WARNING to sensitive readers: this column may contain self-pitying or aloof sentiments reflecting the time in which it was written (about five past ten).
If you’ve a loop about your person I’ll be out of it. I’m minded to witter thus with the yearly repeat of the annual crop of stories about how the Christmas telly this year is all repeats.
Christmas telly: that’s for regular folks. In the words of gloomy songwriter Peter Hamill’s lighthouse keeper: “The stars shine – but they’re not for me.”
Thus Christmas telly isn’t for me. Nothing to do with it being Christmas. Like most people who hate Christmas, I used to love it too much. It’s by far my lowest time of the year now, and that’s not a bar you’ll be limbo-dancing under any time soon.
But if there were anything good on telly, I’d watch. For it’s telly that’s the loop out of which I, er, am. I just have two satellite channels for the footer, and iPlayer, on which I only ever watch Sportscene and Match of the Day. I ought to receive regular TV channels with one of the satellite services but don’t have the aerial required and, at the time of going to press, can’t afford one.
Long story short: other than through iPlayer and the like, which require too much foreknowledge, I don’t get normal telly.
Even then, I don’t suppose I’d watch much, if any, of it. When I had Netflix for a month I never watched anything beyond Ricky Gervais and still just put on DVDs. The other night, I found myself watching The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin (1976-79). Before that, it was Rumpole of the Bailey (1978-92).
News stories this week suggested the BBC, which produced the first of the above series, had halved the number of comedies in its schedules over the last decade.
Is telly worse than of yore? I wouldn’t know. Never seen Bake Off, Strictly, the one about Birmingham gangsters in funny hats, or X-Factor (except a bit of one for the purposes of investigative journalism, ken?)
People get antsy when you say this, thinking you’re being aloof or implicitly critical of them for being common. It isn’t that. I’m not striking an attitude. The situation just came about. Once, after Sportscene, I stayed on for other BBC programmes and enjoyed them. And, as implied earlier about DVDs, I do watch a screen. Pretty much every night. Believe me: I’m as bad as you.
It's just that I’m more out of the regular loop. My researchers tell me that young people don’t watch regular TV but “catch up” on their portable telephones. Eh? Do they watch with a magnifying glass? Oddly enough, and here’s common as muck for you, my TV screen is massive. Why would you have a small screen to watch football or movies? That’s real snobbishness and very 1990s.
Today, according to my watch, it’s 2021 and Christmas, alas, is coming, trailing with it a cornucopia of repeats and “specials”. I shall be watching the original Star Trek or Dad’s Army or a Connery Bond or a gloomy Ingmar Bergman. They’re all special to me, and all repeats. But they’re my repeats on my scheduling.
Ring in your ears
FOR me, you’d think it would have been a match made in heaven: The Beatles turning The Lord of the Rings into a musical.
Then I remembered: I don’t like musicals. I’ve tried to like them and even went to a couple, admittedly under duress, but had periodically to be prodded awake.
Tolkien himself didn’t approve of the project. He was fussy about folk fiddling with his Hobbits. It says here it would have featured McCartney as Frodo, Ringo as Sam, Lennon as Gollum, and Harrison as Gandalf, all of which I could envisage.
With metal paraphernalia through their noses and elsewhere, punks could have played the Orcs, with sundry Rolling Stones as Sauron, Saruman and Wormtongue.
Macca apparently told Peter Jackson, who directed a film version of The Lord of the Rings and has now made a documentary about the Fab Four: “I’m glad we didn’t do it because you got to do yours.” To which Jackson replied to the effect that his hadn’t been a musical.
That said, Jackson introduced music into The Lord of the Rings, at the celebrations for Bilbo’s birthday, as you’ll recall. There was dancing, which was disturbing enough, and the beat seemed suggestive. Nor did I approve of Rosie the barmaid making eyes at Sam Gamgee the gardener.
Still, at least The Beatles had songs ready-made for a Rings musical: He’s Leaving Home for Frodo departing The Shire; With a Little Help from My Friends when his Hobbit buddies join him; Don’t Let Me Down, being Gandalf’s wish to the ring-bearer; Mother Nature’s Son about Tom Bombadil; We Can Work It Out for the Council of Elrond; She Said, She Said for Galadriel’s prophesying; Help! when Frodo reaches Mordor; and Get Back when Gollum tries grabbing the ring at Mount Doom.
If you don’t understand any of the above references, you should be ashamed of yourself.
Five things we have learned this week:
Crazy kitties
All cats are psychopaths, according to new research. Who knew? Liverpool Uni researchers said moggies’ savage ancestry made them unpredictably nutty and fierce, though this was on a continuum “where some cats will score more highly than others”. You could, of course, read all of the above and apply it to humans.
Leather loonie
Leading nutter Kim Jong-un has banned citizens of his looncracy from owning leather coats. The North Korean fashion icon is fond of these himself but dislikes the commonality copying him. Accordingly, an edict was issued against this “impure trend to challenge the authority of the Highest Dignity”. The what now?
Ya beauty
Men are more blinded by beauty than women, according to research published in Scientific Reports. In a cunning study, with heterosexual men and women judging trustworthiness by facial features, females fell for it less than males. Other studies, mainly anecdotal, suggest beautiful people get all the best jobs and spouses. It’s so unfair.
May contain nuts
The novel Kidnapped contains kidnapping. That’s the helpful warning provided to sensitive students at Aberdeen Uni, who are also told that Shakespeare’s play Julius Caesar contains “sexist attitudes” and “centres on a murder”. A spokesthing said the uni supported students suffering from “cultural diversity”, the phenomenon whereby everybody has to think the same.
Patch’s pants
Actor Benedict Cumberpatch is doing more than most to save the planet. He won’t buy new pants until his old ones are falling to bits. Says Mr C: “I’m proud to say I even wear my underpants until they have holes in them …” At the time of going to press, Benedict remains married.
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