In a Sun “exclusive”, the paper says “BBC chiefs are facing claims they are sabotaging shows from the firm behind The Great British Bake Off.”
That company is Love Productions, who have brought to your telly such treats as Bake Off and: Junior Bake Off, Newlyweds, Famous Rich and Homeless, Tower Block of Commons, Young, Autistic & Stagestruck, The Baby Borrowers, Young Mums’ Mansion and Naked, Underage and Having Sex, and Britain’s Youngest Grannies.
Industry insiders say Love Productions believe the Beeb deliberately nabbed stars from other shows they have made.
Industry insiders say Love Productions believe the Beeb deliberately nabbed stars from other shows they have made. It’s an alleged “bid to sabotage the firm”. What stars have been “nabbed”?
Claudia Winkleman, who presented The Great British Sewing Bee and The Great Pottery Throwdown’s host Sara Cox.
Claudia, 45, is to co-host new BBC show Britain’s Best Cook, alongside former Bake Off judge Mary Berry, 82. While Sara, 42, is now presenting BBC2 series Back In Time For Tea.
Negotiations for new series of the sewing and pottery shows have now stalled.
Can we get a insider to go on the record?
A TV source said: “The sheer arrogance of it all is astonishing.”
Adding:
“There’s a view in the industry that the BBC is acting out of spite and not in the best interest of the licence fee payer.”
What the story in the Sun (prop. Rupert Murdoch) omits to mention is that in 2014, British Sky Broadcasting acquired a majority stake in Love Productions. News Corporation (prop. R. Murdoch) owns 39.1% of BSkyB. 21st Century Fox (pro R. Murdoch) has formally lodged its £11.7bn bid to take full control of Sky.
North Korea has missiles trained on Guam, an American territory. Will mad Kim Jong-un shoot? KTWG and KSTO radio stations say he already has shot, broadcasting an emergency alert to listeners. But there was no incoming missile. It was an error.
Whoops!
Guam locals have been issued with leaflets telling them “What to do in case of nuclear attack”. One tip: “Do not look at the flash or fireball – It can blind you.” Tip 2: “Take cover behind anything that might offer protection.” Adhere to tips one and two and then: “When possible, take a shower with lots of soap and water to help remove radioactive contamination.”
After armageddon, good to know en-suite bathrooms survive. Oh, and best to take just one bottle into the show: “Do not use conditioner in your hair because it will bind radioactive material to your hair.” Should you have any left.
As Sophie Raworth read BBC1’s News at Ten, viewers were distracted by the monitor over her shoulder. Was that a live feed from Windsor Castle or was someone at the Beeb’s studios watching ITV’s Love Island?
Arsenal owner Stan Kroenke has bowed to pressure. The UK version of his bloodsports channel will not broadcast big-game hunting, an utterly barbaric and wholly sad hobby for psychopathic dentists. (Yes, I now that’s tautological, but you take the point.)
The UK version of subscription service MyOutdoorTV, run by Kroenke’s Sports and Entertainment, was to show footage of men and women dressed in camouflage gear posing with inedible animals they’ve killed for fun. Now you’ll only get to see Bob and Mary-Jo grinning next to dead rarer breeds in the US.
Kroenke spokesman Jim Liberatore says that “in light of the public interest” there’ll be lots of to-deadline deaths but not of any big-game animals. They’ll be shot off-camera, like Aintree horses and Celebrity Big Brother losers. “While many on both sides of this issue have made their voices heard,” adds Liberatore, “and this content is only available through paid subscriptions, Stan Kroenke has directed us to remove all content related to those animals in light of the public interest.”
Liberatore added some guff about Kroenke being there for animal welfare, in the way that Mr Toff is there to support foxes who if it weren’t for hunting would died of boredom and lack of exercise. “He has a decades-long track record of environmental stewardship,” Liberatore continues, “working with conservationists, hydrologists, microbiologists, and others to responsibly manage habitat and enhance wildlife preservation.”
You can just imagine the animals and birds camped outside Mr Kroenke’s fencing, waiting for the chance to leap inside and be cared for by his welfare state.
