Looking Busy
October 27th, 2006 at 14:28

If there’s one thing that I’m terrible at, its horse riding. If there’s two things I’m terrible at, its horse riding and looking busy.

I hate arriving early for things and having to wait around- for some reason I can’t just seem to stand there patiently. As time goes on I get more and more agitated and concious of the fact that people passing me by might think that I’m mental, just because I’m standing there doing nothing.

I’ll check my watch multiple times a minute, and deliberately spend an extra few seconds looking at it, in order to kill time. I’ll check the headlines on my phone, and then scroll through the menus looking for something to do. I might even load up an asteroids clone on there, only to realise that its terrible.

If I’m standing about in a uni building, looking busy becomes slightly easier- there’s noticeboards about the place full of exciting announcements. “The squash club meets on Wednesdays at 4pm… fascinating“, I think to myself. “Bugger me! The third year arts management seminar has been moved to a different room!“. The trouble is that I’m concious of the fact that I might subconciously be exaggerating my movements, in order to explain to any on-lookers what I’m doing. I worry that I might be pointing at whatever poster I’m reading, or stroking my chin making an elongated “Hmm” noise.

The noticeboards at work aren’t as good for looking busy as this. There’s only one board, and that’s for the trade union. I can tell you all about the rights of gay and lesbian employees now.

Sometimes if I’m early to work, I’ll walk into town. The trouble is that I have no real purpose in doing so, so end up looking and feeling like one of the pedestrians in Grand Theft Auto, just circulating the streets waiting for a mad man to slash me up with a Samaurai sword. I quite like going into Virgin Megastores and browsing the CDs- as at least then I can kill some time by flicking through the racks looking for anything I might like, before deciding that I can’t afford anything.

The horrible thing is that I still buy stuff. I’ll buy things like CDs just to avoid spending a couple of minutes with nothing to do… why else would I own Audioslave’s latest album?

How do you look busy? How do you kill time? Please let me know in the comments.

(Top Tip! Google Reader works on mobile phones! This is excellent as you can read hundreds of feeds on your phone and look like you’re doing something vaguely important, when in reality all you’re doing is seeing what dictionary.com’s word of the day is.)

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Categories: Geekery, University, Work |

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(hed)PE / OPM / Weapons
October 27th, 2006 at 01:04

Last night I went to see rapcore band (hed)PE with JD. Yeah, he’s the folk loving musical elitist friend of mine. And we were there to see a genre that combines “rap” and “hardcore”. I’m not entirely sure why I even thought that he’d enjoy it.

Excellently, one of the two support acts was OPM. Yes, that OPM. Of ‘Heaven is Halfpipe’ fame. I was surprised when their set was more than one song long, as I assumed they were one-hit-wonders. They played ‘Heaven is a Halfpipe’ second, and got the whole audience singing along. Nobody sung along with any of their other songs though, as no one could quite believe they’d written any more. The most frustrating part of OPM’s performance was that I couldn’t figure out if I was watching them and enjoying their music like an ironic student, remembering 2001 with rose-tinted glasses and remarking about how retro it all was, or whether I was genuinely enjoying what they do.

The other support band were rap/metal 5-piece Weapons, who are from the capital of cool: North Wales. I thought they were really good, having never heard any of their stuff prior to yesterday. They had three dedicated vocalists, so on some songs one of them just disappeared for the duration as they didn’t seem to have a purpose. One of the vocalists looked as if he was trying too hard to be Zack de la Rocha (of Rage), as he had the hair, clothing and tried to dance around the stage in a similar way.

Hilariously, at one point the lead from one of the microphones fell out, so they spent one song looking a bit confused, fiddling with the equipment, having not noticed the mic was not actually connected to anything. A little baldy sound man ran on stage eventually whilst the band were going as wild as they could be given the circumstances. He didn’t really fit in with the band’s image, I think.

(hed)pe eventually came on stage and were the best receieved of the evening… apart from by JD, who looked ready to slash his wrists had the opportunity arisen. They played a few songs that I recognised- I only own the first album, so some of it was lost on me.

The lead singer’s stage banter was interesting to say the least: at one point he tried to sound inspirational, telling the audience that they’ll be able to achieve their goals, and nobody can stop them. I daresay he should have had a look at my CV before judging that I will undoubtably become an astronaut.

