It took a lot of thinking to come to this conclusion, but I couldn’t quite make the decision.  Then one day last week a friend looked me in the eye and said the three words that made the most sense of the situation…”life’s too short”.  Even I could not have put it so succinctly, so simple yet so true.  After that the realisation hit home.  We all deserve the best that life can offer us, and it would be devastating if something bad happened and you could not say that you had lived the life you wanted.

It’s a scary thought, changing the course of your life, but if it leads to future happiness then it’s worth it.

Until next time…

XOXOXO

Topshop skinny jeans (dark denim), All Saints black drape front shirt and comfy grey canvas pumps.  Pretty but casual!

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not completely giving up on TV, it’s just that shows that inspire me to write about them are currently few and far between.  I’m going to move forward, and write about the films I might watch, or the books I read, as long as I find them interesting enough to share with others!  Things I love like fashion and style, shoes and handbags; if I like it I’ll endeavour to write about it!

It’s time to start doing things differently.

XOXOXO

Until next time…

XOXOXO

Tucked quietly away on MTV at 9pm on Thursdays is Hellcats, an insight into the cut throat world of competitive college cheerleading, mixed in with enough issues to create a solid drama series.  Based on the book Cheer!: Inside the Secret World of College Cheerleader by Kate Torgovnick, the main focus of the show is Marti, a pre-law student who loses her scholarship, and decides to join the cheerleading squad, The Hellcats, in order to gain a new scholarship.  Here she befriends Savannah (Ashley Tisdale takes a move away from Disney to adulthood) who has come from a devoutly christian family, but cut herself off from them by attending a secular school.  The show explores relationships with friends, families and lovers, as well as the odd enemy, and as should be expected, the main focus is the squad trying to qualify for the Nationals.  The shows point is that drive, determination and hard work will ultimately enable you to achieve what you are aiming for.  To us cynical English this is nothing more than sentimental drivel, however, it has quickly found a place in my viewing schedule as my new guilty pleasure.

My next TV pleasure (but definitely not a guilty one) is The Apprentice…returning tomorrow with a second episode this week on Wednesday…CAN’T WAIT!!!

Until next time people…

XOXOXO

First I must make special mention to the dress, which luckily turned out to have been designed by The House of McQueen; lucky for me as I had told several people prior to the wedding that it definitely was being designed by them, even though it had not been confirmed.  It was a beauty of a dress; elegantly understated and completely befitting for the future queen.  All the men that I know would probably appreciate a special mention of Pippa’s dress, which just passed the bar as appropriate maid of honour wear.

With regards to the TV coverage I opted for the BBC, as did approximately three quarters of the viewers in the UK.  Not bad to be fair, and I’m sure that ITV (or even E!) could not have done a better job.  I was pleased to note that there was no commentary throughout the ceremony, which would have ruined the whole thing.  The service was lovely, and James Middleton did himself and his sister proud with his reading…can you imagine how nervous he would have been?

However, it was the small, personal touches that made this wedding special, whispered exchanges between the couple, and the piece de resistance was the Harry decorated Aston Martin in which William himself drove his bride back to Clarence House.  It was definitely a day to be remembered, and watching it with my mum, sister and nieces made it special.  I still believe that my invitation was lost in the post…oh well, there’s always Harrys!

Let’s start with the actual dedicated English channels, and as you might expect there was BBC World News, which was joined by the Sky News Channel, and this was joined by…not much else.  By the end of my first night I had seen the Sky News reel about three times, and I watched this because it was more diverse than BBC news.  I could have read the news myself without the help of an autocue that night.  Now I didn’t just sit there and decide on the news before I had flicked through the whole range of channels, but your first night in a new resort is always a little unsettling, and the only other channel I could find that night in English was Fox Network; this is fabulous if you’re into endless episodes of Bones, CSI and House, but I am not a fan of any of these shows, and, to be quite honest, I would rather have watched the news!

Day two was a little more relaxed, giving me the opportunity to look a little closer at what was actually on…Cartoon Network and Boomerang had kids TV in a mixture of Spanish and German, but very little English, and there were several Spanish (to be expected in the Canaries) and German speaking channels.  Triumph came when I stopped and paused a little…TCM provided the same classic films that it does here, and I came across channels Cini, Action and Comedia, all which appeared to be Spanish channels at a first glance.  However, after stopping and listening to the dialogue the films were actually in English.  Result!  It became quickly clear that Action was not the channel for me, especially when Inglorious Basterds came on around 9pm with a warning that it was unsuitable for under 13′s!  I settled for the remainder of my evenings between TCM and Comedia, but due to a lack of knowing the schedule I only managed to watch 3 whole films…Jules and Julia (the cookery/blogging film), My Big Fat Greek Wedding and A League of Their Own, which I love, but it has me in tears every time I watch it.  Aside from this I watched lots of beginnings, middles and ends of various other films, which definitely wiled the evenings away, and still caught an awful lot of news, more than I would have watched if I were at home.  All in all I suppose that it could have been worse!