PS: Of course, if you’re stinking rich, as Kroenke is, and really love animals why not just buy a large swathe of land and leave them alone?
Good news for TV types looking to create telly on a low-budget: when you hire to-deadline psychic Derek Acorah, you also get Jade Goody and David Gest. It’s a three-for-one deal. Sure, two of the trio are dead, but if it’s good enough for God, it’s more than works for Celebrity Big Brother.
In the Daily Star, we read: “Derek claims to be in touch with dead housemates Jade Goody and David Gest.” The rest of us can catch them on Big Brother highlights reels, which haven’t needed to be updated for years.
John Cleese and I were writing together one day, and John had been thinking of doing something about anger. He’s very good at it, and he likes that emotion very much indeed. I’d been noticing that there were all sorts of ministries for strange things that were likely to distract people from the main issues of the day, and make it look like the government was doing something. A lot of attention would either go to a drought or a flood that probably didn’t exist anyway, and there seemed to be lots of useless ministries. I thought, why not a Ministry of Anger?
It’s difficult to remember whether it was John’s or my idea, but I do know that the next stage was Silly Walks, which was more ludicrous and petty than an emotion like anger. My house was on a very steep hill, and we saw a man walk past, uphill, stooped very sharply backward, defying the laws of gravity! Well, we thought Silly Walks was a good idea, but we couldn’t quite think how to develop it.
As usual, we were supposed to be writing something else when this idea occurred—anything to prevent us from getting to that work! But we thought we’d better get on to writing what we were supposed to be writing. So we rang up Mike (Palin) and Terry (Jones)—to interrupt them from whatever they were supposed to be doing—and made them write the sketch.
Make your own Silly Walk clock here – or buy one here. The Silly Walk watch is here.
June Forey (September 18, 1917 – July 26, 2017) – you might not know the name, but you’ll know her voice if you ever watched cartoons on a Saturday morning. Hers was the voice of many characters, including: Rocky The Flying Squirrel, Granny from Looney Tunes, Lucifer in Disney’s Cinderella, The Flintstones, Peter Pan, Mister Magoo, dozens more Looney Tunes names, Talky Tina on the Twilight Zone, Woody Woodpecker, Alvin & The Chipmunks, The Smurfs, DuckTales, The Real Ghostbusters, Tiny Toon Adventures, Gummi Bears, Garfield And Friends, Rugrats, Felix The Cat, Mulan, Family Guy and The Powerpuff Girls.
Chuck Jones said of her: “June Foray is not the female Mel Blanc, Mel Blanc was the male June Foray.”
When Donald Trump tweeted a meme made by Reddit user HansAssholeSolo, CNN were upset. The meme was a mash-up of footage of Trump wrestling WWE CEO Vince McMahon to the deck in 2007 altered so that McMahon’s face was replaced with CNN’s logo.
Trump and CNN are at loggerheads. He says they broadcast fake news to an anti-him agenda. They say he’s America’s enemy. HansAssholeSolo morphed this sad war of words into an actual fight. Joke. Geddit?
CNN didn’t. It’s issued a threat. No, not to Trump. They’re threatening HansAssholeSolo. If he lampoons CNN ever again, the broadcaster will stop talking truth to power and attack. Judgmental CNN reporter Andrew Kaczynski says CNN “reserves the right to publish his identity” if he commits “ugly behaviour on social media again”. To some this sounds like “blackmail“. Take on the corporation and you will pay. Comply or else. That Kaczynski’s makes his threat beneath the headline “How CNN found the Reddit user behind the Trump wrestling GIF” only adds to the absurdity. Unless the BBC can discover which leg Trump puts first into his trousers, that Pulitzer’s in the bag.
In a lengthy apology, a worried HansAssholeSolo says: “Free speech is a right we all have, but it shouldn’t be used in the manner that it was in the posts that were put on this site. I do not advocate violence against the press and the meme I posted was [not] advocating that in any way, shape, or form.”
