Skuds' Sister's Brother » Bah Humbug!

Fame indeed

Skuds — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 00:35:17 +0000

I didn’t realise how well-connected Andrew at Wongablog is in Humanist circles. This evening I started reading the Atheist’s Guide to Christmas book that I was given at Christmas. I was already chuffed enough to find it signed, with a personal message, from Ariane Sherine and then I looked at the thanks section at the back. I was amazed to find that in a whole page of thank yous Andrew was listed in the first line – top billing over Dawkins in a humanist book. I am impressed.

Best day of the year

Skuds — Wed, 30 Dec 2009 22:01:43 +0000

Yesterday was my favourite day of the year, one that I always look forward to. It does not always fall on the same date, but is normally a few days after December 25th. The timing depends on when the Northern sister can get time off work. It is the day we go up to Essex to visit family over the Christmas holidays.It is the one day of the year that Mum is guaranteed to have all three of us kids together, along with our kids. Most years will see some sort of event like a wedding or funeral when we will be together, but this is the one fixed point. It was a bit quieter this year as our two boys have now left home and were both working, but all the main components were there: Rob wearing his now traditional ‘I’m not here to fix your computer’ t-shirt while he fixes Mum’s computer, enormous hot & cold buffet for more than a dozen people, rotten traffic on the M25, and dropping in on Joan and Ivy on the way home.

As is often the case, I have returned home with even more books to add to the queue – just when I was on top of my reading list. No complaints though: I can now look forward to the new Malcolm Gladwell book and the Atheist’s Guide to Christmas, which Rob got signed by Ariane Sherine while he was in London.

I can also look forward to playing with a remote release for my camera, thanks to the Essex-based sister. A work colleague swears by these for totally avoiding camera-shake when doing night-time photography with long exposures but there is no way I am taking the camera out in all this rain so I will have to wait for that pleasure. What it does mean is one more suspicious-looking gadget in the luggage when the camera bag goes through an x-ray machine.

Chhristmas is now officially over. In our house we don’t consider that it has really happened until we have been back to Essex for the day.

Festive Telly

Skuds — Mon, 28 Dec 2009 20:31:40 +0000

I can remember when Christmas seemed to revolve around the television set, something that probably peaked during the 1970s. These days it seems less and less important with so many other competing attractions. If the TV is turned on it is just as likely to be for playing the Xbox or watching a new DVD box set as for actually watching any programmes live. Old habits die hard though, and Jayne still bought a TV listings magazine, which I had a look through.Way back in the mists of the early 2000’s Charlie Brooker started a website called TV Go Home which was a spoof Radio Times-like magazine full of invented ludicrous progtrammes like ‘Vin Diesels 500 Favourite Tartans’ or ‘Nicky Campbell: Swimming With Cats’. Looking at the schedules for this year it appears that reality has finally caught up with the spoof, especially as far as ITV1 is concerned. It feels like 50% of their programmes have ‘celebrity’ or ‘all star’ in the title.

The bottom or the barrel has to be this from Boxing Day:

The All Star Impressions Show
One-off special in which celebrities including Ulrika Jonsson, David Gest, Tim Healy, Les Dennis, Eamonn Holmes, Jerry Hall, Paul Daniels and Joe Pasquale impersonate a range of familiar faces. Hosted by Stephen Mulhern.

If that listing had appeared in TV Go Home I would have enjoyed it as a really good satire on the fatuousness of TV. I already had that marked down as one to avoid, but braver souls who actually watched it report that it was even worse than it sounded on paper. I did watch the Youtube clip in that link and it really was dire. Eamonn Holmes was a passable Elvis, but the Steptoe & Son sketch… Mackenzie Crook was an inspired choice for old man Steptoe, but Harold Steptoe said ‘dirty old man’ in every single line, removing any remote chance of wringing any enjoyment out of it.

Immediately before that car crash was All Star Family Fortunes and before that was Ant & Dec’s Christmas Show where, according to the listings, “Amanda Holden and Piers Morgan take part in a series of party games”. Is it any surprise the BBC thrashed them in the ratings this year?

Looking at the listings for today I see that I am currently missing something really special on Discovery:

How Its Made
Double-bill. A look at the manufacture of copper pipe fittings and the production of kitchen scissors.

Wow. It does actually sound more tempting then most of the Christmas so-called specials on offer.

So did I actually watch any TV over Christmas, or just sit sniping at the listings? I did. I watched:

Christmas Eve

QI (On iPlayer)

Christmas Day

Doctor Who – totally bonkers. Like to see what deus ex machina RTD will deploy to get out of this one.

Boxing Day

Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End (first 30 minutes, then the rest on V+ after our guests went) I had hoped it would make more sense the second time round. It didn’t. Brilliant effects but never really knew what was meant to be going on.

Sunday

Celebrity Mastermind – the last ten minutes.
Top Gear Bolivia Special – the credits listed a Safety Advisor’. Did they leave him at home or something?

