Children in Need

No lectures today so I can get on with the pile of work that has creped up on me suddenly. Very tired at the moment as I was up at 9am again this morning trying to buy a Muse ticket for a friend. Much easier today than yesterday because now that they are on general release, I could go down the Ticketmaster route, in fact I was done by 09:01 and you can't say fairer than that.


Of course the big event today is Children in Need, another charity television marathon that always guarantees a night of entertainment - or not. I don't know whether it's just because I'm getting older but this years event seemed to be a shambles. every other link that Terry and Tess did seemed to be really poorly padded and I know these things aren't exactly scripted and rehearsed but this year seemed especially bad, there were countless sound problems and confusions and I think it's about time Terry called it a day. He must have been doing this for the last 30 years now but I think he's getting a bit too old for it now. His jokes aren't very funny any more and he is miles behind everyone else. It might be fine for a radio show where he is in control of what is happening and can quite easily exist in Terry's world but perhaps they should find someone else to take over on the telly, preferably not Graham Norton though. One thing that was good about the night was the preview of the Dr Who Christmas Special which looks to be fantastic and I can now see the significance of the Ood which I had missed before. Lets just hope he starts to take his job seriously again, we can't be doing with two Masters in the universe!

We've finally decided what we are doing with regards to accommodation next year and the majority vote went to staying put. Its such a complicated process, full of social politics but we finally managed to come to a decision (in time) and hopefully we will be able to keep this house for another year.

A weird thing happened yesterday and that was the weather, specifically in the Cumbria region. Two of the residents of this house are from a once little know place called Cockermouth and now all of a sudden, this place has become a national headline. Suddenly the only thing on the telly is the news, BBC News Channel, Sky News, BBC local news and all they are talking about is Cockermouth. Even the twittersphere is ablaze with mentions of the place - most of them following Mr Fry's comment about it's comedy name (which was frowned upon by my co-habitants).

Last but not least, as today was guaranteed to be a boring day, I came across this gem on the iPlayer. I rarely watch this programme (unless there is a special about something I have a particular interest in) and although I would love to think that I was cultured, most of the stuff they talk about - art and history etc go way over my head. This weeks episode was one of those specials however and was definitely about something I am interested in, Wallace and Gromit. It is their 30th birthday and to celebrate, the Culture Show went to the Aardman studios and had a look behind the scenes at what goes on, telling the story of animation and Aardman. It was also nice to find out that Mark Kermode, famed film critic, is a Disney fan and his favourite film of all time is Mary Poppins. Who'd have thought? Anyway, well worth a watch (you can skip past the boring bits about russian art and Steve Martin, they last just over 5 - 10 minutes. http://bbc.co.uk/i/p2h1l/