It was a joke that thanks to Trump’s priapic tweet finger and monocular news agency CNN has gotten out of hand. And it’s exposed how prissy CNN is; how like Trump, CNN is over-sensitive, vain and self-regarding. It shows us how terrified CNN is of the power of newer, non-telly media. CNN’s viewers are in bed by 10pm and watching from rented rooms because they’ve tired of the hotel’s infomercial; twitter and Reddit users are tuning in anywhere at any time.
It’s as illuminating as it is entertaining. And the row is mildly contradictory: like The Donald’s skin, it’s terrible – and there’s not enough of it.
On BBC Radio 4, Eddie Mair is talking to a bumbling Boris Johnson, the Foreign Secretary. “This is not the Two Ronnies. You don’t get to answer the previous question,” says Mair.
LISTEN: When it come to car crash interviews, this is going take some beating. Boris Johnson is all over the place. Future PM? #HavingALaughpic.twitter.com/135R4nMVB1
BBC 10 o’clock News anchor Hew Edwards sits in silence. A technical glitch meant viewers saw Edwards sitting alone and in silence as the cameras rolled on last night’s live news feed. News continues inexorably. Even if there’s no news, there must be rolling news. If Prince William flying a helicopter can be news or Cheryl Cole getting a tattoo, why not Edwards sat at a desk?
The video of Edwards looking at his table top, contemplating the meaning of EastEnders, if taking two bottles into the shower is right and proper, and if the next BBC makeover show should feature amateurs auditioning as news readers, is compelling. We want to know what happens next.
And given the doom and gloom in the news of late, no news might be the luckiest thing we’ve experienced for some time. More no news, BBC, we need a break.
Huw Edwards accidental two minutes of silence at the start of BBC News At Ten is weirdly compelling. Quality TV. pic.twitter.com/USyKM53HkO
Brian Cant has died. The face and voice of children’s TV in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s was from an era when men on pre-school telly looked like your dad. An actor by trade, Cant was working on programmes for schools when he got wind of Play School, a BBC show for toddlers. He became the show”s lynchpin, first appearing in May 1964 and staying at ‘School’ until March 1988.
His voice gave life to characters on the brilliant Camberwick Green (1966), Trumpton (1967) and Chigley (1969). That was Cant doing the roll call: Pugh, Pugh, Barney, McGrew, Cuthbert, Dibble, Grubb.
Former UKIP leader and Donald Trump pal Nigel Farage and to-deadline media shocker Katie Hopkins have managed to achieve a notable media milestone: they’ve shockedFox & Friends hots into an apology. Hopkins might care to get her notoriety printed on a commemorative T-shirt, or at least a CV. Farage can get some celebratory cufflinks. The pair’s aim is to be relevant. Incredibly, Hopkins has managed to find the words to get herself noticed in the US. Farage is an opinion for hire.
It’s all marketing, isn’t it? Farage and Hopkins are their own brands. And their’s is a cheap business, requiring only an ego-fed mouth.
One of the show’s guest commentators, Katie Hopkins of The Daily Mail, raised the prospect of rounding up Muslims in the United Kingdom and placing them in internment camps as a way of preventing future attacks. Another guest — Nigel Farage, the British political figure and “Brexit” advocate who is now a Fox News contributor — also mentioned the idea of internment.
Later in the broadcast, the “Fox & Friends” anchors paused for a formal denunciation of the statements, lest viewers be left with the impression that Fox was endorsing the idea.
“On behalf of the network, I think all of us here find that idea reprehensible here at Fox News Channel, just to be clear,” a co-host, Clayton Morris, told viewers.
Ms. Huntsman added, “It’s important to be said.”
Guests on @FoxAndFriends discussed “internment” talk in UK, so Fox felt it should clarify: the network thinks that’s a “reprehensible” idea pic.twitter.com/1a7OMUNLmL
Discussing the terror threat to the UK following three deadly attacks in as many months, Farage said: “And if there is not action, the calls for internment will grow. We have 3,000 people on sort of a known terrorist list. And we’re watching their actions. But a further 20,000 people who are persons of interests, namely they’re linked by some way to extremist organisations. Unless we see the [government] getting tough, you will see public calls for those 3,000 to be arrested.”
