Winterval

Well, I thought I'd break my self-imposed silence just to offer some kind of review of christmas itself...

Of the two or three presents I requested, I received none. Instead I got another iPod (the 160Gb one, which is nice but superfluous), and the Laurel and Hardy box set (again, nice, but the 'Sapphire and Steel' or 'Dr Who Dalek' box sets were what I actually wanted). Ho hum.

The family was low-level ill - colds, mainly - for most of the time, so we didn't get out much. This meant we were left in the clutches of the TV, my music collection and the various toys and books my son got for christmas. TV has, in general been absolutely dreadful. The only saving grace was the Dr Who episode, but even that was pretty flat.

The saving grace, for me at least, was the radio.

Here's what I've recorded (with my HiQ software) so far this holiday:

22Dec - The Wooden Overcoat, Radio4,
24Dec - The Charles Hazlewood Christmas Show, Radio2,
24Dec - Jeeves Live, with Martin Jarvis, R4,
24Dec - The Count Arthur Strong Christmas Message on You and Yours,
24Dec - The Best of 'I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue', R4,
24Dec - MR James at Christmas, R4, and 25 - 28 Dec
24Dec - The Nine Tailors, R4, and will record all 10 episodes,
25Dec - News Quiz of the Year, R4, via Podcast,
25Dec - 84 Charing Cross Road, R4,
25Dec - Count Arthur Strong Radio Show, R4. Not a Christmas special, unlike last year, so rather odd scheduling,
26Dec - A Night in the Ukraine, R4, the Marx Brothers in a Chekov play,
26Dec - Current Puns, R4,
28Dec - Count Arthur Strong Radio Show, R4, the first of a new series,
28Dec - The Now Show, R4, via Podcast,
28Dec - Mark Kermode's film review of the year, R5, via Podcast, featuring the 'Pirates' rant featured here and available in glorious video here,
29Dec - Genesis Live, R2. I already have a low bit-rate recording of this, but need to use my upgraded software to creat WAVs and edit tracks,
29Dec - Dracula, Episode1, World Service. I'm not sure when Ep2 is, but probably next week.

Still to do:
30Dec - All's Well That Ends Well, R3,
4Jan - Count Arthur Strong Ep2 of the new series.

Plus, a word of warning. I saw few films this holiday, mostly kids' stuff (The Grinch, Shrek), but two in particular stayed in mind.
One, on DVD, after the GLW persuaded me, was 'Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End' and was everybit as dreadful as Mr Kermode said it was. Unplotted, random scripting and scene-changing, just awful.
The second, at the cinema, was 'St Trinian's'. I thought we'd stopped making - and funding via the Lottery - crap such as this after the disaster that was 'Sex Lives of the Potato Men'. We only saw it because the screen for 'I Am Legend' was full. I'm booking in advance next time.


Happy New Year to all.