| 2004 | |
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BERNARD GUSSET -
AFTERTHOUGHTS (Updated... now and then)
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TELEVISION
Past and Present - the good the bad and the crap
- Our Roger Christmas reviews...
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May 18th 2005
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 Pete Doherty - Yawn! |
Stalking Pete Doherty - Channel
4 10pm May 17th 2005 (6/10) |
 Kate Moss - Good luck! |
I mean if you're going to stalk someone Max make it someone worthwhile, not this junkie loser. Look Pete do us all a favour, stick the needle in, pump a few litres of heroin into your veins and get it over with. You seem hell bent on it anyway. Then all the sad little girls who need some sort of heroic musician, folk hero, icon, father substitute can get on with their wailing and the lionisation of your memory and the rest of can get some peace from your self obsessed martyrdom. By the way stop taking your shirt off kiddo you have tits like a pubescent twelve year old school girl. Not a pretty sight. We hear that you're going to marry Kate Moss. Another dip stick with questionable personal hygiene issues - allegedly. You probably deserve each other. Frankly Kate, before you marry this guy make sure you have a nice black frock to wear at his funeral as it isn't likely he'll make the Wedding buffet with the amount of H he's putting in his body. |
| May 18th 2005 | |
 David Mitchell Professional Mr Dull |
FAQ U -
Monday Channel 4 - 16th May 2005 (1/10) I come up with better ideas than this one when I'm taking a dump, reading a book and half asleep. Well done to the boys who commissioned this pile of crap. There's only one other programme a more cretinous load of rubbish than this one and that's "Whatever" hosted by a bunch of dull, moronic chav dumbells who's only creative ability is.... can't think of one frankly. Here's one of their ideas when going to drop in unannounced on Vanessa Feltz, "...we've just got to make her look as stupid as possible...." (Hysterical laughter, drool drool!) Give me a break! This is a show hosted by the morons Blair wants off the streets. Yeah well for fuck sake don't put them in a studio! Meanwhile back at FAQ U. This week hosted by David Mitchell, he of Peepshow. Okay David you can stop acting the gormless bore. Sad that you stooped to the level of the pier end comics either side of you. |
 Dumb Frankie Boyle an alleged comedian (not proven) |
Those cracks about Ellen McArthur... pretty poor stuff really. Like to see you do it. And there's Kelly Holmes twice round a running track to become a dame. You missed that one presumeably. Yeah a lovely soft target to take a pop at. Oooooh how boring old Dame Ellen, let's have a go at her (envy, envy). Let's knock her down a peg or two. Frankie Boyle couldn't make me laugh if he burst into flames.... well no I probably could raise a smile at that. What a sad little scruffy guy he is..."How many times does Ellen McArthur have to sail around the world before she becomes a dame..." A lot fewer times than your attempts to come up with a good joke it seems. What, Ellen McArthur turn you down or something? That would explain the lesbian crack. Hey Frankie give us all a big laugh. You go round the world in a fully automated boat.... on your own. You'd be alright and its so easy according to you, plus you're your own best audience anyway. I think the UK could manage without you for a good six months - that's if anyone noticed you'd gone. Pile of crap this show. Hope it gets better but don't hold your breath. Is Channel 4 being run by 12 year olds these days? |
| May 4th 2005 | |
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Bad
Boys of the Blitz - C5 Tuesday 8pm - 3rd May 2005 (6/10) This was an enlightening programme about the lowlifes of Britain during the war. It was a time of rationing, ration books, and the black market, and the thugs who milked it for all it was worth by looting from bombed buildings and private houses in the black out. It featured a fascinating insight into those individuals who stole and looted whilst other fought and died for their country. As ever the darling of the east end hoodlum set was trotted out - he gets more work on TV than most actors - Mad Frankie Fraser. Here is a man who described himself as a "rascal" and "skallywag". How cuddly! In fact he was a vicious cold hearted and sadistic thug with a reputed 40 murders to his credit (that makes him a mass murderer in our book) he didn't deny it, and who saw theft as a way of redistributing wealth fairly to others who deserved a bit of the pie. Actually, we thought that hard work justified the rewards. |
| Obviously in this socialist
utopia of Britain today we must be misinformed. Here was a man smirking
at the camera, his face showing every wrinkle of his character. In his
dotage, no one ever looked more Hogarthian or more like an old lag than
Frankie Fraser. His trade was etched into every facial trough and dent
in his multi-broken nose. He delighted in the stories he told of theft
and violence, and showed real pride that his sister, Eva, had been chosen
for a notorious shop lifting gang called "The 40 thieves".
You'd have thought she'd been elected an MP in her local constituency.
"I never had to buy another bit of clothing from that moment on...."
How wonderful that must have been and so useful to the war effort. He
even glorified the birching he got in prison, the main point being that
he never showed any of them how much it hurt. Well done, what a clever
chap you were. Such bravery should get a medal. All the while he smirked
and mugged for the camera and why shouldn't he, he got away with it
and was no doubt being paid to recount what a bang up crook he is. For
a man reputed to have murdered 40 people (no doubt he only done his
own) it is remarkable he is still at large. No doubt there is little
evidence to tie him to all those murders but if witnesses could talk...
without fear of mutilation I've no doubt he'd be back behind bars. There
was the deserter too, a chap called Spud Murphy. Here was a weasel if
ever there was, a real lizard in fact who lived under rocks. As Shakespeare
put it, "...a needy hollow eyed, sharp looking wretch...."
He bragged about how good he was at getting away with looting, theft
and living like a rat hiding in corners or wherever he could keep warm
whilst on the run. He then told how when his home neighbourhood got
hit by a bomb he helped the injured and dug people out of the rubble.