Bizarrely, and annoyingly, the woman standing to the right of me seemed to constantly try and engage the band in conversation. Everytime the singer said “make some noise!”, as you might expect someone at a rap gig to say, she would scream back “…and why not?!”, every time. In between songs she seemed to be constantly shouting “Manchester five years ago! I was there!”, seemingly suggesting the band would remember her. Mental.

One of the best bits was the partial cover of Rage’s ‘Wake Up’. After doing the first bit of the song, the band stopped, whilst a few members of the audience continued to sing- I got the feeling that the band would have joined in again if they’d learnt to play it in its entirety.

It was a good gig though- I enjoyed it. JD certainly didn’t. But it doesn’t matter- lets face it, my enjoyment is what really counts.

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Categories: Music |

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BAE Make “Green Weapons”
October 27th, 2006 at 00:11

I’ve just discovered perhaps the funniest news story I have ever read on the BBC News website. One of the world’s most evil companies, and bastard arms dealers, BAE systems, are going to make more environmentally friendly weapons. No, really.

“We’re looking across a range of all the platforms and areas we produce, and trying to improve all the mechanisms”, said the spokeswoman. I like how she could be talking about anything, and not just guns and bombs and so on.

The article says that “The idea behind the lead-free bullets, for example, is that if they get lodged in the environment, they ‘do not cause any additional harm’.” I think lead poisoning is the last thing I’d worry about if a bullet got lodged in my environment.

“We all have a duty of care to ensure that from cradle to grave products are being used appropriately and do not do lasting harm.”- from a company whos products have something of a history of doing “lasting harm” to some people. Maybe they should recall the thousands of guns and munitions they’ve produced? They might cause some harm if they’re not careful. As an aside: cradle to grave? I’d love to see a bomb that when detonated, impregnates any women in its proximity and creates new life.

And finally, a caption in the article claims that “BAE are developing landmines which turn into manure over time”. I’m pretty shocked that they’re still developing landmines- afterall they’re frowned upon by a few people now, including erm, the British, who lend their name to the company.

Yeah, I think BAE systems are ace now. I can overlook all of the, y’know, ARMS DEALING now that they’re caring about the environment. Cunts.

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Categories: Politics, Rants |

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Massive Damage
October 25th, 2006 at 13:58

Yesterday at Uni, I parked in a nearby multi-storey carpark, which I’ve parked in many times before- by the time I got back to the car it was later in the evening, and it was nearly deserted. After paying an extortionate £6.40, I got into the car and began driving around the series of ramps to exit the building.

The way the car park is designed means that you have to take a lot of narrow 90 degree turns to go down the ramps. I’ve never been very good at maneuvering the car through tight spots. Going from floor 6 to floor 5, I turned the wheel a hard right, and nano-seconds later heard a screeching sound. The concrete pillar at the side of the ramp was coming into contact with the back of the car. Shiiiiiiiit.

I parked up on the next floor down to observe the damage. Before sending a picture message of it to my parents:

Y’see that big black indent just right of the wheel arch… erm, that shouldn’t be there.

This wouldn’t be so bad if it was my car. It’s my mum’s.

This morning she took it to a garage to see how much it would cost to fix… its going to be over £1000.

I think its a good thing that I’ve got a relatively well paying job. And some free money (student loan) coming into my account in the next few days.

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Categories: Driving, Economics & Money, Transport and Travel |

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Oop North
October 22nd, 2006 at 20:48

I had an excellent day yesterday: I visited the north of England. More specifically: Stockport and Manchester.

As some of you may know, as well as being a lovely, caring person, and pioneer of the CocaCola lifestyle, I’m also the webmaster of the world’s largest Pokémon website (aka: ‘PUK’). Yeah, as in the computer games. Occasionally, Nintendo hold promotional events where fans can take along their Pokémon games and download a super-rare Pokémon to their cartridge or whatever- and that’s what they were doing yesterday.

I got up yesterday at 7am- a mere five hours after I went to bed. Its the first 7am I’ve seen in months. Probably since I went horse riding. I had a train to catch. Or more specifically: two trains. My first train took me to Nottingham, and there I changed to go to Stockport, where I met up with my mate Mike (a different one to this one), who’s an admin on my Pokémon website.

The train journies wern’t entirely straightforward. There was some dodgy looking types who boarded the train at Leicester, who insisted on standing near to where I was sitting. At the time I was playing on my Nintendo DS, listening to my iPod, and lighting a cigarette with a £50 note, so I was under the impression that they would have liked to mug me. They didn’t, thankfully.

