Discovering Podcasts: More Wierdness with "Tanis" from PRA

I am still hooked on my smartphone and listening to podcasts. Having finished "Rabbits" (see that post) from the wonderful Public Radio Alliance ... I am catching up on their earlier show "Tanis" which happily for me and my obsession has just started Season Four.

If Rabbits gave me game-playing conspiracy with a hint of spook - then Tanis gives me horror, myth and murder set in the Pacific North West of America. It's "presented" by podcast host Nic Silver and is constructed as an investigation into the weirdness of Tanis. Which is what? A cult? An entity? Its dark goings-on are said to shift place every 400 years or so. But its current location is ... Yes indeed, Twin Peaks territory. Which does make an old Peaky comme moi very happy.

PRA has made a show full of gripping style: mysterious woods, dark beings, alternate spaces, conspiracy and serial murder. What an elegant shivery stew. PRA calls it: "what happens when science and fiction start to blur".  (Sigh) I am just so hooked.

How to Listen to Tanis

Discovering Podcasts: The Wierd World of "Rabbits"

I'm a little old lady exploring the smartphone world. Of course I had listened to podcasts before ... on my pc ... but now I am bravely entering the world of podcast apps and podcasts on my phone.

I tried one app which seemed easy to use. But it immediately refused to play my downloads if I wasn't connected to the internet...which didn't seem to be the point. And yes I did look under "settings". So I ditched that app and got another - PodcastAddict - so far so good. It does what it says on the tin: I download episodes and can listen to them anywhere. No more sitting next to my wi-fi box.

And so I've just started listening to "Rabbits"  - a US docudrama podcast produced by PRA. It's narrated by "a journalist investigating the sudden disappearance of a friend" as she becomes aware of that friend's involvement in a sinister, underground and ancient game known as the aforesaid "Rabbits" (think burrows and maybe even Alice, although the last is my idea and may be very wrong!!)

I admit that I can be a bit at sea in "Rabbits", being too old to have dived into gaming which is very much the background to this thriller ... But hey, I used to read William Gibson. I can cope.

Public Radio Alliance likes to describe itself as "creating television for your ears". And that sounds very fine to me. I shall be investigating their other podcast series.

Oh! And I have discovered the joy of falling to sleep to podcasts rather than audible books ... which is ... that when the episode finishes, the broadcast stops. I don't have to trawl backwards through the book to find my falling asleep spot! Though I expect there is an app for that.

How to Listen to Rabbits

Streaming Komische Oper Berlin's "The Fair at Sorochintsi" by Moussorgsky

Muggy late summer weather. Out in the garden, hanging me washing, besieged by swallows swoopin' and chatterin'. Why flying so low? Flying ants, that's why, and the birds was swooping in for a meal of fat queen ants on the wing.

But sometimes this weather gives me a right old headache, or the feeling of the start of one. This happened the other weekend and I took to me workroom, feeling sorry for myself, unable to read and nothing on the radio... until I do have a brain wave and try the internet and the Opera Platform.  And I found a piece from the Komische Oper Berlin (same director, Barry Kosky, that brought "The Nose" to Royal Opera House).

Dear friends I spent a pleasant couple of hours, forgetting my headache and lounging around to the streamed pleasure of  Moussorgsky's "The Fair at Sorochintsi" Berlin style: farce, love story, devils and curses, drama, pigs heads and stilt-walkers. And great chorus singing. My kind of opera production.
You can stream it from Opera Platform until 21st October 2017 and I suggest you do.

The Old Man Loses His "Independent"

The Old Man is bereft. The days are counting down (end of March) to the loss of his beloved "Independent" print-copy newspaper. The thing he adores most in his life. The thing that puts structure into his days. The thing he drives a six-mile round trip each morning to collect. The thing that accompanies him on shopping trips, into doctor's and dentist's waiting rooms, on long drives and the occasional forays into pastures new. The thing that dictates where he lives and stays... "Where can I get my paper?"

The answer my dear, I'm afraid, will be ... on the internet. And the Internet be a place that The Old Man do rarely visit. Hard-wired as it is into a cold and cheerless room in our granite cottage in the Far West whose reluctant wi-fi do not penetrate its interior granite walls.... whose mobile phone reception be limited to whatever inconvenient spot within the house or the garden a bar of signal can be obtained....

