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This week's media round-up #4

Sunday night already! It feels like I'm measuring the passing of time by the frequency of my media round-up posts, which seem to come around all-too quickly.

What I've been watching

The Sopranos marathon continues... We're onto Series 6 now. We're six episodes down, with another six to go. And no matter how many times I watch the intro (see the clip above) I still think it's brilliant, so brilliant I won't let T fast-forward it although I'm sure it drives him barmy.

I'm also ashamed to admit that I spent pretty much all of yesterday on the sofa watching trashy TV (I never do this, but my brain needed a rest), including possibly the worst "documentary" about celebrity chefs in the UK and USA I've ever seen (can't remember the title of it now), and half of the Home And Away Omnibus in which I did not recognise a single character (aside from Sally, but she doesn't count) because it must be a good two years since I've seen this show!

What I've been reading
Earlier this week I began reading Prime Time, a Scandinavian crime thriller which turned out to be more of a murder mystery. I finished it this afternoon and then dived straight into Richard Flanagan's The Unknown Terrorist (which I "mooched" last week from someone in California -- isn't the internet great?) and before I knew it I'd ploughed through 140 pages without pausing.

I'm beginning to think Flanagan, a Tasmanian and brother of The Age journalist Martin Flanagan, is my new favourite author. A couple of weeks ago I read his second novel The Sound of One Hand Clapping and was so in awe of his talent I had to give the book a five-star review. I've since gone on to order a second-hand copy of his debut novel Death of a River Guide, which should arrive sometime this week. (I read his third novel, Gould's Book of Fish, a couple of years ago.)

Meanwhile, I'm also reading Brendan Behan's Borstal Boy as part of my self-imposed challenge to read more books by classic Irish authors (as opposed to the modern Irish writers of which I seem to read so much). Someone very kindly sent me a first edition of the book and I'm almost enjoying the heady smell of the musty pages more than the storyline. This is exactly why I could never get into digital books: the smell of the paper is a quintessential reading experience, don't you think?

What have you been watching and reading this week?

This week's media round-up #3

What I've been watching
After a marathon viewing session stretching over both Friday and Saturday night, I'm still reeling over The Sopranos, Series 5. The penultimate episode was particularly harrowing -- and I was sad to see one of my favourite characters meet a rather dire and horrible end even though I knew it was going to come sooner or later.

The wonderful thing about this TV drama is its ability to convince you that certain characters are good people when clearly they're not. It's like you get sucked into the belief that if you met them in real life you'd quite like them but then, just at the point when you've forgotten that they are actually one of the bad guys, they FLIP and do something incredibly violent because someone looked at them the wrong way or said the wrong thing ... and then you realise if you actually met these people in real life you'd best just move right along and HAVE ABSOLUTELY NOTHING TO DO WITH THEM. I think it's the illusion that they are NORMAL people when clearly they are all deranged that is the key to this show's success -- aside of course from the superb writing, directing, acting and casting!

Can't wait to watch The Sopranos, Series 6 now.

What I've been reading
It's been a busy week. I ploughed through Garden Spells, a newbie that the publisher sent me for review, and I can't say it was terribly good: a light, fluffy read, no more, no less.

I also finished Per Petterson's wonderful In the Wake, about a 40-something man coming to terms with the death of his parents and two younger siblings on a ferry that caught fire six years earlier. Yes, it's dark and a little bit morbid, but by god Petterson can write a good story! It was one of those novels that wormed its way into my brain so I thought about it even when I wasn't reading it. To me, that's usually the sign of a damn fine book.

What I've been listening to
I listened to Moby's new one, Last Night, yesterday afternoon. (Or is it called Yesterday Afternoon, and I listened to it last night?)  It's very good, very Moby, very dance-orientated, very electronic, very layered.

Oh, and that Liam Finn album is still getting a fair bit of airplay on my iPod shuffle. Surprise, surprise.

