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] blanche-carte.livejournal.com 2007-10-14 06:30 pm (UTC)(link)
"... as a really rather witty piece appearing in Observer Woman magazine)" Really?
Was deeply sceptical. Long ago gave up on it unless, for some odd reason, I wanted to be really irritated - and further disappointed with what the meedja thinks women want to read.
But yes - so it is!
Not sure what's with Nigella & the Twiglets (have I been away from telly-land too long?) but the first two pieces are ace.

I briefly contemplated Black Plastic, what with it being practically just down the road. But an average of 3 hours' sleep over the preceding three nights intervened , and it was going to be much too much. Would rather like to go to the next one tho.

[identity profile] barrysarll.livejournal.com 2007-10-15 05:47 pm (UTC)(link)
Yeah, I was mainly reading OMM because I was having trouble waking up one morning and thought some bile might kick-start me...

Next BP is December 8th, if you didn't already know that.

[identity profile] blanche-carte.livejournal.com 2007-10-15 07:03 pm (UTC)(link)
Ta, have added it as a Facebook event to remind me. (I'm not particularly proud that I usually look at Facebook to remember what's happening at weekends...)