Farage then said, “I’m not sure that that is the right approach, because the big danger with that is we might alienate decent, fair-minded Muslims in Britain,” but The i reports that Hopkins disagreed, saying: “We do need interment camps.”
Collective guilt and prison without trial. Nice.
Maybe we should round up all people whose views we don’t share, put them in a field and…
In the unseemly haste to be first with the ‘breaking news’, MSNBC says the terror attack on London Bridge and nearby Borough market took place in… Luton. There was an incident in Vauxhall – which is just up the road from London Bridge – but it had nothing to do with the slaughter.
It’s not fake news. It’s just crap reporting.
This is why we need newspapers and the nightly news to make sense of all the info that comes belching in across social media.
Christina Martin – sometime of this parish – spots this man on TV’s Rip Off Britain doing a dramatic reconstruction of the moment he realised his orange juice packaging was smaller. It’s the kid of look we used to see in Stephen Spielberg movies, where the hero spots something no-one else has.
Man on Rip Off Britain doing a dramatic reconstruction of the moment he realised his orange juice packaging was smaller pic.twitter.com/V57Y4mrp2V
— Christina Martin (@christinamartin) May 29, 2017
8 inch Crust: 1-1/2 c. flour, 1/2 c. Crisco, 1/4 c. ice water
Mix flour and Crisco with fork. Add ice water. Mix with your hands. When blended, roll into ball and refrigerate overnight. To roll out: flour both rolling pin and flat surface, split ball in two, roll out 1/2 to fit pan and 1/2 for lattice.
Filling: 3 c. cherries (pitted, sour frozen); 1 c. water; 1c. Baker’s sugar; 4 T. cornstarch; 1/8 t. salt
Thaw cherries at room temp and strain (yields 2 c. juice). Taste for sweetness, more/less sugar may be needed. Add 1 c. water to make 3 c. juice (reserve 1 c. juice for cornstarch mix). Dissolve cornstarch in 1 c. juice, stir with whip. Combine 2 c. juice, 2/3 c. sugar, salt, and bring to a boil. Add cornstarch mix, cook until clear, about 5 min. (if cooked to long, syrup gets gummy). Remove from heat, stir in 1/3 c. sugar (blend thoroughly). Pour mixture over cherries, fold with wooden spoon, cool (stir mix while cooling to prevent scum from forming on top). Pour mix in pie shell. Top completed pie with lattice crust.
The Twin Peaks Archive. 10 hours of rare and unreleased tracks from the TV series and FWWM.
By Angelo Badalamenti and David Lynch. you can buy it here. And here.
David Lynch & Angelo Badalamenti – The Twin Peaks Archive (Track Listing)
Deer Meadow Shuffle
Deer Meadow Shuffle (film version)
Just You (Instrumental Baritone Guitar)
Twin Peaks Theme (Alternate Version)
Annie and Cooper
Nightsea Wind
Freshly Squeezed (Bass Clarinet)
Twin Peaks Theme (Nostalgia Version)
Twin Peaks Theme (Harp and Guitar)
Twin Peaks Theme (Solo Rhodes)
Mysterioso #2
Mysterioso #2 (film version)
Mysterioso #1
Mysterioso #1 (film version)
Love Theme (Alternate Version)
Love Theme (Solo Rhodes)
Americana
James Hurley (Outtake)
Mister Snooty
Freshly Squeezed (Fast Cool Jazz Version)
Picking On Country