What have you been watching, reading and listening to this week?

This week's media round-up #2

As the Easter weekend draws to a close, let me fill you in on all the lovely books and TV shows I've been watching. I have to say the weather over the past few days -- we've had everything from high winds to pissing-down rain, a thunderstorm, occasional hail and very many snow flurries -- has been highly conducive to staying indoors and doing as little as possible.

What I've been watching
I half-watched Once, the low-budget Irish movie that's racked up £14 million at the box office and been lauded wide and far. I was plugged into my laptop doing other things at the time, so I didn't completely follow the storyline and typically missed out on the crucial (surprise) ending. But I loved the music, so will probably watch the film properly at a later date. It seemed to have a true-to-life romantic feel-good factor to it, which probably explains why it's ticked the box for so many people. (If you're not convinced by the hype, check out all the glowing reviews on Amazon.co.uk)

I've also been working my way through the DVD box-set of Series 2 of House (a present from T for Christmas). In the meantime, I took a punt and risked finding out crucial plot developments by watching the first episode of Series 4 on Channel 5 on Thursday night. It was one of the most humorous episodes I've ever watched, so now I'm going to have to make sure I'm home every Thursday evening to watch the season in its entirety.

After an extended hiatus, we've dug out our boxed sets of The Sopranos to watch the last two series that we did not see on TV. So far we've watched four episodes of Series 5 and I'm itching to watch the rest as soon as possible.

And finally, I watched an episode of Monty Don's Around the World in 80 Gardens, a 10-part series on BBC2, last night. In last night's show Monty visited several gardens in Europe, including Sissinghurst here in the UK and Monet's garden in France. This is a brilliant series that looks at garden history, landscape architecture and horticulture in an interesting and accessible way. Having studied garden history during my undergrad degree I have to admit to loving this kind of thing. I only wish I'd watched the series properly from the start (it's been on TV for several weeks now), but I guess I can always buy the DVD whenever it's released. At the moment I'm contemplating buying the book of the same name....

What I've been reading
After I finished Nefertiti by Michelle Moran, the dead-pan humour and fable-like quality of Magnus Mills' The Scheme for Full Employment kept me amused on Friday/Saturday. On a whim, I bought Robert Harris' latest thriller, The Ghost, while browsing in my local Borders on Saturday afternoon and I raced through it simply because I couldn't put it down.

Earlier in the week I read the full judgement in the Heather Mills -- Paul McCartney divorce case (you can download a PDF from the BBC News website). You know that old saying "you couldn't make it up" or the other old saying "truth is stranger than fiction"? Both apply in this case. All 58 pages were strangely compulsive reading. I wonder when the mini-series or Hollywood movie version will be released!

What have you been reading and watching this week?

This week's media round-up

I can't pretend this is a wholly original idea, but figured it might be interesting to post a weekly round-up of the things that have been keeping me entertained and informed.

What I've been listening to
Two debut albums have been monopolising my iPod Shuffle during my usual commute by tube: Liam Finn's I'll Be Lightening (gorgeous) and The Hoosiers' Trick to Life (quirky and catchy). It has to be said that the more I listen to The Hoosiers, the more I think lead singer Irwin Sparkes sounds like the late Jeff Buckley, so much so it is quite eerie!

What I've been reading
The April issue of The Word kept me entertained for an hour or so yesterday morning. This is one of those magazines that started out trying to be a kind of male Vanity Fair and has since morphed into being yet another music magazine along similar lines as Uncut. T's a subscriber, so it's not a magazine I'd actively go out and buy off the newsstand, but when it's lying around the house it's pretty hard not to pick it up and start reading.

Book-wise I've just finished the delightfully thought-provoking Night Letters by Robert Dessaix, a masterpiece of Australian literature, and I am now mid-way through Nefertiti by Michelle Moran, a complimentary copy of which was posted to me by the author. This book is a riveting tale set in ancient Egypt and I'm having difficulty putting it down.

