2011-02-03
On Misfits
As an introduction and a disclaimer, it’s probably worth mentioning that I first heard about Misfits at work. Six to Start, my then employer, were pitching for the work of being the online companion to a series that I’m pretty sure was described at some point as “Heroes but with ASBOs”. (Minor spoilers for season one follow.)
Like in Heroes, the characters end up with powers (or as Kelly would have it, “powahs”), but unlike heroes, they don’t try and save the cheerleader, let alone save the world. They’re more likely to have to figure out how to deal with the fact they, er, killed their probation worker, or have to deal with how to look after someone old enough to be their grandma. Meanwhile, it turns out their abilities aren’t unrelated to who they are…
Howard Overman’s writing is great, and performed fantastically by the cast. (Mind you, if you’re not happy with swearing, sex references, drinking, sex references, drugs, sex scenes, and Nathan in his pants, you might want to watch something else). The location - the Thamesmead estate in south-east London, as also seen in A Clockwork Orange - is used to wonderful effect. There’s some great cinematography, and even the foreshadowing in the titles is genius.
Of course, it’s full of stuff that would never see the light of day in the US, which is exactly why Americans should download it now and watch it, before any TV executives make too many noises about an (inevitably awful) remake. (British folk should hold out for E4 repeats, or shell out for the DVDs.) Once you’re done, you can join in the happy world of animated gifs and quotes on Tumblr.
Seriously: it’s one of the best new series in the UK in the last couple of years. Go watch.
2010-11-25
post/1674927882
2010-09-09
post/1092539076
The ECKO television, the first British portable television receiver, 1955. Credit:Science Museum/Science & Society Picture Library
2010-08-28
post/1024508080
2010-05-20
post/615968082
2010-04-25
post/547939097
John Naughton: Old media, new media and the UK election. The whole piece is worth a read (as, I suspect, is the Peter Preston article he quoted from, which I haven’t read in full).
It’s certainly an interesting counterpoint to the Economist’s piece, quoted here, which claims that the old media are dominant. Perhaps the problem is the millions of overlapping friends networks of discussion aren’t visible, but they surely take what used to be water-cooler discussions between five colleagues in an office and broaden them to a hundred, or even thousand, people - and more immediately, too.
Anyway, I’m sure there’ll still be argument about old vs new well after the result’s in.
2010-04-24
post/545614083
Media and politics: The shock of the old in The Economist. The entire article is worth a read: it points out the ways the mass media still reach far more people, particularly older ones, who also vote more.
There were two other articles in the Britain section this week that caught my eye. One is on university students in Chester and elsewhere, and the other looks at how people’s opinions change when the costs of policies are stated. Both are worth a read, but the latter is perhaps the most universally relevant (and will be long after this election has come and gone).
2010-04-13
Free The Election Debates
This year’s UK general election sees the first televised debates between the leaders, bringing politics firmly up to date with the US. In 1960.
However, I think it’s worth asking about the step beyond that. Of the three debates, I can be pretty sure two of them - on ITV and BBC - will end up on their respective catch-up video services. However, I’d like all of them to be on all three broadcaster’s sites, and also on other video sites (the obvious choice being YouTube).
After all, these are really public service broadcasting. If the broadcasters don’t put the shows online, the public will, clip by clip (probably as part of a Cassetteboy remix). They should be preserved, not only as reference points during the campaign, but into the life of the government the victors will establish. There are also overseas voters to consider. How about it?
(Even if this plea falls on deaf ears, I’m pleased to note that Radio 4 has an extended The World Tonight covering each of the debates, if only because it’s pretty easy to get MP3s out of radio programmes.)
2010-03-08
Licence Fees Across Europe
After reading one too many commentary pieces on the fall-out of the BBC’s Digital Strategy Review, and hearing the odd friend suggest that the British didn’t know how good they had it, I decided to complile a Google spreadsheet of TV licence fees across Europe.
Once I had a first version out, Chris suggested that I should add a column stating whether there was an ad-free state broadcaster, and that’s there now; there’s also a heatmap visualisation.
Unfortunately, the GBP Equivalent column seems a bit fragile- Google Finance hiccups every now and again and it doesn’t work. Publishing also seems not to allow nice formatting (‘£145.20’ not ‘145.2’), so I’m linking directly to the editing page. Still, hopefully there’s stuff of interest for people there.
2010-01-25
post/352773377
Pomp and Circuitry: a Reuters photo I saw on the Telegraph’s story, “Record 10m televisions sold in UK in 2009”.
