In last night’s BBC4 offering, Upgrade Me, poet Simon Armitage – who, just as an aside, is my daughter’s favourite poet – waxed lyrical and rhapsodically about how technology, and its rapid and ever changing pace, is shaping all our lives.

This show was part of Aunty Beeb’s Electronic Revolution season and it wore two hats; it was a trip down memory lane for those of us old enough to have one, and it was also a look into the future of gadgetry. And I have to say, despite thinking I’d find it all a bit of a yawnfest, it was actually pretty interesting.

For instance, during a trip to Seoul, Simon met with a bunch of people who make up Samsung’s “ringtone team”, so in case you’ve been looking for a target when the sound of someone’s exceptionally annoying ringtone keeps going off – as I have been, ever since that chuffin’ frog tone was the ‘in’ thing – these are the people you want to aim for, or at. Read more & comment »

As part of BBC’s Grey Expectations – you see what they did there? Class – season of programmes about aging, the second part of Getting On was every bit as brilliant as the first episode.

On the geriatric ward, chaos is barely contained by Den and Kim – Joanna Scanlon and Jo Brand respectively – but last night, they had a male on their all female ward and Dr Pippa Moore – played by Vicki Pepperdine with utter believability – wasn’t happy…

“There’s the masturbation factor…” she told Sister Den, but Den pointed out the fact that as the young man had both arms in plaster attached to a frame, that probably wasn’t going to be an issue.

The writing of this show is awesome; dark, funny, satirical and incredibly relatable, it absolutely deserves a shed full of awards for Brand, Pepperdine and Scanlon who wrote it and of course, act the main parts.

All three of them are totally convincing in their roles and rib achingly funny. For instance, when manic depressive Ivy was brought onto the ward following a head injury, she soon displayed a plethora of unpleasant characteristics. She called Kim a “fat lezzer” to which she replied, “Well I’m fat but I’m not a lezzer”. Read more & comment »

Unlike Taking The Flak – last night’s BBC2 comedic offering – BBC4’s Getting On was truly hilarious and for once, I didn’t feel like one of Dick Turpin’s victims where my license fee was concerned.

Filmed documentary style and directed by Oscar winner Peter Capaldi, it completely embraced and faultlessly put across the PC, paper strewn world of the modern hospital ward, and the characters were utterly believable.

From put-upon nurse Kim Wilde, played in wonderfully dead pan mode by Jo Brand – who of course used to be a nurse so she may well have drawn on her own experiences for this show – to the pedantic and patronising Consultant, Dr Moore, again played to perfection by Vicki Pepperdine, it was a real treat for anyone who truly appreciates dark humour. Read more & comment »

The brilliantly funny Mark Benton narrated this equally brilliant and funny look back at how foreign travel has changed from being available only to the wealthy to then include us commoners, and it was hilarious viewing.

Mark introduced the programme saying, “Until the sixties, thrilling meant a ride on a donkey, exotic was a slice of lemon with your fish and chips and extreme sports means going to the beach without a windbreak.”

That set the tone for the rest of the show and with archive footage, very funny one liners and quotes from various poets, he took us by the hand on a trip through the history of the Brits on holiday abroad, and especially the discovery of Spain by the working classes, which, Mark told us was a bold move from the donkeys and tornado like conditions of Blackpool beach…. Read more & comment »

Now, I have to say, ordinarily, whenever there’s anything football related on TV, I’m offski. I’ll go and do something infinitely more interesting such as watching wood warp or maybe even cleaning out the kitchen cupboards and finding rice that’s been there since 1970… you get the gist; I’m not digging football at all. Imagine my surprise then when I stumbled upon Maradona: In the Hands of the Gods on BBC4 last night and actually enjoyed it!

Had it not been for the fact that – just as the programme began – my remote chose that moment to finally stop giving me warnings about needing to replace my batteries and actually died, I would’ve whizzed on past it. But die it did so while it stubbornly refused to flick channels, I sent my beloved on a hunt for a battery to two which may not have been drained by our kids’ MP3 players, and slowly but surely got sucked into the story… Read more & comment »