alexsarll: (menswear)
Alex ([personal profile] alexsarll) wrote2007-10-13 09:54 am

Capri-Sun - like hope in a silver sachet

Technically adept types: would it theoretically be possible to make an Oyster card virus?

When I first saw that Virgin 1 was on Freeview, I was mainly excited about The Riches. Then I saw a trailer, and...I'm meant to take that accent of Eddie Izzard's seriously? Like I am Hugh Laurie's in House? There's no punchline? Yeah, maybe not. If I couldn't bear My Fair Lady or The Lady From Shanghai, no way can I take it in an ongoing series. So then I was excited about Battlestar Galactica until I realised it was the crappy original, and while I'd love to see Boston Legal, they've scheduled it against The Sopranos. But just before I dismissed this new channel as a bust, I remembered why I was recognising the name The Unit. It's the collaboration between Shawn "The Shield" Ryan and David Mamet about a US covert ops group (I would say Delta Force except these guys appear to be competent, so maybe think of them just as a US SAS), starring President Palmer from 24 as the operational commander and the T-1000 running things back at base. Tense and manly decisions are made, and stuff blows up. The other plot strand is basically Desperate Housewives except not achingly sh1t, with the unit's wives attempting to maintain both a semblance of normal domestic life, and the pretence that their husbands are in some boring logistics division and certainly not off about to get themselves killed in deniable ops behind enemy lines.
It is on Wednesday evenings. Thus far I have only seen one episode (the second of the first series), but I strongly recommend it.

Phonogram readers and the more-or-less sane will note that everyone interviewed in this piece about the Britpop revival is one of the era's war criminals. Why aren't Menswear touring? Why wasn't the return of Marion met with this sort of mainstream coverage?
(Still, even reading a Northern Uproar interview in 2007 can't be as sure a sign of the End Times as a really rather witty piece appearing in Observer Woman magazine)

Am more excited about Black Plastic later than I've been about a club in a while. I think it helps that this month's cover is the front of John Foxx's Metamatic, an album I somehow only discovered this month.

[identity profile] guntrip.livejournal.com 2007-10-13 09:31 am (UTC)(link)
haha, i've heard this from other people as well actually..

my favourite was the way that the tour ads listed the members of the band as if it was the "classic" lineup and someone would care that the original drummer was back.

[identity profile] barrysarll.livejournal.com 2007-10-13 09:37 am (UTC)(link)
I felt a bit that way about Duran Duran getting back the two non-John Taylors, but a surprising number of people did seem to care.

[identity profile] perfectlyvague.livejournal.com 2007-10-13 09:50 am (UTC)(link)
Sacking Warren for the sake of that Geordie twat who only went and buggered off again anyway was the stupidest decision they ever made (I know Ms. Stone does not agree as she is a first-time-rounder). He spat on stage! And sweated! Unattractively! I like to think that Nick was scowling at him from behind the keyboards, plotting his untimely demise.

[identity profile] barrysarll.livejournal.com 2007-10-13 10:01 am (UTC)(link)
Aye. The most annoying bit was when he got a big 'return of the prodigal son' cheer for the guitar part on 'Ordinary World' - IT WASN'T EVEN HIS SONG IN THE FIRST PLACE, YOU OAFS!