Ah… this poor, neglected blog o’ mine.  I simply have not been inspired to write anything here lately. It’s not for lack of watching TV because my Sky planner and DVD shelves remain full of watched and unwatched material waiting for a rainy day. Having said that, even the rainy days, of which we have endured plenty, aren’t motivating me either. Promises have been broken previously when I have vowed to regale you with

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Tags: America, BBC1, HD, New-York, Stephen-Fry

Are We There Yet?

Thousands sat through the Man United v Watford FA Cup semi final waiting to see whether Watford could pull off a shock victory.� Not through any great sporting interest, or even for a love of football but because the BBC had announced that, if the match was to go to extra-time then the third episode of Doctor Who, “Gridlock” would be delayed by a week.� What outrage there would have been.� The season was already a week later than planned after being delayed by the England v

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Tags: BBC1, David Tennant, Doctor Who, FA-Cup, Football, Freema-Agyeman, Gridlock, Manchester-United, Martha-Jones, New-York, Russell-T-Davies, The-Doctor

9/11

There are people who are far better wordsmiths than I can ever hope to be, who will have written about the events in America on 11th September, 2001.� I would argue that mere words cannot descibe the sheer enormity of what happened that day, so much so that we don’t use words at all, and simply refer to it as “Nine Eleven”.� The television pictures that we all saw will be burned into our collective memories as the defining event of our lifetimes.� These are pictures that stir those empty, helpless sensations in the pits of our stomachs and bring a tear to the eye and lump to the throat.� As the world approaches the fifth anniversary, we will be hard pressed to avoid seeing those images again.

Indeed, we have a series of documentaries and reconstructions that has already begun.� Channel 4 began by showing an updated version of the powerful Naudet brother’s film, followed by the Miracle of Stairwell B.� The BBC got in on the act by showing The Twin Towers film this evening, which was a reconstruction of the events inside the towers.� Amongst the tragedy this retelling illustrated that there was hope, courage and humanity in the face of incomprehensible adversity.� On Sunday and Monday BBC2 will be showing The Path to 9/11, a film starring Harvey Keitel based on the findings of the 9/11 report.� Associated programmes that continue to analyse the ongoing situation will also be shown, including The Fundamentalists (C4, Saturday), Cult Of The Suicide Bomber II (C4, Monday), and Al-Qaeda: Turning The Terrorists (BBC2, Wednesday).
It will be difficult to sit through and I wouldn’t recommend watching all of them, but as a society we must seek to understand what happened and come to terms with it and these programmes will help.

Tags: 9/11, BBC1, bbc2, Channel4, Factual, FDNY, Harvey-Keitel, Miracle-Of-Stairwell-B, Naudet, New-York, The-Twin-Towers