Month: May 2008

Attention Scum

29 May 2008 Rob Buckley 10 Comments

Although I might come across as a lovely fellow online – fingers crossed – I have, occasionally, done very bad things. One of these was to take my lovely wife to see Simon Munnery as The League Against Tedium (described by blog god Stewart Lee as occupying the wasteland where comedy meets art since no one else wants to) when we were first dating. Quite why she stuck with me after that, I don’t know.

Munnery went on to have two TV shows – Either/Or, a game show which I was on briefly and ended up losing/winning; and a BBC2 show Attention Scum. Just to give you the full flavour of what I put her through, here’s a clip.

Apologies again, lovely wife.

21 accents

29 May 2008 Rob Buckley 6 Comments

It’s hard to do foreign accents correctly. But how about 21 foreign accents? Seattle-born actress Amy Walker has a go at a load including various English, Scottish and Irish accents, German and Czech.

The ones I’m most familiar with sounded very slightly off, but they’re all pretty impressive all the same. How’s that for a viral audition tape?

YouTube recommendations

29 May 2008 Rob Buckley 3 Comments

Everyone wonders why Amazon recommends particular books ("You’ve recently read Jane Austen’s Sense and Sensibility. You might also be interested in Steven King’s The Shining and Gordon Ramsay’s The F-Word") or, in the US, why Tivo recommends particular TV shows – watched a documentary on the Korean war recently? Maybe you’d like to watch Lost then… No? Okay, we’re foxed…

But now YouTube’s recommending videos. And I’m wondering why, out of all the vast range of videos on offer on YouTube, the only one that’s recommended for me is the title sequence to 1970s kids show (that I never watched) The Double Deckers. What’s up there? And what does it say about me (be kind)?

David Baddiel wonders what Doctor Who would make of Jane Austen

29 May 2008 Rob Buckley Post a comment

David Baddiel

David Baddiel, well known comic and one of the few stand-ups in possession of a doctorate in Victorian literature, writes an interesting piece in The Times today. In it, he also notices that the Doctor only seems to meet famous writers these days, not scientists.

But, he also echoes Jane Henry’s recent suggestion that Jane Austen would be a good choice for the next meet-up, imagines what the episode would be like and comes up with a convincing argument about why Austen is better than Shakespeare et al.