I’m Hurt Bad (Industrial Symphony No. 1 Version)
Western Ballad
Preparing for M.T. Wentz
Secret Country
Dark Mood Woods (Full Version)
RR Swing
Great Northern Piano Tune #1
Great Northern Piano Tune #2 (Truman and Josie)
Great Northern Piano Tune #3
Twin Peaks Theme (Solo Piano)
Girl Talk
Birds In Hell
Audrey’s Prayer (Synth Version)
Audrey’s Prayer (Clarinet & Synth)
The Norwegians
Sneaky Audrey
Freshly Squeezed (Solo Vibraphone)
Miss Twin Peaks (Piano Rehearsal)
Miss Twin Peaks Theme
Lana’s Dance
Lucy’s Dance
Miss Twin Peaks (Finale)
Sycamore Trees (Instrumental)
South Sea Dreams
Hula Hoppin’
Love Theme (Piano and Rhodes)
Owl Cave
Slow Speed Orchestra 1 (24 Hours)
Slow Speed Orchestra 2 (Unease Motif/The Woods)
Slow Speed Orchestra 3 (Black Lodge Rumble)
Half Speed Orchestra 1 (Stair Music/Danger Theme)
Half Speed Orchestra 2 (Dark Forces)
Half Speed Orchestra 3 (Windom Earle’s Motif)
James Visits Laura
Harold’s Theme (The Living Novel)
Laura Palmer’s Theme (Ethereal Pad Version)
Laura Palmer’s Theme (Ghost Version)
Laura Palmer’s Theme (Guardian Angel Version)
Dance of the Dream Man (Solo Sax)
Solo Percussion 1
Solo Percussion 2 (Grady’s Waltz)
Solo Percussion 3
Audrey’s Dance (Percussion & Clarinets)
Northwest Gulch
Dance of the Dream Man (Drums and Bass)
Dance of the Dream Man (Solo Clarinet)
Dance of the Dream Man (Solo Clarinet 2)
Dance of the Dream Man (Solo Flute)
Dance of the Dream Man (Solos Bass)
Just You (Instrumental)
Bookhouse Boys
Bookhouse Boys (Solo Guitar)
Hank’s Theme (Version 2)
Earle’s Theme
Hank’s Theme
Invitation to Love Theme (Bumper)
Half Speed Orchestra 5 (Leo’s Theme)
Invitation to Love Theme
Invitation to Love (Lover’s Dilemma)
Lana’s Theme
Horne’s Theme
Wheeler’s Theme
Harold’s Theme (Josie’s Past)
Freshly Squeezed (Complete Version)
Freshly Squeezed (Clarinet)
Freshly Squeezed (Flute)
Freshly Squeezed (Mid-tempo Version)
Freshly Squeezed (Fast Cool Jazz Version 2)
Freshly Squeezed (Fast Cool Jazz Solo Bass)
Freshly Squeezed (Solo Bass Clarinet)
Freshly Squeezed (Solo Clarinet)
Freshly Squeezed (Solo Flute)
The Mill Deal
Josie and Jonathan
The Mill Fire
Theme from Twin Peaks – Fire Walk With Me (Saxaphone)
Teresa’s Autopsy
Phillip Jefferies
Back to Fat Trout (Unease Motif/The Woods)
Laura Visits Harold
Behind The Mask
Wash Your Hands
It’s Your Father
Jacques’ Cabin/The Train Car
Circumference of a Circle
Dark Mood Woods (Studio Version)
One Eyed Jack’s Parlour Music
Twin Peaks Christmas Greeting
Dance of the Dream Man (Fast Soprano Clarinet)
Laura Palmer’s Theme (Baritone Guitar Punctuation)
Leo Returns
Laura Palmer’s Theme (Dark Synth)
Laura Palmer’s Theme (Solo Piano)
Laura Palmer’s Theme (Vibraphone)
Laura Palmer’s Theme (Letter from Harold)
Laura Palmer’s Theme (Caroline)
Laura Palmer’s Theme (Clarinet Bridge)
Laura Palmer’s Theme (Clarinet Strings Bridge)
Laura Palmer’s Theme (Piano Bridge)
Laura Palmer’s Theme (Piano A) TK1
Laura Palmer’s Theme (Piano A) TK2
Laura Palmer’s Theme (Piano A) TK3
Laura Palmer’s Theme (Piano A) TK4
Laura Palmer’s Theme (Piano B) TK1
Laura Palmer’s Theme (Piano B) TK2
Abstract Mood
Abstract Mood (Slow Speed)
Slow Speed Orchestra 4 (White Lodge Rumble)
