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TV & Radio Reminders

Mythopoeika said:
Translation would be 'white spot' or 'white zone'.
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But zone blanche in French means an area with poor or no mobile signal, hence blackspot is not unreasonable (although dead zone, as suggested above might have been better). Similarly, a sleepless night is "passer une nuit blanche" . Will watch episode 3 tonight.
I could follow the French well enough to only check the subtitles occasionally, but noticed a couple of errors.
 
Strange Angel
Prems June 14

Premise
Strange Angel follows "Jack Parsons, a brilliant and ambitious blue-collar worker of 1930s Los Angeles who started as a janitor at a chemical factory but had fantastical dreams that led him to birth the unknown discipline of American rocketry. Along the way, he fell into a mysterious world that included sex magic rituals at night, and he became a disciple of occultist Aleister Crowley. Parsons used Crowley’s teachings of self-actualization to support his unimaginable and unprecedented endeavor to the stars."[1]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strange_Angel


Looks a bit too slick for my tastes, but my newfound hero David Lowery is directing so I'ma give it a burl.
 
BBC Radio 4, In Our Time - The Mabinogion

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the eleven stories of Celtic mythology and Arthurian romance known as The Mabinogion, most of which were told and retold for generations before being written down in C14th. Among them are stories of Pwyll and Rhiannon and their son Pryderi, of Culhwch and Olwen, of the dream of the Emperor Macsen, of Lludd and Llefelys, of magic and giants and imagined history. With common themes but no single author, they project an image of the Island of Britain before the Anglo-Saxons and Normans and before Edward I's conquest of Wales. They came to new prominence, worldwide, from C19th with the translation into English by Lady Charlotte Guest aided by William Owen Pughe.
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https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0b1p5k7
 
Worth tuning in to hear Melvyn pronounce the title.
 
This was on BBC 2 last night and pretty funny:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b0b6q27j/a-girls-guide-to-tv

It's basically a clip show with Rachel Parris making snarky comments (she was the only bit people liked on The Mash Report, apart from those who didn't realise she was doing comedy). The reason I bring it up is the "Paranormal" section, which has some choice vintage footage - including the woman who channelled dead composers mentioned in the FT a few issues ago.
 
I like this show - The Rest is History - a history/comedy show on the 6.30 R4 comedy slot, hosted by Frank Skinner, with guests. Snippets from history with added comedy, with a historian who's researched the facts.

So far it's featured Nelson & Lady Caroline Hamilton & her rise from childhood poverty to fame via various men/racy exploits, a Caxton book from 1487, Robin Hood, the first man to die in a railway accident, Annie Oakley & more.

It ticks two boxes being informative & humourous.
 
Yes, it's a great show, funny and informative. Only one problem - that series is a repeat of the second, and I was hoping for a new series 3!
 
blessmycottonsocks said:
Sasha Baron Cohen's latest series looks utterly brutal and unmissable - if you like seeing high-ranking Yanks squirming after having being duped into confirming corruption and conspiracies:

https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2018/jul/10/sacha-baron-cohen-who-is-america-trump-tv-event
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Oh good grief. It was as cringemakingly brutal as I expected.
The dirty protest artist and the "Kinder-Guardians" were absolutely outrageous. Felt a bit sorry for poor old Bernie Saunders though.
As with Borat and Brüno though, it left me wondering how much of it was staged and how much was genuine duping.
 
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Looks interesting, coming to Netflix 24 August.

Ghoul

Ghoul is the much-anticipated Indian mini-series from the producers of Insidious and Get Out. A chilling three-part thriller that stars Radhika Apte(Sacred Games) as an aspiring soldier whose ruthless ambition has impressed her superiors so much that they task her with interrogating a mysterious, unintelligible prisoner. In the suffocating surroundings of the military facility, the prisoner unleashes secrets about his captors and endeavours to prey on their vulnerabilities. A horror series steeped in the shame of war, the use of torture as a weapon and the weight of guilt that haunts those involved, Ghoul is no average fright fest.
 
On BBC Four tonight at nine, a doc about a real life mystery, who killed boxer Freddie Mills?

Trailer:
 
That was very interesting, and quite moving at the end, too. He really was a huge celebrity, I imagine it would be like Frank Bruno being found dead in mysterious circumstances (there are interesting parallels - media celebrity, depression, etc). I won't reveal what they found so not to spoil the doc, but I am glad they exposed the serial killer angle as a load of rubbish. That "writer" looked dodgy to me, and no wonder. Worth a look, anyway.
 
