It’s Sunday evening and I’m wondering what programme will caress me gently into sleep mode before tomorrow’s return to work. Hmm, Channel 6 have a listing for “Law and Order” at 9.30pm. Now I like Law & Order, but there’s so many repeats on so many TV stations that I like to check in advance what episode I’ll be watching.

Channel 6′s website is weird and very non-functional. For example, their main page advertises ‘The Airfield Sessions’ (live music) but doesn’t tell me when it starts or when it’s on*. Crucially, I can’t find any info on what tonight’s episode of Law & Order is about.

Heck, they don’t even have listings for Sat or Sunday…but they do have pretty girls** who present the music videos. So that’s alright then!

* Update – There’s no link on the main page but there is this page but it’s effectively a dead link!
** Are there any male presenters (not voiceover) on Channel 6?

Maybe they should call the station Chanel 6?

There are two episodes of Heroes on BBC2 tonight and I’ve a six pack of beer. And now I need a pee!

Sigh, here we go again…

A Brazilian friend is moving to a new apartment. It’s all a bit sudden…her partner died recently and she can’t afford the rent. Her English isn’t very good and she’s a bit nervous about ‘officialdom‘ because of her dealings with the immigration people. She wanted to cancel her NTL subscription and asked me to do it.

Long story short…I eventually spoke to a real human being and explained the situation. It went something like this…
.

– You can’t cancel on her behalf.
– But her English isn’t great and she’s in a bad place right now.
– She’ll have to phone herself to cancel. We’re open until 10pm [I maybe misunderstood the closing time]
– But she’s working until late [Spar-type shop] and she’s gotta move out tomorrow. [I didn't mention she didn't have the money to waste waiting and waiting for someone to answer the phone. Nor would she understand the 'press 1 for, press 2 for...]
– I’m sorry but she’ll have to phone herself.
– Do you have anyone there who speaks Portugese or Spanish?
– Err, I’ve no idea. [Puts on helpful hat]. You could write in to cancel?
– Let me get this straight. You’ll accept a cancellation letter from me but you won’t accept a verbal cancellation from me?
– Yes.
– 10% of the population are non-nationals now. Do you have anyone there who speaks foreign languages.
– Err, I’ve no idea.

Let’s be honest realistic. If we wrote the letter, NTL would lose it and they’d maintain they never got it. They’d chase her for the arrears, threatening her with court action etc and further traumatise her.

So I’ve now got to send registered letters to NTL, my friend, myself, and copy the bank to cancel the direct debit. And, in six months time, I’ll almost certainly write again that they’re chasing her for money that she doesn’t owe.

Well, guess who turned up today, 22nd March 2007. Yes, NTL.

I wasn’t at home but Martin* wrote a message, with a pencil, that said ‘Work to be done on House‘. I don’t know whether he intended to fix the September 2006 problem or whether he was just passing by and felt like making comments on the state on my house.

I guess we’ll never know. But maybe he’ll leave another note in 6 months??? Watch this space.

*It’s probably not fair to write Martin’s surname here. He actually erased his surname, presumably with the eraser on the top of his pencil, and re-wrote his surname on the message he left me.

I wish him well on his journey to adulthood.

9pm*
TG4 Paisean Faisean **: One girl looking for love must choose between three guys, whose challenge it is to woo her by picking her an outfit.

BBC2 The Elephant’s guide to sex: Getting elephants in the mood for love is just one of Dr Hilebrandts jobs. the Doc is just one of a growing number [really! There's more than one?] of pioneers using a hands-on approach to animal reproduction…

C4 Ulrika – Am I a sex addict?: Ulrika Jonsson presents a revealing and personal documentary exploring sex addiction.

RTE2 and Channel 5: CSI Miami. Both are probably repeats.

It’s funny and sad how ‘sex’ is treated in both countries while the BBC2 elephant documentary is just plain odd.

But, but, what’s that buried near midnight on BBC1? Hmmm. There’s a show on Peter Singer. Peter Singer (wiki) is an Australian philosopher whose writings made me become a vegetarian way back when. I’m trying to remember stuff from a long time ago but, to use the jargon, he takes an extreme utilitarian viewpoint (wiki). At first blush, his views are quite radical and even outrageous. I’ve never jumped completely on his bandwagon but he has an interesting mind. Religious groups hate him and think he’s immoral. So he can’t be all bad, then. It’s past my bedtime so I’ll be taping it and I’d encourage you do the same.

As you’ve probably guessed, I’m a bit grumpy because, last Tuesday, Sky showed the last episode ever of Stargate SG1. I’ve now got nothing to watch (sob, sob) so I’ll have to read a book or something. Maybe I could volunteer to help the elephants at Dublin Zoo??

*Programme descriptions are from saturday’s Irish Times TV listings.
** I’m told it means ‘Passion Fashion”.

