Saturday, October 18, 2003

I watched a bit of tv last night (first time for a while). It was interesting to see the latest evolution of 'dancing instead of fighting' from The States. Clowning and Krumpin'. I gotta say it isn't as exciting or as magical as BreakDancing was when it first hit, as that was such an exciting mixture of the stuff I was into myself (acrobatic tumbling, mime, stage fighting, slapstick, etc). This was more frenzied, more angry. But, OK, that's probably the way that it is - it's an expression of just how bad it can get down there amongst the oppressed. Fascinating stuff though.

Then there was yet another episode of Channel 5's Psychic Secrets Revealed (which the Guardian, tellingly, described as revealing 'the disappointing trickery behind more allegedly psychic feats'. Alistair Cook (one of the Monkey Magic crew) does convincing demos, and then exposes the method. Of course, most people are true believers...they wanna believe, or, as one of the Barnum statements they used in the Tarot reading said "you are sceptical about psychic matters, but like to keep an open mind". The bunch of people who had readings were all told exactly the same script, and afterwards they each assessed the accuracy of the 'reading' as between 80% and 99% accurate. Sad, huh?

It's also amusing to me to see how 'sad old git stuff' like clowning in fright wigs and makeup (Tommy the Clown and his social work in the Hood), or conjuring, are 'cool' again - when they have been so essentially naff for so many years. What goes round comes round.

Anyway - for those not in the UK, this is the Friday night schedule for the winter. A new series of Ab Fab, and although it is a little tired, I still love the female cast and the self mockery and savagery (and, of course, I have a thing for Joanna Lumley).

And then (treats) we got a new series of Have I Got News for You - with more rudeness and intelligence. Not a bad evening.

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