2007 — 13 Mar: Ruby Tuesday's trivia

According to Wikipedia, "all post-2002 reissues of Ruby Tuesday on CD are" (for unaddressed reasons) "missing a vocal overdub in the chorus." It's only a tiny hypertext link from there to the list of 165 songs suggested as inappropriate in our post-September 11 2001 world. I mildly note the appearance, on this weird list, of Led Zeppelin's "Stairway to Heaven"... not to mention Louis Armstrong's "What a wonderful world"!

I mentioned (here) that I'd written to Channel 4 in the past to encourage them to continue to obtain and show the wonderful Northern Exposure. Judging by the piece in today's Guardian Monsieur Monbiot feels differently about the channel and, in particular, the problem he feels it has with "science". In the wake of last week's transmission of Martin Durkin's attack on CO₂ as anything to do with global warming our George writes:

But for the film's commissioners, all that counts is the controversy. Channel 4 has always had a problem with science. No one in its science unit appears to understand the difference between a peer-reviewed paper and a clipping from the Daily Mail. It keeps commissioning people whose claims have been discredited — such as Durkin.

George Monbiot, "Don't let truth stand in the way of a red-hot debunking of climate change"

Splendor in the Grass department

No, not the 1961 film (I wasn't allowed to see) but rather the news that 1,500 marijuana¹ farms were discovered last year in London alone "mostly run by Vietnamese gangs" according to the BBC 6Music news bulletin.

Possibly too Austentatious department

I was initially pleased at the news, some months ago, that there were to be three new Jane Austen TV adaptations this year. As more details emerge in the new issue of the Radio Times, however, and I learn that not only has ITV been sitting on a script from Andrew Davies (Northanger Abbey, the only major novel I was defeated by) for "seven or eight years", but that there is a "youthful energy" brief² well, frankly, my heart sinks.

Besides, if it's a relentless pursuit of a profitable demographic by the advertisers who will unwelcomely display their wares (or worse) every 20 minutes or so, why don't they ignore the Media Studies brats who prattle on about the "youthful energy" and go after the tired, slothful grey-haired panthers who (if, for example, New Statesman's article — the great generational robbery is to be believed) actually own (and, more to the point, can spend) the bulk of the country's liquid assets?

Make 'em roar department

Chap name of Michael Kilgarriff offered that advice in his 1979 comedian's handbook. From the same stable comes: "Always leave them wanting more." To that end, I see that Thomas Mallon has been asking ten questions about the future of the humanities in America. After watching Idiocracy last night, the cultural judder is even more pronounced. The question I particularly liked was: "Aren't a few moments of quiet bafflement preferable to an endless steeplechase across Web page after Web page?" (In fact, this was one of four separate questions combined under #5.)

Day 130

Footnotes

¹ If you visit this site, you hafta love the "favicon" it uses.
² "It's a very young cast and the camera needed to keep up with the pace of the kids. We have audiences now who are familiar with American drama series such as Lost and 24, where everything moves very fast. And that's great for us, because the audience gets it quickly — you don't need to labour things to get them to understand the nuances."