Fat Pigeons

Here’s a blast from the past for anyone who used to watch old 70s cop shows: Kresky, the disco-lovin’ cop.

For some bizarre reason, I’d forgotten all about it until now. But reading the episode guide brings back all those memories.

Particularly the hot tubs.

Here in the UK it was shown by LWT early in the mornings on Saturday – I’d always associate the LWT logo with watching a new episode of Kresky while Mum & Dad had a lie-in.

Back when I was 8 I even used to have a matchbox toy of Kresky’s Mustang (the yellow version). If it was still in the box it’d be worth a fortune on eBay now.

Ah well. These things are designed to be played with.

There’s a very interesting conversation going on at Lucy‘s right now about censorship, self-censorship, and misogyny. With sidelines into racism, misandry, the glorification of Nazism and the nature of art.

Check it out.

Sadly, my petition to the Prime Minister has been rejected by the small-minded bureaucrats at Number 10. They’ll regret their short-sightedness when we all get turned into little cartoon people in 2012.

I include a copy below in the hope that the Olympics Committee may take notice and opt to save us from the upcoming temporal paradox that will otherwise doom our planet.

The campaign starts here!

—

We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to: ‘allow television’s Doctor Who to carry the Olympic Flame in 2012.’

In 2006 it was revealed that an alien entity known as the Isolus – which just wanted to be loved – was going to turn the entire Earth into a picture in the year 2012.

Fortunately this fate was averted by Doctor Who carrying the Olympic Flame. If, however, Doctor Who does not carry the Olympic Flame in 2012, we could be in a whole heap of trouble.

In order to prevent serious and lasting damage to the fabric of time itself, we urge the Prime Minister to allow Doctor Who to carry the Olympic Flame for some part of its final journey.

David Tennant or whoever’s doing the part in 2012.

We don’t much care, really.

I’ve just been up in Edinburgh for the last few days checking out some new plays, most of which were OK and some of which were actually quite good.

Unfortunately it wasn’t all like that. In the course of my sojourn I had what I can only describe as the quintessential Edinburgh Fringe experience.

Picture, if you will, a play performed by people the best of which could charitably be said to have some small acting ability.

The play was composed of vignettes consisting of clichéd characters, speaking in clichés about nothing in particular. The dialogue looked longingly at the promised land of pedestrian, knowing it would never achieve its heights.

There was no plot.

There were eight cast members in the play, and an audience of five. One of who, mercifully, was able to escape while the lights were off during a scene change. Sadly I was on the wrong side of the stage, and couldn’t follow him to freedom.

In the knowledge that one day I may myself have a play performed on stage at the festival I shall refrain from naming the guilty parties, judging not lest I be judged in return.

And there’s no point asking me the name of the play in person. By the time I see you I hope to have succeeded in completely burning it from my memories.

The alternative doesn’t bear thinking about.

Some interesting thoughts from Rockne O’Bannon on how to create worlds for your characters to live in, which will inform their emotional lives.

Casting news from The Hollywood Reporter on the US version of Gene Hunt, the real hero of the magnificent Life on Mars.

Colm Meaney is, apparently, in the final stages of negotiation.

Just wanted to take a moment to point out what an excellent choice this is.

Michael Grade announced today that ITV are specifically looking for long running series.

To wit, “series that are on 14, 15, 16 weeks a year, on every year for three, four or five years”.

This is interesting because this is the first ITV move towards the new UK commissioning model of longer-term returning series. This brings it into alignment with cable commissioning in the US – and I’ve posted before about why 13 weeks is a nice number to have financially.

(Interestingly, Bill Cunningham thinks that the six-part model is ripe for revival, as part of a low-cost D2DVD market – take a look at this DMc post and the comments for a quick discussion. But I’m with Jane Featherstone – the path to profit for a UK indie is in TV sales, and six episodes a season just doesn’t cut it.)

Will the new UK standard force a shift to a writers’ room model? At the moment, the showrun shows (Doctor Who, Torchwood, Robin Hood) use a model with a head writer commissioning, creating the overall story arc, and (sometimes) rewriting scripts. The main proponent I’m aware of for this writing style in the US is David Shore.

What we’re not doing yet is breaking stories in the room. And that’s where the heavy lifting goes on in most US shows.

But mainly, the question is this: Will we have a writer in charge of the new breed of shows at ITV?

If so, then this may be the beginning of the end for the old UK model.

Twisted, Genius, and Cute, all in one language.

LOLCODE. A programming language for lolcats.

Some examples follow.

First… Well, what else could possibly be first?

HAI
CAN HAS STDIO?
VISIBLE "HAI WORLD!"
KTHXBYE

And here’s an if/then construct with some I/O action:

HAI
CAN HAS STDIO?
I HAS A VAR
GIMMEH VAR
    IZ VAR BIGGER THAN 10?
           YARLY
                BTW this is true
                VISIBLE "BIG NUMBER!
           NOWAI
                BTW this is false
                VISIBLE "LITTLE NUMBER!"
    KTHX
KTHXBYE

There is a current spec available here. And, may the Sweet Lord Jesus help us all, there are even implementations.

And yes. It’s turing-complete. Which means that any program you can write in any programming language – such as spreadsheets, word-processing programs, games, or a program to provide firing solutions for nuclear missiles – can be written in LOLCODE.

Gives me a warm fuzzy feeling inside.

If you and a couple of female friends ever get drunk together, and you get to talking about sex, and they ask you what your favourite sexual fantasy is, the correct answer is “A threesome.”

This is because to a certain extent, they have the power to help you out in this quest.

And the thing that turns you on most in the world is to have your sex al fresco, or tied up, or in public, or while someone is pissing on you, that’s all well and good, but that is not the correct answer, even if it is.

The correct answer is a threesome.

Because it will be interesting, and you’ll probably enjoy it, and you’ll certainly learn something about yourself. And they probably won’t be interested in helping you out with this fantasy but you just never know your luck, they might.

So.

When someone working in the television industry asks you what programmes on British TV you’d really like to work on, the correct answer is not Torchwood.

Even if it is.

I know that a couple of you read this blog. Stay with me. This is important.

The CIA factbook on Canada tells us it has a population of about 33 million. A little over half the population of the UK.

They have a reasonably-sized film and television industry. Like the UK it’s supported in part by the government.

Unlike the UK, several of its channels carry US programming. Not just day-and-date, but day-and-date-and-hour. This means that Canada has some additional problems with its own TV industry that we don’t have – their shows are up directly against one of the largest TV markets in the world.

Who given very little encouragement would drive right over any Canadian shows. So producers can get some money towards specifically Canadian shows from the public funds, if they meet certain criteria.

I don’t think this is a bad thing.

Something new is going down. Specifically, a proposal to allow some of the public money to be available for productions with non-Canadians.

Denis McGrath tells you why you should care about this new proposal and what you can do about it.

Please visit and read. And if you agree with Denis’s point of view: write to the CRTC.

It won’t take long, and might help save your indigenous TV industry.