3 posts tagged “media”
I've been following Russell Brand's Radio Show [bbc.co.uk] via podcast since he moved to BBC Radio 2 a few weeks ago, and I have to say I have been enjoying it muchly. I would highly recommend it.
The broadcast from the last Monday had an interview with Morrisey which Russell seemed to be very excited about, Morrisey being a hero of his. And I have to say, I do very much enjoy Morrisey's music too.
However, from the interview he comes across to me as a bit of an arse. My personal disagreements with his vegetarianism, sorry, not killing animalism, aside he makes two points I would strongly disagree with.
Firstly, he makes the sweeping claim that qualifications are unneeded. Princess Diana didn't need them, he didn't need them, and a bunch of other people didn't need them. So clearly no-one needs them. Never mind that we need quantitative measurements of peoples abilities and motivation to feasibly assign work. It is a combination of training and nationally recognised assessment preventing the need for every place of work to implement a baseline test.
The second is his assertion that there is no point in planning for the future, as tomorrow "he could be run over by a horse". Yes, and you might not. In fact, you've had 17365 days and counting of not being run over a horse. Yes, you should live every day with the knowledge that it might well be your last, but that doesn't mean you should live in ignorance that there is a high probability that it might not be.
However, those irks aside, he is also quite funny. And makes good music.
Anyone who knows me knows I love audio commentries on DVD's. I have listened to them on every DVD I have (other than Lord Of the Rings, because that would take 3 months to do).
There are about three broad catagories; Interesting, Boring and Funny. The interesting one's tend to be from directors, writers or knowladgable actors like Johny Depp who are able to tell you about how they did this or why they did that. The boring ones come from unfunny people trying to be funny, people who point out obvious things or people that don't really say much. The funny one's come from funny people.
Three seems to be the best number of people for a commentry. There are enough people to play off each other and not run out of things to say, but not too many that you don't know whats going on. The Red Dwarf commentry, whilst cool to have all the main actors there, gets confusing even to me (a veteran fan). Perhaps the best way is to do something like Shaun of the Dead and split it into several commentries.
Perhaps the most dedicated I've seen is Ross Noble, having not only a commentry, but also a commentery on the commentery in his Sonic Waffle DVD. Which is impressive, considering one man fills two commenteries when three people often struggle to fill one. Then again, he is the master of rambling.
So, given my love of commenteries, no matter how bad they are, some find my strong dislike of people talking in cinemas strange. That is until I point out that when I go to the cinema I'm not going to listen to somebody rattle on about something they don't know, or their opinions on something that isn't their intellectual property. I'm going there to watch a film I've not seen before. And even if I have seen it before, it still irritates me because I know there are going to be people there who haven't seen it before.
Plus the sort of things people tend to say are mindless and idiotic anyway, as this clip demonstrates:
There are, admitedly, people who have geniunly interesting things to say. Which is why I have now taken to the idea of giving them some pen and paper and a small torch so they can write these things down, and then tell me them afterwards.
For anyone who didn't see it, there is a new program on Wednesdays, BBC2, 10:00pm called Turn Back Time [bbc.co.uk]. It was very interesting and very funny. It is very similar to Room 101 in it's format, the host Dara O'Briain asking the guests (albeit speaking slightly too quickly) what aspects of history, and mainly their past, they would change if they could.
The guest of the first episode last week was ex-Monty Python Terry Jones. He's a naturally funny and interesting man, so it was a good choice for first guest. As Emily says, it was far too short to get into some truely interesting discussions, but it's still a good show.
But it got me thinking about how annoyed I get at how lightly people take fortune and where time has taked them. There have been many shows, books etc. that explore the idea of time travel, or differing decisions and their concequences. But many of them fail to consider how far reaching even the smallest decisions can be. Making one decision could give you a different experience, which changes slightly the way you think, or others around you who's experience you have affected, and it all snowballs from there.
If one man decided to run instead of stay, or stay instead of follow orders and we could have lost the war. If I'd turned left instead or right my friend could be dead. Not because they immediatly got run over. But because it changed something that years down the line lead them to get run over when they wouldn't have.
It's a scary thought, and one that makes you feel greatful that time has worked out how it has (after all, I like my friends being alive), but also slightly bitter that you are being punished in a way because you decided to drink orange juice instead of apple.
