Archive for the ‘Distractions’ Category

How can we sum up this year’s Eurovision in one word? Disappointing.

Of course, it was never going to end well. When you allow a country which bans homosexuality, each country was forced to field a heterosexual Eurovision act for the first time in the history of the competition, and the results were disastrous. Compare this year to last year’s performance by Getter Jaani and you can see an instance difference.

Even Moldova, who last year provided us with a fairy on a unicycle curtsey of Zdob si Zdub miserably failed to re-create last year’s magic.

To finish it all off, we came second to last. People just didn’t get behind The Hump. No wonder; he has a great voice but simply isn’t Eurovision material. Why we keep picking this acts when Holly Johnson is still alive, I simply can’t understand!

This year has been the best year for Formula One I have ever seen. Right from the start it has been an amazing season and Monaco always promises to be an interesting race.

It was great, though it’s hard to say it was extra special given the standard of racing has just been so high this year. In the end, it was a fairly comfortable victory for Mark Webber, though the real victory was that we saw virtually no interruption to racing – the safety car was out briefly at the start (when it doesn’t really matter) and then remained in for the rest of the race.

Based on a true conversation.

Sorry, not sure who to credit, but someone posted this. It’s brilliant.

Recently, I went indoor karting with work.

I was rubbish at it, almost everyone was faster than me, but it was never the less a lot of fun. It’s definitely the kind of thing I could get into with a bit more practice. I don’t quite have the money to buy my Formula One team yet, but a kart, well that’s a whole different matter…

Rachel Khoo is a business genius. If you’ve seen her BBC Two show, The Little Paris Kitchen, you may have heard her claim she opened her own restaurant. You’ll then no doubt notice that what is has actually done is put a table in front of her sofa and put a few chairs round the other side of it, in her living room.

So, she is basically just having people over for dinner. And charging for it!

In a recent episode, she made Beef Wellington, explaining that both the English and the French have their own version of the dish. This strikes me as odd.

The English dish Beef Wellington is named after the Duke of Wellington, the man who led us to victory against Napoleon at the Battle of Waterloo. We celebrate him for that, hence why we created a dish full of steak in his name.

But the French were on the losing side of the battle. Why have a dish named as such?

It has been a fantastic start to the Formula One season.

With Perez coming in second in his Sauber at Malaysia, Rosberg and his Mercedes qualified on pole and converted it to a win in China. That means that the top two steps of the podium for the first three races – a total of six positions – has been shared by five teams! McLaren, Red Bull, Mercedes, Sauber and Ferrari are all looking in great shape this year and the other teams aren’t far behind.

Last year was an enjoyable season but it did often feel like 23 cars following Vettel round a track. This year has already seen some amazingly competitive racing and long may it continue. Ideally, primarily on the races, the BBC are showing in full.

Recently, BBC Three began showing World Series of Dating. It’s a trash TV as it sounds – there are four booths each with a different girl in it, and male constants come on and attempt to date them for as long as possible – if the girl gets bored she will hit the buzzer in the middle of the table and that constant will be out.

Despite it’s lack of any intellectual value however, I’ve found myself strangely addicted. Perhaps because it got me through a long night of illness when there was nothing else on at 5am in the morning and I now associate warm memories with it, but it’s actually intriguing for some reason.

However, I think I’ve figured out the reason why. There is a fine line between “doesn’t take itself too seriously” trash TV and incredibly clever parody, and I now suspect that the show lies slightly past said line.

I could have accepted the fact that one of the girls on the show is called Bambi – it’s a silly name but the reality of our modern society is that it is entirely plausible that someone would call their child that. And if someone did, they would almost certainly wear too much fake tan and end up being on a show like World Series of Dating, so that doesn’t strike me as contrived.

However, given the constant references to this being the British version of the show, something didn’t really fit there. It didn’t seem like a show that would be popular with the American market and a quick Google search confirmed that the show is an entirely original creation here in Britain.

That means that Rob Riggle never presented the US version of WSOD, nor did Bentley Kalu ever referee it. Indeed, Poppy Weathers isn’t even a real person, she is played by Thaila Zucchi, an actor who I’ve never heard of because her acting consisted of an appearance on Big Brother 8 as fake house mate, a show which I stopped watching after it ran out of original ideas (ie, I didn’t watch the second series onwards).

Having these fake back stories and fictional hosts, takes it over the line from comedic trash television to clever parody – and that’s why it’s OK for me to enjoy it 😉 . We can safely take the high ground pointing out to those who claim it’s intellectually defunct that “they simply don’t get it.”

My friend Russ has long maintained the opinion that there is no problem in society that cannot be better understood by watching an appropriate episode of South Park. “There is a South Park for every part of life” he says.

It’s true. Whether you’re addicted to World of Warcraft, worried about the nanny state, campaigning for the decriminalisation of drugs or trying to understand the economy, there is a South Park to explain the issues and put things in perspective.

My friend Raby went one stage further to suggest that South Park could almost be seen as a modern day Bible – it is filled with parables about modern life, not directly telling us how to live right, but giving us a nudge in the right direction. Everything you need to know about life can be learned from the adventures of four boys in a snowy mountain town.

As you may be aware, the 2012 IPL season recently started.

I haven’t got round to watching any of it this year, but if I was, one of the first tasks I would have to do is to pick a team to support (because obviously, it’s more exciting when you are supporting one side or the other).

The question is though, why would I pick anyone other than Chennai Super Kings? Having demolished their opposition in the final last year, and previously won the tournament in recent years before that, they’re clearly the best team. So it then becomes very difficult to justify supporting someone else.

It seems wrong to support a team just because they are the best team, but given I don’t have any geographic bias to work on as I would with English football clubs, how can it really be justified to pick anyone else given I obviously want to be supporting the winning team?