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.

Living At Home- Part 1

I have many more memories of living on the farm at Cardington. Being a farm, life seemed to revolve around the kitchen. I've probably mentioned this in an earlier post, but it was some time ago if I did but never mind. 

We had all our meals around a large table in the kitchen. We rarely, if ever, had meals in the dining room. Probably at Christmas, but certainly not for every-day meals. The kitchen table was large, probably made of deal and had a Formica surface. My mother used it when she was making cakes as it was high enough to stand at comfortably to work.

We always sat around that table to have meals. I don't think we ever sat and watched television with plates of food on our laps. We had to eat whatever was put in front of us, no finicky eaters. I don't suppose my mother would have put up with that sort of carry-on, with having five children to feed. We weren't allowed to be fussy eaters. You had to sit and eat what was put on your plate and finish it off. You had to sit quietly and wait until everyone else had finished until you got down from the table. I think it's only manners. Thank goodness we had such manners instilled into us as children. I grew up during the 1960's, well before the introduction of gadgets such as smart phones and tablet computers. You certainly wouldn't  bring toys or any sort of gadget to the dinner table. I think we had more respect for adults when I was a child. We stood up whenever an adult came into the room and you gave up your seat, for example, if you were on a bus. You held the door open for a lady (I expect you'd be called sexist if you did this today.) You didn't talk unless asked to and you didn't butt in if two adults where having a conversation. I'm sure in general people had more respect for other people and you waited patiently if you were in a queue.

Then we  had just 3 television channels. We now have countless television channels on multi-channel-channel platforms such as Sky, Virgin and Freeview. BBC 1, BBC2, ITV and much later Channel 4. We didn't have colour television in our home until well into the 1970's. My father didn't want a set until the system was well established. People who had colour television tended to show off that they had a set by having their television positioned so that if the curtains at the window were drawn people who walked past the house could see in and see the television when it was on. Not in our house, as the television wasn't positioned in such a way. We had a black-and-white set and you couldn't record anything as you could when V.H.S. and Betamax recorders came in in the 1980's. We didn't have ITV in our house until around 1964-5 as far as I can remember, probably because we had to have a new television arial put up.  Anglia was the ITV company serving the East Of England where we lived. We didn't have BBC2 because you needed a set which had the higher definition signal which gave 625 lines for the picture. BBC1 and ITV were on the old system which had 405 lines. Colour didn't come in until the early 1970's, but BBC2 introduced colour in the late 1960's and I remember going on a trip to Robinson Rentals, which later got taken over and became Granada Television Rentals in Bedford when I was at school and they showed colour television pictures of Wimbledon tennis which I think was a sort of experimental broadcast.

Saturday outing To Woburn Abbey

Having spent a great amount of time in the house since Carol's illness, it was more than necessary for us to have some time out. Carol wanted to visit Woburn Abbey, as it's only a 20-minute drive from home. We regularly drive through the park to see the deer. The weather was somewhat undecided and threatened rain but as we drove away from Milton Keynes along the A5 the rain held off. We were able to use our H.H.A. (Historic Houses Association) membership to gain free entry to the Abbey and the house. it's a really pleasant drive along the drive which leads to the Abbey and you are treated to to the sight of the deer who roam freely within the park. We were followed by a coach which no doubt had many visitors on board. Having parked up in the carpark, which was relatively space-free at the time we arrived, but it gradually filled up as the morning continued. We walked in to the Abbey grounds through the gift shop and then went into the gardens. A beautifully maintained delight, peaceful and relaxing. We came across a group of guinea fowl, which neither of us had seen before and they were not only beautiful but very comical, making strange noises and following a leader across the lawns. A number of other visitors pottering around as we were. I think they had arrived on one of the coaches and were something to do with a 'pruning day' or something, whatever that was, but I presume these people were keen amateur gardeners. We walked towards the golden pheasant enclosure and Carol attempted to take some photographs. There was one sitting on a ledge at the back of the enclosure, a bright blue iridescent colour, but with a particularly ugly face. We attempted to make polite conversation with a man from the gardening group, but he was just plain miserable. We always attempt to have conversations with the people we encounter when we visit such places, but from what we saw, when he was back with the woman who we assumed was his partner or at least, wife, he didn't look as if he was that pleased to be there and would have rather been doing something else. Visiting Woburn Abbey under duress, if that's the right word! We continued our walk and took photographs as we went.