On the bright side I made it through the TV drought now I am home, and I have hours of all my favourite shows to work through!  I’ve already made some headway, but this will certainly keep me occupied.  However, a couple of glaringly obvious misses that I forgot to record and will now have to watch on iPlayer, as I am expecting them to be must watch, car crash TV…firstly Jordan on Let’s Dance for Comic Relief, because I’m sure that’s very much a case of ‘look at me and see what I’m doing for charity’ rather than just doing something for charity; and also Kerry Katona leaving Dancing on Ice following the skills test, as let’s face it her skills were limited to say the least.  Will catch up on these and share my thoughts shortly.  Lots to get through.

Until next time…

XOXOXO

As we all know, one of my current favourite shows, The Biggest Loser, has an American counterpart which I often compare to our version as being more dynamic, more fast-paced, and just generally more exciting.  This week saw the start of the American version of Tool Academy, another of my current guilty pleasures.  Obviously because of this I decided to tune in and compare to our version.  Tellingly, the series currently running is Tool Academy 3, meaning, as with The Biggest Loser, that if U.S TV production companies did not come up with these programmes we would never get anything slightly comparable here!  However, we often water down the ideas, meaning we end up with a slightly vapid version of the original.

Take The Biggest Loser for example…our version was first broadcast on Living (channel) for two series several years ago, then disappeared from the air for several years before being resurrected by ITV first as a daytime show, and currently in a prime time position.  It’s just not quite the same as the original U.S show though.  The same format is followed, currently pairs of family/friends/strangers start the show, then halfway through the remaining contestants are split into two teams.  However, as everything is bigger and (often) better in the U.S there are always a lot more teams (this season they started with 16 couples compared to our starting line up of 8), and a lot more twists as the show proceeds…this season on BL USA two teams were ‘sent home’ on day one, but unknown to the others they return after 30 days, with the couple who lose the most weight returning to the show.  Because the series run is longer it makes it possible to pull stunts like this; our show runs for eight weeks and to bring someone back halfway through this time would not really be feasible.  Temptations are bigger, prizes are bigger, and generally the contestants are bigger, with several starting at around half a ton this time around!  Also, the trainers are more willing to ‘break’ their contestants with hard work and humiliation.  Don’t get me wrong, I love our version of the show, but when another, better version of it is also showing (on a different channel) it takes a little of the magic away!

It really should have been obvious to me that there would have been an American version of Tool Academy, especially considering that the insult ‘tool’ is an American put-down.  And this week it appeared.  Following the precedent this too is a more humiliating version of our show, on a slightly grander scale and with more couples.  I was pleasantly surprised to note that the tools in this version were not all men, as in our show, but a couple of women were included as the bad person which was refreshing.  Also the humiliation piled upon the patient, doting partner came thick and fast, with virtually every tool admitting to infidelities in pre-recorded interviews shown in front of the whole group as part of the first group therapy session, resulting in many partners walking out-stupidly they decided to come back and continue.  Our poor guys at least had a couple of weeks before the videos of them kissing girls in strip club toilets were shown to the group, resulting in the obvious disgust of their other halves!  Getting it all out with extra drama is what the Americans do best, and I like it this way, although I also stand by our slightly mediocre versions!

Hells Kitchen USA is a prime example of a U.S network taking one of our concepts and making it work; whilst HK only ran for a couple of series over here with Gordan Ramsey at the helm, it is going strong in the U.S .  Keeping the concept consistent has ensured that you know exactly what you are getting, and using real people is definitely better than the introduction of celebrities to our version.  Add Gordan to the mix and you can be sure off passion and arrogance in the kitchen; further to this add fourteen chefs of varying experience (generally only a couple of them are actually any good) who all think they will win it and the kitchen ends up full of egotistical Americans who never fail to annoy, but that is the whole enjoyment of watching.

It proves, I think, that during the journey from one continent to another something gets lost, even when the same format is being followed.  However, when travelling in the opposite direction that doesn’t always happen; in fact sometimes our show gets improved!

Tomorrow sees the introduction of a new country to the mix (Australia already has Masterchef and Biggest Loser – the latter definitely more in line with the U.S than us) as Masterchef New Zealand starts on Watch.  The adverts for this suggest it will follow the Australian format, as do the ads for our version of the show, which starts on February 16th.  It will be interesting to see if we ruin this concept, as I actually prefer the way they did it to our old style show…we’ll just have to wait and see.  You know that I’ll have something to say about it though!

Until next time…

XOXOXO

The Return of ‘Allo, ‘Allo also made great weekend viewing.  Taking me back to childhood, when our playground catchphrase was “Good moaning…”, and the innuendo’s were slapstick, and so lightly veiled that even then we kind of knew what was happening when the waitresses purred “ooh Renée” at the hapless cafe owner!  My favourite character was always the policeman, with his bad “french”, but even then we still knew what the borderline swearing was actually meant to mean.

