Where on earth did that week just disappear to?

Oh well, at least it's the weekend again!

Be warned Cardiff Bloke, I'm about to talk about Press Gang so you might want to skip the next couple of paragraphs. When 'Hotel Babylon' ended I guessed that 'The Family Man' and 'Holby City' would be the only 'Press Gang' spots for a while. How wrong I was! Over the last couple of weeks I've spotted several guest cast/semi regulars on TV. Firstly, I caught Clive Wood (Matt Kerr) in 'A Touch of Frost', then Sharon Duce (Spike's mum) turned up in 'The Royal', Maria McErlane (Waitress in Czars) has a semi regular role in 'Thin Ice' which has been the funniest thing on TV over the last few weeks and, most recently, Jake Wood (Jack in 'Killer on the Line' appeared in the dreadful Alistair McGowan vehicle 'Mayo' last weekend. The spottings are set to continue as Nick Stringer (Mr Sullivan) will be playing Daniella Denby-Ashe's dad in next weeks episode of 'The Family Man'. The cast listings in the Radio Times are so great for geeks!

Also on a 'Press Gang' vibe I was a bit disturbed by the recent post on 'Holding On' criticising the character Sarah. It's not that I don't agree with the criticisms, the character is immensely annoying, it's just that I've realised how much I'm like her! We even look alike (in the long hair days, not the scary short hair phase)! The evidence is as follows:

+ We both moan a lot, often just for the sake of moaning.
+ We're both passive and nervous to a large extent.
+ We both spent our schooldays in potentially destructive friendships with much less passive girls.
+ We haven't got a good track record in picking boyfriends.
+ We've both bored blokes to death by telling miserable stories about our exes whilst on a date. (Sorry Chris!)
+ We're both eager to please, we like to do well at everything and we're horrified by the idea of getting into trouble.

Judging by the comments made about Sarah in 'Holding On' I'm not suprised I didn't have many friends when I was at school!

On a completely different note, the Oscar Wilde play I went to see on Thursday was 'An Ideal Husband'. Unfortunately, the production wasn't that great. I felt that the amateur cast had overestimated their ability in taking on that particular play. Many of the comedy moments fell completely flat as a result of poor comic timing and ropey line delivery. Worst was the girl who played the lead role of Gertrude who delivered her lines in one tone of voice with virtually no feeling. Although, there were a few laughs it was generally a disappointment. I'd like to see a professional production to see whether professionals could make it flow any better.

The plan for this weekend is buy an outfit for my friend's birthday do next weekend. She's told me that she'll be wearing a dress so I feel the need to turn up in something subtley glam which no one there has seen me in before. Life would be so much easier if I was a bloke!

Most schools in our area have broken up for Easter now so there's no Brownies for the next two weeks, mum is off work for a fortnight and I'm off of uni for three weeks. Hopefully, the extra free time will enable me to get my uni assignments finished. My uni class is gradually dwindling in size. It seems that several people failed their exams and decided to repeat stage 1 instead of carrying on with stage 2 and retaking stage 1 exams in the summer. I think there're only 14 or so of us now, when we started there were nearly 30. In my opinion the uni is partly to blame as even though it's a postgraduate course many of the participants don't have first degrees and many haven't studied since their GCSEs/O'levels. It does seem that the people falling by the wayside are those who either haven't studied for a long time or who left school straight after their GCSEs so I think the uni needs to look at it's selection procedure. It's really depressing for people who start out on the course and fail despite working very hard.

I've got loads of acne spots on my neck as I've been wearing my wool coat this week. Grrr.

To finish off another 'Press Gang' bit. One of the most memorable 'Press Gang' locations has been getting a fair bit of TV air time this week. 'Photo Finish' features Hillingdon Civic Centre masquerading as Norbridge Town Hall. This week the London Borough of Hillingdon has been in dispute with the Government over funding for the education of unaccompanied child asylum seekers and the local news has featured several reports from outside the Civic Centre in Uxbridge. I recognised it instantly, it doesn't look like it's changed much.

Well, that's it for now. Back soon.

Have you ever, ever felt like this...

Five are repeating the first series of very strange Aussie kids show 'Round the Twist' on Sunday mornings. Happy memories of singing the theme tune with my school friends have surfaced. "Have you ever, ever felt like this, strange things happen, are you going round the Twist? etc. etc." The show is a surreal comedy about the Twist family who move into a lighthouse where all kinds of crazy things happen. It's adapted from the books of Australian kids writer Paul Jennings and circa 1991 I entered a competition and won four not realising the connection until after I'd read them. Anyway, it's a great show and well worth watching if you're in on a Sunday morning and fancy a nostalgia trip.

The reason I caught 'Round the Twist' last Sunday was that it followed the season finale of the first series of 'The New Tomorrow'. As I've said before, I fully understand that 'The New Tomorrow' is aimed at a considerably younger audience than 'The Tribe' but still, ending the series without a cliffhanger! What were they thinking?! She increasingly ridiculous end of season cliffhangers were one of the best things about 'The Tribe'. Anyway, I'm still confused about the link between the characters in 'The New Tomorrow' and the original Tribe characters. Bray and Zoot were mentioned frequently as the Ant tribe considered Bray to be the god who kept them safe from the evil Zoot but that story seemed to get a bit lost by the end of the series. Perhaps it was just a, sucessful in my case, cynical ploy to keep fans of the original series watching to the end. I also wondered whether the characters believing that Bray had a son was a deliberate error or a real research mistake on the part of the writers. Will have to remember to check out www.entercloud9.com later on to see whether another series is planned. I doubt it somehow as no other Cloud 9 programme except for 'The Tribe' has ever made it past the first series.

The next bit is going under a cut or else this will be my longest post ever!

