Category: media

Last year’s much-fêted Top of the Pops revamp seems to have been a disaster as the programme is about to move from BBC1 to BBC2 for the first time in its 40-year history. I don’t think it’s been the same since it moved from Thursdays to Fridays. Thursday evening watching Tomorrow’s World and Top of… Continue reading TOTP Sidelined

There should be a law against people writing drama about subjects they know nothing about. Last night’s Spooks was a good example. It was all about a computer “hacker” who was holding the British Government to ransom. His plan went like this. Although email has been around for decades, it didn’t really take off until… Continue reading Spooks

I’ve been an digital cable TV customer of ntl for some years. When the system was installed I was told that interactive TV services weren’t available in my area but that they would arrive in “about six weeks”. This was something like four years ago and we still don’t have interactive services. A bit of… Continue reading Digital Interactive TV

According to a story in today’s Guardian, The Times is planning to go tabloid-only within two weeks. A later story (warning: Media Guardian site requires registration) claims that it will be happening from Monday and there are a large number of advertising spots booked for this weekend which will inform readers. No-one else seems to… Continue reading Tabloid Times

The Radio Times web site got a bit of a makeover a couple of days ago. It looks a lot nicer now and feels a bit faster. What it needs now is some nice RSS feeds. “What’s on now” or “On Channel 4 tonight” – things like that. And. of course, a web services API… Continue reading Radio Times

This month’s Total Film will feature the results of a poll to find the best British film of all time. Get Carter[1] came first. It’s good to see The Wicker Man doing well (it came 6th). [1] The original version. I hope that’s obvious.

Bugger, I screwed up last night. It was the first episode of the new Hitchhikers series. I didn’t try very hard to get home in time for the broadcast at 18:30 as I thought I could catch it on the BBC’s web site. But it appears that it won’t be available there until after the… Continue reading H2G2 Series 3

My favourite entry from the Singing the Blues exhibition at the Cartoon Gallery.

Yahoo have interviewed George Lucas about the Star Wars DVD release. The release is of the “special edition” versions from the late 90s rather than the original versions which most fans would rather see. Lucas is pretty belligerent about that. The special edition, that’s the one I wanted out there. The other movie, it’s on… Continue reading Star Wars DVD Release

I just got back from seeing Hellboy at my local Odeon. The film was pretty good, but it seems that Saturday afternoon is when all the morons go to the cinema. There seems to be an entire generation who has no idea how to behave in the cinema. They are incapable of going ninety minutes… Continue reading Cinema