What I've been watching
We watched Infamous on DVD last night, a biopic about writer Truman Capote that came out at about the same time as Capote. The latter film, starring Phillip Seymour Hoffman, is one of my favourites of recent years, so Infamous had quite a lot to live up to. Despite having a more stellar cast -- Sigourney Weaver, Sandra Bullock, Gwyneth Paltrow etc etc -- it lacked the quiet beauty of Capote but had a lighter, more comedic feel. The lead character, played by Toby Young, was slightly more caricatured and more overtly camp than Phillip Seymour Hoffman's portrayal. And, similarly, it did not shy away from making it quite clear that Capote had fallen in love with Perry Smith (played by an almost unrecognisable Daniel Craig), one of the killers whose story he had gone to research for his true-fiction crime novel In Cold Blood.

Even better than the real thing

I was fortunate to see U2's Vertigo tour several times -- London, Dublin, Copenhagen and New York -- in 2005. But all those gigs pale into insignificance compared to U23D, which I saw at London's IMAX cinema last night.

Awesome doesn't even come close. Honestly, it's an amazingly lifelike experience, but even better than attending a live gig because you don't need to put up with other people squashing you, getting in the way, singing in your ear or stomping on your toes.

I wasn't sure what to expect, but it was far, far, far better than I could have ever imagined. If you've ever wanted to know what it is like to be a member of U2 performing in front of thousands of fans in an outdoor arena, then this film is the best way of showing you what it must be like to be Bono, The Edge, Adam Clayton and Larry Mullen Jnr. And boy, is it a phenomenal, out-of-the-world experience.

It was just like being at a U2 gig with front row tickets. I loved every minute.

If you're a fan -- and even if you're not -- I can't recommend the film highly enough. It's a deeply intimate and spine-tingling experience -- and much cheaper than going to a real U2 gig!

'Prime Suspect' calling

So, as you will remember from last week's post about Prime Suspect, I was keen to watch the next instalment -- Prime Suspect 6: The Last Witness -- to see how mobile phone technology had changed since the last one.

Prime Suspect 6 -- the best one so far, I have to say, excellent plot and super-high production values -- was made in 2003. Now pretty much all the characters have access to a mobile phone, and these are small, compact devices, half the size of the ones spotted in the previous instalment, Prime Suspect 5, which was made in 1996.

Interestingly, Tennison is now so contactable by mobile that she sometimes deliberately switches it off, whereas in previous episodes she's struggled to get it to work -- either because of short battery life or poor signals.

Text messaging also plays a vital role in police work. In one scene, Tennison's deputy receives important information about a suspect via SMS and simply holds up the phone's screen to show her what it says.

Other technological changes include the use of video when interviewing suspects (as opposed to simple audio tape) and the prevalence of email (Tennison's computer continually "pings" with messages arriving in her in-box).

I wonder if the next episode, made in 2006, will include references to Google, blogs or the Home Office's DNA database?!

Friday nights are 'Prime Suspect' nights

Friday nights around here have become synonymous with Prime Suspect, usually accompanied by a nice meal (ordered from our local Chinese or made by me) and a bottle of wine. It's a relaxing way to mark the end of the working week and I really look forward to chilling out for a couple of hours in the company of Helen Mirren and her band of police cohorts.

As you might remember, T gave me the boxed set for Christmas, so I've had seven episodes to work my way through since then. Unfortunately, the boxed set does not come with any sleeve notes, so whenever we stick a disc in the DVD player it's a bit hard to know what to expect. Thank goodness for Wikipedia.

Last night we watched Prime Suspect 5: Errors of Judgement, which ran for 200 minutes. Getting me to sit still and watch something on television that runs longer than 30 minutes is quite an achievement, because I've got the world's shortest attention span whenever it comes to the visual medium. But whenever I watch Prime Suspect I'm gripped from the word go* and the lengthy episodes whizz by without me becoming the slightest bit bored.