Television
I think I’ve mentioned before that I don’t watch much television but, on Tuesday, the Discovery channel had almost a whole day of the American Chopper show. On this show, the company, Orange County Choppers, build a customised motorbike for their client. All the shows follow the same format. The client is introduced and the designers mock him (and it’s always a him). Then they start building the bike and, half-way through the build, the owner (Senior) and the owner’s son (Junior – I’m serious) fight for awhile over whether the bike should have pointy bits or not-so-pointy bits. Meanwhile, some part for the bike is delayed. Finally it arrives and the bike is built just in time to enormous applause for all concerned. Yippee! The shows were mind-numbingly hypnotic and it was brilliant.

To be honest, the best bits were the ads. Because Discovery is not regulated by anyone (?), they can show as many ads as they want. And believe me, they did! But it did allow me to channel hop and see what was on the other stations. I felt a sense of accomplishment for this multi-tasking and it slightly negated the guilt I felt for watching so much crappy TV.

It didn’t negate the guilt completely so I read a few throw-away thrillers. You know the sort, they’re usually 3 for 2 in your local bookshop and the lone, grumpy hero is dragged into something horrific or mysterious but he rises to the task and uses all his skills and contacts (Ed – thought he was a loner?) to save the day. I can usually read these books pretty fast because the writing is so cliched. It usually takes the author a paragraph or two three to say that it’s cloudy, or sunny, or a bit of both. So I usually just let my brain process the broad outlines of the book and concentrate only when there’s something happening or being said.

Books
The three books I read were Echo Park by Michael Connelly, Red Tide by G.M. Ford and Never Go Back by Robert Goddard.

In reverse order, I was very let down by Goddard‘s book. Parts of it were set in Swindon, for god’s sake. It was quite cliched and a bit Dad’s army. There was a cast of thousands who were given real names and nicknames. Goddard used them interchangably and it was hard to tell the characters apart. And because the story was so awful, it wasn’t worth the effort to try and remember everyone. Briefly, the story was that, 50 years ago, 15 young servicemen were sent to a remote Scottish castle for three months for an academic experiment in learning. The book starts with the run-up to the 50 year reunion which is to be held in the same venue (now a hotel). Soon, members of the group start dying in mysterious circumstances. The page-turner idea is ‘What really happened 50 years ago in that remote Scottish castle? Only Ossie (Harry) and Chipchase (Barry) can save the day!

The fact that the group members were approaching 70 years of age is the fatal flaw in this book. I won’t spoil the plot but why didn’t the killer(s) just bid their time and let them die natural deaths? It’s incredible that the Goddard has published over 15 books for Corgi, the publishers. And he’s a beardie!

Red Tide by G.M. Forde wasn’t as bad but barely passed into the ‘entertaining’ category. Frank Corso, the grumpy loner with the mysterious past, has to save the day when a biological disaster threatens Seattle. The science in it is laughable so I won’t dwell on it. In another scene, he sends the heroine home in a taxi and pre-pays the driver with a $100 bill. The fare turns out to be about $6 so the heroine uses the $96 balance to force the cab driver to follow a mysterious van. Here’s a random passage from the book. By random, I mean I opened a random page and picked the best passage I could see on those two pages.

And unless I’m mistaken, the good Dr Stafford looked pretty much scared shitless when she wheeled out of here.”

Dean and Sykes were momentarily taken aback. Neither could remember Harry Dobson ever having used profanity before, just as neither had ever heard the undercurrent of bitterness which had worked its way into his tone.

At least, this (goatee) author has only published 4 books before, although he has another coming out in 2007.

Despite Connelly sporting a beard, I can heartily recommend Michael Connelly’s Echo Park. It’s part of the Harry Bosch series of murder mystery books. In this series, Bosch is a grumpy loner who doesn’t have many friends or contacts. He has several psychological problems/hang-ups and nobody really likes or dislikes him. He doesn’t shoot people or beat them up. He just uses his brain as a detective should. In other words, he’s a believeable character.

In Echo Park, an un-solved murder that has haunted him for years could potentially be solved when fellow officers arrest a serial killer for other murders. How all these murders are connected and how they’re solved is the basis of this book. Here’s a random passage from the book. Bosch is interviewing the serial killer about his unsolved case. The serial killer has just described what he did to Bosch’s victim.

Bosch stared at [the serial killer] but couldn’t bring himself to open his mouth. It was moments like these that made him feel inadequate as a detective, moments when he was cowed by the depravity that was possible in the human form. They stared at each other until [another detective] spoke.

Shopping
Christmas was good to me and I got loads of very nice, thoughtful presents. Best is probably not the right word but the best present I got was ‘The Irish Times Book of the 1916 Rising‘ (amazon). It’s a first edition in mint condition and signed by both authors. As far as I know, the authors didn’t do any signings so I am privileged to have a book signed by both of them. The blurb describes the book thus:

Using contemporary diaries and recently released eye-witness testimonies [the authors] tell the story of a tumultuous week through the voices of the men and women who fought on each side, and of a population caught up in days of violence, looting and wild rumour. Reasserting the event as first and foremost a human drama…[the book] adds up to the most comprehensive and accessible account of Easter Week in print.

