12/03/09 – tv pages

today i wiped my bum on the guardian tv pages. i checked to see if there was anything i wanted to watch. all i spotted was the kevin costner sf movie “the postman”, oh look i will be at the cinema when it is on. bless the dvd recorder technology that i have invested in. record the movie on the tv, go and see the movie at the cinema.
win win.
result.
ah if life was only that simple.

because i was in a rush, and i am never at my best when i am rushed on the bog as i really do like to linger and savour the toilet experience, i didn’t really do much in the way of cogitation. i read a few reviews of sf and fantasy novels from an old issue of deathray (i would have read them sooner but most of the articles in this issue were about battlestar galactica and watchmen – neither of which i had seen at the time. still haven’t seen bsg). a few books added to the ever growing list of books to buy and then i realised i was going to be late for the cinema, seeing 'surveillance' (and very good it was).

the thing about the tv pages is that there is little i really want to watch. i confess that i could easily become addicted to television, but i have been spared it by the fact that there is so little that i really like that is on. not that i am taking a moral high ground here, it is just that a lot of the things that i want to watch are on channels that i just can’t receive. for years i lived without a television and i have lost the habit (skill?) of being able to read the tv guide and remembering to watch the programmes that i want to. most nights i find myself agreeing with springsteen “57 channels and nothing on”. then i catch something and wonder why i bothered, such as the horne and corden show. i kept having to remind myself it was supposed to be funny and wasn’t some belated attempt to subdue the populace.
though all is not lost as one of the greatest programmes in the world is shortly to be back on our screens. yes i am talking about ‘two pints of lager ..” a show that has dispensed with the double entendre and just goes for the smut jugular. i love it for that simplicity of purpose – laughs from rudery. it works so well.
so i know what i will be doing sunday night.

oh and what became of ‘the postman’. i recorded it. somehow i managed to do it with a different audio channel. an audio that basically does a verbal précis of the film’s action, but does it as the film is playing but all dialogue is silenced. because there is a voiceover, it can’t be for the hard of hearing, because it seems to occur throughout the whole movie with periods of silence it can’t be for those with attention deficit i don’t quite know what the point was.
i will have to look out for (the inevitable) repeat of ‘the postman’, but i will keep this odd version for future reference.


the guardian is here
deathray is here
find out about movies such as 'the postman' and 'surveillance' here
two pints of lager is over at the bbc