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Rip it up
I read at the weekend that 92% of Radio Times readers are opposed to the axing of ‘Ripper Street‘. The decision has been taken on the ground that the series doesn’t attract enough viewers, yet it still has two episodes to run. If those audience figures were to double for tonight’s and next week’s episodes wouldn’t the decision-makers at New BroadcastingHouse look more than a little silly? Tonight is an opportunity for fans of the series to fight back. Let’s spread the word on Twitter.
To keep the debate alive, I have a question for those in charge at the BBC. Given the millions of people who now watch telly through devices that allow them to watch one programme while recording another to be watched later, just how accurate are those viewing figures?
They don’t care
We had a close call yesterday. Driving south on the A1 in Northumberland, in a line of traffic heading directly into the low, bright mid-morning sun, we had reached the Haggerston Castle caravan park when we were forced to pull over and come to an almost complete halt, by two fast moving vehicles with emergency lights ablaze; they were acting as outriders for two long-loaders, also travelling at an unsafe speed, and laden with huge pre-fabricated steel structures which were considerably more than half the width of the single carriageway. No way should that convoy have been using that road, in any conditions. They represented multiple fatalities waiting to happen.
The incident underlined something on which Eileen had just remarked. Large stretches of the A1 between Edinburgh and Newcastle are no longer fit for purpose and have not been for many years. It’s ironic, is it not, that while Cameron, the former Chancellor Alastair Darling, and their cronies are trying to persuade us that we’re ‘Better Together’, the same men have shown no interest in providing a decent road to link the two capital cities.
Ripped off
In common with my correspondent George (see below) I’ve just learned that Ripper Street is being canned by the BBC, because of poor ratings. And I am having a Howard Beale moment.
Does that mean that everything our hugely expensive public service broadcaster does with its annual taxpayer-funded budget of £5 billion, including its much-trumpeted ‘Original British Drama’, is being measured against brain-dead pap like I’m A Celebrity Get me Out of Here? Seems so.
Every household in Britain contributes £145 a year towards the BBC, in the expectation of quality programming. Nobody is forced to watch Jungle Jim on a Sunday evening, yet those who are daft enough to make that choice seem to have been given a right of veto over those of us who prefer entertainment that requires even a small degree of thought. It’s not right, and it can’t be allowed to stand.
Lady Gaga
So we switch off the heating, switch on the electric blanket and stay in bed all day?
Ripped
Outstanding Ripper Street episode last night, marred only by the casting of Paul Kaye, the guy from those awful Victor Chandler ads, as Gabriel Cain, the crazed villain. All the way through I waited for him to ask for odds on Sergeant Drake surviving to next week.
Mown
It’s December and so QJ’s Mo-vember moustache is no more, and my Just Giving page is closed. Thanks to everyone who sponsored my whiskers, and contributed a nice sum to Marie Curie.
I might have kept them for a few weeks longer, but last Friday someone told me that I looked like Hulk Hogan.
Droning on
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-25180906
This story may sound crazy, but it’s not. When I visited the Bernabeu stadium in Madrid a few weeks ago, they were setting up a stage for a performance event, and one of those things was flying around. They are among us already and they will multiply.
The other side of the coin is that is Amazon develops an ability to make unmanned deliveries right to your door, it will also be able to bomb the shit out of you if you upset it.
Tragedy
Driving through Glasgow last night, on the way home from excellent library events in East Kilbride, then Greenock, I caught sight of a helicopter, and said to Eileen, ‘Hey look, it’s the polis’.
Little more than an hour later, that aircraft . . . there could not have been another . . . had fallen out of the sky and crashed into a crowded pub. Our thoughts are with the families of the victims, and with the survivors.
Unwanted
I read today that the President of the Government of Spain has chosen to chip in to the referendum debate by offering his opinion that an independent Scotland would have to negotiate EU membership from the outside. The right-wing Sr Mariano Rajoy is notorious and deeply unpopular within his own country. He is beset by crisis and personal scandal that would have driven him out of office were it not for the fact that nobody wants his job, and in those circumstances he is seizing each and every opportunity to deflect attention from his own troubles. We have had the Gibraltar harassment for months, and now it seems he wants a piece of Scotland’s action. Of course his interest is driven in part by the Catalan situation, with Spain’s richest province demanding its own independence referendum, having been driven beyond the point of tolerance by Rajoy’s refusal to grant it the same degree of fiscal economy enjoyed by other parts of the country. That being the case he may have shot himself in both feet.
El Presidente has a reputation for being intransigent and authoritarian; he also has a reputation for being wrong. As the pigmies on the Scottish opposition benches were told when they attempted to cash in on Rajoy’s intervention, the Scottish Government has firm advice from authoritative sources that the Scottish state’s future relationship with the EU will be negotiated from within in the event of a Yes vote. But what of England, Wales and Northern Ireland? What would their position within the EU, since the present EU member state will no longer exist as such? That might be a tricky one, since Westminster has damn few friends within Europe at this moment.
Thanks . . .
. . . to the staff of Waterstone’s Edinburgh West End branch for staging last night’s ‘Bloody Scotland on Tour’ event. Many thanks also to the audience who gave of their time to listen to my fellow panelists and me. And finally cheers also to Lin Anderson, Aly Monroe, and Sara Sheridan for their wisdom and insight. Here’s to the next time, ladies.
Robotic
I’ve never met a bookseller who was in the job for the money. It’s a vocation for every one of them, which makes the following all the more disturbing. I’ve been a big Amazon shopper for years, but I plan to be more discriminating from now on.
Signings
In just under an hour (11:30am) I’ll be signing copies of As Serious as Death in Simon Kesley’s excellent bookshop in Haddington. Later, at 2pm, I’ll be doing the same in Waterstone at Cameron Toll, Edinburgh. Look in if you’re nearby.
Fund-raising mutton-chops
I’m joining in the spirit of Mo-vember. I haven’t worn whiskers for over 15 years, but this year I decided to give it a go. The project is now sufficiently advanced for me to go on the hunt for sponsors. This is my Just Giving page, in aid of Marie Curie, a worthy cause.
https://www.justgiving.com/Quintin-Jardine
No pressure . . . well, not much.
Doubtful?
This is from the Church of Scotland website.
Click to access carradale_manse_argyll.pdf
Read it carefully and you will note that drainage is by ‘sceptic tank’. I find myself wondering:- Are sceptic tanks for disposing of non-believers?
Short term thinking
QJ’s definition of a pessimist: A person who won’t buy green bananas.
Cap d’Any
http://www.hostalempuries.com/en/environmentally-friendly-hostel-in-costa-brava/new-years-eve-2013
If you happen to be in the L’Escala area on December 31, you could do worse than this.
Language!
Thanks to my Vancouver buddy Lionel for sending me this entertaining link.
Gone
I have a stack of DVD and BluRay movies on my shelves waiting to be watched. Some have been there for years. Last night we finally got round, seven years late, to Martin Scorsese’s ‘The Departed‘. We watched it in silence; when it was over, Eileen said one word. ‘Wow!’ That’s all the review it needs.
Living the role
Poirot’s farewell last week was predictably sad. I don’t remember Hercule dying on the page in the book,but TV handled it well. The ‘Being Poirot’ documentary that followed was interesting and enlightening. The off-set shots showed very clearly that when David Suchet was dressed and made up as Poirot, he was Poirot, right down to the accent and the walk.
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