The train between Nottingham and Stockport was operated by Central Trains, who, unlike the futuristic Midland Mainline use older carriages, and cruise at a speed of approximately two miles per hour. This wasn’t the only problem… the train was packed. Its hard to explain just how busy it was. Not only were all of the seats taken, but in the aisle down the middle of the carriage, hundreds of standing people were crammed in struggling to breath. In fact, according to this document on the EU website, is recommended that pigs to slaughter get 55cm^2 of space when being transported in under three hours- I don’t think that the people standing one the train got even that. And they weren’t even being slaughtered.

It wasn’t all doom and gloom though. I ended up playing multiplayer New Super Mario Bros against a woman who I believe was named ‘Jeni’, and another guy for about an hour and a half whilst the train slowly made its way towards the birthplace of the industrial revolution. As soon as we’d figured out what we actually have to do on multiplayer mode, I think its fair to say that I won slightly more often. I’m quite worried that Jeni was actually quite an important person- she is the manager of a band. So I hope I havn’t missed my chance to negotiate a multi-million-pound recording contract by playing computer games instead.

It wasn’t until I was leaving the train that I explained to them that I’m the webmaster of a Pokémon website. I think I could literally see the street cred falling off of me. Or it might have been sweat created by the immense heat and pressure of being on a packed commuter train. The creation of igneous rock would be a good analogy.

As the train grinded to a halt in Stockport station, and after being essentially sexually harassed on trying to leave the train passing through a suffocating mass of people, I met Mike, who was waiting on the platform, ready to start the next leg of the journey.

We had to catch a bus from Stockport, from just ouside the famous massive viaduct. The journey was entertaining because it seemed to perpetuate every northern stereotype imaginable. I overheard a conversation where a man was talking about avoiding the ‘old bill’, I saw grim post-Industrial chimneys and buildings, quaint non-franchise shops, cobbled streets, and the sky was grey. It was on the bus that I remembered that northern service industry staff are rude, ugly people. At least when talking to southerners like myself, wearing my suit made of gold, speaking the Queen’s English, flaunting my material wealth and knowledge of science and the arts. The bus driver did little more than grunt at me when I asked for a ticket.

We arrived at the Trafford Centre at about 13:30. It was massive. The Pokémon thing was on the bandstand in the food court area. Rather than talk about a load of tedious Pokémon crap, I’ll refer you to the news post on PUK. There’s pictures and video in that and all sorts.

I felt a bit like a celebrity. It was weird being recognised by people you don’t know. Its even more weird when they react slightly stunned and then ask you for your autograph. Seriously. I met three people who frequent on the website I first put together six years ago. I got to discuss tedious moderation issues in real life, and things, which was a bizarre experience. When we mentioned my friend and fellow-PUK-admin Jeroen, it was somewhat unusual to have to say “Yeroon”, as that’s how its pronounced, when it reads a bit like “Jer-owen” to my ignorant English eyes. Like how I don’t know how to pronounce ‘non-sequitur’, as I’ve only ever seen it written down.

It was also a bit embarassing as I felt a bit ‘out of it’. Sure, I still know about Pokémon, but not as much as most of the people there! Since the latest generation of games, I havn’t been able to keep up with the news and so on as actively as before, what with having other things to do and so on. It was fantastic to see people talking about Pokémon battles like some people would talk about football matches, with the same passion and enthusiasm.

My main concern was that I’d bump into one of the many people over the years who have been banned from PUK for various reasons, and would end up getting punched. Or worse still, potentially having to engage them in polite conversation whilst carefully overlooking the fact that I’ve banned them and insulted them in the past. A bit like if I were to talk to David Cameron, after everything I’ve said about him on this blog.

Thankfully I was safe- the only violence incident was when Mike kicked me after I called him ginger, and implied that being ginger makes him an inferior person.

Here’s a video I made at the event. It was designed for PUK readers, so I apologise if you don’t understand a word of the complex Pokétalk, but I think it turned out pretty well…

http://youtube.com/watch?v=pAv9YFNSNUE The journey back was much less eventful. I had space to breath on the train, I read The Economist, there were 8 football fans singing loudly on the Midland Mainline leg of the journey, including a harmonic rendition of ‘In the Jungle’, or whatever its called. The only really noteworthy thing was back at Stockport station when I tried to ask a member of staff for information.The CRTs displaying departures and arrivals did not have enough information on them, such as what platform trains will be on, so I approached the ticket booths in a near-deserted station. There was no one in the queue, and just a woman sitting at the desks looking bored. I weaved my way through the barriers that define where to queue, and just as I reached the end, despite being the only customer in the building, the ticket woman glanced at me and said “Next Please” as dismissively as she could- which seemed rather pointless. “Please could you tell me which platform will the train to Nottingham be going from?”, I asked as politely as I could. “One” she grunted, before looking away at the wall.