Harold’s Theme (Harpsichord)
Audrey’s Prayer (Flute)
Audrey’s Dance (Clean)
Audrey’s Dance (Drums and Bass)
Audrey’s Dance (Solo Rhodes)
Audrey’s Dance (Synth and Vibraphone)
Audrey’s Dance (Clean Fast)
Audrey’s Dance/Dance of the Dream Man (Saxophone)
Audrey’s Dance/Dance of the Dream Man (Clarinet)
Audrey’s Dance/Dance of the Dream Man (Flute)
Sneaky Audrey (Audrey’s Investigation)
Sneaky Audrey (Solo)
Sneaky Audrey (Alternate)
One Armed Man Theme (Solo Clarinet Improvisation)
Great Northern Big Band
Wedding Hymn
Wedding Song #1
Wedding Song #2 (‘Stranger Nights’)
Wedding Song #3 (Accordian)
Attack of the Pine Weasel
Great Northern Piano Tune #4
Twin Peaks Theme (Harp)
Ben’s Battle
Ben’s Battle (Solo Percussion)
Ben’s Battle (Solo Flute)
Ben’s Battle (Solo Trumpet)
Ben’s Lament
Half Speed Orchestra 4 (Dugpas)
Half Speed Orchestra 6 (Bob’s Dance/Back to Missuola)
Half Speed Orchestra 7
The Culmination
Distant Train
Laura’s Dark Boogie (Clean)
The Red Room
Love Theme (Dark)
James & Evelyn
Evelyn’s Mourning
Evelyn’s Mourning (Extended)
La Speranza
Trail Mix
Dark Intro #1
Dark Intro #2
Dark Intro #3
Dark Intro #4
Dark Intro #5
Dark Intro #6
Packard’s Theme
The Mill Durge
Jean Renault’s Theme (Solo Bass Clarinet)
One Eyed Jack’s Country
Dick Tremayne’s Swing
Llama Country
‘Such Stuff as Dreams are Made of”
Earle’s Theme (Audrey’s Walk)
Leo Attacks Bobby
The Pink Room (Extended Version)
Half Heart (Solo)
Dance of the Dream Man (Original)
Great Northern Piano Tune #2 (Full Version)
One Armed Man’s Theme & Jean Renault’s Theme (TV Mix)
Audrey (TV Version)
Voice of Love (Slow)
Log Lady Presence
Love Theme (Light)
Wheeler’s Theme (TK 2)
Solo Percussion 4
Freshly Squeezed (Fast Cool Jazz Version 2 Clean) *partial
Solo Percussion (Arbitrary Cymbals)
You Killed Mike
Falling into Love Theme (Demo)
Love Theme Slower and Darker (Demo)
Slow Cool Jazz (Demo)
Chinese Theme (Demo)
Wide Vibrato Augmented Chords (Demo)
Night Walk (Demo)
Low Wide and Beautiful (Demo)
Wide Vibrato Mood to Falling (Demo)
Love Theme to Falling (Demo)
Love Theme Light (Demo)
Questions in a World of Blue (Demo)
Love Theme from ‘On The Air’ (Take 4)
Love Theme from ‘On The Air’ (Slow Jazz Version)
Love Theme from ‘On The Air’ (Clarinet Strings)
LBC and Katie Hopkins have agreed that Katie will leave LBC effective immediately.” writes @Lbc over on Twitter.
Rejoice!
No. The sensible move was to ignore her. It’s the ratings game. If you don’t like her, don’t mention her. Do the reverse Candyman.
For those of you missed the tweet but got the fallout, Katie Hopkins tweeted in response to TV presenter Phillip Schofield, petitioning him to be strong in the face of terror. She tweeted: “Do not be a part of the problem. We need a final solution.”
Yeah, that bad. She knew what she was doing. She knew it would antagonise. She hoped it would place her at the centre of the conversation over the heinous attack in Manchester. Revolting stuff from the tabloid’s to-deadline controversialist. And then Twitter erupted with outrage and demands for her sacking. A woman with all the relevance of a loon shouting at the pigeons in the precinct became important.