It is no good telling him that he will still have the i - albeit under new ownership. He has only ever bought this paper as a "completist" gesture. (See previous post). He cannot read any other newspaper... they are all dross as far as he is concerned or else owned by unspeakables.The man is genuinely bereft. He do feel he will be deprived of news of the modern world: politics, economics, the arts, society ... and I do feel for him. I too do worry that we are slipping away from an informed view of the wider world (by the time the Govt will have done for the BBC and flogged off Channel Four, us traditional, Murdoch Empire-avoiding couple be scuppered....)

And of course I do wonder what else I can use to mop up the gales of rainwater what do sweep under the back door on a regular basis.

The Doll Is Pointed Towards Michael Leunig.

The Doll was introduced to the work of  Australian artist and cartoonist Michael Leunig the other day. Although he do seem to have attracted a bit of flak recently with his "anti-Vax" (vaccination) cartoons.

Criminal Viewing: "Witnesses" and "Ripper Street"

Alors! I am enjoying the exceedingly mysterious and dark French crime drama "Witnesses" currently showing in the UK on Channel 4.
We are in a coastal town in Northern France (pas de Paris) and someone is digging up freshly buried corpses and tableau-ing them in estate show houses. Is this a developers' macabre tiff? Or some act of revenge on the limping, cane-toting but appropriately named former detective - Paul Maisonneuve?  And... there is the reappearance of a serial killer who clearly has seen one too many Batman films judging by his killing maquillage. With chalk cliffs and sea mists... a chain-smoking female detective avec un peu de difficulté with her spouse... it is all very Gallic I do say. And I do enjoy it.

Not so The Old Man, I fear. He is nervous of French crime dramas, will not stay in the same room as "Spiral", so whilst he do keep me company watching "Witnesses"... he is getting grumpy. For I have made the mistake of pointing out that the actor who plays Paul Maisonneuve is known for comedy roles and had in fact played the French "Doc Martin" in their version of the Martin Clunes' series. The Old Man now complains to me that the actor is not very funny. I roll my eyes.
The Old Man have also complained that a scene on a ferry be shrouded in mist one minute and not... the next. I roll my eyes again and point out that he... who do live on the western tip of Cornwall... where nowhere is more than eight miles from the sea... should understand better the nature of sea mist. There one minute, gone the next... back again when it feels like it.... Alors... c'est le brouillard de mer, n'est pas?

Anyhoo. For sure The Old Man do not stay in the room whilst I do enjoy the return to terrestrial telly of "Ripper Street"... my steam-punk, fave of an almost-over-the-top Victorian crime series. Oh them baddies be so bad. I did bewail the BBC mad decision to axe it in a previous post but Amazon Prime did step in with filming and streaming and now BBC is showing the new series on terrestrial telly. Hope they paid a nice amount for it... and hope it remains a success with more to come.

Animated Discussions: Stromae's Carmen - Music Video by Sylvain Chomet

A dark look at that little bluebird.
From Belleville Rendezvous's Sylvain Chomet for Belgian rapper/songwriter Stromae.



(I lurve Belleville Rendezvous aka The Triplets of Belleville).

Edit: Have just discovered that Cornwall based animation company Spider Eye also had a hand in this. Brilliant.)

C is for...

My third born I called Catherine.

But she calls herself Candy.

She has turned out to be a bit of a party girl.

She watches Skins and True Blood.

I never know where she is.

I don't think much good will come of this.

"The Killing is Killing Me"

Gotta another mail the other day from my insomniac "Forbrydelsen-fan" friend. Now she is lying awake worrying about some plot points that are puzzling her. She did send me a whole list to clear up. But I says: "Don't look at me. You need Mrs Doonuthin for this."

So I has a go at passing some of the questions over to Mrs Doonuthin... like
"Was Nanna killed at the flat or in the woods?"
"Who cut the wire to the stairwell light outside Lund's flat"
"Why did the powers that be want to cover up the link between Nanna's and Mette's murders?"
... and many more.

Mrs Doonuthin, ever helpful, looks up at me with bleary eyes, hiccups, and says: "I dunno... didn't spot them dyscreppersies meself... I just thought it was a jolly good telly-thing, me."

Sorry, dear friend - despite her cutting edge critical faculties, Mrs Doonuthin is of no use whatsoever. Meanwhile, I can assure you that you only have to Google "Forbrydelsen Nanna..." to get plenty of blogospheric discussion links on the matter of plot points.

But I shall step over Mrs Doonuthin's snoozing form, ponder on your questions - and get back to you.

Ruining Your Friends' Sleeping Habits: Telly

I got mail the other day... from a friend who's complaining that she's not sleepin well... cos she's lyin there trying to anticipate the plots of both versions of The Killing. And this is also because she's stayin up half the night watchin both versions. She blames me totally for this. (see my recent post bout this here).

