films I watched on my hols

This Christmas there were a bunch of watchable films on TV -- so we watched them.  

• An Unexpected Adventure (well, we went to the cinema for this one!)
• Shrek Forever After : Shrek 4, better than Shrek 3
• Alice in Wonderland : the Tim Burton version
• How to Train Your Dragon : Scottish Vikings and their American kids
• Moon : underwhelming
• Up : most implausible use of a helium balloon

That's probably more films than we'll watch in the rest of the year put together.

Read More

Sir Patrick Moore, 1923 - 2012

Sir Patrick Moore, astronomer, presenter of The Sky At Night since 1957, author of many popular astronomy books, inspiration to several generations of astronomers, myself included, has died. Still sitting on our TV's hard disc recorder is last Monday's episode of The Sky At Night, not yet watched.  Goodbye, Patrick.

Patrick Moore

The Sky At Night, "A Night to Remember".
 The BBC's 1969 moon landing team: Patrick Moore, Cliff Michelmore, James Burke
(but why is this picture reversed?)

Patrick Moore (photo credit: Paul Grover, from Telegraph article in 2010)

• Telegraph obituary
• BBC News

Read More

The Puppet of Dorian Gray

Puppet Cliff Richard

I was reminded of this by Jo Walton’s marvellous Oscar! post, and in particular her inspired casting of Cliff Richard as "Dorian Grey".

Several years ago we worked out just why Cliff Richard, the “Peter Pan of Pop”, doesn’t age.  Made back in 1966, the film Thunderbirds are Go included a sequence with Cliff Richard and the Shadows, played, of course, by puppets.

To the right we see what the Thunderbirds puppet of Cliff Richard looked like in 1966.

Today, stored in Cliff Richard’s attic, that puppet is now terribly wizened and aged.

Or maybe not.

Read More

I'm tired of this meme

Looking through our favourite TV listings magazine, it seems to be knee deep in artfully posed casts. We get them draped over the set:

or against a skyline:

Sometimes they looks as if separate pictures have been badly Photoshopped together:

The newest variant of this style appears to be a flying goose-like V shape, to emphasise the main character:

With a big enough cast, two Vs can be used to highlight the upstairs and the downstairs main characters:

Sometimes, when the poses are chosen well, this can work. But mostly, it's just very tired. Every new TV series seems to get one of these style of shots.

How about a new meme?

Read More