This he took as a kind of exoneration for his miserable ways. "....I
took a lot out of the war but then I gave a little back..." was
how he put it almost sighing with self righteous pride. How generous,
and selfless and heroic! You'd have thought it would turn him back to
being a human being with a conscience. It didn't. He carried on as before
with renewed vigour presumably, feeling absolved of his previous crimes.
The only one who came out of this programme with any redeeming quality
was Roy Hill who at 16 had been a tearaway opportunist thief who ended
up in an approved school and then prison. He made the mistake of stealing
a radio from his mother who shopped him for his trouble. Following a
stint in prison, he vowed never to upset his mother ever again by doing
wrong and had managed to stick with that vow ever since. Programmes
like this are eye openers. When we think of the war years we forget
the loathsome parasites who live off the misery of others. This one
brought it home. |
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CSI Miami, CSI Las Vegas and now CSI New York (8 / 10) - If you seen the CSIs on channel 5 you'll be hooked, well more than likely. With so much lack lustre viewing these days which seems to consist of mostly make over and cooking shows, buying a property abroad (yeah we can all afford to do that) and the usual soapspects (sorry) you'll find the CSIs essential light relief. I say light relief but they are often quite gruesome getting to grips with the business end of murder, death and decaying corpses - not always victims of heinous atrocity, sometimes hapless accident victims. There are fascinating incites as to how the Crime Scene Investigators get their men or women. Clever CGI (computer generated images) allow the viewer to get up close and personal, following the track of a bullet, knife or whatever, getting down and dirty with the maggots setting to in the wounds of a subject. It also shows how they go about lifting prints or matching hairs or blood or spills of any sort onto clothing, weapons or whatever, blood spatter patterns showing the direction of the impact or from which direction victims stagger in their death throes. Neither are they afraid to tackle touchy subjects such as child murder and abuse, mass murder, patricide, matricide and, well you name it. The headline stars of these shows have been chosen well. They are solid actors with fine technique and charismatic style. Alright the whole thing is formulaic but it is also dark in atmosphere and lit brilliantly. Not a hint of the 1970 style TV lighting lit bright and from the front the top and side. Here there are dark disturbing corners, dank cellars, grime, goo, slime and blood, lost of it! David Caruso (great name) head the Miami team as Horatio Caine, a name as good as the star's own. His brooding concern and model poses just hook you into his world. His features are strong and grab you from the first. The whole team is a grabber as are the other teams, chosen for their quirky individualistic personalities no doubt. William Petersen as Gil Grissom heads up CSI Las Vegas. His style is no nonsense, direct and unimpeachable. His colleague Catherine Willows played by Marg Helgenberger has personal issues with her daughter and broken marriage creeping into the story line. She is just inside the line sometimes but coolly efficient and intuitive. |
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| As for the New CSI (in the UK at least) Gary Sinese (Captain Bob in Forrest Gump) is pragmatic New York hard head, sharp definitive and tough, a man you don't mess with.You gotta watch these shows if only to give yourself a break from some of the amateurish British rubbish being forced on us these days. Gritty but slick shows like these make shows like Spooks look like amateur night at the scout hut. Check Them out! | |
| CELEBRITY BIG BROTHER (3/10) - Did you happen to watch any of Celebrity Big Brother with John McCririck, Brigitte Nielsen, Germaine Greer, Caprice, someone called Bez I've never heard of, Lisa L'Anson, never heard of her either, Jeremy Edwards who I might have seen but can't remember at all, and Kenzie, another nonentity I've never heard of - Crap isn't it? Talk about milking an idea! | |
| FOYLE'S WAR (9/10) - There's a new series of Foyles war and its well worth watching. Michael Kitchen is brilliant as the sometime tormented Foyle and Honeysuckle Weeks is the perfect English rose. Hard to fault it. Catch it on Sundays on ITV at 9pm | |
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FOYLE'S
WAR (OLD REVIEW) Sadly, if you haven't seen it you've missed it. For once some quality viewing without bloody Ainsley Harriet or popstar wannabes. Michael Kitchen as wartime detective Christopher Foyle was unmissable. His laconic and often sardonic character was the sort that gets into the blood and hooks you from episode to episode. Supercilious and at times introspective, you just know he's figured things out long before old plod has worked out the first clue in the Daily Echo. Gripping little stories - albeit 2hrs long - that held you and made "settling down to watch the telly" a pleasure for once. |
| His sidekick driver Sam Stewart played by Honeysuckle Weeks makes an excellent - wait for it - foil (sorry) being warm and reassuringly ever so slightly in awe of her boss. They work well together and you get the feeling there is this hint of sexual chemistry despite the age gap. Its as though they both know it but neither will in fact let it get beyond that, indeed Foyle is if anything quite paternal with her though his affections are very English that is to say, reserved, even towards his own son in the final episode of this series. Foyle does protect his small team which consists of him, his driver and a war wounded forensics sleuth, detective sergeant Milner played by Anthony Howell. Foyle's War is a chip of the Morse block and just the sort of stuff to get the guys at the Guardian in anti-toff mood. Excellent! | |
| TV - SPOILT ROTTEN (ITV) 27TH FEBRUARY 2003 (7/10) | |
| This is a case of did you see...? I did and couldn't believe the daft parents who lavished thousands of pounds on their spoilt little darlings who can barely comprehend the concept of money to start with. Was any sane person not staring wide eyed at the screen as these pampered brats - yes and all of them were brats, no exceptions - had mummy dearest spend more and more money on their every whim. One parent Debbie seemed incapable of bettering her young manipulative child Georgina who at first seemed quite sweet....more | |
| Letters | |