We approached the entrance to the Abbey itself, but before we did so we went into The Duchesses' Tearoom where we had coffee and pastries. Very pleasant, but somewhat over-priced, but that is what you expect at such places and considering Woburn Abbey must be one of the major tourist spots you can see why they would want to wring as much profit out of such a place. Never mind.

Inside the Abbey itself there is currently an exhibition about Queen Victoria's visit to Woburn Abbey sometime in the 19th century. There are documents and drawings from this great occasion and you can see the actual bed within the bedroom where she slept. Also, there's a dress she wore and from what we saw it was obvious that she was tiny. A great many visitors being guided by tour guides but the staff on duty in each room were very knowledgeable about each item in the rooms we walked through as well as being very friendly. No doubt the Victoria exhibition ties in neatly with the I.T.V. drama series which is currently being shown on television on Sunday evenings and has reached the second series.

We spent near enough three hours at Woburn Abbey, but no doubt you could spent considerably more time there. A great deal to see and do. So we returned to the carpark and drove home to Milton Keynes.

More Niggles: Television- Part 1

I have written in several blogs on some of the niggles of life. I shall discuss some niggles I have about television. I'm sure it's not just me that notices such things, so if anyone reading these thoughts has any further comments to make, do, please, feel free to write in the comment box at the end as it would be interesting to know what other 'niggles' regarding today's television people can come up with.

Why do sports programmes have to have people talking on them with very loud voices? As a person who has no interest at all on the subject of football (and, indeed, a great many other sports, apart from athletics and possibly rugby.) These persons seem to speak in CAPITAL LETTERS as if those to whom they are talking are either incredibly deaf or stupid, or else, to someone who has English as a second language and can barely understand what it being said. Or they speak with such basic English it's an insult to the average person who has an I.Q. above about 120 or so. Or as if they were Sun readers, or at least, tabloid newspaper readers, which always seem to use very basic language (from what I've seen of such papers when I've visited the supermarket and have inadvertently seen the headlines of them. Generally in huge bold, very black print with about a 2inch square block of type for the story the headline is for.)

Then there's the patronising tone that some presenters have. A sort of Primary School teacher-type voice. Kate Humble uses this voice whenever she's presenting certain programmes, usually with cuddly animals on. A lot of the presenters on Countryfile speak like this. A sort of 'we know better than you, so shut up and listen' type of voice. Infact, Countryfile has a sort of smug tone to it, a very patronising and insulting sound for townies who know nothing about life in the country, where their food comes from, the fact that meat comes from animals bred and living on farms and are ignorant of how it is slaughtered and butchered and don't think the nice little plastic packets they buy in supermarket which contain meat, neatly presented and covered in cling film, comes from a living animal.

Let's move on. How about this niggle? Why do the credits at the end of television programmes have to go past so rapidly you can't possibly read them? Why do they have to be crammed into a very small box, generally squeezed up so small you can't read it and the other half of the screen will then have a trailer for another show that's coming up, or about the next show, and an announcer will talk over the music from the previous show? What is all this about? Is it because the television schedulers are scared you're going to loose interest and turn over to another channel? Because we now have so much choice, so many channels on multi-channel platforms, as well as down-load, catch-up, streaming services such as Amazon and Netflix? All this is so annoying when you want to find out the name of an actor in such-and-such drama or film, or even, who wrote the music, directed the thing or any other detail that the credits should show. It's a bit of an insult to those who have laboured long and hard over a piece of television to then have their name rushed past the viewer in such a fashion.

Advertising. A general beta noire of many television viewers. I realise that many channels have to be funded by advertising, but why do many of these commercial interruptions (for want of a better way to describe them?) have to be so CRASS and AWFUL? We now get 'sponsored by . . .' promotions at the beginning and end of programmes as well as during the ad breaks ('wrapped around' is probably the technical term.) Adverts for sofas get on my nerves. Do companies such as D.H.L., Sofa World and others ever sell their products at full price, and do people always want a new sofa at Christmas or Easter? Why do they insist on using that stupid woman with the high-pitched voice, very annoying (almost as annoying as Kate Humble) nauseating and awful. Then there's the constant ads for such things as stairlifts, funeral insurance, P.P.I., Saga holidays and so on, which seem to be aimed at people of a 'certain age.' Something of an insult in a way and generally on the, how should I describe them, the 'lesser' digital channels, the ITV channels 2,3 etc which seemed to show programmes aimed at older people, with repeats of Midsummer Murder, Poirot etc etc.

