The BBC hates us?

I get odd glimpses of the BBC’s daytime programmes on the way to other channels and the staple of people buying and/or doing up properties, and associating with other people, is starting to look like a cruel and unusual punishment imposed on locked down viewers.

Independent of clocks

Nobody seems to have told the cat about summer time. Thus she is now quite happily going out in the morning at half-past eight instead of half-seven.

Not much going on

Things are so quiet at times that I feel like I’m in a remake of the Sixties Vincent Price film called The Last Man on Earth. Not much chance of that with a light plane buzzing about overhead for a good bit of the morning. The local police spying on us and looking for a chance to send a squad car round to impose a fine for breaking the virus code?

Appearances are everything

From time to time, I get the distinct impression that the BBC newsreader of the moment is gagging to do the story that corona has overwhelmed the NHS just for the glory of being first with it.

That wasn’t bad

I didn’t mess about with my watch and clocks last thing on Saturday. I got up when I felt like it yesterday, not having any plans to go anywhere, and that lost hour just vanished.

Stock in trade

Where would cop shows be without nutters and obsessives? Just watched an episode of Ratsky & Splutch [series 4, no. 1] and the bad guy was nuttier than Jimmy Carter’s peanut ranch.

Vanished

This week’s Daily Mail Magazine, a vital guide to the coming week’s TV, doesn’t have a sports viewing suggestions section this week. Mainly because there ain’t none. Apart from repeats.

What a wonderful life

What a doddle it is to be a bus driver out in the sticks these days with everyone stuck at home. No passengers to slow you down and not much traffic to contend with. Just drive round your route then park yourself until you come up again on the reduced schedule. Money for old rope.

More frequent boozing necessary

I found a bottle of Southern Comfort in the drinks cabinet yesterday when looking for something else. How long is it since I had some of that? I wondered. Far too long, was the conclusion as the cap was self-cemented on and took the application of pliers to remove!

Copybook uncomfortably blotted

A few pages on in Zoom, Mr. Berman spoils it all by saying 91,000 cubic miles of water fall as rain in a year, and that would form a layer four feet deep. Wrong! It’s the one inch of surface water falling over and over again, and the concept is bollocks.

More than meets the eye

There is a theory that cats live in more dimensions than humans. It certainly explains why the Mansion cat looks rather compact and petite in size when walking about but so much bigger when she’s sprawling along someone’s thighs, not watching the TV.

Uncomfortable fact

Gulp! Noah’s flood, according to Zoom written by Bob Berman, is a load of BS. If all the moisture in the atmosphere fell as rain, it would raise sea levels by only one inch. So all that jive about an ark is just . . . jive.

Spooky psychic

The Mansion’s cat is normally on the spot, looking expectant, within 2-3 seconds of someone applying a tin opener to a can of tuna in springwater. Yesterday, she arrived in the interval between removing the tin from its cupboard and the application of the opener. If someone could decode and market CATDAR, they’d clean up.

In the dark

People who measure such things are claiming an audience of 27.3 million viewers for the PM’s broadcast on Monday of this week. How did they know it was on? I obviously lead a very sheltered life if the first thing I knew about it was glancing at his script in the paper on Tuesday.

Not a great idea

Not showing programmes here at the same time of year as the original showing in the US can have the unfortunate consequence of a twee Xmas episode of Warehouse 13 featuring an ’orrible kid being unloaded on us just after spring has sprung. Not something that works at all well.

Business opportunity

One of my mates was wondering (on Skype) if she should start an on-line memory training course to help people to remember all the things they can’t do any more because of the plague, and also the one or two things they can still do without being arrested. Sounds a great idea.

Very considerate

I was looking at a stretch of hedge yesterday, wondering if it needed a bit of a haircut, when a little girl out for a run reached the spot I was occupying on the pavement – and ran out into the road, which was traffic-free at that moment, to avoid coming within two metres of me. Looks like the Prime Minister’s social isolation message has got home.

Weird, or what!

You really have to wonder about the mentality of some of the people who have attached printed notices to shutters; presumably, to explain why their premises are closed. There are seven or eight lines of script in two or three paragraphs in some cases, but you’d have to be nine feet tall to look straight at it. So why bother?

