Another Bloody Friday
The television is bad again, just like it was the last Friday I was in England.
At least there’s QI on Dave. What a weird name for a television channel!
Plantpot from 78rpm Record
This is a horrible thing to do.
Plantpot from 78rpm Record
Someone might have needed Island in the Sun by Harry Belafonte. But not this one as it had a crack. And they certainly wouldn’t want it now.
But they make good plant pots as they’ve even got a drainage hole.
If you want to make one, just heat them up in the oven and then give them a good bend.
Time for a Moan
So Murray’s finished with Wimbledon for another year and life can back to normal.
Perhaps a night in watching the television. But then if today’s Pick of the Day from The Times is anything to go by as to the quality of what’s on, I suspect we should give that a miss.
Horne and Corden – The golden boys of Gavin and Stacey, Mathew Horne and James Corden, were rewarded with their own sketch show on BBC Three, which attracted a record audience of 817,000 for the first episode. After that, it was downhill all the way. Directed by Kathy Burke, the show was roundly slated for being amateurish, crude and aggressively unfunny. Viewing figures collapsed, with only 434,000 bothering with the final episode. In one sketch, two teachers give a joint lesson to a class on how to draw penises; in another, James Corden keeps shouting “I’m going to come!” while having sex. Elsewhere, he pulls up his shirt and rolls his stomach in front of a burger bar as a form of consumer complaint. The acting is accomplished enough, but that’s as far it goes. Viewers on terrestrial television can now find out what they haven’t been missing.
There’s no decent sport on the box either.
So perhaps, I could go to the cinema. In Haverhill, there appears to be nothing on and anyway, I hate going to the cinema by myself. I’ve only done it a couple of times and that was usually in somewhere like Boston, when I had a couple of hours to kill. I remember, that I saw Crocodile Dundee there and they laughed in different places to everybody else, such was their view of New York.
Then I could go for a walk. But at present, I’m crippled with a foot that I cut on Holkham Beach. I’m now on penicillin for it – gluten-free of course!
So I’m reduced to watching Whatever Happened to the Likely Lads on UK Gold.
Such is my lot. At least I can waste time trying to cook something nice.
Steve Race
Last month I missed that Steve Race had died. He was one of the last great broadcasters from the 1950s to the 1970s, who were at home doing everything. He was a jazz pianist, author, broadcaster and television panelist. And he even used to create the Quick Crossword for the Telegraph. I think too, that he was one of the original presenters of PM on Radio 4.
He was one of my favourite broadcasters and I know it is often said, but I don’t think we’ll see the like of him again.
Coeliacs and Mental Problems
Just listening to the twins, Will and Rupert Young, on the radio as I write. Will is the well-known singer and his twin brother, Rupert, has a history of mental problems. He’s just set up the Mood Foundation to help people with their problems.
It’s just a small point, but I moderate a list on the Internet for coeliacs. We are all allergic to the gluten, found in wheat, barley and rye. What keeps coming up is those with this allergy are often diagnosed as suffering for depression, bi-polar disorder and other mental problems. When they go on a gluten-free diet, the symptoms disappear.
Obviously, this is only likely to help in the cases of the 1-in-100 of the UK population who are coeliacs, but to test for the allergy is now a simple blood test.
Taking a scientist’s view of the body, undiagnosed coeliacs are often low in vitamin b12 and guess what? This is absolutely essential for healthy functioning of the brain.
But perhaps more importantly, we need to have a totally open view to mental illness and not rule out ANY cause of a person’s problems. After all a cured patient can become a valuable member of society.
Rupert has just said that he was helped by equine assisted therapy. As someone who breeds racehorses, I know that horses can help in mental problems. To relate to say a mare and a skitty foal, you have to be calm, just to get them to take a tidbit. And so you learn how to calm your emotions. Also for people who have problems with violence and losing their temper, they don’t want to try anything remotely like that with a horse. They’ll get a good kicking. So you learn to control yourself.
Mollie Sugden
Mollie Sugden, one of Britain’s comedy greats died yesterday at 86. That was a good innings and we’d all like to do as well as she did. We’d probably all like the nation’s affection too, but we’d never get to her levels.
The Telegraph obituary saved us all a typical joke for the end.
Mollie Sugden and her husband had identical twin sons, born when she was 41.She confessed that when they were very young she had to keep them labelled so that she could tell them apart and that “more than once I bathed the same one twice”.
In Your Head You Can Go Anywhere
The title came from the excellent documentary on David Hockney last night on BBC1.
He also said that “You don’t retire doing this, you do it until you fall over.”
I feel like that about programming.
John Craven Rides Again
I used to sit with my children and watch John Craven’s Newsround on the BBC many years ago.
When I was in the south of Italy recently, I watched BBC World News and the voice of one of the readers was John Craven’s to a t!
Strange!
Casualty 1909
Just saw a bit of this on BBC1. When I was at Liverpool University in the 1960’s, the set used in the second series of this program, was actually the main Liverpool hospital.
A friend, who was a medical student, took some growth from underneath a floorboard and created something in a Petrie dish, that nothing could kill!
MRSA? No! But there were some awful bugs in those days.
Michael Jackson and Seve Ballesteros
The news is dominated by the death of Michael Jackson. I wasn’t a fan at all and the outpourings are in my view totally over the top. He may or may not have done things he shouldn’t and we can look forward to large amounts of allegations that can’t be verified one way or another.
Jackson may be dead, but long live the Michael Jackson industry!
Much more important news today is that Seve Ballesteros has made what seems to be a pretty good recovery from his brain tumour.
He was in a far worse state than Jackson and it shows that by focusing on the future and doing everything you can to help, you can make a recovery from the darkest places.
Good luck to Seve!
The Anonymous Widower 