900th Post: Elephants at Whipsnade

We've been waiting for two new exhibits to open at Whipsnade Zoo. They have been building the new Elephant Care building for about a year. Whenever we've visited over that period we've seen the work going on. Also, the brand new African Hunting Dog's enclosure near where the wolves used to be. This section opened on 1st April and then on Tuesday H.M. Queen visited to open the elephant's centre. There was a mention of this on Facebook, via the Z.S.L. website and their Facebook page and on both local television news programmes, Anglia's About Anglia and BBC1's 'Look East' did items, even though not very long. So on Wednesday we decided to visit.

The journey down the A5 was fine until we reached the outskirts of Dunstable. There was quite a queue of traffic and it moved exceptionally slowly until we reached the set of traffic lights and had to make a right turn towards Dunstable Downs. A rather frustrating journey and it wasn't too clear what was causing such long delays.

We arrived at Whipsnade at around 11, having been shopping at Aldi earlier. The weather has been fine and sunny, but it was actually quite cold, so we had to wear jackets. It can be a good deal colder up on the Downs where Whipsnade is situated. It was probably ideal weather for visiting the zoo because a lot of the animals were more active than usual. If it's too hot they tend to hide away in the shade. The place was very busy, with long queues at the entrance. One advantage of Carol being a Fellow of Z.S.L. is that we not only don't have to pay for entrance, but we can drive in (also without paying) which means we can drive around within the park, thereby reducing the amount of walking we would otherwise have to do as the place is quite large and the enclosures which house the animals are a fair distance apart.

We couldn't park the car where we usually park, near the bears. We drove round the zoo until we got to the area near the tigers. A lot of the paths around that area had been closed off with metal fences. I presume they had been left over from the previous day when the Queen had been to open the Elephant Care Centre. Regardless of whether these fences were in place, people were ignoring them and walking around them. We went towards the elephant enclosures and found a great many people milling around. Whipsnade had been used a few months ago for the BBC1 television programme " The Big Painting Challenge" which was shown on Sunday evenings. The contestants had to do paintings of the flamingos as well as the elephants and we knew, from watching the show, whereabout they had set things up. It's strange how so many of the places we've been to over the years get shown on television. Sky did a similar show on their Arts channel and the locations for their landscape shows were done at a lot of National Trust properties we've been to, such as Stowe Landscape Gardens which is a round a 20-minute drive away from Milton Keynes. Well, if nothing else, these programmes have put these places on the map and no doubt have encouraged people to visit them. No doubt the fact that Her Majesty coming to Whipsnade to open the Elephant Care Centre prompted many of today's visitors to visit the zoo. We then walked over towards the new African Hunting Dogs enclosure which was opened at the beginning of April. It looks somewhat sparce and obviously needs more landscaping. I think they introduced the pack of dogs to get them accustomed to their new home before making to many changes. There is a viewing platform which allows you to see the dogs without having too much obstruction by fencing or screening. We learned that the Elephant Centre wasn't open until 1 o'clock which we didn't realise when we came into the zoo.

It always amuses us to see people who insist on taking photographs of themselves rather than the animals. This obsession with taking selfies is crazy. Why do people spend so much time and money visiting these places, and then end up taking photographs of each other and not the place they are visiting? We've seen this so many times at either the zoos or National Trust properties and elsewhere. Just idiotic, to say the least. Just so they can post them on such social media sites as Facebook.

We needed some sort of refreshment so went to the Wild Bite Café. We were more than a little shocked to find it so busy. And noisy, with children screaming and one annoying child creating such a loud noise I felt like leaving immediately. Carol ordered our coffee and sandwiches and I had to find a table to sit at. Not easy. It really seems that they ought to sort this out, build new facilities or at least provide more space for seating. I would imagine the place was busy because of the fact it's the Easter Holidays and people seeing the Queen on television opening the elephant house.

