watch tHe skies

Yes I know I said I wouldn’t mention it again, but I couldn’t resist! I personally didn’t see Jade Goody on GMTv, however I did read Adam Eason’s view of it on his blog. Adam looked at the non-verbal information she was giving off - body language, eye accessing cues and hand gestures, and came to the conclusion that these methods of communication, that most of us are unaware of to some extent, were congruent with the words she spoke. It makes for a very interesting read.

Non-verbal communication fascinates me because people don’t realise just how much information they are giving away if you are prepared to look. Even someone trying not to give anything away is actually telling you something, and all of this information can help you to communicate better with this person, whether it be using a person’s preferred representational systems to improve rapport, or simply trusting your instincts about a person, because your unconscious mind is reading all of these signals all of the time, and drawing its own conclusions for you if you care to take notice.

Anyway back to the subject. You will be pleased to know that Jade didn’t get paid for the interview, although the same probably can’t be said for the OK Magazine photospread that is bound to follow!

So sunday saw Jack Bauer return to Sky One as his 6th worst day ever begins with a vengeance. Showing the first two hours back-to-back, it managed to take the amazing day 5 and beat it within an inch of it’s life, leaving it little more than a bloody mess on the floor.

Given that nearly the entire cast was killed during day 5, we have a whole bunch of new CTU agents and once again, we have no idea who is a mole, who will survive and, more importantly, how we can possibly get through the week with only watching one episode. Usually we watch this on DVD, and mostly in one sleep-deprived week, but this time we will be feeding off scraps that  Sky throw us. However as Sky is only a week or so behind the US, I should be thankful that I don’t have to wait a year for the DVD box set.

And if you STILL haven’t gotten in to 24 then you obviously don’t read my blog enough, come on, sort it out! Incidentally, places like www.play.com are selling all of the previous series at an extra low price to get you hooked… Go on, you know that TV is rubbish at this time of the year!

So I had to watch Big Brother on friday just to see how they dealt with Jade when she was evicted to a wall of silence.

I feel a little sorry for her, because I don’t think that she’s racist, she’s just dim and a bully who would appear to believe her own hype (25th most influencial person in the world? What world would that be Jade?), and who has been villified in the papers to generate a moral panic and sell more copies.

It will certainly be interesting to see how she gets out of this one, when she came out of the house the first time, she was just dim, and us Brits like dim. This time she comes out a bully, and I don’t think that the public be quite so accepting of her in that capacity.

I wonder if the other two girls will get such a hard time? I’m sure that there will be a financial impact on both of them, as companies disassociate themselves in anticipation of a potential backlash. It seems to me from what limited footage I’ve seen, that a pack mentality developed in the alleged bullying, much like that which occured during the  Stanford Prison Experiment, a disastrous but highly enlightening study that predates Big Brother, but resulted in such bullying that it had to be abandoned. Check out my post on the subject here.

To be honest I was going to ignore all this rubbish but as the bandwagon is filling up so I had better get my piece in. I would just like to point out that I would have to work very hard to care less about this TV show because it is utter garbage. However I do have a point to make and that is Big Brother profiles every contestant and designs the show to cause conflict. Every bad word uttered about the show is playing in to the producers’ hands (after all this is a programme that was looking tired about three years ago).

I say that if this show was a two year old kid, spherical supernanny Jo Frost would send it to the naughty step and have everyone ignore it until it behaves itself.

The fact is these girls causing the problem are intellectually slightly below amoebae, and I wonder why alleged racism is worse than straightforward bullying? My missus points out that Jodie Marsh was bullied last year and no-one cared.

Comment over.

So this week we finally finished 24 Day 5. Delayed mostly because of I’m A Celebrity (Jenny was hooked like a really hooked thing), we survived Jack Bauer’s fifth worst day battered and bruised, feeling somewhat like an invincible lemming, veteran of so many cliffhangers, twists and turns.

Day 5 begins with a bang when former US President David Palmer is assassinated in front of his brother. More assassinations followed, seemingly targeting those few people who know that Jack is alive and well, having shaken off the wrath of the Chinese government by faking his own death. Soon, Jack is called back in to action when CTU uncover a genocidal plot to kill thousands with nerve gas.

It’s been a while since I’ve seen 24. Since it went off terrestrial TV we’ve waited each year for the DVD box set to be released. The following fortnight included many late nights, where we intended to stop at 11.30pm but found the cliffhanger too much to bear, only to discover at 12.10 that the next cliffhanger was even worse.

Released on DVD back in August 2005, the new series only came out in November, so since we last watched 24 we’ve experienced the first 2 seasons of Lost, and our datum for great telly was calibrated against the island drama \ soap thingy. Lost is great but 24 is brilliant. Day 5 is by far the best of the bunch. Amazing drama, action, humour, everything you hope from a decent trip to the cinema stretched over 24 episodes. The storyline is gripping, and at times completely mental, however the plot stretches are carried by brilliant acting and direction. Check out the performances of Jean Smart and Gregory Itzin (Martha and Charles Logan), both nominated for Emmys, who absolutely steal every scene, which is a tall order given some great turns from Mary Lynn Rajskub (Chloe) and, of course, Keifer Sutherland as the seemingly indestructible Jack Bauer. 

