of what is shown is, franky, mere trivia, but recently there have been some quite good programmes. Admittedly there are too many make-over shows and programmes about selling houses. Also wall-to-wall gameshows. It seems that all I.T.V. can make and show are things like 'The Chase' (probably the best at the moment), but surely 'Tipping Point' has some of the easiest questions for any gameshow. But it's addictive. Watching that machine moving backwards and forward and waiting with bated breath for the discs to fall in just the right place and then push others fall over and score points that make cash has a sort of hypnotic effect. Perhaps that's what they want to happen; sort of activating so they have a sort of captive audience. Countdown on Channel Four is addictive. At least it's intelligent. I'm fine with the word part, but when it comes to the maths section, I give up. Perhaps it's because you have just 30 seconds to work it out. If it was longer then I might have a chance. I love words and particularly word-origins, so that bit intrigues me.

There are some far better shows on more recently. One is in the afternoon at 3.45 on BBC1 and called 'Money For Nothing.' The premise doesn't sound particularly brilliant, perhaps not on paper, but actually works and keeps you hooked until the end. It starts off with a lady called Sarah Moore, who apparently won the first series of 'The Great Interior Design Challenge.' She visits a tidy-tip at a variety of locations across the country and hunts out people who are disposing of what are at first sight worthless bits of furniture, old chairs, wardrobes, and the most unlikely objects, such as washing machines, old bits of fence and a good deal more, which she takes away. She has, according to the voice-over, done in a sort of tongue-in-cheek style by Arthur Smith, that she has had 'special permission' to ask for and remove these otherwise gone-to-seed items. In other words, you, as a member of the public, cannot take any item from a tidy-tip. Actually I would say, once it's gone in the recycling bins there you can't remove it. Well, legally you can't. She has to select three items and then takes them away to either transform them herself or takes them to designers and makers who revamp them into new bits of furniture or uses part of them to make new items. These she sells on and the profit is returned to the people she took the original item from at the tidy-tip. The results are usually quite stunning. Although a very small minority haven't hit the mark, at least with us. But that is extremely rare.

'A Matter of Life and Debt' is the sort of programme that is fitting the BBC's public service remit to    'inform educate and entertain.' It's on mid-morning on BBC1. It's about credit unions, set up at various towns throughout the United Kingdom as an alternative place for people to save and take out debts so as to avoid taking on loans from loan sharks or pay-day loans which charge outrageously high interest rates. Sometimes it's so people, who have poor credit ratings and would never get a loan from more traditional sources such as high street banks. Some people want cash to buy furniture for their home or have a holiday but a lot of them use the cash to set up a business or to expand an already existing business such as a dog-walking company or hairdresser's.

A lot More Television Annoyances

I can't believe I can find even more things that annoy me about television.

Why do so many presenters have to speak as if they're talking to a classroom-full of Primary School children? The worst offender being Kate Humble. She speaks with such a cloyingly-nauseating voice I just want to throw up. It's so twee that it puts me off some programmes such as Springwatch and the other similar wildlife shows. It's as if we, the viewer, were totally unintelligent and have to be spoken down to in this fashion because we probably don't understand things if talked about in a more grown-up fashion. Please, television producers, treat your audience as if they're at least grown up. Or I just won't bother watching and go elsewhere for stuff to watch. Shows aimed at children, such as 'Blue Peter,' never talked down to the children they were aimed at. Even 'Play School' managed to avoid that and it was aimed at pre-school children.

So many gameshows have questions that are just plain easy. 'Tipping Point' is one such gameshow which has ridiculously easy questions. There's no sort of anything if it's easy. If you can answer every question then what's the point of the whole thing? Shows such as 'University Challenge' have particularly difficult questions, as you would expect, although we're able to answer quite a few of them. I know they have to aim their gameshows at a wide range of abilities and no doubt if they had questions that are too difficult it would put a huge section of the public off watching, but if it's just plain simplistic then it's crazy.

