It’s questionable that we ever were; we we’re never the party animals, concert goers, clubers and even most movies just passed us by – but we were at least keeping up with the TV, comings and goings in most of the things ‘other’ people talked about, and then we went to India.

India – is (well it was in 2003) a bit different to the UK (well the 2003 version of it) – it was a culture shock, not as much as you think; because well you always just cope when you’re in the thick of it; it was however quite a life event, ‘an expericene’ is the best way to describe it – coupled with the near abandonment thing in New Delhi airport when our return Kergystan flight was cancelled, did make it one of those things we annoyed almost everybody with for many years to come.

We did however return from the ‘experience’ back to the lovely cosy – fast driving western world, and to recover from the shock we went to Bowness-on-Windermere – the most diametrically opposite place to Delhi we could find -it’s just looking back what we’re not sure of is if we ever returned from Bowness.

Here we are now in 2009 (apparently) as we are just so out of touch with everyone else – we’ve never seen x-factor (2005) – we don’t even watch strictly come dancing – and the last film we went out to see was I-Robot (2004); apparently there are all sorts of trendy bands and stuff now. increasingly conversations revolve around things we have little or no idea about – someone mentions how X on strictly has just done Y -

• “who’s X?”
• “o you know the one off – (some programme i didn’t even realise was still on - usually Holby City – which is some form of Casulty spin off i think)”

It’s not that we are living in the past – we’re very technically literate, and absorbing all sorts of things from the world, they just don’t appear to be the things everybody else is absorbing – so culturally we are stuck in bowness on 15th october 2003 – and if i’m honest – it’s quite nice.

there was some ‘nearly’ classic Winnie-the-pooh on playhouse Disney this morning, which had us all watching, especially as it’s coinciding with the reading of the Winnie-the-pooh stories at bedtime. they where mixing there stories so we had eeyore in the river, then his birthday.

Anyway I was interested to see just when we where talking about, so i did some interneting, and got to a few interesting things, including the fact that disney makes $1 billion dollars a year from pooh! also in 2000 the Canadian Medical journal published a paper about what was wrong with everyone in the hundred acre wood.

Apparently pooh bear has ADHD and OCD, Tigger is hyperactive and owl is dyslexic : yes, but it’s quite depressing to then read that given the chance the people who did the study would be drugging up half the forest – mainly to cure these problems. I don’t see why ?Pooh is perfectly happy with his lot, why does he need drugs, and if you took the bounce out of Tigger then everybody’s life would be sadder.

Did you know KITT was convertible?!

Kevin just read this article to me (almost word for word, since he was enjoying it so much), and I have one thing to say to Charlie Brooker – frankly, I’d have said it on the website, if they’d put comments on the article, but they didn’t, so I’m doing the second-best thing. I’m commenting on a little-known blog in a hidden corner of the internet where Mr Brooker will never venture.

The thing is, Charlie – may I call you Charlie? I read your column in the Grauniad, and I even watch your BBC4 TV show, when I remember – the thing is, that Michael Knight, a lone crusader in the dangerous world of a man who does not exist, he was my first love. I accept that David Hasselhoff has turned out, over the years, to be a bit of a nutter, but the fact remains that that Knight Rider stole my heart when I was seven, and there is nothing on this earth that you can do or say to change that.

Daisy is ill, and has spent most of the morning lying on the couch being cute and reading her CBeebies magazine (i succumbed to ill cute in tesco). speaking of CBeebies, if you want to be outraged you should read the thread about the new cbeebies presenters – usally i go look at the cbeebies forums for a laugh¹. it only takes five minutes and you find post  like this:

“You only need to compare Chris and Pui’s stagey and lacklustre Recycling Song with the dynamic and powerful rendition delivered by the Sid-Andy axis to see that the writing was on the wall sometime back in ’07. Oh yes.”

i find it mildly amusing when people post like this, its just a level i never really think about with cbeebies – but the venom that some people appear to be spewing because the beeb have dared to put someone with a missing arm on the telly is quite shocking (but expected I suppose).

back in the jumps house – Daisy has gone to sleep on my leg… it’s very cute.

