Playing Scrabble with Augustus John

It's grim up North

I finally got around to finishing watching Channel 4's Red Riding. I wasn't able to watch it at the time, because of various geographical issues and the wonder that is the Tacolneston transmitter. Both of which prevent me from watching C4 on my own little goggle box. Anyway, it comes in three episodes of about an hour and a half each and is still downloadable/streamable from the 4OD website, if you so wish.

To cut a long story short, it's a story about police brutality and corruption in West Yorkshire in the 70s and 80s. The backdrop of the film centres around a series of murders and even features the real life case of the Yorkshire Ripper. If your idea of a good night in is a couple of episodes of Friends or some movie with Eddie Murphy in a fat-suit (take your pick of a dozen), it might not be for you. If you have a strong stomach for bleak, harrowing, dark and despairing drama, then it may just be right up your street. I personally found the first episode really hard going. I was left feeling despondent, full of pessimism and hopelessness. It was really, really grim. To be honest, I wasn't sure whether to carry on episode 2, but I remember a radio interview with one of the stars who said "Stick with it, it gets better"; that I did.In some ways he was right. Mind you, I'm not sure if that is down to a real change of direction in the films, or just that I been plunged into the emotional depths of hell in the first one and couldn't be dropped any further.

The plot is complicated and labyrinthine and only really starts to make sense once you start to watch episode 2, but it does reward your hard work in watching it. The acting is excellent, but the real star of the piece is the cinematography. Visually, it depicts a version of West Yorkshire (Wakefield and Morley particularly) that sum up life in the 70s, but probably won't find any friends in the Yorkshire Tourist Board. I've had the fortune to spend some time in West Yorkshire in the past and don't ever remember it being all that grim. That said, that was in the 90s and this isn't.

If you do watch the first (and let's face it there are worse things to do with your time), do stick with it. It is quite rewarding in the end.

Born from an egg on a mountain top

You have to love the BBC's promo video for their Beijing Olympics coverage. Apparently those animators for Gorillaz are behind it. Anyone that remembers the Monkey series from the early eighties will particularly enjoy it.

Mwap mwap!

Touch TV

The BBC have released a beta version of its successful iPlayer that can be used to stream content on to the iPod Touch and iPhone via a wi-fi connection. At the moment downloads aren't available, but I'm sure that'll be in the pipeline. As a committed fan of the iPlayer and an owner of a 16 GB iPod Touch this is cracking news though. Add this to the January software update adding Mail and other features to the device and the Touch must be sounding the death knell to the PDA. I'm off to the bath now. I might even fit in a documentary beforehand :)