Flight of Fancy

Despite what you may think, I don’t really watch an awful lot of TV.  I have a selection of shows that I watch on a weekly basis but on the whole that’s it.  However what I do watch, I tend to love and stick with.  True Blood, Weeds and a show that is rapidly becoming a mild obsession of mine, Flight of the Conchords.  

Now if you have never witnessed or heard of Flight of the Conchords (which is quite possible), let me explain…

Flight of the Conchords are a two  man New Zealand ‘novelty’ band that have also created a TV show parodying themselves. You with me so far? 

The TV show is a very low budget musical comedy about the two guys (Brett & Jermaine) living in New York trying to make something of the band .  They have hired a manager in the form of Murray, who works for the New Zealand consulate in New York.  A job that gives him plenty of free time to mismanage them.  

As well as Murray the band have a fan.  Yep, that’s right, one fan, Mel and a friend (of sorts) who part owns the local pawn shop. 

Any and every member of the cast can (and will) burst into song at any given moment which in my world, is just magic!  The songs tend to parody  a particular artist or genre. We’ve had Prince, Bowie, Pet Shop Boys, Opera and an entire episode based on West Side Story. 

Rather obscure and entirely weird, most people look at me sympathetically when I mention this love of mine.  So you can imagine how happy I was to hear that Brett has just won an Oscar for best song!  OK it’s not a Conchords song BUT it is a Muppet's song which is almost as good and it's a vindication of sorts!

The song, "Man or Muppet" is a gem and rather addictive so I won't post a link to the video or you'll be singing "am I man or am I Muppet" for the next few weeks.

Anyway there really isn't much point to this post apart from the share my love of the Conchords and try to force you to check them out.  I leave now with one of personal favourites from the show, "If You're Into It":

Big Brother, I'm Watching You

Well it's happened.  For some mysterious reason I've been lured into watching Big Brother for the first time since the original show back in 2000.  Actually to be honest, it's not such a mystery.  It may have something to do with this man, Bobby Sabel:

Beautiful but Boring Bobby

Please believe me though when I tell you, beautiful Bob has turned out to be quite possibly one of the most boring people I've ever witnessed on TV. Thank God he's pretty!

The pervert in me aside, I've actually found the show very very amusing.  I don't know if all the Big Brothers have been like this but the show has turned out to be a goldmine of quips and phrases.  Personal favourites so far include. 

"I had them done because I wanted them to look natural"  - Amy Childs in reference to why she had her boob job

"That's a bollocks of a body you have there" - Paddy 

"It's not about what car you have.  It's about how much money you've got" - Kerry (jokingly) to Lucien on love and relationships

So far though, the ultimate phrase is courtesy of Ms Katona. She wins my unending respect for the following classic: 

"I was shaking like a shitting dog" - Kerry Katona. 

Well done Kerry, I shall be slipping this into conversations from now on. 

The Boys Are Back In Town

Joy of joys, last night the new series of Supernatural began. In case you happen to have missed this gem of a show, Supernatural is about two seriously beautiful brothers, Sam & Dean, who go around saving the world from supernatural, mythical and religious beings.

Dean, Sam & Castiel (an Angel of course!)

Last season for instance, they took on the devil.  Not without consequence I might add. Poor Sam got inhabited by the spirit of Lucifer and alas, got turned into a ferociously camp version of the man from Del Monte. Then, when he finally regained his sense of style and heterosexuality he got trapped in hell!!! That has to make you feel better about your working day surely?

So this series is mega exciting. From the trailer it seems Sam has escaped from hell and is now some sort of uber buff blood drinking womaniser. YES! That sounds all kinds of good to me.

Now let’s not forget the other brother. I call him ‘consistently hot Dean’. Dean’s been to hell once before you see (and heaven in fact) but has remained gorgeous and quipping at all times, thank goodness.

Ok, so this isn't particularly challenging stuff, but it’s fun, good looking and quite scary at times.  There's also a lot of Christian mythology in later seasons which make for some very interesting viewing and of course we have ever impending Armageddon. Hurrah! It’s the ultimate TV show. 
 

With last night’s episode safely recorded on Sky + I shall be settling down this evening to a little bit of the Supernatural  boys thank you very much! I’m sure I’ll be reporting back.

End Scene

For a couple of years now I’ve been having a repeat yet polite conversation with some of my friends. I’m growing a little weary of having this conversation over and over again so I thought I needed to send this out into the world once and for all . . .



