What TV show did you last watch?

BBC Four-Top of the Pops..the Story of 1989(recorded). My god some of the people in that programme have aged really badly. Chris Rea I hardly recognised, Marc Almond looks very grizzled, Shaun Ryder looked like a Doctor Who alien but Lisa Stansfield still looked good and Sam Brown(Joe Brown's daughter, once a blonde). I don't remember a lot of 1989 and I didn't remember it was a very hot summer, but I do remember the surge in band from Manchester, so called Madchester thanks to the Hacienda Club run by Tony Wilson(Factory Records) and on the TOTPs you had bands like Texas, The Happy Mondays, Stone Roses, Jason Donovan(with Stock Aitken and Waterman) and Caron Wheeler from Soul II Soul(mentioned on the trivia thread) It was fascinating to relive the sights, sounds and people of 21 years ago-I was 23 back then but not into the dance scene or that acid-house crap.

David Lynch - The Art Life
Top film director talks about his early years and art projects. Always an articulate and imaginative talker.

The Jonestown Massacre - Terror in the Jungle

A two part Storyville documentary (2h 40m total), using mostly real footage, showing the charismatic Jim Jones in his People's Temple church gradually increasing his hold over his followers. Interviews with survivors and a couple of his adopted sons paint a picture of what was going on behind the scenes, as Jim's influence grew and he became a darling of the establishment, then it began to go wrong and he moved his whole operation to the jungle in Guyana, where the notorious Kool-Aid mass suicide happened. Chilling footage of the hundreds of bodies lying in little clusters with arms around each other, and the audio tape recording of the actual event letting you hear just how he persuaded so many people to die for him. It's an astonishing story and one detail I noticed was a sign hanging above the scene saying "those who don't remember history are doomed to repeat it", and then at the end one of the survivors saying that they could see something like this happening again, given the way the world is going.

Billy Connolly: Life, Death & Laughter
Short interview with Will Gompertz, a few old clips from Parky, his art stuff seems to be his main outlet now, but he's not quite as dead as he often mistakenly gets reported as being.

'The Outsider' Sky Atlantic!! Looked for all the world like another crime drama (girl murdered one suspect seemingly watertight alibi, detective with an agenda)………….and then the unexpected outside a courthouse!! Now a very interesting watch in prospect!

(13-01-2020 20:24 )GMach1 Wrote:  BBC Four-Top of the Pops..the Story of 1989(recorded). My god some of the people in that programme have aged really badly. Chris Rea I hardly recognised, Marc Almond looks very grizzled, Shaun Ryder looked like a Doctor Who alien but Lisa Stansfield still looked good and Sam Brown(Joe Brown's daughter, once a blonde). I don't remember a lot of 1989 and I didn't remember it was a very hot summer, but I do remember the surge in band from Manchester, so called Madchester thanks to the Hacienda Club run by Tony Wilson(Factory Records) and on the TOTPs you had bands like Texas, The Happy Mondays, Stone Roses, Jason Donovan(with Stock Aitken and Waterman) and Caron Wheeler from Soul II Soul(mentioned on the trivia thread) It was fascinating to relive the sights, sounds and people of 21 years ago-I was 23 back then but not into the dance scene or that acid-house crap.

Do you not see these TOTP retros as just another lazy - couldn't be arsed - attitude from the Beeb?? GMach?? BBC Four was intended to be a niche channel for what appeared likely to be the last frontier of true PSB (or what was left of it) output from the corporation. amidst the ever increasing - and seemingly never ending - populist, dumbed down excretion everywhere else across the 3 other channels!

The Beeb were going to pull the channel altogether remember - telling that they weren't going to touch any of the afore mentioned output elsewhere - until they were prevented from doing so! Shame that a basic standard for its continued airtime, was not imposed at the time!!

Why can't the BBC use the TOTP retro slot to bring us up - to - date exposure of the current music scene?? I could not tell you, for the last number of years actually, who is what and where in the charts

Wwe 13/1/20

Dream Me Up Scotty! - The Scottish Accent on Screen
Alex Norton has fun recounting the saga from the grim days of Brigadoon, through the better days of Gregory's Girl, then the polarised alternatives of Braveheart and Trainspotting, to recent efforts like Brave and countless comedies.

Smallville Ep 9 “Dichotic” Season 2.

(05-01-2020 15:19 )Doddle Wrote:  Secret Scotland with Susan Calman
2.1 The Cairngorms; Balmoral, Braemar, Aberlour etc

2.2 The North Coast 500, an exciting driving road that Top Gear somehow couldn't be bothered with. Yet the Smoo Cave and the Whaligoe Steps looked worth the visit.