The Hour: Coats, hats, gloves, cigarettes, brooches, brollies, intrigue and a stiff drink

Hello hello hello, I'm back bitches! Apologies for the long absence due to moving/internet woes and other boring things but never mind all that, I'm here, tapping out words on my keyboard, making sentences and everything. A champion as always of British-made telly, it's The Hour that has been feeding my eyes for the past month. Although branded by some the British Mad Men, it's not. Same period, yes but here the women are in charge.

Romola Garai plays the captain of ship as the Hour's producer, Bel Rowley. Billed as the strong ground-breaking female, the character sadly falls a bit flat. I mean she's fine but her bizarre affair with Dominic West's wet anchor with an equally wet name, Hector Madden, just doesn't sit right. What IS she doing with him? He's so DULL and wooden and insipid, EUGH. Rowley isn't the driving female force of the programme as I had hoped, but Duckface is. Yes, Duckface off of Four Weddings and a Funeral, the lovely Anna Chancellor. Playing the slacks-wearing, chain-smoking Lix Storm (Best. Name. Ever.) she completely steals the show from Garai which is a shame as Garai's character seemed so promising in the previews. She does, however look smokin' hot with her gorgeous Joan Holloway-style wardrobe.

Far from a straight forward drama series, the plot is filmic, like a John Le Carre novel. Set in the midst of the Suez Canal Crisis, there are spies, double agents, murders dressed up as suicides and fiendish puzzles. Trying to navigate his way through the maze of subterfuge and intrigue is young journalist Freddie Lyon played by the phenomenal Ben Wishaw. Trying to uncover the truth behind the death of a childhood friend, he stumbles into a dangerous conspiracy. I'll not spoil it for you (BUY THE DVD) but it is pretty thrilling. There are personal sub-plots as well, such as Freddie's obvious love for Bel and his sexy times with Lix, however they do take a back seat to the the Hour, highlighting the importance of the news stories that dominated the time and the vital new format of news programming that was so revolutionary.

I loved it, Bel and Hector's tedious affair aside and am delighted to hear the news that a second series is being commissioned. More Ben Wishaw in tank-tops typing through a haze of floppy hair and cigarette smoke? Yes please.

Thank you Telly for... Our Friends in the North

Sorry guys, been a busy bee lately with not much time to watch much new telly, hence very few posts so to rectify this I thought I'd revisit some classic series and say thank you Tellly! So today Thank you telly for Our Friends in the North. 'But Suzanne! When it was aired in 1996, weren't you but a young child, living in jodpurs, giddy on super strong Irn Bru Soda Stream and watching the episode of the Monkees where Peter tries to get a job so many times that you memorise the entire scene where the computer interviews him, so much so that you can still recite it today word for word?' Well, yes... 'Shouldn't you have been in your bed dreaming of going to an Enid Blyton style boarding school, ruddy-cheeked and boisterously playing lacrosse with a robust sports captain jollying you along on the sidelines?' Yes, I should have been but I've never been a bedtime fan, I've always been a telly addict and, most importantly, THERE WAS A TELLY IN THE KITCHEN.


I remember the 1960s period trailors and at the age of ten I believed it to be hugely unfair that I was born in 1986 and missed the Beatles, the beehives and the Biba. Anything that even remotely suggested the period was a definite must, hence the dozen Woolworths-bought 60s compilation and my overuse of the word groovy (I was only ten). I took note of when Our Friends in the North was on and stayed up until I knew it was safe to sneak downstairs in the dark, turn the volume knob right down low before switching on the television with a clunk from the giant on button.


I remember very little from the series when it was originally aired, but the history arc that it followed always stuck with me, the housing scam, Margaret Thatcher, the miners strike, the 1987 hurricane, I drank it all in. Recently I re-watched the series with the benefit of being older and somewhat wiser. At ten I thought the actors were good and the make-up that aged them through the decades was good but I appreciate now what a brilliant ensemble cast Christopher Eccleston, Gina McKee, Mark Strong and particularly Daniel Craig, were. As an adult I'm now more drawn to the story of the four individuals; Mary and Nicky's love story, 40 years in the making; Mary and Toskers desperate struggle to keep their family together; Nicky's socialist political activism; Geordie's heartbreaking blows dealt by increasingly unfortunate circumstances.