Howl, a good Werewolf film is on the Horror Channel at 10.40 pm tonight.

My review:

Howl: A pretty good English Werewolf film! Horror on the midnight express as it breaks down in the middle of a forest. The driver goes to investigate but is swiftly devoured by a Werewolf. The rest of the crew and passengers then attempt to survive the onslaught of the creatures.

People are dragged through windows, after being bitten an old woman turns into a Werewolf. Blood, guts, limbs are thrown about. The Werewolves are more human-like in this case but having wolves teeth and triple jointed legs. In the early stages of transformation they look more like Zombies.

Directed by Paul Hyett known mostly for his special make up effects on Doomsday, The Children and The Descent. Definitely one to see. 8/10
 
It was on too late for me.
It'll be repeated some other day, I'm sure.
 
Murder Mystery and My Family

Its a pair of Barristers looking at old Capital Cases at the behest of a living relative and seeing if there is something unsafe about the conviction. Taking any evidence they may find to an Appeal Court Judge who then suggests whether the case should then proceed to the next stage of reveiw to see if it should be upheld or overturned.

Gives an interesting view into a part of the process that we don't usually see in any fictional crime drama, and underlines just how hard it is to get a conviction overturned with out compelling new evidence or clear signs that something went arry in the original trial. Which is sad as in every case looked at so far that do appear to be grounds to look again but don't quite reach the required standards to overturn the conviction.
 
George_millett said:
Murder Mystery and My Family

Its a pair of Barristers looking at old Capital Cases at the behest of a living relative and seeing if there is something unsafe about the conviction. Taking any evidence they may find to an Appeal Court Judge who then suggests whether the case should then proceed to the next stage of reveiw to see if it should be upheld or overturned.

Gives an interesting view into a part of the process that we don't usually see in any fictional crime drama, and underlines just how hard it is to get a conviction overturned with out compelling new evidence or clear signs that something went arry in the original trial. Which is sad as in every case looked at so far that do appear to be grounds to look again but don't quite reach the required standards to overturn the conviction.
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Is that the one with the guy with the huge ears? I recorded the whole series and watched it all a couple of times. Excellent telly!
 
blessmycottonsocks said:
Sasha Baron Cohen's latest series looks utterly brutal and unmissable - if you like seeing high-ranking Yanks squirming after having being duped into confirming corruption, bigotry and conspiracies:

https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2018/jul/10/sacha-baron-cohen-who-is-america-trump-tv-event
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After its first airing stateside, it seems to have shaken some people up, with legal cases launched:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-45429509
 
Reported Missing

Reported Missing, a BBC series. It's about how the police search for missing people, as you might guess. Nothing unusual about that.

However, Episode 1 concerns the search for a 5 year-old boy called Tyler. His father reports him missing and you hear his actual call. It's fishy from the start as it doesn't sound urgent.

I won't ruin it by going any further but I can recommend it. An absolutely weird case.
 
I've watched a few episodes of Emma Peel era Avengers recently on freeview. The stories are delightfully preposterous & it's fun to see actors who later went on to do other, mainly comedy, shows. It was definitely played for laughs. Some recent spots in just the past week:

Paul Eddington - Good Life, Yes Minister etc
Penelope Keith - Good Life etc
Clive Dunn - Dad's Army
John Laurie - Dad's Army
Patrick Cargill - Father dear father
Yootha Joyce - Man about the house etc
Trevor Bannister - Are you being served
 
Coal said:
I'm not surprised. While SBC dresses it up as a 'prank', the impact of suggesting on screen that someone is (for example) a paedophile will be considerable as it's one of those things in which guilt is assumed on accusation. We have slander laws for a reason.
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Sacha Baron Cohen and his writers know all this. His legal team probably advised that the victim wouldn't sue because he'd look silly or even guilty by taking it seriously, or that it'd be thrown out as frivolous or unfounded.

Or that if it went to court the plaintiff would a. draw attention to his own tarnished reputation and b. lose on the grounds that it was satire and not to be taken seriously.
 
Jonathan Aycliffe's spooky novel, The Matrix is being serialised in 15 minute chunks on Radio 4 extra. Some nice person on this board recommended the book to me, and enjoyed it (although I couldn't much get on with his later novel, Naomi's Room). I haven't listened yet - but thought it might be worth a heads up.

Ibi cubavit lamia.
 
Can recommend The Luke McQueen Pilots, well, I'm watching the first episode which is about Britain's Hidden Vampire Crisis. Really funny.
 
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