Oh we made a mistake of staying in this evening. There wasn't actually a great deal on tv. Something recorded from *five* on Thursday, about the Moorish influence in Andalucia - which we explored a little on a package holiday two years ago. It was just starting to get interesting when it ended.
We then watched Atlantic Britain, which actually just gets better and better, and is one of the highlight's of the week's viewing.
Then a film called Thirteen, about teenage angst, but confusingly, with an 18 certificate. The reviewer on IMdB sums it up fairly accurately, although the comments about the inter-racial relationship - that's obviously a reflection of the reviewer's screwed up attitude - it all looked perfectly normal and not very significant.
I think it should have a 12 or 12A certificate, because it actually tells a very good story for that age group, with a strong moral ending. It's not really an adult film, even though it has some slight sexual references, and some scenes involving drugs. The message is, don't be taken in by surface glamour. And do your homework.
Not any great psychology for adults. Sort of entertaining but in horror/car crash way. What really struck me was that not one character had anything interesting to say, at all, about anything.
Then we watched Parkinson. Oh dear. I like Lenny Henry but I do find it unnerving that he switches so eaily beetween goofy and socially aware modes. It's just not natural. Then Matthew Pinsent was on. I'm sorry, but these days, sporting heroes do not make good chat show guests. They are so single-mindedly focused on winning that they have no personality. I would say the same for Jonny Wilkinson. I admire and respect them both, and they seem nice guys, but boring and bland. Steve Redgrave only seems to have developed apersonality in the past couple of years. And I really like him. But he's bland and boring, too.
Then there were some dreadful lounge singers singing a bad cover version of 'Unbreak My Heart'. Toni Braxton's version is probably in my top fifty, definitely my top 100, but the insipid emotionless crooning from this bunch of pretty boys is almost enough to make one actually hate the song. They decided to sing it in a foreign language, but what language was anybody's guess. Well, I'm guessing it was Moldovan, because it was quite possibly a Latin language, and I think I would have recognised French, Italian, Spanish or even Portuguese, whereas I'm not so hot on Moldovan.
It makes perfect sense to appear on English TV and sing with no emotion in Moldovan a raw passionate song with meaningful English lyrics
Un-break my heart
Say you'll love me again
Undo this hurt you caused
When you walked out the door
And walked outta my life
Un-cry these tears
I cried so many nights
Un-break my heart
My heart
In fact, I'm not sure I would have recognised it if Parky hadn't spelt it out in Big Headlines as he introduced them.
Then it was 'after the break, Frank Skinner', so the TV was definitely going off. I used to think Frank Skinner was funny. But he wasn't actually. He was just a decent sidekick to David Baddiel.
