Tag: Entertainment

Vicky

Beauty, Entertainment

Her late father was easily one of the funniest writers in the English language;  her brother is a renowned (and very good) restaurant and food critic, and like both father and brother she is a graduate of Oxford University.  Unlike the other two male relatives, she is also a champion poker player and constant guest on cooking- and quiz shows on Brit TV, where she tends to overawe most of the other competitors (and quiz masters) with her frightening intellect and acidic tongue.  She’s also married (alas) to one of the most effete, yet funniest and angriest comedians on television, and I would pay a small fortune to have them both as dinner guests.

Her name is Victoria Coren (Mitchell), her father was Alan Coren, her brother is Giles Coren, and her husband is David Mitchell — and each one of those men is worthy of a post all to himself.  But they pale beside Victoria.

And I’ve had a massive crush on her for well over a decade.

Here’s one of the compilations from when she appeared as a contestant on the ghastly Countdown  series.   And then there’s QI, where she gets into arguments with the equally-intellectual Stephen Fry and Sandi Toksvig.

And here’s when she and her husband appeared together on Would I Lie To You?  (which is a hysterically funny show).

Class, intelligence, sense of humor, good looks. and a penchant for erotic spanking… ask me to explain again why I love her.

 

Darkening Skies

Marketing / Advertising

Saw this over at Kenny’s place, and it resonated with me:

While marooned in Siberia a hotel room over the past four months, I watched probably more “regular” TV shows than I’ve watched in more than twenty years past.  And over time, I suddenly realized that the above meme is quite correct:  there aren’t any.

I mean, yes there are a few White people around, but you have to really look out for them.   And if not solo acts, they’re as often as not part of a mixed-race couple, or a figure of fun and ridicule.

“Oh Kim,” I hear the progressive wokists gloat, “now you know how the POC  [persons of color — I know]  felt all these years, when ad agencies never cast Black or Brown people in ads except as part of a stereotype-filler.”

And if these oh-so smart, hip creative types (mostly, it should be said, based in New York, L.A. and Chicago) want to redress a long-ago grievance, that’s fine.  But it cuts several ways.

Do you think a Chinese consumer is going to respond well to a commercial featuring Black actors?  Or an Indian consumer to an ad featuring a mixed-race couple and their coffee-colored babies?  Or, for that matter, a White consumer — oh wait;  that’s because all Whites are raaaaaayyyciss and POCs can’t be.

Uh huh.

Having been in this game myself, I also know that the reason behind casting Whites was that that particular demographic group was where the market (i.e. the money) was.  And if I can be honest:  in time, I (and many, many others of my ilk) may come to treat advertising precisely the same way that Blacks and such used to treat all-White TV commercials:  as something to be ignored.

Ignore that message at your peril, Madison Avenue.

Disturbing Juxtapositions

Entertainment, Music

Sometimes I wonder if I’m going crazy or if I just see things that aren’t there.

Here’s one example.  I woke up the other day with a song glued into my brain — you know what I mean, right?  Anyway, the song was Pink Floyd at their most wonderfully obscure, i.e.  See Emily Play.

So of course I went onto Ewwwtchoob and watched the thing.  All the way through, though, I couldn’t shake the nagging feeling that the video was reminiscent of another piece of surreal moviemaking — and then I remembered the final scene  from Antonioni’s Blow Up.

The two scenes are in no way alike, cinematically speaking — one is in black & white and is essentially a music video, while the other is deathly silence played in color.  But both are mimes, and wonderfully executed.  Was it the mimes, or the similar locations in a park which triggered the association?

Or maybe it was just Syd Barrett and Michelangelo Antonionini who were crazy.

Afterthought:  I think Blow-Up was created (1965-66) before See Emily Play was filmed (1967).

And just to drive everybody else crazy (why should I be the only one), Blow Up featured the Yardbirds in the famous (and disturbing) night club scene.  Which is why I sometimes associate Jimmy Page with Antonionini.

Unpaid Endorsements

Entertainment

For those who haven’t yet seen it, do yourselves a favor and try to find the Brit TV show The Last Detective, starring the brilliant Peter Davison as “Dangerous” Davies.

It’s a funny, gentle show about a lovable loser (who is mocked, abused and ill-treated by his boss and colleagues in a police station, not to mention his bitch of an estranged wife), but who somehow comes out on top because he just will not give up an investigation, or anything else for that matter.  (I have to say that his meekness irritated me at first;  but stick to it and you’ll be joyfully surprised when you learn that sometimes, nice guys don’t finish last.)

I may just buy the DVD set when I have a few spare pennies dug out of the sofa, because Dangerous is one of my favorite TV characters of all time.  (Yes, my DVD player can handle PAL format.)

In similar vein, there’s Vexed  (on Netflix), which in the first episode has the funniest opening scene ever.  Season 1 also stars the unbelievable Lucy Punch (Dinner With Schmucks  and Doc Martin, also only Season 1).  Funny and occasionally surreal situations.