Memewatch: Having kicked-off a “week in media meme”, picked up by bloggers of such lofty reknown as Iain Dale and The Devil, 77PR’s James Gordon-Macintosh has tagged me to join in.
Perhaps he’s aiming to add a little more leftyness to the whole exercise. Or maybe he’s looking to get the absurdly narrow mediablogging Scot-in-London niche covered. If so, consider it filled, James. My victims are at the bottom of the post, and will include one or two home-based members of the Scottish mafia.
What I’ve read
As you’d expect, I normally look through most of the papers every weekday - I might work online now, but old print habits die hard. The heavies get more careful reads, with the depth of my forays into the redtops depending on which reality show season it is. In the last couple of weeks, though, I’ve on holiday, the papers have been thin, and Mrs Tosh objects to the huge bundles of newsprint at home, so my reading’s moved online. Back to the normal routine on Monday.
But Christmas is always a good time for magazines. The January 08 Vanity Fair contained some brilliant journalism this month: Michael Shnayerson’s A Tale of two Giulianis, Hitchens on spy novels and William Prochnau and Laura Parker on Pitcairn Island all stood out. I’ve already been blogging about bits of the Economist’s typically entertaining Christmas Double Issue, but there’s lots more in there worth a look. I’ve still got the New Yorker’s winter fiction issue to look through. But the greatest Christmas staple there is - and the only time I buy the magazine these days - is the Radio Times festive edition. Frankly, the Sky EPG does for navigating the listings these days, but there’s still something special about holding that vast end of year RT in your hands and leafing through… the irretriveably shite Christmas TV. Yes… shame about the TV itself.
What I’ve watched
Standout baddies - just unforgivably bad TV - include the Christmas special of the BBC’s Holby City, which surely plunged new depths for latter-day UK primetime screenwriting and acting, and ITV’s Midsomer Murders, which was just… the usual. They get huge audiences, so maybe nobody cares. Nancy Banks-Smith rather delightfully, and so deftly, skewered both shows in the Guardian the day after transmission - Holby City last week, Midsomer Murders this. Three Men In Another Boat - about three comics sailing down the Thames and round the South coast in a yacht - was one of the few things to tickle me, along with (before you accuse me of being too middle-aged) the Christmas Friday Night Project on C4.
A product of my age, I used to feel almost honour-bound to watch any live football offered up, given there wasn’t much once, but now that could look like a full-time occupation. So now, selected live games, although with the Old Firm postponed I’ve seen none that would stand out in the last couple of weeks. Studio 60 has just come to an end, so I await another big US series to get my teeth into - I’ve just not been able to muster enthusiasm for The Wire, alas. It may be time to rent out another 24 box set. I’ve never watched it on broadcast, preferring it in disk-at-a-time four-hour slabs.
What I’ve listened to
This last two weeks, a weird combination of Radio 4 (Today, Broadcasting House, Start The Week) and Kiss100 (dance music). I’ve grown particularly fond of Kiss100’s breakfast show - a dangerous, but very funny, distraction from the absolute necessity of Today - and its Sunday morning programming, which is what they now call “downbeat”, but what we used to know as “beach” or “chillout”. Plus ça change…
When I’m on my commute I load the iPhone up with podcasts - mainly ours, including Football Weekly and Extra, Newsdesk, and Media Talk. Some of the Beeb’s comedy makes its way on there, although a New Year resolution is to catch some of the more innovative audio work coming out the US.
What I’ve surfed
Too much, compulsively. My blogroll here highlights some of the sites I visit most often, although my RSS reader has hundreds of news sites, blogs, Technorati watchlists and feeds from web apps I use to keep abreast of stuff. Specific themes for web surfing this holiday have been around local history (I know, I know), boiler information (I know, I know) and cool stuff some clever people are doing around…. whatever comes next. No, I’m not telling.
And now I tag… Shaun Milne, Craig McGill, Meg Pickard, Stewart Kirkpatrick and MrsTosh… go on, reveal all!
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COMMENTS / 9 COMMENTS
My week in media - response « MrsTosh’s weblog added these pithy words on Jan 03 08 at 9:30 pm[...] - response Filed under: Uncategorized — by MrsTosh @ 10:29 pm After being tagged by Mr Tosh, I am responding to his [...]
meish dot org » My Week In Media added these pithy words on Jan 03 08 at 10:46 pm[...] like what you see, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting! Challenged by m’colleague Neil to reveal what I’ve been consuming, media-wise this week, I am delighted to flash my digital [...]
» My Week in Media Cluttered Desk: The website of writer Craig McGill and his thoughts on, well, quite a lot… added these pithy words on Jan 04 08 at 2:02 pm[...] Week in Media Posted in January 4th, 2008 by Craig in Media, Writing With thanks to Neil McIntosh I’ve been challenged to the new My Week In Media meme that’s going about from James [...]
My Week in Media « Bob Mitchell in the 21st Century added these pithy words on Jan 05 08 at 1:52 am[...] tigged me after being tigged by Neil McIntosh, and not wanting to be left out the fun and games, I’m joining in with my stab at the Week in [...]
Sucked into the ‘my week in media’ meme « Sour Alba added these pithy words on Jan 08 08 at 2:44 pm[...] Hogmanay and first-week-in-January break, I find that Neil McIntosh, he of Guardian Unlimited and completetosh.com, has tagged me in the “my week in media” [...]