I first started making friends on the net through The Tribe's official bulletin board known as the 'ubb'. It was where I first met keladeekadys, who I discovered was at the same uni as me, and the guy who ran the bulletin board where I met _mardybum_, hestia8 and theinquisitor who gave me my free lj account. Really, my whole internet life is the result of TV, be it 'The Tribe' or more recently 'Press Gang'. Recently, its struck me that this is quite ironic as until I went to uni TV was never a big part of my life. Obviously, I watched TV as a kid. I have clear memories of watching the 'See Saw' programme with my mum. The 'See Saw' programme was a kids show slot which was shown on BBC (can't remember whether it was BBC1 or 2) after lunch each week day. In the pre 24 hour kids TV channel era this was the only time programmes for pre-school kids were shown appart from 'Play School' in the mornings. 'See Saw' programmes included classics like 'Postman Pat', 'Pigeon Street', 'Button Moon', 'Bagpuss' and 'Mr Benn'. They were only 10 minutes long and aside from kids shows my mum never put the TV on during the day so I was hardly a TV addict! My mum is a major Radio 4 addict and listens to a lot of Jazz music so many of my childhood memories involve the theme tunes to 'The Archers', 'Just a Minute', 'I'm sorry I haven't a clue' and of course the shipping forecast!

As I got older and went to school I moved on to the afternoon programmes. My parents always considered ITV a bad influence so we were initially unaware of the existence of ITV kids shows. When I go down to see Cardiff Bloke and he's watching retro kids channels he can't believe my lack of experience of 'Danger Mouse'. Anyway, CBBC in the late 80s/early 90s consisted of:

* A few cartoons divided into two main categores: borderline educational French ones dubbed into English, such as 'Odysseus' which had blue aliens in it, 'The mysterious cities of gold' and 'Dogtanian and the three muskahounds' (I had a Dogtanian sweatshirt!) and not in the least bit educational stuff like 'Thundercats'. I wanted to be Cheetarah when I grew up!

* Educational shows like 'Blue Peter', 'The Lowdown', 'Ipso Facto', 'Hartbeat', 'Jonny Ball reveals all' and of course the ever present 'Newsround'.

* 'Grange Hill', 'Byker Grove' and later on 'The Biz'. I think the 'Degrassi' shows were shown on CBBC as well but they were a bit before my time.

* Various dramas including some truly terrifying European ones. I remember one in which a cable car in the Swiss Alps fell to the ground which really upset me.

The shows were linked by 'The Broom Cupboard' team of the time. Basically, a youngish presenter sitting in a tiny boxroom (which was used by all the other BBC announcers for the rest of the day) accompanied by a puppet and doing competitions and showing drawings sent in by viewers. The first 'Broom Cupboard' inhabitant was Phillip Schofield and his furry sidekick Gordon the Gopher. Phil then went on to present Saturday morning show 'Going Live' and was replaced by Andy Crane. Andy's original sidekick was Bobby the Banana with Edd the Duck and Wilson the Butler (just an arm!) arriving later. Andy left to present pop show 'The Ozone' and was replaced by Andi Peters and Simon Parkin who gained custody of Edd the Duck. By the time they moved into the 'new' broom cupboard which was actually a proper studio and were joined by Philipa Forrester and Claudia Winkleman I was a bit old and had lost interest.

After CBBC had finished my sister and I would always watch 'Neighbours' and then my dad would arrive home from work and take control of the TV!

I kind of lost interest in TV when I went to secondary school (1992). As we only had one TV I normally had to watch what my parents were watching so I tended to opt out. However, I did watch Saturday morning TV and some 6pm-7pm shows when I got the chance. 6pm-7pm has long been the home of 'youth' orientated shows on BBC2 and Channel4. The slot is now occupied by 'Hollyoaks' and old episodes of 'The Simpsons' on Channel 4 but during my teenage years it was the home of: 'My So-Called Life', 'Party of Five', 'Dawson's Creek', 'As If', 'Smallville' and a complete repeat run of 'Press Gang'. On BBC2 the slot was occupied by 'The Fresh Prince of Bel Air', 'Roswell', 'Heartbreak High', 'Buffy' and 'The Simpsons' at various times. Nowadays, this type of show can largely be found shown on C4 or Five on a Saturday or Sunday morning.

'My So-Called Life' was my first TV obsession and the first show that I videoed in it's entirety. I have the DVDs and must make some icons one day.

During my final years of school and the two years I was at Sixth Form College I hardly watched any TV at all. Then during the summer of 1999, when I was waiting to go away to uni, my life changed for ever. It was my sister who introduced me to 'The Tribe' and then promptly met her boyfriend and lost interest. Meanwhile, I was hooked. I'd never wanted my own TV but I had to take a TV to uni as I knew no-one else would want to watch 'The Tribe'! Watching the first episode of series 2 left me in floods of tears, something a TV show had never done to me before. Additionally, I had a TV in my room for the first time in my life. I watched Emmerdale, Eastenders and Brookside which were forbidden at home and a tuned into crazy late night TV. Life would never be the same!

I'm still quite selective with my TV viewing so I don't think I'm really an addict however several of my Christian friends don't own TVs and I don't think I'd ever manage that.

The reason I'm writing about this is that last night I was searching LJ in an attempt to find someone who lived in the same town as my Great Aunt in New Brunswick, Canada. In the process I looked at three random journals: one by a girl who was mad about dogs, one by a mum all about her little daughter and another by a girl who made and collected dolls. It made me realise the huge role TV has in my life.



I really enjoyed the first episode in the new series of 'Green Wing' last night. I'm wondering how long it'll be until someone writes in to 'Personnel Today' to complain about the bad image of HR it promotes! I promise that in my organisation we work really, really hard!