Today it's still as impressive and moving as ever. An ambitious project, that could have easily fallen flat was excellently researched and executed by all involved. A journey through Britain's turbulant recent history combined with compelling stories of the people who lived it, Peter Flanery's epic drama still packs a punch today.

Twit-Telly

And by this I don't mean telly for twits, no no no, I mean telly for twitterers (it's a word). Gone are the days of sitting on your lonesome sofa, with a Chef Lonely-Hearts and a tea-stained blanket wrapped around your Oreo-stuffed frame. No more of that, we have Snuggies now! But seriously, instead of talking to an empty room, we can now pick up our phones and type such thing as,

OMFG, this bawsac on my telly is a bawsac ROFL LMAO #thetellyshowwereallwatching

And we can be safe in the knowlege that there are others out there in the Twitterverse with the same views, all we have to do is scroll down and bingo!

Thatmanthatwritesforthatnewspaper
What a cockface this cockface on my telly is #thetellyshowwereallwatching

I'm not alone in my house watching me telly, it's all actually an illusion! In reality my tiny living room is filled with people I admire, writers, actors, musicians, comedians, as well as a plethora of virtual pals whose faces I've never seen in motion, only frozen in avatars and everyone's sitting around chatting about what we're all watching. I am swept along on a wave of inclusion and I decide to tweet Thatmanthatwritesforthatnewspaper as we seem to be on the same wavelength:

@Thatmanthatwritesforthatnewspaper What a cockfaced bawsac! #thetellyshowwereallwatching

Hahaha! I'm so funny! He's going to think I'm so funny! And he only bloody does and retweets my tweet for all to see! OMFG! I'm flipping HI-LARIOUS, maybe I should start writing down my thoughts if they're this funny, maybe even try some stand-up, what the heck?! Basking in my new found awesomeness and to keep the momentum going for my six (count 'em SIX) new followers, I roll up my Snuggie sleeves and write a reply to a comedian I like because she'll get me too.

@Thatcomedianoffthatpannelshow Hahaha! What's the script with this cockfaced bawsac? Is he some kind of moron or something? LOLZ #thetellyshowwereallwatching

I am on FIRE. Buzzing, I wait for my inevitable reply. It's totes coming. I'll give her a minute. She's taking her time. I've refreshed my @ mentions twelve times now. My sense of inclusion is slowly ebbing away and my living room full of virtual pals fades away until it's just me, my Snuggie and my Chef Lonely-Hearts again. I fetch a bottle of red wine. By the time the telly show ends, I'm very drunk and definitely not funny.

Nah! Really though, Twitter has made telly-watching a completely different experience. There are event shows like the X Factor or the Apprentice that end up trending world-wide; there are shows you only decide to watch because Twitter tells you about them like the 1976 TOTP reruns, which turned out to be a brilliant night in; and then there are ongoing shows like Eastenders and Corrie that build-up a plethora of not-so-private Twitter jokes. So cheeurs Twitter! Cheeurs for the virtual pals! Cheeurs for the laughs! Cheeurs for indulging my telly addiction! And cheers for fueling this blog!

All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace: Everyone loves a good montage.

Adam Curtis began his latest documentary series, All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace on BBC2 this week and I tried my darnedest to grasp what he was on about and this is what I came up with, see what you reckon...

Ayn Rand was Russian lady, novelist and the founder of Objectivism. Objectivism is a philosophy based on the individual's achievement of happiness through pure self interest, out with government/religion and their restrictions, right? Right. So Ayn Rand wrote this book in the late 50s, Atlas Shrugged, based on this philosophy. In the book a group of innovators and business leaders take themselves away from the contsraints of society to live in the hills somewhere and watch smugly as the society collapses without them. After a while, when the economy is well and truly fucked, they come back to tell everyone how to construct a better society, focussing on the above mentioned principles of objectivism. Yes, this is a reductive explanation of a long and complicated book but that's the basic gist.