The great thing about watching these episodes in a relatively short space of time is seeing the quick march of technology transforming police lives. I'm specifically thinking of mobile phones. In Prime Suspect 1, which was made in 1991, mobile phones weren't commonplace, so whenever Tennison (Helen Mirren's character) needs to contact her colleagues she must look for a phone booth or use landline phones. By Prime Suspect 3, Tennison has access to a mobile phone the size of a brick but she can rarely use it because the battery keeps running out. In last night's episode, made in 1996, the size of the mobile phone has shrunk considerably (although they still have long antennas sticking out the end) but Tennison often struggles to get a signal. It will be interesting to see how things have progressed when I finally get around to watching Prime Suspect 6 (2003) and Prime Suspect 7(2006) over the coming weeks.

* Prime Suspect 4 is the exception to this rule. This was split into three separate stories, each around 100 minutes long, and it was immediately obvious that they were written by a different person, because they were too touchy-feely for my liking and reminded me very much of Morse and A Touch of Frost, a little too staged and stilted.

The Long Way Down office

Place: Avonmore Road, West Kensington.
Date: Sunday, February 3, 2008.
Camera: Panasonic DMC-TZ3.

Cabin fever took hold this afternoon, so braving the chill winds we decided to go for a walk around the neighbourhood.

As we wandered the back streets of West Kensington, I mentioned to T that "Ewan McGregor and Charley Boorman had their office around here somewhere".

"Really?"

"Yes, Avonmore Road -- it was mentioned in the Long Way Down book."

Sure enough, there it was -- a chequered flag and a Union flag painted over the garage door. Just to be sure, the discrete handwritten note on the doorbell read "Long Way Down office".

To think that Ewan and Charley used to hang out here, less than a 10-minute walk from our front door and literally around the corner (2-minute walk) from our old pad on Stonor Road and I never once bumped into them!

The End of the Affair

Last summer I read Graham Greene's much-lauded The End of the Affair and reeled from the sheer power of the story. It was one of those books that lingered in the mind long after I'd finished the book, almost as if it had left an indelible fingerprint on my brain never to be removed.

So on Friday night, curled up on the sofa in front of the TV, I was delighted to accidentally discover that More 4 was screening the 1999 movie, directed by Neil Jordan and starring Ralph Fiennes, Julianne Moore and Stephen Rea, at 10pm. Obviously, I tuned in to watch.

The verdict? Jordan concentrates a lot on the atmospherics of the film -- he depicts a suitably dismal wartime London, with rain dripping in almost every scene and the sound of bombs dropping in the background. There's a lovely rich blue cast over the film, which lends it a certain moody and beautiful ambiance.

Spending time in an Australian library

So here I am tucked up in bed with a big box of tissues and a bottle of Sudafed for company -- thought it best to keep my yukky cold to myself and not spread it around the office.

The rain's been pattering against the window most of the day, the perfect kind of weather for snuggling up indoors. The only problem is a decided lack of supplies in the house, so I've been subsisting on endless cups of tea and the odd glass of tropical juice. Gotta keep those liquids up!

I've just watched six episodes of The Librarians back to back on my laptop, courtesy of a DVD my sister sent me for Christmas. What a brilliant comedy!

Frances O'Brien, the head librarian, is a great character in the same way that David Brent, from The Office, is a great character. They're both quite horrible people who make you cringe -- although Frances makes no attempt at being politically correct (she's racist and has no tolerance for disabled people, just two of her "special" qualities) while Brent at least pretends to be politically correct even if he keeps putting his foot in it.

The show reminded me very much of The Book Group, right down to the sexually repressed main character and the person stuck in a wheelchair. But the story arc -- from episode one stretching through until episode 6 -- is much stronger. And, of course, it was lovely to hear some Aussie accents and see some Melbourne streetscapes!

I wonder if it will ever be shown on British TV -- I think it'd go down well.