Media mayhem

On the positive front — some time in the last few months, we actually got BBC digital radio locally : rebooting the DAB system I bought last year, to force it to look at all the multiplexes, it actually came up with the Beeb. Which meant we were actually able to listen to hiss-free radio on Saturday night. (Remember when that was what we were promised when we went from AM to FM?).

Of course that doesn't mean a content upgrade, alas. Saturday Review covered a new TV series aimed at the over 50s. While that's not me yet, it's not so many years away now. The program under review was something terribly earnest Play for Today thing about an ageing football hooligan/cabbie and a public school teacher on the verge of retirement. Fortunately one the panel at least had the guts to denounce it as patronising class stereotypes that ought have been called “Mr. Chips gets his nose bobbed”. The sort of thing I'd say to people now, “If you ever find me watching that sort of thing — or agreeing with the Daily Mail — that means it's well past time to put me out of my misery!”.

So after that we went and watched half a dozen episodes of Shoujo Kakumei Utena, purchased from amazon.com to take advantage of the current weakness of the US dollar. As part of the official Peter Pan generation, I expect to be more in sympathy with stuff aimed at Japanese high-school girls than focus group designed 50+ fare for many years to come.