I went back to the desk in something of a panic a few minutes before my train was due, because the monitors were telling me that the train was only going to stop at “Norwich”. Once again, she said “next please”, despite a still deserted foyer, and when I asked her if the train was going to stop at Nottingham, she yes “yes” disdainfully, before once again before looking away in what I assume was disgust. Way to service your customers!

It was a good day overall though. Watch the video.

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Categories: Events, Friends, PKMN.NET, Socialising, Transport and Travel |

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Foot in mouth (again)
October 20th, 2006 at 01:10

I went to the pub with Michael after work on Wednesday night. We’ve had a bit of a pool rivalry going on, as of late, in that I keep thrashing him, and he keeps getting increasingly annoyed with the flukeyness of my incredible victories.

When we got to the pub, it turned out that none of the three pool tables were free- so we stood around trying to look as if we wanted a go, hoping that someone would surrender a table to us. Confronted by this problem, we came up with a solution.

After it turned out that neither of us dare break the fire alarm, we decided to challenge one of the tables to a game of doubles- we’d get to play pool that way, even if we did have to share the table with two other proles.

Now, this may seem like a relatively simple thing to do, but longtime blog readers might know that I seem to have something of a problem with getting my foot jammed into my mouth.

There were two women playing pool on the table at the end- as you might expect, they were rubbish. They didn’t seem to have any concepts of geometry or force- it’s almost as if they’d never played Maths Gorilla.

“Hello. I see you’re crap at pool… want to play doubles?”, I asked.

“No, not now that you’ve offended me!”, I was told. Whoops.

Needless to say, we had to wait quite a while longer until a table became free. The two women on the end table just kept playing, over and over- presumably to spite me now that I’d pissed them off.

Eventually another table became free, where I proceeded to kick Michael’s arse. Then play pool. Cough. After one fantastic victory of mine, Michael got so angry he picked up the blackball before it had even sunk into the pocket and chucked it across the table in a violent manner. The only other thing I’ve seen him get so passionately worked up about in the past is socialism and why the revolution “definately will happen soon”. Clearly this pseudo-sport means a lot to him.

As time wore on and I slowly realised that for all of my bravado and shouting swear words, I wasn’t actually that good at pool myself. Feeling vaguely guilty, I went back over to the women I’d annoyed and said as sincerely as I could “I’d like to retract my comments from earlier”.

“We’re girls, we’re supposed to be rubbish”, they said. I mean, they didn’t both say it in unison- only one of them did. But I don’t actually know either of them so can’t use names, nor is the fact that they’re multiple people vital to this story.

“Ah, okay”, I replied, “in that case… feel free to insult my…” I then wracked my brain for an appropiate way to finish the sentence. Even when I did think of an appropiate way to finish the sentence, I still said “feel free to insult my ironing skills“.

Yeah, it didn’t go down that well, unsurprisingly.

In writing this blog entry, Michael insists that I publish the following paragraph, or he won’t let me name him - which would make writing it rather awkward. So here is a paragaraph I have written of my own free will…

“I would however readily acknowledge that Michael is a far superior pool player to me and any victory I get is just a quirk of statistical likelihood and based on fortune, rather than any superior ability on my part. In fact, Michael is the best pool player I have ever seen. In fact I would even say the best human.“

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Categories: Friends, Socialising, Uncategorized |

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Children of Men
October 15th, 2006 at 02:02

This evening, I went to see Children of Men with JD. It was excellent.

Long story short, no kids have been born for 18 years, and the human race is dying out. Because of this, everyone seems to have lost the will to live. I can’t really see what the problem is- I can’t think of anything better than a world without kids.

The world’s governments have collapsed although Britain has remained relatively stable- although it has become a massive fascist dictatorship that rounds up immigrants (”fugees”). Then there’s this woman who finally becomes pregnant, who the main characters then have to protect and get to some scientists in the Azores who will look after her and try to revive the human race.