Also worthy of a mention is Charlie Brookers’ new show, How TV Ruined Your Life, which this week focused on fear, and how TV shows have been designed to instill this in you in not only the form of dramas, but also educational films.  These included many of the films that I was forced to watch at primary school age; we had Don’t Climb Electric Pylons, Don’t Fly Kites Around Electric Pylons, Don’t Play on Train Tracks and Don’t Sniff Glue.  In these a schoolage child always ended up being seriously hurt or dead as a warning message to us children.  With hindsight I think that my personal favourite was the train track warning, where the poor boy who ran onto the line to retrieve his football ended up in a wheelchair after losing his legs to the train.  I suppose it worked though, as I never had an urge to play on train tracks, or to do any of the “scary” things that we were warned against.  I also enjoyed the public information films on what to do in the event of a nuclear bomb being detonated nearby.  Advice included whitewashing your windows (apparently this reduced the heat that your house absorbed by around 80%), and making your own indoor bunker  with a door inclined against the wall then built up with suitcases…clearly the dangers of radiation were seriously underestimated by those who produced this kind of “life-saving” information, as nothing short of an underground bunker would really protect anyone from radioactive fall out.

Whilst several new shows have entered my peripheral vision this week the stalwarts of my schedule are still being much enjoyed.  Top of the current list is Biggest Loser USA, even though the UK one is also on it just lacks the air of excitement and intensity that its US counterpart brings to the screen.  Also still loving the complete trash that is Tool Academy where this week the lesson was in fidelity;  I can’t believe that some people are stupid enough to put themselves through this kind of humiliation.  Clearly being sent home this week was the guy who got caught cheating,  a lesson harshly learned after his girlfriend was shown the footage.  Unfortunately she was naive enough to give him one more chance, but I’m not liking their odds.

Finally I would just like to briefly mention Eastenders, where following all of the controversy that ensued after the baby swap storyline it now seems to have all been forgotten.  Where are Ronnie, Kat and the baby?  It’s annoying that such a big fuss was made, and then in a blaze of glory producers about turned and conceded to an early end on the story, but suddenly nothing is actually happening.  However, at least Zainab managed to get out of the square for a few hours and support Liam (Sam) in his Dancing on Ice quest.

Anyway, lots more to watch so that I have lots more to write about.

Until next time…

XOXOXO

The first of these has to be Channel 4′s Big Fat Gypsy Wedding.  Inspired by last years Cutting Edge documentary on the same subject this show expands a one-off onto a series covering not only weddings, but children receiving Holy Communion, and on to funerals; the three major life events in travelling families.  I am intrigued by the Gypsy lifestyle; persecuted for centuries their nomadic lifestyle is becoming more and more sedentary, and they segregate themselves from mainstream society so we don’t know much about them, apart from the snippets we get from programmes such as this.  The strict code of morality that they follow is confused by the way the young girls dress (barely there hooker probably describes it best!) and therefore society’s view of them is most probably skewed.  I love looking through the window into their world of weddings and celebration…the five stone (in weight) Swarovski encrusted wedding dresses, and this weeks particular favourite, the “marker pink” bridesmaid dresses (for marker think highlighter).  The girls see it as a mark of honour to have scars on their hips from the weight of their skirts, and each wants to outdo the bride that went before them.  I’m looking forward to further insights this week.

Secondly, rising in the ranks of becoming possibly my favourite reality trash show, is Tool Academy, where this week the tools had to take a lie detector test as a way of proving that their partners were right to have trust in them.  The twist to this was that it was actually a fake lie detector test, with the girls setting the questions and deciding if they thought their men were telling the truth or not.  Tellingly, more than one tool was unwilling to even sit down and take the test, clearly worried that they would be proved as liars (one of these was the tool caught in the toilet of a club with a girl last week).  Temper Tool finally lost it at this challenge, and after going just a little bit mental made his girlfriend pack up her stuff and leave the academy behind.  The “fun” challenge involved the girls dressing up as grannies and driving a mobility scooter round a course, whilst blindfolded, with their hapless men to guide them.  Each time they made a mistake the men got an electric shock, so it surprised me that they didn’t try to ignore the instructions and make more mistakes…I would have wanted to cause pain!

So what for Saturdays viewing…as it’s been a busy week I am chilling today, organising some paperwork whilst, predictably, watching the TV.  I have decided to revisit The Neverending Story, currently on ITV2.  Now, I know that it is a family fantasy film, but I am not ashamed to admit that I have not attempted to watch the film since I had to leave the cinema halfway though because I was scared (please bear in mind in was 1984, and that I was only 7 years old…and that my sister had already left).  I’m currently about half way though, and it’s no longer scary, just a nice film to zone out to for a little while.

Tonight, I’m going to give Take Me Out a chance; I have only heard good things about it from those who watch, so one attempt in order to decide for myself should be made.  Another point of interest is The Return of ‘Ello ‘Ello on BBC2 tonight, maybe today will become all about reminiscing!  Apart from that very little is tempting me, but will wait and see what happens.

Until next time…

XOXOXO