Freeview Boxes : Classic or Dud?

Holiday Affair!

ppl also really rate Remember The Night but I've not seen, Indicator blu on the way

For those with London Live, "Nico, 1988" om tonight at 11pm. John Gordon Sinclair as her manager!

and my PVR caught Press Gang series 2 on That'sTV at, er, 3am this morning

Seems like a good time to be sleeping downstairs due to Covid in Da House. Last night I saw Fry & Laurie and Reggie Perrin.

(you all okay mike?)

Tonight at 8:

https://www.radiotimes.com/programme/b-2w6mzj/the-amazing-hattie-jacques-larger-than-life/

Koogs - I'm negative, C is positive, so keeping our distance. Thanks for asking :)

Phase IV on TPTV tonight, if you can't sleep.

stoked for the upcoming british transport films season on tptv

("stoked", do you see!?)

The London Nobody Knows on TPTV in the last couple of weeks. James Mason walks around various public toilets and london markets, watches people selling eels etc

For those with London Live, I forgot to mention "Cul-de-sac" was on last night but, worry not, it's on again tomorrow night. Tonight we have "Radio On", which I've never seen, followed by "Twisted Nerve", which I haven't seen since I was about 12.

Blaze (ch64) is shoing Blown Away from 10 on sunday, which is Sewing Bee / Pottery Throwdown / Wordwork Challenge but with (american) glass blowing. which sounds interesting. only it's 30 minute episodes and i'm not sure how that can possibly work.

blown away is good, it's like the anti bake off / throw down - strong American vibe, an emphasis on how hardcore it all is and most of the contestants are extremely lacking in modesty. there's only one challenge per episode, 30 mins is fine - bake off is too long imo.

i have been watching Forged In Fire (also on blaze, but recently picked up on 5 Select, ch56, 2 a night from 22:00) for years and that's the same or heavier given that the focus is bladed weapons of various kinds. is fascinating and i've learnt a lot.

(mostly how to kill ballistics dummies)

> Blown Away

lol at repeated mentions of 'glory hole'

maybe too fast for me though. would like to know the people more, and watch them work. and see the finished pieces in more detail than the fly-past the camera crew does. reminds me of the repeats of GBBO on Food Network where they've edited them down to an hour long and made them frenetic.

RADIO ON is overrated.

I've still not seen THE LONDON NOBODY KNOWS, but have read the book.

London is on again on Wednesday, 5 past midnight. and they have a catch-up service now, but it's patchy

worth watching for the people drinking meths outside a church

film noir season on sky arts from Sunday. 3 part documentary and accompanying films. first up seems to be The Glass Key which I'm not familiar with.

ooh thanks for that heads up!

Glass Key is a Chandler adaptation, prob less known due to not having a famous director and Alan Ladd instead of Bogey or Mitchum

Good tip, Koogs.

THE GLASS KEY is not by Raymond Chandler.

Sorry, Hammett! Got confused because Bogart is Sam Spade in Maltese Falcon but also Marlowe in Big Sleep.

I read The Maltese Falcon just recently and was struck by a) the extreme faithfulness of the Bogart/Huston film and b) that there are no other Sam Spade novels (just a couple of short stories).

Yeah, I read the audiobook of that and it did v much feel like listening to a radio version of the film.

Legend are showing The Twilight Zone (the original) from the beginning. times seem to be all over the shop though.

"Vanishing Point", Talking Pictures, 9.30pm tonight.

Watching a Twilight Zone on Legend and it feels...motion smoothed? Even though I have that turned off and no other channels are?

has been mentioned before, i think, but kenny everett video show is on channel 65 if you need blackface and cartoon breasts and Hot Gossip in the wrong aspect ratio at 12:30 of an afternoon.

bowie was on, smoking between lines, and chasing a man in a bowler hat and suspenders with a violin bow whilst trying to keep a straight face.

I remember enjoying the first couple series, not the stuff that gets repeated in highlights (the Toyah and Rod S takeoffs weren't funny the first time but Toyah introducing hers while dressed as Kenny was, for instance) but the Sid Snot, etc .

But the last few series were painfully unfunny.

they used to repeat episodes of the Kenny Everett Video/Television Show on Paramount Comedy in the late 90s and I was obsessed with it. Sarah Squirm on snl sometimes reminds me a bit of TKEV/TS
the 'spiderman needing a piss' sketch will forever be one of the most perfect pieces of television ever made

this is series 3, 1980

Always kinds liked Captain Kremmen.

in about 10 minutes talking pictures is showing the episode of Maigret with Pauline Boty in it

> Watching a Twilight Zone on Legend and it feels...motion smoothed?

yeah, something looks off but then going from 60s usa series on film(?) to 2020 digital has probably had multiple things done to it

feels like every night the only thing on TV that I want to watch is Whatever Happened to the Likely Lads? on That's TV.

Annika on drama, sometime at the weekend. it's Nicola Walker in Scottish marine homicide unit but actually some kind of Scandinavian so she's always dropping in references to Norse mythology (her boat is called mimir for instance) and salty licorice. she talks to the camera as well, displaying its radio 4 roots.

tried the first episode of that cos I loved walker in unforgotten but it was v much not my thing. from what I can remember she has a v annoying child in it.

and astrid, murder in Paris is back. i find out painful to watch at times. it's like Monk but she struggles more with day to day life. but they've got young Astrid pretty much perfect.

and Happy Valley season 1. it's like from 15 years ago but Ryan is the same Ryan. it's brutal and has some great ptsd acting.

Wait, is this a channel called Drama, showing a programme (new?) called Annika? With an English actress playing a Scandinavian in Scotland? And it's all taken from Radio 4 ?!?

Channel 20 yes. mostly old episodes of the bill and to the manor born and stuff of that ilk. also handy for repeats of dickens adaptations.

Annika is not new, but is new to me (oh, 2021 it says). if i'm unsure it's because Drama is all repeats so it's been shown somewhere before (oh, Alibi (uktv / Sky) and Masterpiece in the US).

https://corporate.uktv.co.uk/news/article/uktv-tv-adaptation-radio-4-drama-annika-alibi/

For anyone who fancies staying up till 2.45am on Wednesday, Talking Pictures is showing "Thomasine and Bushrod", a Blaxploitation Western from 1974... with music by Arthur Lee!

^ that's not showing up in the epg yet (or in my listings mag for this week or next)

they missed a trick by not calling the new Vic Reeves And His Wife Paint Birds show on sky arts Paint Along With Nancy (and Jim)

it's multiple episodes and has special guests (including edwin collins) so i'm sold.

i don't enjoy celeb stuff but god bless Nancy Kaminsky

the Architecture of Railways show on Yesterday continues to be little gem of a thing. always something interesting on it, like the brutalist, analog electronic signal box in birmingham the other week.

is that the one with the Icelandic presenter i have a sad crush on because yeah it's good and largely annoyance-free

the main presenter is tim dunn, but he does a london underground spin-off with a woman who could possibly be icelandic and has a name that's almost but not quite sidney. (googles... siddy, Sigurbjörg Alma Ingólfsdóttir)

(that signalbox in full - https://www.birminghamworld.uk/news/birmingham-new-street-signal-box-tour-4087955 )