Has Gwyneth Got The Zip Undone?
There’s something strange about the picture of Gwyneth Paltrow in this article in the Standard.
Look under her left arm, at the cut out in the dress. It looks like she’s got the zip open. Or is it one of those straps to put the dress on a hanger?
Would You Buy A Bank Branch?
You’re a very rich man and you are the CEO of a bank that you feel is reputable, so would you buy one bank branch let alone 316 as Santander tried to do from RBS, as is reported here?
I think the answer is no. Three hundred and sixteen times no!
They would have been transferring 1,800,000 customers to Santander. I used to have my account at the Woolwich Building Society and when it was taken over by Barclays, I didn’t feel that I wanted to bank there, so I moved to Nationwide, where I bank on-line.
So how many of these nearly two million accounts will move somewhere else, like one of the new banks being started by such as Tesco or Marks and Spencer?
I’m not affected, but I choose which bank I’m with! Not some faceless man in Spain!
I wonder also how many people adhere to one of my friend David’s rules of banking, which is to bank with a bank headquartered in the UK and preferably England.
I think too, that five thousand staff will be transferred with the branches and the accounts too. How many of the good ones will jump ship and join someone else.
But these days with more and more people banking sans branch, like I do, surely the best thing to do would be to convert these 316 branches into places of hospitality?
They could perhaps be converted into burlesque bars , offering good food and drink, with a couple of cash machines to emphasise their heritage. It would certainly do wonders for the image of bankers. They wouldn’t even have to change the signage, if they called them Royal Burlesque Shows.
How Slovenly!
As BBC Breakfast cut to the local news, you could just see Louise Minchin kicking her shoes off. I wonder what the style police, that insist all women on the show wear stilettos, will say later.
The Future Of Freeview
I have been looking at an article which describes digital terrestial television in the UK, which is generally referred to as Freeview.
At present there are a hundred or so TV and radio channels, most of which are free-to-air, but some like Sky Sports One and Two are available through various subscription methods like BT Vision, which I have.
When the switch-over is complete and everybody in the UK can get their free-to-air channels in a digital form, terrestrially if they want to, the old analogue signal can be switched off and the spectrum released can be sold off.
I had thought that this free spectrum would end up with those providing mobile services, but it would appear that there’s nothing technically to stop a broadcaster buying spectrum and using it to broadcast other services, whether they be free-to-air or by subscription.
I did say technically, as they would probably have to be regulated by the British authorities.
So would this have attractions for other broadcasters? The obvious candidate would be Sky, as it might like to setup a new Freeview multiplexer to broadcast all their channels terrestrially, probably using similar technology to that used by BT Vision.
It would also allow a powerful sports body such as the Premier League or Formula One to have their own channel.
I think the days in the UK, where you needed a satellite dish to get certain channels may well be numbered. I don’t think Sky will be objecting, as they know how to price a service to maximise the revenue. They are also one of the partners in Freeview.
Naga Munchetty Has Wings
That’s what it looks like on BBC Breakfast this morning. It’s probably the way Naga Machetty is sitting and the silly chairs on the picture behind, look like she’s wearing a pair of red wings ready for a pantomime or a kid’s party.
The New Dallas Is On Channel 5
The BBC is giving a plug to the new series of one of the silliest television programs, ever to appear on British television; Dallas.
Why?
The original programs were crap, and this one is probably crap too as it’s on that broadcaster of crap; Channel 5.
I’ve just sent this e-mail to the BBC.
I don’t pay my licence fee to have you promote rubbish like this on Channel 5! It gives me a good break to have a shower.
Let’s hope they are being paid well for the plug!
I shall not be watching!
Footballers On The Couch
Susanna Reid said on BBC Breakfast this morning, that they’ve never had a current footballer on the couch, whereas virtually all the British medallists from the Olympics, have joined them.
She has a point, but I don’t think it’s down to intelligence, but imagine if say a Chelsea player was on describing how he’d just scored an amazing hat trick against Manchester United, think of all the abuse they’d get. They used to have current footballers on A Question of Sport and they don’t now.
Or it could all be down to agents wanting something like image rights!
But i still think she has a point.
Sharon From East Enders Was On The Bus!
Well not Sharon, but the character is certainly based on observing women in the East of London.
Return To The Hippodrome
Yesterday, I went to the newly-reopened Hippodrome Casino to see Kate Dimbleby perform in a musical entertainment written in collaboration with Amy Rosenthal, called Beware of Young Girls: The Dory Previn Story.
I must be one of the few people of my age, who have memories of the old Hippodrome Theatre, that previously stood on the site. I didn’t actually go, but in the early 1950s, I regularly had to go to the Royal Dental Hospital in Leicester Square. My mother, who had been to the theatre before the war, and I used to come up from North London on the Tube and get off at Leicester Square, where we exited the station at Hippodrome Corner. It was then a short walk to the actual square and the dental hospital. One day the builders were in and you could see right through the windows, which told how what was happening was the talk of the town. I can’t remember it actually opening as the nightclub called, The Talk of the Town, as we finished going to the dental hospital. It’s since had a bit of a chequered history, with good and bad times and now it has been turned into a casino.
I think they’ve made a good job of it on the construction and furnishing side. As to the gambling side, I don’t gamble in a casino. I would though, if someone was fool enough to set up Canfield. But after my stroke, I doubt I still have the prowess I used to have. I do bet on horses, but only when the odds are longer than they should be. I once had Terimon at 500/1 each way for the Derby. He came second.
But I do, see shows in a casino and once saw Siegfried and Roy in Las Vegas. I’ve been to Vegas several times and I’ve never gambled on anything there, which must be some sort of record.
So how was last night’s show?
I enjoyed the show and it brought back memories of Dory Previn’s show at the Donmar Warehouse in the last 1980s, where I saw her with C. The set was similar too and I wonder if Amy’s mother, Maureen Lipman, who is thanked on the program, saw that show at the Donmar too!
I don’t think there are any original videos of Dory Previn singing, although there is this video on YouTube. It was taken on a toy camera, when she opened an Arts Centre in Springfield a couple of years ago. The songs are Jesus Had A Baby Sister and Twenty Mile Zone. Her last recording incidentally was Planet Blue, which can be downloaded free from here.
I should also say that I liked the venue too Acoustics were good and from where I sat, I had a good view.
I didn’t actually eat, but the food seemed to be reasonably priced and as a coeliac, some of the snacks were gluten-free.
I’ll probably go again, when an artist I like is appearing. Top class style it definitely has, but the prices aren’t out of the range of a sensible fan.
The First Gig on the Emirates Air-Line
I know it was a stunt by The Sun newspaper, but surely Newton Faulkner‘s gig set new heights in music.
Next thing someone might perform a few magic tricks or perhaps take a flea circus for a ride.
The Anonymous Widower 