James Gordon-MacIntosh added these pithy words on Jan 03 08 at 2:29 pmThank you kindly, Neil, both for the Scottish flavour and the political balance that you have brought to the whole enterprise!
And you are quite right, the Christmas television was quite abominably poor this year - barely a thing to redeem it.
Craig McGill added these pithy words on Jan 04 08 at 1:49 amChallenge accepted! And I’ll get back to that in the next posting. Surprised at your lack of love for The Wire. Admittedly Season 1 is tough to get into - and is slower than Word 6 running on an OS 9 mac - but you should give Season 2 a bash.
It’s quite to the point and in many ways is easier to relate to. Season 4 is all about education and may resonate with your brother but he would need to watch seasons 1 and 3 at least to get the emotional
depression and slaughterhit from it.It very much is the American Novel as Television (© pretentious people) with Season 1 very much the intro to what comes later. (Thirteen hours of viewing as a starting point - how’s that for a delayed drop intro
That’s up there with the 1000 page long manga’s that title themselves as the prelude)
24 doesn’t work for me as well on DVD. I raved about the first two seasons as I thought that they were one of the best examples of episodic television done correctly with old fashioned cliffhangers that made you want to run off to BBC 3 or torrent sites to find out what happened next. Season 5 was a return to glory for that, but that “I need to know what happens next NOW” feeling is vastly diminished on DVD as that next episode fix is very much sitting there.
Having said that, The Wire works better on DVD because all the episodes are there just like all the chapters of a book are there.
And now off to do the meme…
Craig McGill added these pithy words on Jan 04 08 at 2:36 pmDone. Can be found at http://craig-mcgill.com/2008/0.....-in-media/
Shaun Milne added these pithy words on Jan 04 08 at 4:46 pmRemember ‘tig’ when you were a kid?
You’d run around like a madman either (a) trying to avoid whoever had the jobbie touch, or (b) trying to touch someone so you’d be free of the imaginary infection leaving your unwilling victim to take your place.
Well this is the cyber equivalent of it. It appears I’ve been tagged by my old mate Neil McIntosh over at Complete Tosh, who was himself tagged by James Gordon-Macintosh.
So as not to appear rude, which isn’t a New Year’s resolution, I have submitted my own paltry offerings to the meme, and hope that those I’ve in turn tagged at the end may decide to do the same to keep this convoy of content a truckin’.
What I’ve Read
The Ecologist which contained an interesting article about allegedly The First Global Warming Refugee on the planet written by Dan McDougall on the plight of islanders of the Sundarbans in the Bay of Bengal.
I also managed to pick up a copy of The Angry Corrie - the original Scottish hillwalking fanzine, just because its fun, but not quite as much fun as the bumper Christmas issue of Private Eye which is something or required reading in these parts.
New Scientist was also on the pile and I confess to buying the lastest edition of Tatler not to ogle at Mischa Barton, but for the free Best 101 Hotels in the World supplement for which I am a constant sucker in unabated my wanderlust.
The Guardian found its way into the house so we could do the quizzes and wouldn’t be caught out should Mr & Mrs Tosh drop by unexpectedly, as did the Daily Record after I spotted this splash and spread which looks suspiciously based on a tip I gave them a couple of weeks prior.
And not forgetting, the Ayrshire Post our local paper, so we could find a Midnight Mass to ignore.
What I’ve Watched
Frankly we didn’t watch much TV in Milne Towers this Christmas, well, not live stuff anyway. There was little to tempt us, other than having Sky News on in the background and any live football on the box.
Instead we used the time constructively to plough through the hours of telly stored up in our Sky Plus box, which included in no particular order, the hilarious Californication, the final Studio 60 On the Sunset Strip, the never as good as series one Spooks, NCIS, laughed a lot at Never Mind the Buzzcocks and tormented our poor illiterate souls with hours of University Challenge.
What I’ve listened to.
The iPod has been in overdrive mostly, The Jazz Plays Christmas among the seasonal treats sandwiched between Bloc Party, Amy Winehouse and the peculiar yet enjoyable soundtrack to Lost In Translation among others.
Trannie wise its been Radio Scotland for the Hearts games I decided not to go to on account of my team being keek at the moment, the Guardian’s footie Podcasts in a vain attempt to keep up with my wife’s ridiculously honed knowledge of the game in Engerland and Paul Gambaccini on Radio 2 for his 90 minutes of greatest hits from America over the past five decades.
I also caught and enjoyed most of Radio 2’s Christmas Tale narrated by Christian Slater which made a dark, rain soaked night driving flash by.
What I’ve Surfed
I’ve not completely given up on the Jambos, so the official Hearts site, fans forums Jambos Kickback and Boys in Maroon and the Edinburgh Evening News website complete with terrible redesign were frequent hits.
Curry’s electrical was a surprise choice thanks to the fridge freezer packing in just before we hosted Chritsmas ane New Year dinners, but that doesn’t count really, does it, until you include the reviews we went through in our hunt for a new model.
The BBC, Sky, most newspaper sites, other blogs most of which are listed on my own, Facebook and so on were randomly interrogated.
But the big thrill was logging into the Star Wars website to catch all the updates on the soon to be released next Indian Jones film.
Woo hoo, indeed.
Now, pass me the remote control….and let Scott Douglas, Stephen Rafferty and Bob Mitchell join in the fun.
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