Universal Pain

“Proud partner of the Olympics” the TV ad proclaimed. Whoops! No one is gonna be impressedl by something that ain’t gonna happen. More advertising budget down the drain, China making more friends in the PR industry.

My resources

My personal discovery in the DVD collection, I have been obliged to reveal, is Blood Ties, a Canadian series from the Noughties featuring a specky, going blind ex-detective turned PI called Vicky, who is fancied by a vampire and a cop still on the job. I remembered the theme tune as soon as I heard it after a gap of a decade or so.

More gnashing of teeth

As usual, the weekend’s newspapers were full of adverts for mobility scooters and other gadgets at a time when we’re supposed to be remaining immobile. You just can’t win!

Own resources

Sports fans, deprived of their usual viewing, are turning to the Mansion’s DVD collection rather than streaming services. The logic behind this is that they know a film or box set will be worth viewing if someone paid out good money for the disks.

A really good idea

Self-isolating from all the fake news about the corona virus sloshing around on the internet works for me.

Everyone loves a silly story

Midsomer Murders was pushing a 9th symphony curse last night. The composer croaks after finishing No. 9. How many dozen did W.A. Mozart rattle off? At least five dozen. Maybe no one told him about the curse.

Idle thoughts

One of the staff was in the local fruit & veg shop yesterday. Finding himself at the back of a long queue, he found himself wondering if he should start coughing to see if everyone would shoo him to the front of the queue to put a potential plague-carrier out of range. But he played the white man and resisted the temptation.

Preaching to the converted & convicted

Given the rate shelf-scavengers are hoovering stuff out of supermarkets, I was a bit surprised to see an advert for Lidl on TV last night. No doubt someone is gnashing his teeth over the wasted cash.

Wot a wunnerful world

Nobody working, everyone on benefits and nothing in the shops. Don’t tell me, I’ve slipped into an alternate reality where the Corbyn Mob won the last election.

I’m definitely not buying from them!

Don’t you just wish someone would take the bloke who came up with the LV Insurance Dom-Diddy riff for the TV ads, stick his head down the bog and put it on perpetual flush?

And another thing . . .

One thing is for sure; I won’t be getting out of bed at 6 a.m. to watch the BBC update on the Chinese plague.

Northern masochists

Chapter 6 of Zoom by Bob Berman and the author is writing about a trip to Fairbanks, Alaska. It leaves me wondering what sort of nutter wants to live somewhere with only 3 snow-free months – which are a time when everyone is chewed to death by mosquitos – the temperature can drop to -40 deg.C and freezing and thaws makes the ‘ground’ level shift so that dwellings can end up with floors sloping at 45 degrees!!

Not really the focus of the nation

The BBC seems to be doing its best to create the impression that it is busting a gut to fill the nation’s TV screens during the Chinese Corona Crisis. Shame that all I usually watch on the Beeb is the news and weather, and I do most of my viewing among the classic repeats on the digital channels like Syfy, Alibi, Sony, etc.

Not really news

Is it any surprise that air quality in New York and similar places that normally have wall-to-wall traffic has improved dramatically with fewer vehicles around? It would have been a surprise only if it hadn’t happened.

Them Russians! Bunch of jokers!

I had to laugh when I read that the Russians are blaming us for the corona virus outbreak in China. Apparently, their fake news department is saying a British spy stole their method of trying to murder the Skripals in March 2018; Novichok virus spread on a door handle; and used it in Wuhan with a virus made at Porton Down.
    You’d think the point of fake news is that it has to look vaguely credible. But the Russian take on it seems to be to invent the biggest load of BS imaginable.

Back to form

Shame about episode 4 of the revived Twilight Zone, which turned out to be a sub-standard clunker.

How fake news is created

Did President Trump admit (implying guilt) that the US could go into recession because of corona? Or did he acknowledge that recession is among the possibilities? Take your pick according to your political prejudices.

Familiar story

I’m currently reading Zoom, a popular science book about the speed of everything. It was published in 2014 and the author reckoned the Giant Magellan Telescope, which is being built on top of a mountain in Chile, would be finished in 2020. So I had a look on Wikipedia and the completion date is now 2025. Sounds a lot like H2S!

Like that could happen

Also on the Syfy channel yesterday, 12 Monkeys (1995), a Terry Gilliam film in which a convict is sent back in time to prevent a deadly virus from wiping out 5 BILLION people. Where’s Bruce Willis when you need him?