So, if you’ve yet to experience the show, pick up the first series on DVD and be happy in the knowledge that each series you get is better than the last. It might just help you through the torrid TV that smothers every channel over the festive period.

I found out with some amazement yesterday that Channel 4 have lost the rights to the third season of cult show Lost. From this sunday, the show with a rather large following will be aired exclusively on Sky One.

Now it would appear that I’m behind the times, as this deal was done way back in October, and it follows the pattern previously set by Sky when they poached 24 from the BBC some years ago.

However you can’t blame Sky - if they are prepared to pay £20m for a show, the US studio are within their rights to get the best deal possible. It’s just a little unfair on the loyal fans that have made it a success and don’t have Sky (which for you overseas readers, costs £30-£40 per month on top of the normal TV viewing costs).

In fact it remains to be seen whether Channel 4 have made a cunning decision. Lost started looking a little long in the tooth towards the end of the second series, and both Jen and I agree that the format may not stand up for another couple of series. However, we’ll be there watching it on sunday night, just to see if we’re right.

Perhaps Channel 4 should move to sign up NBC’s Heroes - the highest rated new show on US TV, and from what I’ve seen of it, shaping up to be an excellent purchase.

It is with a mixture of excitement and dread that I opened the package I received yesterday. Excitement because the latest series of 24 has been released. Dread because it means that I won’t be getting much sleep for the next fortnight.

24 is a TV show set over 24 hours of a day, usually where terrorists are up to no good and CTU (Counter Terrorism Unit) Los Angeles are out to stop them. Led by Jack Bauer (Keifer Sutherland), each episode plays in real time as the good guys race to catch the bad guys before innocent people pay the price for their government’s something or other.

The show moves at such a pace, and with a cliffhanger at the end of each episode, that pulling yourself away from the TV without “watching just one more episode” is akin to going cold turkey (perhaps).

So last night we put Ben to bed and sat down to watch “one or two episodes, just to see what happens”. After all we have lived through four previous bad days for Jack Bauer so, you know, we can handle it, take it or leave it, no big deal.

Four episodes later we crawled in to bed happy that Jack had saved the hostages in the airport, exhausted from edge of seat sitting we were pleased that there was a lull in the action, albeit so the bad guys could retrieve their bioweapons…

We might watch one tonight, only one though, you know, just for fun…

Well the end of season 2 of Galactica almost had me giving up on the show. The ending was naff. However like a sucker I stuck with season 3 and four episodes in we’ve just been gifted the best episode so far, as the nasty Cylons get their butts royally kicked as Pegasus and Galactica return to New Caprica.

Quite where the show is going now I don’t know. All bets are off, just like it used to be…

I was shocked to hear about Richard Hammond’s accident whilst filming for Top Gear. A BBC TV show about cars, for you foreign readers, it is as well known for the general larking about by the presenters as it is for the cars they feature. In fact my missus loves it and she couldn’t care less about the cars - it’s the crashed caravans, sinking amphibious cars and rolling of white vans that appeals to her, and most of us actually.

Yesterday Richard Hammond crashed whilst filming a landspeed record attempt in a jet-powered car at an airfield in Yorkshire somewhere. I hope that he recovers fully and is quickly back on our screens out-buffooning Jeremy Clarkson.

“What is?” I hear you ask. Well, I will tell you shortly. Has anyone else noticed that there are some really cool advertd on the TV at the moment. From the Citroen ice-skating Transformer, to the ever so slightly odd Orange advert with inflatable animals, my attention is often drawn more to the advert than the dross that is the stale white bread to its juicy multi-sensory filling in that sandwich that is television.

Eh? Thirty seconds aint long to entrance a consumer, and modern adverts assault you with a multisensory experience that means that adding up the total sensory stimuation time (6 times 30) might be enough to get you to part with your money.

And that’s where the music comes in. In the absence of smellyvision, advertisers search for the perfect tune to stimulate the senses, to add to the lush visuals and to create multiple anchors in your mind to get you to buy buy buy.

Does it work? Sometimes. I suspect that they get it wrong more often than right. A good example of right for me is the O2 campaign with Sean Bean. It uses a recognisable audio theme, with futuristic “looking forward” visuals and lots of happy people - O2 will look after you. The old Vodafone advert with the Dandy Warhols music was another inspiring ad that I bet sold a lot of contracts. Does the Citroen Ad sell more cars? Doubt it. And although the Megane ad with the lovely lady bums is very nice, I don’t see it drumming up more sales.

So what is the point of all that? Actually it was that the upshot is that I’ve found a website that tells you what music is used on all of the ads. it’s http://www.commercialbreaksandbeats.co.uk. It has a neat search facility, which you can use with iTunes to find, listen to and buy the tune without shelling for an album.

I ain’t buying new phones or cars, but it’s got me spending more at iTunes!

(Like I needed a reason)