We had a drive around the perimeter of the zoo, visiting the shop at the entrance and having an ice-cream and then left for home. No doubt we'll be returning later in the year.

Watching Amazon TV Series 'The Man In The High Castle'

Besides having Sky as our 'television provider' we also have Amazon Fire, which is linked to Amazon Prime. A couple of years ago Carol bought a Kindle Fire, and as part of the deal, we got Prime free, which meant we got anything we purchased through Amazon came with free delivery as well as Amazon's 'on demand' television service. When the first year ran out we had to decide whether to continue with it and pay £79 a year and to purchase a Fire Stick. This we did and set up the Fire Stick which connects to our Sky wifi router. You then get a wide range of 'apps' which allows you to watch television shows and films free but also some which you have to pay for through the Amazon account. There are quite a few similar services besides this Amazon service, including Netflix. We can get the main channels 'on demand' such as BBC, through their iPlayer as well as Channel 4, Channel 5, as well as a few more besides. Very good, except you can't download and keep the programmes as you can with your Sky+ box. I'm not sure whether the newer Fire box which Amazon recently introduced allows this, but it costs a good dea than the Fire Stick (which I originally bought from Argos and costs around £34 which, considering what it does seems very reasonable, particularly if you don't have Sky, Virgin or any of the other 'television providers.') We used to have Freeview at this address but found that, because we didn't have an outdoor ariel, the signal was poor. So we looked around for a solution and found that Sky was perhaps best. It was when we were searching around that we discovered that Virgin wasn't available in this area because Milton Keynes, although a modern city, didn't have a cable network to carry the Virgin television or telephone network.

It's great having Television 'catch-up' services such as iPlayer and similar as you can not only watch programmes you might otherwise miss when they are originally broadcast (usually up to a month.) but there is quite a lot of what I'd call 'back-catalogue' material. We've watched 'Doc Martin' through the Fire Stick which also means you can miss the advertising. We did start watching 'Downton Abbey,' having recorded episodes on the Sky+ box but the adverts we so annoying and irritating that we didn't bother to watch any further episodes but eventually caught up with the final series when it was on the I.T.V. 'player.' It now appears that all six series are on Sky+ 'box sets.' With Netflix producing a remake of the B.B.C. series "House of Cards" with Kevin Spacey in the lead role, and the fact you can 'binge' watch all the episodes and don't have to wait a week before the next episode is available to watch, you can see why companies such as Amazon are making their own television shows for 'instant' download or steam. (Incidentally, I was a 'Walk-On' in the BBC version of 'House of Cards.")

I am currently watching an 'Amazon Original' series called "The Man In The High Castle." It's based on a novel by Philip K. Dick, who is best know for writing the novel "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep," which was the basis for the film "Blade Runner." That film was directed by Ridley Scott, who is also Executive Producer of "The Man In The High Castle." I am enjoying this series immensely. It is set in an alternative future where the Nazis won the Second World War and rule America jointly with the Japenese. This shows that television can beat cinema when it comes to story-telling because you can the time, over 10 hour-long episodes, to allow the narrative to breathe and characters to develop over time, which you cannot possibly have with a film which for no more than three hours.

This is dark and brooding and has a real chill to it. I think it's because it's believable. We know that the Nazis obviously didn't win the war, but this could so nearly have happened. It's this that gives it the edge. Only only criticism is that many of the scenes are in almost impenetrable darkness, to such an extent that you can barely see what's going on. I realize that this under-lit quality adds to the suspense and atmosphere, but it doesn't really help that you can't see clearly what's going on. I do like the fact that you, as the audience, has to actually work hard to make out what's going on, they don't give everything away. I like being able to make conclusions for myself. A lot of modern television and cinema is far too obvious. It's almost as if the makers assume you don't have the intelligence to work things out for yourself. It have a certain cinematic look, well photographed and the set design and costumes are well executed. I would imagine they had a fairly large budget to be able to give it that 'look.'