One of Rand's inner circle, Allen Greenspan, went on to become the Chairman of the Federal Reserve, the most powerful man in the American economy and therefore pretty much the most powerful man in the world. Greenspan believed that computer networks could maintain order without central government control. This idea of the world being connected by these networks became known as the Californian ideology. Thus far I was kind of following but it wasn't long before my mind began boggling.

During Clinton's time in office, there were budget cuts in order that the market could right the deficit and public spending was encouraged, creating the boom of the 90s. Now here's where the machines come into it; the computers created mathematical models to keep the market stable so people are borrowing and spending like nobodies business. A New Economy has been made. But something isn't right, productivity rates are not increasing yet the predicted profits are rising. Greenspan notices this, tries to warn everyone but then changes his mind, deciding it's all going to be fine after all because the computers will sort it. But soon, of course, it all falls apart, the markets, Clinton and Rand's collective and everyone's in the shit, especially Asia, who's westernised economies take the biggest hit. China are well pissed off at this and begin flooding the west with cheap goods that the western markets can't match and so industry gets a kicking and the west is plunged into recession. Basically, I think that's it, okay? Okay.

So the moral of the story seems to be, don't be a selfish dick, think about how your actions will effect others ie. don't lend huge wads of cash to countries to aid their economies and then fuck their markets up, sending them straight into Third World status. While I may not have grasped all of the complex ideas Curtis raises, the economy has always been a bit of a mystery to me, I did enjoy the style and soundtrack. Numerous montages are accompanied by haunting/raucus/beautiful tracks and insightful parallels are drawn to illustrate that this self involved philosophy of objectivism is damaging to the individual as well as to the broader world, economic or otherwise. Never having seen a Curtis film before, I thought the style was captivating: he made a fairly depressing and at times frightening subject an aesthetically enjoyable experience.

The Apprentice Returns: 'Is that an orange?'

It's the most wonderful tiiime of the yeeeeaaar! That's right folks, The Apprentice is back and so is my weekly run down of all things Apprentice. This week as a special treat you'll get two whole posting from me! Cos there's two whole episodes, innit. Before the the first episode last night I had a look at the candidates interviews to see who I should watch out for and right away shit-talking awkward Ed stood out for me, with his shiny head and his waving arms, 'I don't believe Lord Sugar would find anything difficult about me.' Wow, really? This guy might do well, eh? Another of the candidates I liked was Ellie, maybe it's the lovely Yorkshire accent, maybe it's her no nonsense chat, 'I'm just a nice person really, but I have got a dark side if somebody treats me badly', don't we all. How will my horses do? Let's find out...

DUM DI DUM DI DUM DI DUM DI DUM DI DUM DI DII DII! Here they come, across the bridge all in their nice suits with their suitcases, talking a lot of crap, 'Don't tell me the sky is the limit when there are footsteps on the moon', candidate, Melody, reads her words of wisdom off a fridge magnet. In the boardroom the candidates meet Shoogs for the first time and he explains that this year the name of the game is different, instead of working for him, the winner will be working WITH Shoogs, who will inject £250 grand into an unspecified business. Well some of them have got businesses, others do sales and there's even some inventors. Bespectacled Thomas invented the world's first curved nail file. Impressive, no? I like Thomas, he seems lovely but be warned 'underneath these spectacles is a core of steal.' Aw! No there isn't. Nor does there have to be, stay lovely Thomas and you'll be fine. Back to this weeks task and rather predictably Shoogs splits the teams into boys v. girls. Shoogs gives each team £250 and tells them to buy some fruit, make sumfink wiv it then sell it. Simple.

Ah, the team names, always massively underwhelming and this year is no exception. After throwing some poor to middling suggestions into the ring like 'Platinum' and 'Galvanised', the girls end up go for 'Venture' *YAWN* Leon pipes up with an hilarious suggestion 'Leontrepeneur' for the boys team. HA! But the boys who have no vision and no sense of humour go for 'Logic'. Since these names are so shit I've decided this year to name the teams myself. The girls team shall now be known as SISTA TRIBE and the boys will be THE POSSE CREW. Because moonwalker Melody has been personally taught by the Dalai Lama and Desmond Tutu (yup, that's what she said) she will lead SISTA TRIBE while waving-arm Ed will head up THE POSSE CREW.