The best bit about the film is the incredible cinematography. Each shot is really, really long- and there are few cuts between things. This means that there are scenes that go on continuously for minutes which follow Clive Owen (the main character) walking through war-torn streets and buildings, with explosions going off around him constantly, and so on. It’s incredible to watch. It feels so much more real when the camera keeps going, and is a lot more absorbing. I’m sure seeing it in the cinema enhanced it too.

I’d just hate to be an actor and have to remember everything that happens so I don’t go blown up by some pyrotechnics or whatever.

There’s actually relatively little dialogue in the film- a lot of it is just watching the mayhem unfold. And this is what makes it excellent.

As it is set in the future, there is obviously some wacky future technology. Thankfully, they havn’t gone all flying cars and lazers, and all of the future tech seems realistic- video displays on the side of buses, and even flatter monitors, and so on.

Its all a bit 28 Days Later- only it has one-hundred-and-sixty times the budget. Like 28 Days Later, it’s also very British- by which I mean the set has had a few red phone boxes put in, and there’s a British fire-hydrant sign, which was nice.

My only complaint with this film is that unlike the last film that I went to see, the title doesn’t really explain what is going to happen. I mean, I’d have preferred it to be called something like “Infertility in a Distopia” or “No kids have been born but now one has and they need to get it to some scientists to save the human race“.

Highly recommended. Go and see it.

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Categories: Films |

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Cameron and Coke Zero
October 14th, 2006 at 15:41

It occured to me last night that David Cameron and the new Coke Zero are really similar. I know this sounds a bit odd, but bear with me.

Both are a weak immitation of an older and better product- in this case, Coca Cola and New Labour. Both are designed to appeal to new demographics- in Coke’s case, judging by the adverts, its going after the youg male segment of the market- whilst David Cameron is going after normal people.

After an initial period of popularity, both are now experiencing flatlining in growth.

Both campaigns are fronted by a smug twat: Cameron himself, and the generic Nuts-reading slackjawed moron from the adverts.

Both Coke Zero and David Cameron seem to have a habit of making statements devoid of any sort of meaning or point.

• “Wouldn’t it be great if you could have holidays without coming home?” (Coke Zero advert)
• “And Girlfriends without commitment?” (Coke Zero advert)
• “If we want new homes, they must be built somewhere” (Cameron’s Conference Speech 2006)
• “People who threaten our security should be arrested, charged, put in front of a court, tried and imprisoned.” (Cameron)
• “All families do a vital job, and they all need our support.” (Cameron)
• “Improving our environment and quality of life.” (Cameron)

And is it a coincidence that the name of one product alludes to an activity that the other allegedly did at University? (Coke Zero did some lines of Cameron).

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Categories: Coke, Politics |

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Holding Doors Open
October 12th, 2006 at 00:47

My workplace is a bit of a maze of corridors in some places- and the entrances and the exits are like a fortress, requiring a combination of RFID cards, keycodes and Iris scanning. This has raised some interesting (ie: tedious) questions that keep me awake at night.

As people are always moving around the building, you’ll find the doors in regular use- obviously its good ettiquette to hold doors open for people, but at what distance does it become acceptable to let the door swing closed? I think I’m quite liberal when it comes to awkwardly standing in a door way, partially blocking it whilst trying to hold it open in an attempt to appear polite and friendly- I’ll hold it open for people within say, five metres or so.

The trouble is that if you factor in the speed of the person who is walking, this opens up a whole new dimension of complexity. If they’re walking too slowly it looks ridiculous that I’m holding the door for so long, and its embarassing for both parties - when the lumbering slowcoach finally arrives at the door, they’re sort of obliged to do a stilted bemused noise- not a laugh, that’d be over the top, and say thanks in a way that sounds like they’re trying to hard to be grateful, as afterall, you’ve been holding the door for what feels like a lifetime.

This is usually unavoidable too- it isn’t socially acceptible to pull out a calculaor and start plugging numbers into the formulas of motion. Writing about it on the internet is fine, though.

This problem is multiplied when you consider that there could be a lot of doorways in close proximity, and the person behind you might be going the same way. It feels faintly ridiculous sometimes when ‘conversation’ consists of the other person say “Thanks…. thanks… thanks…. thanks…” as you walk through multiple doors.

