That's too bad. He sounded weak and out of breath. He's 80 years old, and lived it up for a lifetime, so I wouldn't expect he can perform like he's 25. I saw Cher on SNL. Her song was so obviously autotuned, it didn't sound like her at all. Might as well have been lip syncing to an AI generated song. And she is 79. I'm not being ageist. No harm in their having fun or people being nostalgic. I certainly can't do anything like what I did at 25 either. But the performance was quite disappointing.
I've been half watching "Red Eye," on ITVX. For a kick off, I was surprised to learn that Leslie Sharp, whom I've admired in series in the past, was only 65. Unfortunately, she looks a lot older and for me, doesn't look right in the part. "Hamster Cheeks" Martin Compston, who's not been in much, seemed a bit wooden in his part. I do object when the makers of programmes think they can get away with frequently insulting your intelligence. There were too many elements of "The Pantomime Factor." https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=The+Pantomime+Factor&defid=3195441 On so many occasions, I was thinking,"Why don't they just shoot the killer?" It'd have saved having to watch more episodes. No, they'd rather run after him and lose him. That was pathetic. Another thing I noticed was the theme music. So many detective dramas use theme music reminiscent to that heard in the original Bourne film.
I'm watching Carmen Jones. on TV, a 1954 musical starring Harry Belafonte and Dorothy Dandridge. She looked so vibrant in this. But later declined in health and personal circumstances. She was found dead in her apartment, on September 8, 1965, aged 42, from barbiturate poisoning. She left $2.14 in her bank account,
We have an interactive Sony Bravia android TV in the front room (" I rarely talk to it.") rand one of our two Virgin 360 boxes, (you can talk to those too) the other is in the lounge, that one has no external aerial, but all channels can be found on the Virgin box. When I turn the TV in the front room I can select different options, Freeview TV via the external aerial, Virgin, either of my two Humax Freeview tuner/recorders, my DVD/CD player, or the music USB stick in the side of the TV. When I turn the TV on, it will tune to the channel I left it on when I turned it off. If I wanted to watch something on Virgin, I'd have to turn on the box, then switch the TV over to Virgin. But it's changed. If the TV is on "Digital" (Freeview),if I then turn on the Virgin box, the TV automatically now tunes to that box. So there's been an automatic update, that it hasn't told me about! I read somewhere that "some new LG TVs can listen to conversations in the room." If that's also true of Sony, it won't hear much from me.
A new series of Lynley started last night. I gave up with it. The main characters had too much uninteresting, "baggage." It seems they can't make dramas without it any more.
We are re-watching The Night Manager now. Based on a novel by John le Carré. I enjoy watching a good show, again a couple of times. We finished the 4th installment of Dark Winds. A favorite but i think they soap-operatized it a bit this time, which I don't like.
A third series of Dark Winds will follow in the UK soon. A good place to check on what's coming in 2026 on TV is here. https://www.geektown.co.uk/uk-air-dates/
I used to watch Ambulance but it started covering the paramedics private lives too much so i stopped watching it
Far too much personal baggage and uninteresting trivia in many programmes now. Two programmes I record and fast-forward through a lot of it. Antiques Road Show. You'd think it were the Fiona Bruce Show. I fast-forward through her content. That reduces the "watchable element" for me by 25% The Repair Shop. The amount of "tear-jerking history" has increased over the years. I like to just watch the more interesting repairs, mostly those involving mechanics. I'm not impressed when something gets just a quick spray of aerosol paint. I've seen enough "teddy repairs" and won't watch more. They do some silly things. A year or so ago, the programme was advertised in my telly mag and it said that one of the items they were going to repair was a "pre-war transistor radio." That intrigued me as there were none. Of course it turned out to be a battery operated valve radio, These take 90volt batteries, which are as we say, "now made of "unobtainium," or they couldn't find one. So the repairer wired 10, 9v pp3 batteries together in series and made them into a block to fit in the radio to get it to work. The owner was very pleased, but they didn't give him a reel of solder and an iron, to wire up some more, which would have been necessary after a few hours use. Everything on that programme isn't what you might think it might be. A year and a bit ago, in a new series, not a repeat, they had a full size cinema projector in. The expert said, "he didn't know whether he could repair it." Really? It wouldn't have been on the programme if they couldn't! At the "reveal," I noticed as the "expert" turned it on, below the off/on switch there was a small PAT certificate sticker dated more than a year before, indicating it was safe to use. (a legal requirement). So that clip had been on the shelf for more than a year, or they were just kidding us. As I'd recorded it, I was able to take this screen-shot. and close in, on this one.
The BBC annoyed me last night. There was a programme advertised on BBC4 on the Chernobyl nuclear reactor. Now I thought this might be interesting as recently the dome over it has been damaged during the ongoing Russia/Ukraine war. So I recorded it. As soon as I started watching I realised it was ta repeat of the original documentary, made ten years ago! How relevant could that be now?
Ok going back on what I recently said about not watching UK tv........This caught my interest enough for me the watch the 1st episode.....Lucy Worsley: Victorian Murder Club. It proved to be exactly the kinda programme I like a mix of historical facts and crime solving. It's on Monday evenings.....I couldn't wait so have watched them all on iPlayer.