The boys head out to the fruit and veg market in search of oranges. Picking up a round orange fruit the killer question is posed, 'is that an orange?' Wow. The girls fair a little better spending only £180 of the Shoogs' money and both teams head back to their kitchens to make their products. SISTA TRIBE split their products into breakfast and lunch, selling fruit salads and minging tomato pasta. THE POSSE CREW decide to go for orange juice and soup. Jim Eastwood (cool name, cool accent) does well in the boys team, diffusing arguments in the kitchen and behaving generally like a good chap. I like him. Actually. Weird. Disaster hits the boys' kitchen, however, when the juicer breaks and the 1400 oranges (we checked, they ARE oranges) have to be squeezed by hand. OUCH. Eventually both teams get their goods out and start selling and the girls seem to be fairing a lot better than the boys but will it be a shock result in the boardroom? No. No is the answer to that. SISTA TRIBE get the shit prize of champagne and some food in the house. Shoogs could've sent them to a nice restaurant at least. Tight.

Meanwhile down at the end of loser street in Heartbreak Cafe, Ed's team sob into their coffees. Now Ed has been 'rolling with the punches' all episode but back in the boardroom he really starts to shine. He talks. And talks. And talks a load of shite, 'that's my character, blah blah blah, I think you're soup man, blah blah blah, I don't fit the mould, blah blah, micro-manage, blah blah, when I was producing that was production, BLAAAAAH!' Jings. Ed brings back Gavin and Leon. Gavin seems alreet and he holds his corner well. Leon, on the other hand....well....

Shoogs: What was you doin' all day?
Leon: I ran the fixed unit.
Shoogs: You mean you was in the lorry?

Brilliant. Ed tries in vain to fight his case and he's really scraping the barrel for excuses, 'not only am I the youngest on the team, I'm the shortest.' Well flippin' done. Ed, you're fired. Oh well, that's life eh? I suppose you have to ROLL WITH THE PUNCHES.

Next time, the teams develop and sell mobile apps. Stay tuned for some offensive stereotypes. Welcome back The Apprentice!

Made in Chelsea: Prepare to be hit by a wall of hate.

Monday saw the beginning of another faux reality series about a group of glamorous young people with big wallets and even bigger egos. My beloved The Only Way is Essex finished it's reem second run last week and now makes room for E4's Made in Chelsea. The trailers gave a good indication of how hateful these people would be and I was not disappointed. They were horrendous. ALL of them; privileged poshos living in one of London's most exclusive areas, all with droning plumby accents, all self involved and all vain.

The first episode begins with a party to celebrate the launch of Ambaaaaa's jewellery line. There was a distinct lack of jewellery, perpetuating the myth that Chelsea parties are just a place to be seen. We meet Caggaaaaaay, she's a singer. A real artist. Deep and that. Then there's Little Lord Fonteroy Francis. Can you guess what he does? Go on guess. You'll never get it. He's a DIAMOND MINER. Yup, for reals. Who's this now? Wait, is that Vigo, the villain off of Ghost Busters II (thanks to @nicklewisbryan on Twitter for that)? Nope, it's just Fredrik who's hair is the only interesting thing about him- NEXT! Ollaaay, who is NOT GAY AT ALL, looks like Ferdie off of This Life's younger, snootier brother. Because Ollaaay is NOT GAY AT ALL he has a girlfriend, Gabriellaaa who inexplicably adores him. Then we have Spencaaaar, charming Spencaaar who has a girlfriend, Fundaaaaaa (I know, I know) but he also likes Caggaaay, although he won't sleep with anyone other than his girlfriend AT THE MOMENT. Told you he was a charmer.

You bored yet? Me too. And I don't know what's going on because I can't understand a chuffing word they're saying, E-NUN-CI-ATE! There are various other faceless glam-bots some of whom I only remember because their names are so ridiculous, like Binkaaay and Cheskaaa. There's nothing endearing about any of these people but what did we expect? Of course there is nothing likeable about being rich and posh and living in Chelsea. People won't watch it in there droves like TOWIE because no one will have a favourite who they love because even though they might be a bit dim, they're probably quite a nice person. This Chelsea lot are also a bit dim, see the 'Charles Dickens wrote Winnie the Pooh' conversation, but they lack that warmth of character. And there's no Nana Pat to give us some down to earth wisdom.

