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Daytime TV Killed the British Bank Holiday
What do the following film genres mean to you? War films James Bond Carry On films To me they all scream Bank Holiday TV. You may have had plans to go out somewhere, but an annoying drizzle meant that you’d rather stay at home and see what’s on the box. But in fact, that’d be…
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BBC Store is closing; Streaming v Ownership
Back in 2015 I took a look at the then new BBC Store. It had opened in a blaze of publicity after a relatively long gestation period. Visitors could buy to own BBC catalogue programmes as well as some of the latest dramas and comedies. Since then, announcers have mentioned the ability to buy programmes…
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iTunes 12.6.1.25 and Windows 10 Creators Update – A Possible Fix
This is really here as both to potentially help others, and for me to moan about the incompatibility of the current products of two of the biggest companies in computing. I don’t really use iTunes any longer. I don’t have a personal iPhone, and my iPod Classic is now resting in retirement. These days my…
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A Few Thoughts on the Ransomware Attacks
I’ve found a certain amount of the coverage surrounding the WannaCrypt ransomware attack really quite annoying, and the responses in many cases quite pathetic. So here are a few thoughts of my own: The NSA, and other governmental bodies, have an awful lot to answer for. Governments love to collect operating system ‘exploits’ to use…
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Fortunately…
The first ladies of radio, Fi Glover and Jane Garvey have a new podcast out that’s really quite essential listening: Fortunately… Glover and Garvey are fantastic radio people, and to a large extent, the joy of this podcast is just to hear them in fairly casual conversation with one another. Episodes are recorded in various…
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Northumberland
Northumberland from Adam Bowie on Vimeo. I recently spent a week in Northumberland and took the above video. I’m pretty happy with it, although the drone footage is so superior to anything else I shot, that it just goes to show that shooting good video isn’t easy (and definitely needs a tripod). Incidentally, there’s an…
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Believe in Worse: Sky’s Streaming Options
You often hear that we live in a digital non-linear TV world. That’s not actually true. We very much live in a linear television world with lots of people watching television live. But why let the truth get in the way of a good story. But I digress. It’s certainly true that digital streaming is…
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The Nightly Show
Before ITV launched The Nightly Show into the 10:00pm weekday slot I said that we should avoid comparisons with US late evening talk shows since contrary to popular belief, it’s not trying to be one, and we should hold off looking at the ratings until it had settled into something a bit firmer. This kind…
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The Lost City of Z
I first heard about Percy Fawcett back in the late eighties when a friend told me about him. We’d both read Redmond O’Hanlon’s Into the Heart of Borneo detailing his trip with James Fenton, and I think that In Trouble Again, in which O’Hanlon heads into Amazonia, had just come out. Indeed extracts may have…
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The Perils of Alexa!
This story started earlier today when I got a notification from Amazon’s mobile app that my order of a Lost in Translation DVD had been sent out for delivery. What? It’s a wonderful film, but I hadn’t ordered a copy. Indeed, I already own it on DVD. I was confused, and a little worried. Was…
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BT/UEFA Rights Deal
Last week, BT Chief Executive Gavin Patterson was reported as saying that “rampant inflation in sports rights” had to end. Today we learn that BT is going to pay £394m a season for UEFA Champions’ League and Europa League rights from the 2018/19 season, up from £299m a season under the previous agreement. By my…
Podcasts, Radio, TV, Books, Cycling, Photography and More
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Yellowface/All The Lovers In The Night
Yellowface by R F Kuang I first came across R F Kuang with last year’s very enjoyable Babel, an alternate history of the British Empire told in a world where magic exists and is controlled by an elite group of individuals. Yellowface is very different, but no less enjoyable. It’s a book about books, and…
Hadrian’s Wall
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