I HAVE NO INTEREST IN CRIME SCENE INVESTIGATION SHOWS

Yep that’s right, no interest at all. You can recommend all you want and yes I know you have all the CSI boxsets which you’d love to let me watch but oddly enough I’m still not interested.

Oh and for the record. I am aware of the fact that NCIS has a Goth scientist. I’m not sure why you think this little nugget of information is pertinent or what in my personality makes you feel that will sway me into rushing out to buy the DVD’s but thanks for letting me know none the less. Also, repeating this fact in a more upbeat tone won’t help your cause either.

There. That feels better. Now, hopefully I can put this conversation to rest. Oh and in case you’re one of the few that doesn’t watch these shows . . .

She's a Goth scientist you know?



Let Us Be Gleeful

Well I have finally come round to what the rest of the world already knew; Glee rocks. I knew I would love it because everyone that knows me has been telling me to watch it since day one. So finally, I did.

Glee is everything you would expect from a show based around a high school glee club. It’s camp, musical and comic. In fact it’s everything most musicals are and as a huge fan of musical theatre that’s fine by me.

Season 2 kicked off this week in the UK and it promises to be just as much fun. With more impromptu singing than before, the first episode had me practically bouncing for joy.

My absolute highlight of the whole series however has been when Jesse met Rachel by the Stephen Sondheim section (if only!) of the library:

"I picked the Stephen Sondheim biography section for our clandestine meeting place because only he would be able to express my melancholia."

As a girl who has spent years raving about Sondheim only to be met with the inevitable response of “Who?” I whooped with joy at that moment!

Another particularly unusual thing about the show is the fact that I am not remotely attracted to any member of the cast! This is highly strange for me. Ok, so most of them are high school kids which I shouldn’t be looking at anyway but there is the odd adult chucked in there for good measure and yet still no stirrings. Congratulations to the casting director for managing to find a completely asexual group of people! It’s given me a whole new viewing experience.

So while the show loosely weaves plots around its chosen song and then tries to wedge some sort of moral in there for good measure, I don’t care. It’s smartly written and has great music. I could do a lot worse in this dark, miserable January than a show that makes me laugh, sigh and most importantly, makes me gleeful.

Fangtasy Lover

I’m in love. Truly, madly deeply in love. My husband can rest assured that I still love him but he’s also come to accept that sometimes a girl just needs a fantasy guy and boy do I have a fantasy guy. Let me introduce you to Eric Northman:

Eric (Alexander Skarsgard) is a Viking King turned vampire in the True Blood series. Yes that’s right, Northman the Viking and yes he’s a vampire (hey, I never claimed this was sophisticated stuff). You can keep your whining, not to mention celibate, Edward Cullen and the like. I’ve found myself a proper vampire with real bite!

If you haven’t watched True Blood or indeed read the truly appalling Charlaine Harris books, then you’ll have no idea who I’m talking about. I’m sorry for that but seriously, why aren’t you watching? It’s a sexy, gory, very funny show about hot vampires (The books on the other hand, well I’ve already commented on those here)

Of course anyone who knows me well will know that my obsession with the undead started many many years ago. In fact it started long before most of the bloody Twihard fans were even born. When I was just 11 years old I developed the mother of all crushes on this man, Alexander Lucard.

Alexander Lucard ran a global corporation by day and turned into the Prince of Darkness by night. What more could an 11 year old girl want in a crush than international success, billions of pounds, fangs and a cape? Unfortunately this little TV series (rather subtly called ‘Dracula: The Series’) didn’t last too long and I was left to dive into the murky world of vampire literature.

And what murky water it is! There is no lack of reading for anyone interested in vampire tales and mythology but my goodness some of it is truly awful. There are some gems of course but on the whole it’s pretty cringe worthy.

Anyway, back to Eric. Eric didn’t start life as every girls dream. In series 1 of the show he was this tall, gangly drudging fellow. However in series 2 the man positively bloomed and at this stage I’m struggling to watch series 3 without a paramedic standing by. Lets just say the boy got hot!

I would like to able to into a lovely analysis of the appeal of his character but to be fair I’m not that good a writer also, it’s True Blood for goodness sake, how deep can the character be? Instead I’ll leave you with a little taster of the man himself. 

Oh and if vampires aren’t your thing, True Blood has taken that into consideration. It also offers hot shape shifters, wolves and the occasional human.