Tickets for I.T.V. Revival of Sunday Night at the Palladium

We're both really excited as we've got tickets for the revival of the I.T.V. show 'Sunday Night at the Palladium.' I've been signed up for quite a while with an on-line company which issues free tickets to a very wide range of television shows. We've been to see several things being recorded, notably the television version of 'Dead Ringers' which was recorded at Television Centre and two radio shows, one a panel show called 'The Write Stuff' and a sitcom  'Clement Doesn't Live Here Any More.'   Both were broadcast on BBC Radio 4. These were both recorded at The Drill Hall near the British Museum. It was interesting to see how radio shows are made and in particular the sitcom as I've always been intrigued by how they do the sound effects. When I worked in stage management I quite often had to operate the sound system and cue in pre-recorded sound effects as well as music and we sometimes had to produce live or 'practical' sound effects, usually off-stage, such as door slams, glass crashes or gun-shots.

If you go to see television show being recorded you have to bear in mind that it won't be like going to see a play in a theatre as you don't always see directly onto all of the sets as some are obscured by bits of other scenery, cameras and equipment gets in the way and you often have to watch pre-recorded segments on television sets or monitors and there are often quite long breaks in the recording when actors have costume changes, bits of scenery is moved about and sometimes when there is a technical problem. Also, they might do several 'takes' or a scene or an actor forgets his lines or they want the audience to applause or perhaps not. Then they have a warm-up man or woman come on and keep the audience entertained until the set move is changed or the costume change completed. A half-hour show can take over two hours to complete and with radio they usually record two half-hour episodes on the same evening and the audience has a break in between the recordings.

Re-visiting Brideshead

I am currently watching the Granada Television series "Brideshead Revisited" which is currently being re-run on Sky Arts. I remember seeing it when it was originally shown in the early 1980's.  Couldn't help then being captivated by it then and the same can be said about it now. It seems to have stood the test of time remarkably well. It's amazing to think that Granada, in those days a single company within a 'federated' ITV would produce something as lavish as this series. It runs to 11 episodes and if I remember rightly the first and last episodes run for 90 minutes. So that's around 12 hours of running time! Seems amazing that you would even think of making a drama series that ran that long in the 1980's, but nothing would be made with such detail and with such a superb cast in the early part of the 21st century. I do have some sort of link to it, having worked as an A.S.M. at Greenwich Theatre in the early 1970's and was involved in a play written by John Mortimer called "A Voyage Round My Father"  (see earlier post where I give much more detail on this.) John Mortimer was credited with writing the screenplay, but, having just looked on I.M.D.B. I discover that his screenplay wasn't used although his name remained on the credits. I wonder why. Anthony Andrews portrayal of Sebastian is quite mesmerising. It's the sort of acting which has you hooked. It would have been easy to have gone 'over the top' and played him as just camp, but he seems to avoid this quite admirably. There's no acting that comes up to this sort of standard on television that I can think of at the moment, intact, there's nothing that equals this series on anywhere on television at the moment. I can't think of anything which keeps you so hooked, where you have to find out 'what happens next' and look forward to the next episode.

I can't say that I'm actually over-enthusiastic about it as a piece of television drama. I know I watched it way back when it was first broadcast in 1981 and I read the book, but I have to say the characters are so arrogant and hateful I can't say they exactly draw you in. They are all self-centred, don't exactly show any redeeming features and are not particularly likeable. The central character, Charles Ryder, the narrator and played by Jeremy Irons, is so totally boring that you can't latch on to him at all. He goes about being to ally miserable all the time. He's supposed to be a painter but he's not very convincing. Who would bother hiring him? Sebastian, the character played by Anthony Andrews, is an interesting character, but he doesn't have to work as he's got money, presumably from being a aristocrat. He drinks himself stupid. Who would employ him anyway? None of the characters have to work, which is one reason I can't possibly engage with any of them. I have to say that the filming, direction and settings are excellent, but I can't imagine this series being produced with such a lavish style in the early part of the 21st century. It has a very downbeat ending to it and not exactly leaving you with a feeling that any of the characters find happiness in any way shape or form.

