A Number Of Things

[kingandy]

A number of stories caught my eye upon the BBC-type news. (Apologies in advance for the large post but there didn't seem to be any particular place to snip bits out, so enjoy my verbosity in its entirety.)


Firstly something for you Blaine-haters out there. Illusionist David Blaine may have to pay the cost of policing his starvation stunt in London when it ends. They would probably charge him with Disturbing The Peace, but he's not really doing anything, and he probably got their permission before he started anyway. Maybe they could get him with Wasting Police Time, or Being A Pointless Twat.


Secondly a subject dear to my heart. Cult science fiction series Doctor Who is returning to to TV, 14 years after it was axed. News like this circulates every few years, but it's nice to see that they at least think it's still worth talking about reviving. I was also interested to note in one of the captions accompanying the article that "The Tardis was the Doctor's flying machine." It is being produced by BBC Wales, which will either affirm or destroy arwel's belief that everything good comes from Wales, depending on his opinion of Doctor Who. I suppose.

Russell T Davies - the advertised writer, also Welsh - also wrote Dark Season, a children's SF show which I highly enjoyed (it had two stories over six episodes, and featured mind-control computers and nazis, as well as an eminently sensible girl who knew exactly how to behave if you find yourself inside a science-fiction adventure), as well as one of Virgin's Doctor Who books - Damaged Goods, which I also found very interesting.


The third story that I felt motivated to comment on was the Music Of Black Origin awards. I have mixed feelings regarding the awards as a whole. If somebody was to set up an equivalent award ceremony for celebrating music of white origin, there would be outrage, panic in the streets, wailing and gnashing of teeth, cats and dogs laying down together. How dare the Whites trump themselves up like this. Whitey ib puttin' meesa down. And so forth. But because it's black people - and they don't say African origin, or Carribean origin, it's purely based on your skin colour - they are lauded for celebrating their culture.

Go on, try setting up a "Music Of Yellow Origin" awards for all flavours of asian. It's terribly racist and patronising and possibly evil. But it's okay for "the blacks."

Still, at least they are staying true to their remit and only holding the music to their racist entry criteria. White artists are perfectly eligible for awards, as long as they are singing music that has at some point or another been thought about by somebody with a melanin count on the higher end of the scale. Christina Aguilieraisa won the Best Video award and Justin Timberlake is apparently the best R&B act in today's music scene. Tim Westwood took the award for best UK radio DJ, but I'm not sure he counts because he's always wanted to be black anyway.

"L'il Kim, who was co-hosting the show with Blu Cantrell, won the fashion icon category." There's a fashion icon category. It's all about the music! Really!


And Finally, Charlton Heston wins "Heston" award.

Comments

[blue-room.livejournal.com]

Ed here.

Russel T Davies has also written Dr Who novels. The dude has a lot of influence with production companies because he's 'guaranteed good', the second coming did quite well, despite it's unusual subject matter. (I loved the bomb miracle scene).

Dark Season website: http://www.xanderly.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/

[wulfboy.livejournal.com]

"Dark Season" was surprisingly intelligent for a kid's series, one of the last spasms of quality british kids' TV; the only standard bearer in this dismal century is probably "My Parents Are Aliens" but that's a very acquired taste, I hear. She had two pointless sidekicks I remember, and one of her enemies for the one with the Doomsday-Machine-in-the-Sports-Hall was Servelann.

[kingandy]

One of the sidekicks was Kate Winslet, according to Ed's link ... fancy. I thought I recognised Jacqueline Pearce's name from somewhere, too, though I didn't know where exactly, cheers for that.

I have watched My Parents; I thought it was quite clever, for a kids' show. Like Maid Marian And Her Merry Men, it works on multiple levels; there's toilet humour for the kids and a bit of social commentary for the grownups. Plus the characters seemed to be internally sound and well thought out rather than just cliches. The actors seemed to be quite competent too; in the one I saw the "dad" morphed into the boy's shape, and the boy's actor did a passable job of being the "dad". Unfortunately, though it was good, it didn't really grab me enough to make me want to watch it regularly. Plus I'm still at work when it's on these days...

[mrssshhh.livejournal.com]

I heard an awful, awful rumour about Mr Sean Pertwee and Dr Who. I can't share it. It doesn't bear thinking about.

[pkgem.livejournal.com]

Share. I want to be disturbed. I have nothing better to do...

The Stiff-Upper-Lipped White Middle-Class Music awards...

[pkgem.livejournal.com]

You know I've always held the same opinion about the "Music of Black Origin" awards or simply (and even less PC) "Black Music Awards" as I remember them being called.
People would never get away with the "Music of White Origin Awards" and yet if various paleantologists (I think its this bunch - if not its some bunch of "-ologists" or some people somewhere...)are correct and humanity first emerged in Africa then surely we are the outsiders in music and black music is the norm... I dunno and I don't much care it just bemuses me for the same reasons it does you. Teachers are no longer allowed to call a "blackboard" a "blackboard" (it's now a "chalkboard") because this is un-PC despite the fact that all the word does is describe the object - it's black... and a board... Yet it's fine to refer to "Black" music even though this seems more of a stereotype than any possible derogatory implications I can think of from calling a board black (I can't think of any - dammit, it is a BLACK BOARD!!!)