Tom Slater finds a reason for it. It’s not her. It’s us:
Why have some of those born and raised among us – as Abedi was – grown to hate us? Why, among a minority of Muslim youth, is this nihilism brewing? And what might we have done to foster it, to cultivate it? These are questions they’d rather not answer. To do so would be to inflame, in their minds, the only hate they really care about – the hate of lumpen plebs, the sort of people they imagine lap up Katie Hopkins’ every tweet.
Hopkins tried to make Manchester all about her. But through the response it generated, it told us more about the mainstream, about the cowards who tell us to treat Islamist terror like a natural disaster, a time only for sympathy and thanking the emergency services; the cowards who would rather shriek at cretinous columnists than reckon with the real hatred in our midst; the cowards who seem to get more exercised by tweets than bombs.
I don’t think the tweeters are cowards. I think it’s a question of impotence: Katie Hopkins you can get; the West’s navel-gazing you can’t.
Line Of Duty creator Jed Mercurio has been talking about the hit TV show. The last series was blistering entertainment. There is nothing worse than a bent copper, which means there’s something for everyone – those who love watching police nab wrong ‘uns and those who like it when the police are exposed get to enjoy the show. Adrian Dunbar, Vicky McClure and Martin Compston, the actors given flesh and blood to AC-12’s characters, who can spend 15 coiled minutes interviewing a suspect in a bog-standard open-plan office and erupt into dizzying burst of action.
On Murder:
If I were ever to find myself alone in a room with a dead body I’d created in self-defence and pondering my next move, “plead guilty to manslaughter,” Jed Mercurio tells me. “For the minimum three years sentence. If you take the risk of fighting a murder plea with self-defence and you fail, then you will be convicted of murder and that is a mandatory life sentence.” Getting off with self-defence is really, really hard, says Mercurio, really hard. “I did the research.”
And On Ted Hastings:
Ted’s from a different era, isn’t he? Hence his reference to Pan’s People earlier in the series…
That was a cultural reference that was appropriate to his age. In terms of how he conducts himself in the workplace, he is the boss and people are often intimidated by bosses. Possibly, female colleagues haven’t said to him in the past, ‘I’d really rather you didn’t call me darling, however neutrally you’re saying it’.
Talking to [Ted Hastings actor] Adrian Dunbar about it, he felt it was something that the character possibly would do and he would be shocked by someone thinking that it was sexist. I think it’s about finding that grey area.
Ted’s idioms like “now we’re sucking on diesel”, do they come from Adrian, him being a local lad?
That particular one did, yeah. Some do and some don’t. What happens is Adrian will say something and that gets put into the script at a later point. There is a desire to keep him idiomatic in line with his background.
Those phrases are key to the attraction of the character. I remember writing once that Ted’s bilingual – he speaks both police and human. In the middle of all the jargon, he’s our translator, he’ll say “you hoodwinked them” and all of a sudden, we understand what’s going on.
I think you’re right. It’s part of making those scenes transparent to the audience. You can have chunks of jargon that are opaque but what you can’t do is keep the audience out for any length of time, you have to let them in at points to understand the to and fro of the dialogue.
Abby Lee Miller, the yelling, industrial sander-voiced leader of TV’s Dance Moms, has been sentenced to 366 days in prison. She is guilty of fraud, having concealed around $755,000 of assets earned in 2012 and 2013, after she filed for bankruptcy in 2010.
Abby Lee was also sentenced to two years of probation following her release from prison, and ordered to pay a fine of $40,000.
You think Abby would revert to type and shout at the judge until he agreed to do what she told him. But that only works on the under 12s. Reports say she cried. And that failed, too.
So Abbey Lee Miller heads to prison, where she’ll trade in her Comfy Slax and Cardi-gown for on an orange jump suit, and work out how to make her big comeback. The recipe is simple: Jail House Rock. No, not Abby Lee sat in a cell, self-cradling, rather a bunch of felons and rocking to and fro. This is the big dance number in which Abby Lee turns a bunch of felons and mothers into a dance troupe.
Call me , Abby, I have ideas. But not on the that phone. Best give it a rinse first.
s’s Ministry of Silly Walks. John Cleese’s legs and brolly form the hands.
