Commercial Break

Bonjour, mon cher. I trust you are feeling, as you english say, "tip top" today? Yes? Bien. I, for one, am feeling trés bon. And now, would you like un petit bois? Some brandy, perhaps, or maybe une gin et tonique? Voíla!

Hercúle Poirot is undoubtedly the coolest cat in Belgium. Firstly, the french accent lends itself to one's aural comfort more so than the german one - but he's also got that damn fine mustache. The man is impeccable. I just watched it for an hour, and he played monopoly throughout. "You are right, Hastings - in the end, the game does come down to skill". But sadly, ITV under-markets its products in favour of trashy talent (you can work the irony out for yourself there) shows like X-Factor, instead of making some good commercials for its programmes. I mean, Wuthering Heights, the new adaptation showing on ITV2. Firstly, why regulate it to the secondary channel? It's a classic novel for pete's sake, not Gossip Girl. And secondly, why don't they ever make good trailers? Look at the way BBC advertise Doctor Who, Torchwood or Desperate Romantics. Regardless of the content or status, at least they try. But the ITV ones all have the little logo in the corner, are too short and have a silly voiceover. There's no suspense and no care taken in the production, just a series of clips hastily glued together.

It's not as if they've got nothing to work with, because they are one of Britain's most watched networks. But it's as if they're working in a supermarket own-brand mindset - they have to have a celebrity name attached to it or it doesen't air. That documentary about the greatest cities of the world? Why does it have to have Gryff Rhys Jones? Why not just cut his name off the front, and not go to the completley obvious places? Or Piers Morgan's most expensive cities or whatever that was. You could have made that mildly interesting instead of just showcasing his face - but it seems they are only interested in promoting the personalities who dominate its schedule. I'm not chastising them for chasing viewers, because celebrity sells. They just market it badly and cheaply. It's not good business sense.

One more thing - why not change the obviously fixed-time ad breaks in favour of picking an opportune moment? Channel Four at least waits for a scene-change to show Cillit Bang commercials, but ITV just plonks them in there. The Daleks are more subtle. "But Poirot, we haven't caught the kill- HELLO I'M BARRY SCOTT BUY THIS KITCHEN CLEANER OR YOUR DAUGHTER GETS THROWN TO THE SHARKS! LIMESCALE, RUST, GROUND IN DIRT - BANG! AND YOUR CHILDREN ARE GONE!"

But I'm just an annoying media studies student who doesen't know anything, don't listen to me.

Is That A Deal?

OK, I'm now getting a bit worried about my exam results, which I discover tomorrow. This is probably a bit late for post-test stress, but whatever. Tomorrow is D-Day, the bit where I find out whether I'll be gunned down on the beaches or survive to storm Hitler's secret bunker.

Now there's a point. Whenever you're mindlessly flicking around the digital channels, the history programmes are always named something along the lines of "Hitler's Secret Brewery" or "Stalin's Magic Sphincter". I mean, we won, didn't we? Does it really matter to a lot of people what Adolf was up to on his summer holidays? Television in general, needs a good pep talk. Think of the potential of Deal Or No Deal - an utterly random game wherein players open up mystery boxes for various amounts of money. But what if they shook up the format a bit? Throw in a wildcard - a box filled with wasps, or starving, virile ferrets? They could have the hand-grenade booby-trap box, the proof of your illegitimate children-box, or the boiling oil box!

The banker could call up and tell Noel Edmunds to go and buy some better shirts, or reveal that the bank's been bailed out by the government and due to the new partial ownership, all deals are off. Armed robbers could come and take all the boxes - or hold Noel at gunpoint and negotiate a new deal. Just think of the possibilities!

Shiver 'Me Timbers!

I just watched King Kong, and in the middle of thinking what a wonderfully understated masterpiece of modern cinema it was, deserving as it does to be held up there with the likes of Lord of the Rings, Matrix, Donnie Darko and 300 (I picked the last one because, although it's a trigger happy slashfest, it's the finest example of it's genre which includes Sin City, V For Vendetta and The Spirit) - Andy Serkis is Kong. Andy Serkis, the guy who plays Gollum in the aforementioned Tolkien trilogy - does he play EVERY CGI CHARACTER?!?

I mean, with Hollywood monopolies as ridiculous as Jennifer "Rachel Green" Aniston's stranglehold over the romantic-comedy industry, we shouldn't be surprised that Peter Jackson hired an old friend - but it just came as a novel shock. I hope that in the near future we can expect to see Andy taking up roles in the next Alien/Predator shockflick, doing what he does best, chewing up puny humans and hurling them off cliffs. Now, did I mention my boycott on politics? If not, I vowed myself to keeping out of any discussion as it makes me seem pretentious and stuff; especially since I can't argue cohesively. But, the recent trash talk going on about the NHS got me really annoyed. I mean, for a serious human being with a footing in sanity, how can you link the system of paying fixed-rate taxes for a nationwide, non-discriminatory health service available at any time and for any treatment to the words "death panel"?

But then I forget, the majority of people who watch Fox News do not have a grounding in reality, and the propaganda vomit-tube that is Fox is determined to widen this gap between the accepted humanitarian norms of the day and sheer madness. Really - how can these people claim to be true Christians whilst they advocate a system that makes profit from keeping people alive - and spurns people who can't pay? It's like this is all a nefarious middle-class scheme to slowly kill off the poor and turn all the run-down neighbourhoods into large estates of Hampshire-esque parkland. And it all seems to be in the sake of rejecting socialism - a dogma formed by people who only wanted to emancipate people from the shackles of poverty and an idea soiled by McCarthy in the ultra-right, hide-behind-your-picket-fences fifties. Mr Beck, this is not 1987, and you are not Steven Seagal. Logic defies your arguments.

Ok? Rant over. That felt good, like the first cigarette of the day. In the meantime, I have offically joined the Pirate Party UK, so I do get a political badge of sorts - but they want policies implemented that are so obscure that I'm sure not to get into a nasty shouting match with anyone. They're more relevant than you think - after all, Sir David Getty said that "intellectual property will be the oil of the 21st century". And sharing is caring. If you haven't looked at the website yet you won't know what I'm on about. The link is here.

So, the conclusion of this blog is hence: there are a lot of silly, bad men in the world, King Kong is great, and I'm an actual pirate. Bye.

La velo

I had a slight reshuffle of my under-desk items this morning; I moved the wastepaper basket to the left, got tid of most of the empty cardboard boxes and generally started cleaning out my room a bit. Anyway, because of this, I keep chucking bits of paper and rubbish into the place where my bin used to be; subsequently I've got a growing pile of crap less than a foot away from the trashcan. I look like a massive slob.

So I'm drinking Earl Grey tea out my Shakespeare mug(The Tempest quote complete on the side), listening to the radio show-soundtrack from GTA IV. It's quite a ridiculously funny take on right-wing politophobia, my favourite quote being "I'm better than women! I don't shop uncontrollably! If I bled for seven days I'd die! I can drive for more than 30 minutes without hitting something!". Talking of bleeding for seven days... I saw possibly the strangest tampon advert ever today. As if the use of dodgem cars wasn't surreal enough, this time it was pinball. Yes, pinball. Now I don't pretend to understand the female anatomy but I'm pretty sure that once a month there aren't flashing lights, arcade noises and accumulative scoring. I mean, why would that make you grumpy?

This is my first blog in about three weeks, besides updating the Gentleman's Code, so I apologise for the lack of content. France was astoundingly beautiful, and Lanzarote a welcome, swelteringly-hot change from rainy old England. I leave you with a nice picture of a French bicycle.