Today

I expect to watch the Day of the Triffids remake and at the same time will record the documentary about Not the Nine O’Clock News. I will not, under any circumstances, watch Match of the Day!

I will also not watch Celebrity Mastermind. Either I am severaly out-of-touch or the BBC have completely re-defined the term celebrity because the contestands are Darren Bennett, Stuart Maconie, Linda Papadopoulos and Andrew Lancel. I have heard of Maconie of course but have no idea who the others are. Maybe I should watch the first 5 minutes to find out.

Happy Birthday

Skuds — Fri, 25 Dec 2009 10:02:50 +0000

Today's comic strip from xkcd.com

Nothing says Christmas quite like…

Skuds — Thu, 24 Dec 2009 21:34:56 +0000

…a whole street full of black sacks because the rubbish wasn’t collected this week.

It is going to look lovely tomorrow after the huge cat population have an overnight shredding spree.

Decorating the cats

Skuds — Tue, 22 Dec 2009 22:32:42 +0000

Scar and Rojo are looking forward to Christmas day

Getting the car moving again coincided with Jayne getting paid, so today saw one or two rash purchases in town while I was working, leading to an entertaining few minutes at home this evening as we tried to get Scar and Rojo to model their new scarf and santa hat.

Bah humbug already

Skuds — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 00:28:08 +0000

Jayne was off work today – her school was closed because the rain had somehow stuffed the fire alarm system. I got home to find that she had occupied part of her day by getting the Christmas decorations up. Already.

Whatever happened to the traditions of doing the tree and decorating the house on Christmas Eve (as soon as you get back from doing the xmas shopping) and taking it all down on 12th night?

Must be Santa

Skuds — Sat, 28 Nov 2009 17:37:20 +0000

This is Bob Dylan’s new one – a Christmas song. I hated it within two seconds, but then it started growing on me and by the end I thought it was brilliant and the best Christmas song since the Pogues. Is it Christmassy though? Sounds like the music from a Jewish wedding to me.

Unfortunately it will probably be out-sold by some faceless wannabe from a TV talent show.

The most annoying thing about Halloween

Skuds — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 01:27:35 +0000

This is not where I bang on about telling children that for one night a year it is OK to accept sweets from strangers and the endless streams of children knocking on your door. That is easily addressed. You can already put up posters saying ‘no trick or treat please’, although I think it would be better for an opt-in rather than an opt-out way of handling this – assume that nobody wants children begging at their door unless they indicate otherwise, perhaps by showing some sort of symbol. A pumpkin would be appropriate. No need for laws or rules, just a general society norm would do.

I am also not going to bemoan the enforced Americanisation of our customs, with trick and treating, school proms and the like. I will leave it to the BNP to denounce the spread of foreign customs. It is all harmless fun, and if some people want their children to roam the streets begging for Haribo, and others want to keep a stock of pick & mix by the front door for them, that is fine as long as it is not compulsory.

Nor am I going to suggest the whole thing is evil and is leading children down a path, at the end of which lies depravity and devil-worship. I will leave that to the more excitable churches.

Instead I am going to have a gripe about films.Specifically, I want to complain about HMV’s Halloween promotion. In the last week or two their shops have had a promotion on horror DVDs, suggesting we should get in some horror films to mark the event. I noticed that the display had films like Saw prominent in the display.

Now I am not an expert on the traditions of All Hallow’s Eve, but surely it is about ghosts, spirits, spooks, witches and all that sort of thing. Possibly that could include the traditional Mummy and maybe zombies. Frankenstein’s monster and vampires are so long-established they seem traditional now, although the Frankenstein story is really science fiction more than supernatural.

But Saw? That is just about a human psychopath, with absolutely no supernatural element to it at all. Along with similar films like Hostel, House of Wax, Texas Chainsaw Massacre, it is more about explicit gore than suspense and has entirely human causes. Just because a film sits in the racks labelled ‘horror’ does not mean they are suitable for Halloween. If you are going to jump on a bandwagon, at least get it right.

You might as well sit the kids down at Christmas to watch Eyes Wide Shut, Die Hard and Meet John Doe instead of Jack Frost, Elf, the Snowman and Jingle All The Way! (top tip: the best Christmas film must be Gremlins)

Wash Your Face In My Sink

Skuds — Thu, 25 Dec 2008 21:33:08 +0000

This Christmas season is being defined by plumbing problems. First of all it was the shower not turning off properly. I diagnosed the problem as being a faulty flow control valve, but you have to get such things my mail order – local supply shops do not do spare parts. I ordered one through the Internet on Christmas Eve, so it’s anybody’s guess when that turns up at which point there is the enormous potential for disaster of me trying to fit it.

Since then it has got worse and instead of a heavy drip the shower now stays on full flow when it is turned off so we have to turn it on and off with the stopcocks in the airing cupboard until the new valve arrives.

The other plumbing problem is that every time we turn our backs we get a huge ball of fur blocking the sink…

Rojo enjoying a snooze, Xmas day 2008