More Niggles: Television- Part 2

What's next on my list of niggles regarding television? How about the over-abundance of similar shows, such as antiques and cookery? One or two would be fine, but why do schedulers think that the viewer is going to relish the possibility of a rash of the same sort of show? Crazy. All the fuss about Great British Bake Off transferring to Channel 4 was totally over-the-top. I can't honestly see how it can be worth £75 million or thereabout, even if it's for five years. There are a couple of antique shows we watch and enjoy, such as Bargain Hunt and Flog It! Well, they just happen to be on at the right time, when we have lunch or tea and at least you learn something about antiques. Then there's 'lifestyle' shows, doing up houses, 'Escape To The Country' as well as 'Homes Under The Hammer.' Why do the people who go on something like 'Escape To The Country' want to move to the middle of nowhere, North Yorkshire or somewhere in Cornwall, miles from anywhere, a long drive to the nearest supermarket or a hospital or doctor? They generally have more money than sense and they want a huge house with more bedrooms than they really need. If you're going to move once you retire, why not just down-size and spend the money you have left over because you've gone for a smaller, more economical house? It's just so you can invite your friends and family and impress them with your new, huge home.

Day-time television is awash with selling things. Virtually every programme has some aspect of selling, such as houses to antiques. It's the same thing as I've already mentioned. Once a show is found to be a success with an audience they seem to think that we'll want more and more of the same.

Why do these shows have the same music on their soundtracks? I can't understand why, when they make some programmes, usually documentaries, they have to use the SAME music which gets recycled endlessly. Perhaps the budgets for these shows don't allow for original scores and they use royalty-free library music. It's the most likely reason, but the same rather clichéd music seems to do the rounds of such shows as 'Antiques Road Trip.'

Not just antiques and cooking, but during the afternoon there seem to be endless gameshows. There's nothing wrong with a really good gameshow. 'The Chase' is currently a huge hit on I.T.V. at teatime. It's main selling-point would be that Bradley Walsh is the questionmaster. He has a good repport with the contestants and can, occasionally, corpse when a rather risqué answer comes up on the three answers the contestants have to select. Then there's The Chasers, who are usually good value for money. Then the questions are quite difficult. I hate those gameshows which have questions that are, frankly, an insult to one's intelligence. The worst offender in that department is 'Tipping Point.' We've watched this addictive show, but some of the questions are, to be honest, an insult. Such questions as 'What month is Christmas?', 'What colour is the sky?' Doh! Who really thought that a gameshow that is really a version of those machines that you'd find at the fair or on a seaside pier, where you put a few pennies in a slot and the machine has different shelves or 'layers' that move backwards and forward and you have to get the coins to fall over the edge to win? Crazy.

Day-time television is awash with selling things. Virtually every programme has some aspect of selling, such as houses to antiques. It's the same thing as I've already mentioned. Once a show is found to be a success with an audience they seem to think that we'll want more and more of the same.

Why do these shows have the same music on their soundtracks? I can't understand why, when they make some programmes, usually documentaries, they have to use the SAME music which gets recycled endlessly. Perhaps the budgets for these shows don't allow for original scores and they use royalty-free library music. It's the most likely reason, but the same rather clichéd music seems to do the rounds of such shows as 'Antiques Road Trip.'

Something that really gets on my nerve and that's the need for producers of television shows to have 'what's coming next' at the beginning of a show. 'Bargain Hunt' does this. I quite like this show, but why do I need to get a glimpse of what's going to happen? I'm quite capable of staying with a programme to find out. I don't need this stupid element. It's taking up valuable running-time. Then, most drama series have to have 'Next time . . .' and you get a glimpse of the next episode. Totally unnecessary. Something pinched from American television which is best off being ditched. I know that a lot of our shows are either sold to American television or are co-productions, but it's as if you're not going to stick with a long-running series (or 'season' as we have to call a long-running drama series, also pinched from America.) And a great deal of fuss is made out of the final episode of a run of shows, or 'series' or 'season.' Now called 'Finale.' Which sort of separates it from the rest of the run of shows.