¹ I would like to point out, i’ve never posted on the cbeebies forums, I haven’t yet reached that level.

I think, on balance, I’d have liked the Son of God bit, even if it was qualified with “Christians believe that…”  Still, after an afternoon of the Grinch, it was a refreshing change.

Hole in the wall (this is the splatmando apparently)- Picture BBC

hole in the wall left me open mouthed when i first saw it – It’s not often telly had this effect on me, but then again I don’t often watch ITV, but wait it’s on BBC1. 
 
if you haven’t seen it yet – basically you stand infront of a swimming pool, while a big polistirine wall with a person shape hole comes towards you. get through the hole, or get wet. that’s it. oh and there’s lycra, and Dale Winton shouting BRING ON THE WALL!

Anyway, it’s so astonishing – I thought i would blog it. so nerd alert. 

<nerdy>I’ve been taken with the idea of live blogging, basicaly it’s blogging while something happens. the BBC do it all the time for sports events. it’s like a modern take on watching the football on cefax. anyway I’ve yet to find the right plug in to do this well in wordpress, and besides i just wanted to mess about. you may ignore the following. it’s my ramblings while i watched the telly</nerdy>

on reflection, I might not find something that lets me do this. If the desire takes you – you have 6 days to watch this on the internet.

Zippy

We’ve been all cultural over the last two days; yesterday we went to the World Museum in Liverpool, where I was rather school-boyish around the European Cup, UEFA Cup and the Cup Winners Cup, I thought it was a alright exhibition although Ruth pointed out, it was really an excuse for boys to show off there nerdy football knowledge. 

Today, we went all the way to Bradford, to the National Media Museum; which i can now say is a fab museum. Unfortunately we where 3 days to early for the blue peter exhibition, but the photo and animations bits are fab. but the TV bit is cool – not all all those pretend to be on TV bits, which are cool, but they had Zippy and George from rainbow! I have to say I was even more school-boyish, and very nearly got my photo taken next to them – it was the condescending looks from the teenagers that stopped me.

we watched the wombles too – Henry thought it was cool, although Daisy use to modern children’s TV didn’t quite give it all her attention, she did however, watch all of this wobles episode when we came home.

What does interest me, is looking at who is playing Old Man Potter.

If you haven’t seen It’s a Wonderful Life go watch it now, I’ll wait; Old Man Potter is a local businessman who is motivated by money and a desire to run Bedford Falls. When there is a run on the bank, and on the Buildings and Loan Company, it’s Old Man Potter who starts buying while everyone else is selling, thus giving him huge sway over everything when it calms down.

The credit crunch is much like the run on the bank, and just like It’s a Wonderful Life, there are people selling while Mr Potter’s buying. At the moment I think it’s Barclays who are doing the best impression of Potter, buying just the nice bits of Lehman Brothers, and not making too much of a fuss about it. Lloyds (The Stupid Bank) are running a close second, merging with HBOS.

But as they are somewhat being forced into it by government- it isn’t quite as good.

I think when the dust settles, there will be a nice big Barclays while the rest pick over the scraps that not everyone is sure they want. Not that I understand economics, or think this is any way to run a planet, but it’s a bit interesting, for now.

Why are some moviegoers fleeing from Cloverfield?

“Because the monster-trashes-New-York film, produced by Lost creator JJ Abrams, is causing motion sickness and migraine in some viewers.”

“The problem is that the movie is made in the style of an amateur using a handheld camera. No shot holds still for more than a second or two…. the sense of balance, which depends on the inner ear’s vestibular system, is being confused by this technique”

However, after a quick search, I found a link from some random forum that said, oh you can watch that on tvCatchup.

So off I trot; and WOW, tvcatchup rocks.??

Go now it allows you to record free-view via the web, and look at anything anyone else has recorded. so right now, we’re watching the thing about how the victorians invented all the christmas traditionsit was on the Sunday before christmas. but if you want you could watch that episode of the weakest link.