There is another connection I have, although vaguely with 'Brideshead Revisited.' I mentioned earlier that I had worked on 'A Voyage Round My Father' at Greenwich. During the run of the play, there was much talk of it transferring to the West End. It did eventually make it to the West End, but I don't think it was the same production and if so it had a different cast. I know that Alec Guinness played the central character of the Father, and if memory serves he did come to see the Greenwich production which had Mark Dignam playing the Father. Laurence Olivier came to see it and came back-stage after the performance. He played Lord Marchmaine in 'Brideshead, although he doesn't actually have a major part and is only in two episodes, when Sebastian takes Charles to Venice and in the final episode when Lord Marchmaine returns to England and there he has a somewhat long and drawn-out death. I remember when I first saw the series in the 1980's this episode, which runs for 90 minutes did seem a little over-long. But I can at least say I have been in the same room with Laurence Olivier, although not to speak to! Much later on Thames Television did a new television version of 'A Voyage Round My Father' and Oliver was in that. Another actor from "Voyage" has a small part in "Brideshead Revisited," John Nettleton, who played the commanding officer at the beginning and the end of the series, from the time that Charles Ryder, played by Jeremy Irons, revisits Brideshead Castle when he is an army officer and billeted at the house at the beginning of the Second World War. And I did notice in the closing credits that an actor I worked with at  Ipswich Theatre in the 1970's, Stephen Mallatratt, had a minor role. He went on to adapt the Susan Hill book "The Woman In Black for the stage and which has become a huge hit in the West End and on tour. He wrote scripts for many television series including "Coronation Street."

Compared to current television dramas it's light years ahead of, say Downton Abbey. I have seen one episode and I can't see what all the fuss is about.  Not particularly engaging characters and the story lines don't convince. I think the big problem  Carol and I have is that there are far too many adverts on I.T.V. I think within an hour's running time you get three breaks which is every 20 minutes. It's actually better to record on Sky+ and then when the advertising breaks come up just fast-forward through the commercials. I realise that it's these commercials that pay for programming on I.T.V., but when it's for such things as car insurance and sofas, then it does get incredibly boring. And can someone explain why these sofa companies are always having sales? We watched something else the other evening and there were no less than three adverts all for sofa companies? 

Having been to Castle Howard in Yorkshire, which is used throughout as the location for Brideshead Castle, and thoroughly loving the place, and the fact that it was filmed in various other locations throughout England, together with an exceptional cast, this is one television series well worth seeing again. I  can recommend it highly.

Why is it that so much of television today gives me a headache? I don't mean the subject-matter so much as the fact that directors insist on using some really headache-inducing camera techniques,
 what they call 'whip-pans' and something which makes me feel positively sick, where you have a couple of actors standing still and the camera spins around them? What on earth is that all about? You get things chopped up in the editing suite so you get a lot of very brief 'clips' and it's hard to make out what it is. Another is when they insist on having the actors walking along and the camera follows them, but instead of it being a smooth 'dolly shot' where the camera runs along a specially-constructed track, you get a really horrible wobbly hand-held camera shot which makes you feel queasy. Not nice. Well, none of this seems to be used in the making of 'Brideshead Revisited.' I presume it was made when such techniques weren't used much.  Is it because these unpleasant filming techniques are a way to cut costs? No reason can I give except that it's 'trendy' or 'arty.' Actually means that I'm not going to endure the show and just turn off or find something else to watch.  it seems that producers treat their audience with a great deal of contempt because everything seems to be in short time spans, that is, scenes are short as if the audience can't concentrate on anything for no more than a couple of minutes at a time. This was true of things like 'EastEnders' (which, incidentally, I can't stand as it's full of such hateful characters who are always falling out with each other and always shouting. Not good for one's nerves. Just not enjoyable viewing.) where you have several concurrent story lines and they keep on switching between them and you never know exactly what is going on unless you watch regularly.  Then there's the drama series adapted from a novel or something and instead of adapting it in sufficient episodes to make it worthwhile watching it's done in perhaps two or there when perhaps six or even more episodes would be better. No doubt this is because of budgetary constraints. This was evident a few years ago when they did a series based on 'South Riding' which was done in three episodes and the plot line was telescoped so much into the timeframe it was incomprehensible. None of this occurs with 'Brideshead Revisited.' In some ways it's incredibly slow and there are whole episodes where virtually nothing happens, but at least there is some character development. I know there is a newer, film, adaptation of 'Brideshead' but it makes me wonder how on earth you can telescope so much story into a running time of about 90 minutes without it seeming rushed. Well, with the vast running time of the Granada version of the book there is definitely space for the story to develop along with the characters.