Despite all of it's failings, I will be watching it next week BECAUSE they're so deliciously hateful but I predict even this will get old quickly. I give it three more eps until I hurl a full can of Strongbow through the telly into their tedious symmetrical faces.

Sounds Like Teen Spirit: The bizarre and brilliant world of Junior Eurovision

It's that time again folks, EUROVISION!!!! Cannae wait for the obligatory pairty, pick a country, dress up and bring a themed dish. Can you imagine the opportunity to do this TWICE in ONE YEAR? Well imagine no longer; I give you, JUNIOR EUROVISION. I know, I had no idea either but it exists and Jamie Jay Johnson's 2008 documentary Sounds Like Teen Spirit, followed the kids from selection to the final live show. Technically this is a docu-film but it was on the telly and I liked it so I'm writing about it anyway.

We begin our road to Junior Eurovision in Belgium as they showcase their young talent. And what does Belgium have to offer? Wheelie wearing, line dancing, sugar-dipped Dalton sisters; danced-up accordion playing lads with traditional kicking dance; a spurned 13 year old Avril-Lavigne-alike; bland, rice throwing Bieber-alikes complete with token girl singer. Through the dance of the red blocks a representative is chosen and it's.... Biebers+girl, Trust.

Ruddy hell, it's like the early Olympics apparently, the winners then only got a bit of leafy head wear and these kids now only get perspex trophy. You'd at least expect it to be platinum or solid gold or something, it's just PERSPEX but these kids want it. Including 10 year old Giorgios from Cyprus, the star of the whole show. He begins by showing us around his Mediterranean pad with gems such as, 'This is the door that we go in' and the perplexing, 'This is the fridge. This is where we spend most of our time.' I instantly LOVE this boy. His entry sees him perform with his sequined capped girls but his life at school is far from fab and spangly. As with most theatrical kids, Giorgios is bullied but because he is amazing he wants to thank his bullies or he wouldn't be the person he is. You see? LOVE.

Bulgaria gives us the mildly irritating Bon-Bon. From this group of tweenie Miley Syruses we follow Marina, who's struggling to come to terms with her parents' separation. Her father left her mother for another woman and Marina heart-breakingly thinks that maybe if she does well in Eurovision her dad might come back.

Georgian winner, Mariam, lives in startling contrast to her more well off competitors. We meet her mother and little brother in a run down tower block. As she walks through the streets we see how big a deal this kind of competition is to a country like Georgia. She's greeted like a celebrity, with kisses and hugs and free oranges (don't worry the guy has a car full. Literally).

The kids from Trust are quite boring and normal apart from the one who likes to study in his bathroom and the girls who just wants to meet a nice boy. These ones, I like. When the competition arrives the bitchy adults give their take on who will win. No one puts much faith in Mariam, they mostly think she will come near the bottom so naturally I hope she wins. It reminds me of youth theatre courses I used to go on, the kids all got to know each other and quickly made friends. The comradery is really quite heart-warming. Giorgios says he wishes his whole life could be like Junior Eurovision. If only.

The live show begins hosted by Laurence Llewellyn Bowen and Gwendolyn, the good witch and watched by 23 MILLION across Europe. From Georgia, Mariam's mother watches on an old TV with a dodgy reception as she couldn't be there in person. One by one the acts perform and then the scoring begins. As the scores come in the Ukraine with their horrendous stripping Bonnie Langford seem to be doing well, Greece, Belgium and Bulgaria are not. Georgia, meanwhile are raking in the points and after a win for Bellarus, end up coming in fourth! In your FACE bitchy adults! I am genuinely gutted for Giorgios, though who's dad worries he may get bullied when he gets back to school. For now though, it's disco time! I hope this is what the big people's Eurovision is like too.

The doc isn't really about Junior Eurovision but about the kids and their disparate lives in Europe. Although Mariam returned to Georgia a national hero, she and her family had to flee there town shortly after when conflict with Russia broke out. The film maker muses that these children are the future of Europe and can perhaps change it for the better. Here's hoping.