celticman's blog

When’s a secret not a secret? When you’ve got a film crew following you around. David and Miriam Lapp risk excommunication from the Old Order Amish faith in Pennsylvania. There’s a stricture in forbidding photography. There’s a stricture against having a phone in the house, but having one in a shack outside, or in the garage, is acceptable. The garage isn’t a place where the car is kept. That’s where the horses are kept that pull those wheeled...

Line of Duty is the best drama on telly. The climax of this five part drama, five hours of google-eyed viewing is on BBC 2 tonight. Written by Jed Mercurio of Cardiac Arrest fame, it’s as taut and tight as you’d expect from such a veteran. If you really want to know what Mercurio is about then a good start would be his novel Bodies, and as a former doctor he knows where they are buried. Bodies follows an intern through his brutal initiation into...

Wallander BBC 1 9pm. Yeh, I know. This isn’t the real Wallander. The BBC 4 Wallander that looked like an ex-football player, all jowly and gone to seed, with a bit of a drink problem, a bit of a women problem, a bit of a life problem. But on the bright side he did have a dog Jussy and some nice Scandinavian scenery. Kenneth Brannagh has a dog named Jussy and he has the nice Scandinavian scenery. There’s also lots of international production...

James Cameron’s Avatar (2009) Channel 4. It’s a bit like Titanic. First the big screen film, in this case with the added bonus of 3D, and then the video (will that word become obsolete?) the download and now it’s scrapping around the bottom of the channel on 4. The good thing is I haven’t seen it. I have seen parts of it. There was a bit of Dances with Wolves, a bit of Hiawatha, a bit of Apocalypse Now and a bit of Disney fairy tale icing with...

My Murder BBC 3 written by Levi David Addal is a factional account of how a sixteen year old boy was set up by his fifteen year old girlfriend and stabbed to death. The dramatization begins and ends with his death. In between we learn Shakilus Townsend (played by John Boyega) or Shakky is just out of prison or youth borstal and determined to start a new life, go to college and make something of himself. It’s not easy. He refuses to recognize...

Horizon: The Truth about Fat. Surgeon Gabriel Weston chews every word before enunciating. She seems to live off words. There was some swizz about her eating a full fry up and some sticky bun, but I’m sure she never swallowed. Why should a person so thin that she can’t be seen sideways investigate the truth about fat? Perhaps the problem is fat people don’t know they are fat. As someone remarked to me today maybe it’s time you went back to...

White Heat (BBC2) I’ve been following White Heat. White Heat, of course, refers to that antique phrase, by, I think it was good old Tony Benn, that went something like the white heat of new technology, blah, blah, blah…(but without the blahs). So it’s 1965. History is happening on the black and white television in Jack’s livingroom-Churchill is dying and then there is a little matter of his state funeral- bollocks to all that. There’s Petuala...

‘Round Ireland with a Fridge’ (2010) BBC 4, directed by Ed Bye and starring Tony Hank (or Tony Hawk, I can’t read my own writing) as the mad kind of guy that makes a bet that he can hitch-hike around Ireland with a fridge. This is what he does and he lives to tell the tale. Not only does he live to tell the tale he writes a book about it. He makes a BBC drama about it and he gets the girl. Whether he actually gets the girl or whether he just...

(500) Days of Summer written by Scott Neuaster et al and starring Joseph Gordon Levitt and Zooey Deschanel. I really like the name Zooey. It’s kinda kooky and sweet. Anyway I can’t remember what Zooey’s character’s name is because she looks kinda kooky with her black hair and denim blue eyes, which are really her best feature, although, I have to admit she has also got a peachy body, but, that apart, she’s no stunner, although she is definitely...

My Secret Phone Sex. Sex sells as we all know and Channel 4 knows in particular. So a documentary about sex sells very well. So we had old hand Jenny, if you’ll pardon the pun, first time Rosa, and upper class and quite pretty sex worker thingmy, whose name I can’t remember. But names don’t matter. It’s all pseudonyms and different voices. Rather like writing. Blindsight, BBC 4. Six blind Tibetans tackle Everest. There were also two blind guides...