Category Archives: Entertainment

Lost in 24

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In a doom and gloom world of recession, panics over swine flu and grubby members of parliament filling their own boots at the expense of tax payers, it is great to find an escape in popular culture.

This year, 24 has been outstanding.

Of course the plot’s total nonsense – and we all know that in congested cities like Los Angeles and Washington DC it is not possible to traverse the distances in scant minutes. If 24 mirrored reality the terrorists would have won by the end of episode two whilst Jack Bauer was stuck in a traffic jam miles from the action.

But I have found myself holding my breath on many occasions in the last 22 weeks and now I only have to hold it again for a week until the 2 hour season finale. Will Jack get his stem cell donation from his daughter Kim? Will he have to turn traitor to save her life first?

As if a week wasn’t enough to wait – I now have 9 months to wait for the next season of Lost having just seen the end of series five. As expected it ended as Juliet detonated the nuke that will either save everyone on the island or, more likely, introduce all sorts of other complications. Flash backs, flash forwards, dead people coming back to life and then being found dead in one place whilst they are still alive in another. Total nonsense again but also unmissable.

Of course 24 has given us a great new internet acronym. WWJBD.

I just wonder – if faced with the gloom of world recession, panics over swine flu and especially grubby members of parliament filliong their own boots at the expense of tax payer – just What Would Jack Bauer Do?

Appreciating the Apprentice

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I can usually take reality TV or leave it. I have long since tired of the parade of egotistical idiots emprisioned in the Big Brother House, or the Z list celebrities camping out in the jungle and subsisting on live insects and foul smelling vegetables.

But The Apprentice is in a different league. True the candidates are taken from further down the food chain with each successive series, but there is something totally addictive about watching them screw up in the most maginificent ways with tasks which in reality should be a push over for anyone with even an ounce of business acumen.

The problem is most of them do not have even an ounce of business acumen, and even those that do are so busy trying to shout over each other that they always miss the bleeding obvious, lose the task, or win by making less of a loss than the others. Then they face the wrath of Sirallan and that is when the fun really starts.

The episode where they had to create a marketing campaign for a breakfast cereal was perfect for me and my marketing back ground. The team that created the Treasure Flakes campaign did a very good job considering the time they had to produce a TV add, packaging and strapline. The Pirate Parrot was funny and on the cereal box the idea of making the fruit into pieces of treasure really appealed to the kids.

The other team did Pantsman!

What were they thinking? How could they let Phillip talk them into it? Was it not obvious that they were handing Sir Alan a put down beyond the dream of most script writers?

Still it took Phillip two more weeks to fall on his sword when he proved that his selling skills were just about up to the same standard as his marketing skills.

Complete PANTS!

Swirl, Sniff and Taste

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I bought the DVDs for the first two series of Oz Clarke and James May’s Great Wine Adventure and watched them pretty much back to back. As a result I am now something more of a wine expert than I was before. I know now that you need to swirl it first to look at the colour. Then sniff it to get a hint of the grape variety and the underlying flavours infused into the grape from the surrounding soils and vegetation. Then of course taste it and then start making comments about body, notes, hints an nuances. Afterall that you spit it out – although I have to say I am usually tempted to swallow it and enjoy it to the full.

With this newly found experience I attended a wine tasting evening held at Smith’s of Smithfield (owned by that chef John Torode – the one on Masterchef who shouts at all the contestants when talking in a normal voice should suffice). Of course the reality is that there is much more to wine tasting than simply swirling sniffing and tasting. It takes years to build an appreciation for the wines and how they are put together. So I don’t really know much about wine tasting – but I do know what I like.

James May wanted to find a Californian wine that represented the best of what the new world had to offer for less than a tenner.

He revealed his choice – a Zinfandel called Ravenswood Lodi.

Imagine how surprised I was. This is actually my favourite reasonably priced wine – so I don’t know whether that is a good or a bad coincidence! “This wine is soft, round, spicy and jammy with voluptuous overtones of plums and blueberries, this wine lives large — and irresistible — in the here and now” (that’s what the marketing blurb says).

What do I think? I just think it tastes fantastic.

A Glitzy Award Ceremony

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The Award Ceremony season is upon us yet again, and what a timely reminder how formulaic and similar things can become.

Attend any one of these events and more often than not you will be greeted by hundreds of men wearing almost identical “black tie” dinner suits. Granted lapels can alter, satin highlights can be in or out, and I do my best to rebel slightly, by wearing a pink or multi-coloured tie instead of the traditional black. But in general, you’re greeted by a pretty homogenous bunch. So much for individuality and creative thinking.

The ladies on the other hand are not constrained with the formal dress uniform and have to be creative in what they wear – and in a male dominated industry they do bring a much needed splash of colour. Which is great, they will tell you, if you have the time and the budget to do so. No lady, it seems, wants to be seen in the same outfit twice. It’s just not acceptable. Or, worse still, in the same outfit as another guest – which happened to one of my close colleagues once and she’s never been allowed to forget it. So while it’s easy for men to fall back on their black tie uniforms, women constantly have to update.

award ceremony

From a company perspective, these award ceremonies always follow a familiar pattern. We all arrive really early, at one of the few London venues equipped to deal with such vast numbers of people, and seek out our guests. We keep our fingers crossed that there won’t be any no-shows, because it has taken us time to fill the tables with a good cross section of people as it is. Sipping champagne, we listen to and totally ignore the repeated announcements that the awards are about to start. Then eventually allow ourselves to herded to our tables by exasperated ushers.

Before dinner we sit through “Part One” of the awards. A celebrity, politician or sportsman, who will get a good initial reception as they tell a few jokes and warm up the audience, will host this. Then as the awards themselves start, quiet conversations start amongst some of the many hundreds of guests, and gradually increase until all but the most talented of hosts can be heard above the din and are authoritative enough to demand a degree of silence. Those up for awards will wait tensely to see if they have triumphed, their guests and colleagues will cheer, and everyone else carries on talking and drinking.

Then comes the dinner. Although served on fine china plates, much of this mass produced food could not taste any worse served in a foil container in Economy at thirty-nine thousand feet (can you tell I’m not impressed?). Having survived the meal, as we all sip our brandies and ports, “Part Two” of the awards inevitably kicks off. By this time our raconteur host will be fighting a losing battle against the loud conversations of people who have been drinking for hours. What most people really want to do is either bring the Tribute Band on and hit the dance floor, retire to the bar for more hugely over-priced drinks, or lose their pretend £100 on the Casino Roulette Tables. Finally when “Carriages” arrive at 2am – we all stagger for the exits for our black cab, mini-cab or – on one occasion – bicycle rickshaw home!