There’s more questions too- does the “critical distance” (as I’m going to coin as meaning the distance in which you will wait and hold the door) change based on whether the door you’re holding has any sort of time consuming security locks? I’d expect the critical distance would increase. Does your level of acquaintance with the person walking towards the door factor at all? Could the critical distance reveal how much I like someone to a casual observer? I mean, I’d make a point of slamming it in the face of Nigel Farage, but I might wait longer if Adam Hart-Davis wanted to get into my workplace. Can any mathematically minded blog readers propose a formula for calculating the critical distance?

Yeah, its things like this that keep me awake at night. This and nightmares about rollerskating.

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Categories: Columns, Rants, Work |

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Robin Hood
October 7th, 2006 at 21:22

I thought I’d blog about this as it is practically the only TV programme I’ve watched in full this week (aside from the Daily Politics- which it turns out is a hot topic of conversation at work).

Its BBC One’s attempt to emulate the success of Doctor Who by recycling yet another character who in previous incarnations has had a contradictory backstory.

I wasn’t entirely sure what to expect- old-timey things tend to bore me, or confuse me with old-timey talk and ridiculous names. And yes, this is completely at odds with my interest in history and the fact I’m studying for a degree in which history is a rather major factor (politics).

I mean, Lord of the Rings was good- but I couldn’t give you a concise summary of the plot. Of Mice and Men and The Crucible (literally) bored me to (figurative) tears. Talk like normal people do, you cretins! Use modern words like “zeitgeist”, “chav” and “interoperability” and I might begin to understand whatever bollocks you’re trying to tell me about Witches and Communists, or mental health issues, or Goblins, or whatever.

Luckily, the new Robin Hood series seems to have done away with that- its a family drama afterall, and is surprisingly alright. Certainly not as good as Doctor Who- in Who, I didn’t have to spend a few minutes trying to figure out whether it was the main character or the sidekick on screen, as Christopher Eccleston and Billie Piper don’t look too similar.

The backstory was quite confusing: I was under the impression that Robin Hood was some sort of cartoon fox who did the decent socialist thing and robbed from the rich and gave to the poor, yet when Robin confronted the Sheriff of Nottingham he seemed to be arguing in favour of Thatcherite principles of lowering taxes to allow the working classes to trade, and let the free market sort things out.

Maybe I’m reading into this too much?

And at risk of pointing out something that every blogger everywhere will be pointing out: the writers included a satire of modern British foreign policy, with the Sheriff of Nottingham claiming that the king stands “shoulder to shoulder” with Pope Gregory in the war in the Holy Land. Quite clever, if not a bit obvious- I’d have preferred the writers include some excellent references to Foundation Hospitals in the context of a feudal system.

That was another aspect of the programme that got to me a bit - Robin, as it turns out, was some sort of baron in this feudal system, and despite being set in 1192, seemed to have to values and morals of someone living in 2006. Rather than (again, figuratively) fucking the serfs for all that they’re worth he seems to have some sort of social concious- arguing for proper judicial proceedings and that. And despite being this lovable rogue, he actually started out as one of the people in power, remaining a part of this rigid system of control that keeps the poor people poor and the rich people rich. He only quit this regime when they did something he disagrees with- and before was quite happy with the maintenance of the satus-quo and the absolute power of unelected rulers. He was a medieval George Galloway, basically.

And then there’s a load of issues relating to whether Robin Hood is really a good role model… is he really going to make it through a thirteen part series without mercilessly stabbing someone up good? I can see the Daily Mail headlines now: “BBC DRAMA ENCOURAGES KNIFE CRIME”. He’s really a very grey-area character, which makes for a better plot- but when the baddies are (so far), also not entirely 100% pure evil, its hard to sympathise with his character. At least the baddies in Doctor Who always wanted to destroy the universe or something- all the Sheriff of Nottingham wants to do is collect some taxes and hang some crooks. And this is nothing to do with my vested interest in the collection of taxes.

On the plus side, historically speaking, if I can even get away with discussing history in a post about an urban legend (erm… rural legend?), the show seems pretty on the mark. King Richard, Pope Gregory, The Third Crusade were all real and happening in 1192. I hope we get some knowing foreshadowing, like how in the police series set in 1973, Life on Mars, the characters would say things like “video recorders? don’t be ridiculous”. It’d be good if Robin could say something like, “Just think Marion, one day this town could have the highest rate of gun crime in the country”, or “London is so vast it will never burn down in some sort of Great Fire“, before winking at the camera.

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Categories: Television |

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