Carry On W.W.ing

When I caught up with WW Smackdown, it was being done to an empty arena – with the cast doing a script for a packed house in their Performance Centre. Weird, or what! Natch, most of the programme was an extended repeat from a PPV as well as the usual fillers.

They’re everywhere

I switched on the TV and there was Captain Quack and the crew of Voyager having to deal with a deadly virus! And Seven of Nine doing a lot of overacting.

Cynical gesture

It’s worth remembering that no matter what the government does, there will always be ‘experts’ pushing the exact opposite in the hope of being able to claim at some future date that they got things right (if only by accident), and that ‘proves’ that they’re right all the time.

Today’s question

If the obstructive civil servant who flounced out of the top job at the Home Office has his K removed for conduct unbecoming a member of the Order of the Bath, will he be restricted to showers in future?

Bucked up

After a couple of turkeys, the Twilight Zone revival came up with a decent third episode. I’m actually looking forward to the next effort.

Mysterious events

If you see a door swing toward you when there’s no one else around, you have to ask yourself: “Is the place haunted? Or is it the cat doing it to spook you?”

Lorst & gorn

Whatever happened to Roller Derby? How come it’s never on any of the alleged sports channels. Shame about the XFL being corona’d out of existence. Maybe we could get some repeats of old Roller Derby riots to fill the gaping gaps in TV sport schedules.

Not something to rely on

If 80% of the population will get the corona virus as the experts seem to think will happen, I have no expectation of being in the 20%. So it’s now a question of when and how bad. What a wonderful prospect for the future!

Contrary daffs

Just two daffodils in one of the planters have produced flowers so far; both of which face north. I thought flowers were supposed to like the Sun and not turn their backs on it.

Weird idea

There’s an article in today’s paper asking if the horror of the 1918 Spanish flu has fooled us into thinking we have immunity from corona. But as the experts have been telling us from day one that we don’t have any immunity to this new virus, it’s unlikely.

Coming good on the road

Who was that playing in Dallas against the Renegades XFL team? It certainly wasn’t the spluttering NY Guardians we saw at the start of the season!

More of life’s weirdness

Channel 4 is due to show a repeat of the Australian Grand Prix on Sunday afternoon. According to tvguide.co.uk, which told me when the GP will be on, the programme has a rating of 6.3/10. How can a programme that hasn’t been shown yet have a rating?

More non-existent than faint praise

German Kitchens For Less it said on the shop beside me when I was stuck briefly in a traffic jam. Less than what? I wondered. A Jumbo jet? Not the world’s most brilliant come-on slogan.

Washing my hair?

I have just found out that I belong to a very exclusive club. I’m one of the handful of people on the planet who didn’t watch the Live Aid TV broadcast in 1985.

Is this life worth living!

Self-isolation for suspected corona virus cases last 2 weeks. What sort of a life does someone have who expects to need 27 panic-bought boggo rollos during their purdah period?

What does the BT in BT Sport stand for?

Bloody Terrible is the current opinion. The XFL fans went to their recordings of what should have been the unseen St. Louis @ DC and got a repeat of Seattle vs Houston, which was shown live. Worse, the two XFL matches which were shown live over the weekend have been repeated a total of 3 times and the two which weren’t shown have yet to grace our screens.

No lead is safe

You’d think LA had won big in the turnover battle in the Sunday late XFL match but Tampa Bay actually did better out of the 3-all. Which makes the LA win a testament to their ability to play catch-up.

Time move on

My parents have become trendy retrospectively. For many years, the family received daily deliveries of green-top milk from a nearby farm. Now, ‘raw’ milk is trendy and faddy. And also banned in Scotland because they can’t keep it disease-free there.

No show

Fans of the XFL didn’t get the first Sunday night fix last night due to ‘technical reasons’. That corona virus is getting the blame.

Later, Later Show

Sunset during the Moto3 race, full night above the lights for Moto2. Title face Fernandez went off on lap 3/20, crashing out a rookie. Another gone on lap 10. Pole man Joe Roberts didn’t manage the first American win for ages and finished 4th. Nagashima got his first ever win.

The Bikers are back!