But there were still some things that only I could buy for myself. Plus, as a good capitalist, I wanted to see if there were any bargains in the sales!

For example, if my knees are up to it, I still aim to run the Dublin marathon in Oct 2007 so I needed to upgrade my runners now that I’m doing more and more running. I’m having trouble running on non-grass surfaces at the moment. I also (ahem) needed to buy a tripod for my camera. I got both, thank you very much, at decent prices.

Town was just mental. I wonder if people are buying things they actually want or are they just buying it because it’s €10 cheaper than it was last week? To be honest, I got caught up in the mood a little bit. I didn’t succumb to temptation but I spent about 3 hours wandering Dublin looking for something to buy. Thankfully, I didn’t buy anything I didn’t actually need but I was sorely tempted.

The saddest moment for me occured when I looked in the window of Maplins gadget store. They were selling a large remote-controlled toy car for €25. In fact, they were selling two of them. ‘Eureka‘, I thought, ‘I’ll buy both of them. One for me and one for my brother‘. My (married) brother lives in a rural area on a acre of land so we could play ‘cops and robbers‘ with the toy cars when I visited him! It made perfect sense until a passerby bumped into me and brought me back to reality. Reality being my brother is married!

Reality, and a sense of shame, drove me into Marks and Spencers. ‘I’ll buy something sensible‘, I reasoned, ‘and that’ll make the day worthwhile‘. M&S had different ideas, though. If the cut of their suits fit, it’s considered a good place to buy a suit because you can buy the jacket and two pairs of trousers at the same time. In theory, your suit should last twice as long. The only problem was that the suits that were on sale didn’t have any trousers while those that were not on sale wanted €100 for the trousers. €100 for a pair of M&S trousers! I don’t think so.

I think my negative brain waves must have set off some M&S sensors because the escalators were disabled when I tried to leave. Luckily, in typical M&S fashion, they disabled the escalators going up rather than those going down! A lucky escape for me.

And that’s why my feet hurt. I spent a fruitless day trapsing around Dublin trying to spend money but to no avail. I’m lucky the traders didn’t set the police on me.

Photo taken today on Henry Street. I know the sign behind the Garda says ‘Mary St’ but as far as I’m concerned it’s Henry Street. OK?

Across 110th Street: Although it’s often lumped in with so-called ‘blaxploitation’ movies of the early 1970′s, director Barry Shear’s minor classic is actually a gritty police procedural with a strong element of social commentary.

Electra Glide in Blue: Boasting stunning wide-screen cinematography by Conrad Hall, this overlooked gem of 1970′s American cinema is a striking one-off by former record producer James William Guercio.

The Last Detail: A Jack Nicholson feast: one of his finest films, and one of his most accomplished biographers. Nicholson’s biographer Patrick McGilligan gives a talk after the film.

The Page Turner: This tightly-coiled thriller is the director’s highest profile celluoid accomplishment to date, yet it’s utterly redolent of the compellingly sprung intimacy of great chamber music. Must avoid the special screening on Nov7 for ‘parents with babies’.

Red Road: With its stomach-tightening foreboding balanced against biting Scots wit, this is quite an achievement on many levels, not least its evident intimacy with the persuasive cast. Essential viewing.

In other news, a fire broke out in the R&H Hall flat grain store on Alexandria Road at about 9pm Monday night. It was still smouldering at lunchtime today. A similar fire occured in their Cork store a few weeks ago. Arson was suspected in that incident. This won’t do much for Dublin-Cork relations.

R&H Hall have four such storage stores around the country. I bet the night watchmen on the other two sites won’t fall asleep on the job for the next few months.
.
.
.

The SWAN approaches!
Astronomy Ireland is holding public events around the country this evening to look at the Comet SWAN which, apparently, has had an outburst and brightened by a factor of 5 to magnitude 4! In addition, the moon is as close to Uranus as it ever gets so it’s a fun night for all. I was tempted to go with my shiny new camera but I decided against it. Why?

Stargate SG-1 is on Sky One at 8pm and it’s followed by Atlantis. Both, of course!!, are science fiction programmes based in space. What were Astronomy Ireland thinking? I’m such a hypocrite because I constantly berate those (never to their fat faces) who watch soap operas and reality TV programs. Frankly, if I were king for a day, I’d ban ITV. Get out and live a real life, I mutter under my breath.

In my defence, Astronomy Ireland’s second line on their home page reads, ‘join thousands of others on Astronomy Ireland’s FREE emailing list‘. That’s either desperation or poor marketing. And I know what my defence is…

And finally, saw this in Ballygall the other day. I know the council is always playing the poor mouth but, come on, three benches does not a social club make.
.
.

* Film descriptions are taken from the IFI’s November brochure.
** Bacause on the title, I’m really looking forward to what Google searches tempt people here.