I am sorry, babe. Oh! but don't tell me the outcome for the US version cos I haven't caught up with that myself!! Good job I didn't tell you to catch up on BBC4's "Spiral" at the same time though.

Oh where would we be without BBC4's foreign crime serials?

Well don't hold your breath. We may be able to find out soon. Remember those cut announcements are due soon. (See this post.)

The Dead Hand of Re-Organisation: BBC4

So you know how I be a fan of what I like to call Euro-telly? I post about such programmes sometimes - like Denmark's "The Killing", Iceland's "The Night-Shift"... then there's all those lovely "Wallander" and"Spiral" crime stuff.

Well I find these excellent things on BBC4. As well as comedy like "Getting On" and arts, music and documentaries.

So if you be at all like-minded... watch out. The BBC is implementing cuts and these will be announced on Sept 22, I think. And there is talk of changes for BBC4.

Have a read of this: Stand up for BBC4 | Radio Times.

And maybe this thread on Digitalspy.

Let us be blunt. I think that interesting telly is shrinking.

BBC4 is what BBC2 once was. BBC2 is what BBC1 once was. And I don't really watch BBC1 anymore.... except for Dr Who....

The ice floes of entertainment are melting once more. (Sigh) Radio 6Music was rescued. (Or was it all a cunning plot?) But now it's time to stand by your bunks to protect BBC4.

So don't forget to sign the petition at savebbcfour.com

It's Bastille Day

Let the fortress fall.

Laissez la chute forteresse.

Laissez tomber Murdoch!

Looking for Something to Watch

So bad is the state of current telly and radio... yup... Radio 3 is still playing Mozart...

I comes downstairs into the sitting room to find The Old Man slumped in front of his telly, tuned to Al Jazeera in desperate search of news of some kind.

BBC Radio Rage

I like to listen to BBC Radios 3 and 4.

But sadly listening to Radio 3 is out of the question for now because they are playing Mozart all day, everyday, for twelve days from Jan 1st to 12th. Don't misunderstand me - I do like a bit of Mozart now and then.

But not TWELVE DAYS of it.

Now - on Sunday the 9th Jan - Radio 4 is broadcasting nine ... yes NINE items throughout the day about the King James Bible.

(I'm so old I can remember when this was jettisoned as the standard issue bible version, cos it was considered old-fashioned and incomprehensible to younger folk. Now we are being lectured on its beauty and poetry. This is the depressing thing about getting older - you really have seen chunks of it all before ....)

This is really lazy broadcasting. Radio 3 has been sidling into this kind of broadcasting for a while now but never... never.... have they managed a fortnight of classical muzak - which is what they have reduced the music of Mozart to.

Anyway. My point is that - as far as my mainstream Radio listening goes.... well sometimes I forget and turn on my radio .... and think the Queen must have died. Either that or there has been a military coup by dreadfully polite Austrians with a taste for biblical recitation.

Animated discussions: cartoon time

Animation is magic. Most kids love magic. Most kids love cartoons. And adults who are still kids love cartoons. That's me.
Watching TV as a child. I remember - Popeye, The Flintstones, and Huckleberry Hound. Then there was "going to the pictures" - Walt Disney's Bambi, Sleeping Beauty, The Lady and the Tramp, and 101 Dalmatians.

But as well - there were all those daily cartoons and animations that went with TV commercials. It kept most animators in business. From the start, British commercial TV hosted cartoons by the shopping trolley load. From the 1950s on - bear skinned guards marched and sang about "Murray Mints" (too-good-to-hurry mints), parading shirts sang about Rael Brook poplin .... plastic Martians hooted with laughter over the idea of Instant Mashed Potato ("for Mash eat Smash"). Cartoons and animation everyday. That's how most of us got to know Aardman Animation, before Wallace & Gromit. When their vox pop "Creature Comforts" for the "Heat Electric" campaign hit our telly screens.

Even now I watch the "broken window - wind blowing hat - bewildered hat owner - helpful window repair man - hat back on head" sequence before Channel 4's Weather Forecast. (Done by Studio AKA for Lloyds TSB.) And I still laugh out loud. The Old Man thinks I'm very obsessive about this one.

There is a whole history of animation in the simple act of viewing commercial TV over the decades. Now though - maybe the magical separateness of the animated world is growing indistinct. With animation's fusion with CGI and with the media's daily reliance on digital cosmetics and trickery - do children and adults start mistaking "movie magic" for real life?
I mean, nobody mistook Yogi Bear for a real Grizzly.
Or did they?