The MotoGP season started in Katar – without a MotoGP race. Just Moto3 and Moto2, then nothing for a month. Surprise! No one fell off until lap 12/18 of the Moto3 race. Basher Binder and Arbolino hit the dirt at the start of lap 18. Scotland’s John McPhee led briefly and finished 2nd.

No sense – it’s BT Sport

What does BT Sport have against the Saturday late XFL match? It shows the other 3 matches live (most weeks) and repeats all 3 of these matches – one is repeated twice – before the single showing of the Saturday late match as Wednesday is running out. Weird, or what!

The Apprentice

What did the smug Lt. Horatio of CSI: Miami do when he was just a lad? He was a junior arson fiend in T.J. Hooker country.

Death stalks among us

Is it my imagination or is the number of TV adverts for funeral plans for the elderly going up and up as hysteria about the spread of the corona virus increases and we’re assured that about half the population could be wiped out?

Next question . . .

Is an Expert going to tell us what use an anti-bacterial product is against a virus?

Who are they kidding?

When do you know that the General Knowledge Crossword is nothing of the kind? When you come across a clue saying: The dung of an otter (7).
    Turn the page and move on. Some compiler has lost the plot.

Part of the drip, drip, drip?

Looks like trying to frighten us out of using cash for fear that coins and banknotes transmit the corona virus is another tactic in the plot to achieve a cashless society.

They’ll never get him in the dock at the Old Bailey!

How ethical was New Labour’s foreign policy? Apparently, it was elastic enough to cover up a kidnapping by the Big Boss of Dubai 20 years ago. Not that there’s any danger of Tony Blair being held to account for his part in it.

Not up to much

I have to say, the resurrection of The Twilight Zone (Syfy Channel) has been as big a disappointment as the Westworld TV series. Sometimes, there’s a really strong argument for leaving well alone.

Do we panic, or what?

THE POINT OF NO RETURN yells the headline on today’s paper. “For now at least, we have nothing to panic about but panic itself” sez the leader writer. Not exactly a model of consistency.

Crossover

First Minister G’Kar was visiting Deep Space Nine in the episode Crossfire, we fans of Babylon 5 were amazed to hear? The Narns are trying to join the Federation? Shortly followed by the Centauri, the Shadows and the Vorlons?
    In fact, it turned out to be a Bajoran politician called Shakaar, and not an invasion from the best TV SF series ever made.

Helpful suggestion

How do you give ammo to Welsh outrage confectors? Tell them their place names looke like something produced by a cat walking about on a keyboard. Never fails!

Just how thick do they think we are?

The moron tendency is really scraping the barrel if it believed that anyone would buy the silly story that our PM was just lying doggo and hoping the Chinese Death Plague would just go away of its own accord. Same with all these stories of our fragrant Home Sec. driving stubborn uncivil servants to suicide.

Just a silly story

Does anyone buy this alleged conventional wisdom that cats sit only on people who hate cats? The Mansion cat parks on me regularly. And also on other inmates who also don’t hate her. Get out of that.

Fangs close

Nascar, Nascar! What a show the Tampa Bay Vipers, the nearly men of the XFL, put on @ their home ground on Sunday. Nice to seem them finishing drives with a score rather than getting close and blowing up. A 25-0 first win over an unbeaten team had to be a treat for their home crowd.

Right all along

Yet another journo (female) is claiming that the woman who shed 8 stone and became a beauty queen is making the people who dared to notice she was fat “eat their words”. Which doesn’t really make much sense if the woman was told she’d be nobody as long as she stayed fat. She should be grateful to them for the sound advice.

On the fickleness of fame

There’s a picture in the paper; no one you know. And a name; not one you know. And a job description like ‘Hollywood hard man’; still nothing. Then the dilemma – is it worth reading a small article about someone who has made zero impact on your life?

It takes all sorts!

Women find being punched in the face by a boxing glove wrapped around a female fist to be liberating, according to a lady with OCD. What weird people there are around us.

Waxwork meltdown

From where I’m sitting, the civil service boss who’s quit in a cloud of indignation looks very much like a case of a foot-dragger being taken to task by a mere woman, and a Tory woman to boot, for not doing what he’s been told to do, and throwing a huge wobbly because of it. His fate looks to likely to be having to put up with being hugged to death by Tory-hating luvvies.

Good story

Owners in the UK spend £2 billion on their cats every year? That must be Venezuelan pounds!