Be Excellent To Each Other

Millennium Children is one of those programmes that puts our lives in perspective. What really struck me was the positive attitude of some of these kids who are living in poverty but making the best of their situation.

'How to end poverty in 15 years' (BBC2, yesterday). Interesting if a little overlong TED-style talk about world poverty and how close we might be to resolving it. I think I've seen this guy on Youtube or TED before. I just hope he's right.

Black Mirror is off to Netflix for 12 new episodes: http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/live-f ... lix-827180

Yeah, I can't help thinking that twelve episode series might be spreading it a too thin and it'll end up like The Twilight Zone where most of it was a bit shit. Hope I'm wrong, mind.

Stephen Fry steps down as host of QI

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-34528586

Replaced by Sandi Toksvig

Palin was originally going to host? He'd have been excellent!

Palin was a guest on the very first episode.

I love Michael Palin. I love Sandi Toksvig.

I hope it gets a bit of a kick up the backside. The last few series have seemed a bit tired.

So apparently their doing an old-school victorian Sherlock with Cumberbatch. News to me!

They're.

But yes, I saw that. Not sure what the set up is going to be. Is it just a one off alternate setting, rather than Holmes and Watson travel through time or go cosplaying?

No excuses, only apologies

Reggie Yates' Extreme Russia
Alarming look at the far right in Putinland. Most of it is pretty scary, but scene that sticks in mind is the knife-fighting classes in the first episode. Worth catching. It gains bonus points for including in episode 2 (on gay rights, or lack thereof) a naked interview with a homophobe in a banya.

I watched all these a few weeks ago. I love Reggie Yates. He seems such a pleasant, upstanding, honest and genuine young man. I like his presenting and interviewing style. He meets some awful people, will do his best to engage, always remains pleasant, but will speak his truth and walk away from some people and situations if too extreme. He can drier are the person from the politics whilst he has the discussion, but if they push their facist politics at him personally he will bring them up on it and say why he is terminating interaction,

I think he's ace. He's one of my favourite presenters. I remember when he was really young and working on kids TV with Nev the bear, years and years before Barney was with Nev.

I'm going to have to seek out some more of his docs as I hadn't seen his stuff before. What's good is he doesn't do the innocent schtick that works well for Louis Theroux, but he's happy to engage and challenge when necessary.

And he's also Rastamouse

Yes, he reminds me of Loius Theroux but without the faux gormlessness. He seems just as lovely, but also really genuine.

I've not seen Rastamouse, though am aware of it. I didn't know he voiced it, though!

The final series of Peep Show is going to air in November.

/

I've always suspected Louise feigns gormlessness to prevent getting the shit kicked out of him. In the same vein, I can't understand why Donal McIntyre HASN'T had the shit kicked out of him.

Oh, goodness yes, it's definitely feigned gormlessness

Aye, though I think he is genuinely interested and tries not to judge people and find out why they think such abhorrent things.

Oh, absolutely, but I have no doubt he's actually a very astute and sharp cookie. The thing is, if you're a bit weird or nasty, you are far more likely to let slip to someone who you don't think is going to drag you through fire for your views, so his act makes people drop their guard, and that's how he manages to get Some amazing moments on TV.

Interestingly, one of the few instances where someone called his formless act out for what it was and therefore closed down was when he did a program about Jimmy Saville. He never quite managed to get to him.

Saville had a lifetime of hiding his nature from the world. Well practiced

Yes, that's not I. Question, but he didn't fluster him and Saville specifically called him out on his naive and gullible act and why he employed it to try to lure the people he was with into a false sense of security to drop their guard.

Not TV but radio related. Radio 4 and Radio 4 Extra did some lovely horror dramas over the weekend. Radio Dramatisations of 'The Stonetapes', 'Ring' and 'The Exorcist'.

Rather than ante natal classes and the guided meditation stuff, they should get the blokes drunk and get them to watch Catastrophe. Absolutely brilliant.

Toast of London returns. Huzzah!

Move of BBC3 to online-only confirmed. Makes sense if that's where its core demographic are. I seldom watch it, to be honest, but am aware that it reaches vastly different groups to BBC4.

I would say I watch 90% of my BBC viewing via iplayer (be that through the skybox, my ipad or smart device connected to the spare TV)

95% of my BBC viewing is Cbeebies.

My Pet and Me is... I just can't... *sobs*

Luther returns soon!

To Cbeebies? That's certainly a new direction for the show.

I like most of the things they show on Cbeebies except for Tree Fu Fucking Tom. Such a little prick.

I dislike:

Mike the Knight - entitled twat
Kate and mimmim -shit
Rastamouse - gmir is ok to be a dick if you say sorry
Charlie and lola - take them on holiday to Portugal

I haven't watched cbeebies (apart from I did watch the first episode of new teletubbies - on iplayer just to see the difference to the old ones) in about 2 years, as my youngest child is now almost 7. After 15 years I am finally free (although there were lots of really good shows on there...)

Agree entirely on the above mentiond CBeebies twaddle.

Mr Tumble is deeply sinister. Though I'm reminded of this poster that was up at our local soft play a couple of weeks ago.

Kate and Mimmim - basically what happens when two parents do something far more interesting and important than entertain their child. It gets abducted by a purple nonce rabbit with the worst CGI imaginable.

Baby Jake - has anyone seen that? Freaky, awful, awful, awful, awful.

On the other hand, new Danger Mouse is tremendous.

In the Night Garden. It's like a fever dream.

ISIHAC returns, 18:30 tonight.

Woo!

I was completely flummoxed the other day when I was on a Northern Line train and it actually stopped at Mornington Crescent. I had no idea it had reopened.

An audacious open gambit! Forces the Momentum Circus mechanic into place. Leaves few options.

HmM. .

West Ham.

Ha! As if you're going to trick anyone with the reverse play tactic.

Waterloo, so I can invoke double call, and then Canning Town.

The exposure of the eastern flank lets me swoop into Bromley-by-Bow. If Mali gets his move wrong, he'll end up in Nip.

Surprised you'd do that on a Monday, given the contraflow system. One up and two down the middle for a cheeky Notting Hill.

Your quite obvious use of the "Kasimov Variation" can be easily countered with a move to Old Street.

Ha! Bermondsey. Obviously.

Allows me to enfilade to Liverpool Street, then tap in.

Leaves me a little backed into a corner there. I'm going to have to do the obvious and hit Bond Street

So that's a timer and a repetition reset, so I'm going to hit Bond street again just because I can.

Are we allowing extraneous flanges, as per the Robertson-Spassky accord? The double indicates so, which allows me to skirt outside to Barons Court.