grumpyf1

Streaming? Er... I watched an episode of Top of the Pops from 1986 earlier. At the time it was originally broadcast, I was 18. Yes, I am that old. At that point in my life, I’d grown up absolutely loving music. TOTP was one of my essential sources of the all important new songs and chart placings, along with Radio 1’s Top 40 show. I was buying lots of vinyl. Recording lots of cassettes. Things were fantastic. But I was just getting the first inkling that there were new styles, bands and artists appearing that – and this was quite a shock to me – I wasn’t particularly enthralled by. Why? Well, up to that point I’d assumed my love of all types of music would be everlasting. To discover otherwise was a bit of shock. Still, the years rolled by and there was still a lot of great music around. True, Rave/House never did anything for me, and most Rap doesn’t float my boat. Sections of the 1990s were rubbish, from my point of view. I was buying lots of CDs. And still recording tapes...

The weather – source of endless fascination, conversation, irritation and (just recently) excess irrigation. And a fidgety weather presenter on the BBC... I’m endlessly fascinated with the weather, and will confess to making sure I catch the BBC’s updates whenever possible. Not the local ones, where half the presenters look like they got dressed in the dark, or ITV, where they seem to know very little about actual weather, but the national forecasts. Delivered by actual Met Office personnel, their job entails a tricky mix of waving your hands about a bit, explaining about warm fronts without smirking, and trying not to look too pleased whilst mentioning gales force winds and torrential rain. Or stand in front of Cornwall. Each has their own presenting style, but there is one who intrigues me above all the others. Step forward, Tomasz Schafernaker, the 37 year old man from the Met who breezed onto our screens in 2001, as the youngest male ever to point out that it was going to r...

...but not necessarily in the right order. Some of then are probably still lurking on the HDD recorderboxthingy (I liked it when you just said "video"), but here's the grumpyf1 review of some of the stuff on the telebox over the Christmas/New Year period. Handy hint: If I haven't reviewed it, it's because: a) I forgot to watch it b) I haven't watched it yet c) I'm not interested in watching it d) The damson gin consumed during the festive period has clouded my memory sufficiently that I don't recollect it OK... Here we go then... Doctor Who: A jolly festive romp, although I'm already hankering for the days when it was a good story with Christmas added in, rather than Christmas first. I found myself struggling to remove the image of the stressed Mum from Outnumbered from my mind every time Madge was on screen, the whole Xmas-present-that-leads-to-a-snowy-forest bit has kind of been done before (!), if you blinked you'd have missed...