The new design looks best in Opera…

By BigBrother in All posts 1 Comment Tags: , , , , , , , ,

OK, four things.

First, perceptive readers will note that Stage 2 of the re-design has occurred: the sidebar has changed, an Archives page has appeared and the Categories have been replaced by a ‘Tag Cloud’. This means, when posting, I would love you to Tag it rather than Categorize it. Please. If you can. And if you understand what I mean. (And if you do, please could you explain it properly to me? I just think it looks prettier.)

Second, my trial of a new hosting company is going fantastically (ie I’ve not spectacularly fucked anything up yet) and I am going to try to transfer the Ministry onto my new host of choice at some point over the next month. This will probably lead to 48 hours or so of semi-scheduled downtime. But given that my current pus-ridden, cocksucking host has unexpectedly closed the Ministry again just as I’m trying to compose this post, I think the effort will be worth it.

Third, and with all due respect to any civil servants who may read this blog, the news that Paul Gray is back at work within the Civil Service after just 13 days in the wilderness is reprehensible and unforgivable. As our friends at Blairwatch would have it, “It’s shaping up to be a bad week for Gordon Brown.” In fact, it’s quickly shaping up to be a bad administration for the Son of a Manse-r Man…

Finally, watch this. I wept with laughter.

“As Donal cried, we knew that he was sharing our pain.”

Minitrue [hearts] Adam Curtis.

Careful what you wish for

By BigBrother in All posts 1 Comment Tags: ,

While England’s failure to qualify for Euro 2008 is hugely disappointing and essentially unforgiveable, spare a thought for what might have been.  Four groups of four teams; the top two qualify for the quarter finals.  Would England have qualified from any of the groups?

Given their recent performances and defeat to Russia it’s hard to see them beating anybody in Group D (defending champions Greece, Russia, Spain and Sweden).

If they have been in Group B they should have beaten the excruciatingly poor co-hosts Austria, as they did in the friendly a fortnight ago, but there would be no guarantees against Germany or Poland, while Croatia beat England twice in qualification.

Group C – world champions Italy, world runners-up France, perennial challengers Holland and perennial dark horses Romania – is so tough that the two teams who survive the group stages will have to be considered the favourites to lift the title.

Only Group A might have offered England a chance of making the quarter finals.  The other hosts Switzerland are only a bit better than Austria, Turkey remain quite good at qualifying and quite bad at tournaments while the Czech Republic, though dangerous, are not the force they were a decade ago.  Scolari’s Portugal would, of course, have wiped the floor with Gerrard, Lampard & Co. but at least (and for a change) it wouldn’t have been in the quarter finals.

Next summer we’ll be spared the hype and hot air – and just get to watch Europe’s best teams, playing hopefully great football.  I hope Euro 2008 will prove to be half as good as my favourite tournament to date, Euro 2000.  While Kevin Keegan’s England qualified for that tournament they went out in the group stages (despite beating the worst German team of my lifetime, they were embarrassed by Portugal and Romania), which meant fans of proper football could concentrate without distraction on the knockout stages of a great tournament of free-flowing, high-scoring football.  (That said the best team in the tournament, Italy, were the dourest, and ultimately failed – having given a masterclass is catenaccio all the way to the 90th minute of the final, they conceded an injury time equaliser to France, who went on to prevail by a ‘Golden Goal’ in extra time.

The mental image of Our Boys being given the sort of good hiding we last experienced at Euro 88 (played 3, lost 3) is horrifying – I’m not sure the nation could cope with the sort of public waterworks we’d have had to endure as the Tarnished Generation’s last chance (both of securing a final massive playing contract as well as winning a trophy) slipped away.

Enjoy your 2008 summer holidays, boys: at least by having – effectively – three consecutive proper summer breaks the kids now emerging won’t have an excuse of fatigue if and when they board the plane to South Africa in the summer of 2010.

This might sting a little

By BigBrother in All posts 1 Comment Tags: , , ,

Everything decent on TV – which, I grant you, is not much – seems to be broadcast between 9-11.30pm on a Thursday night. It’s only the recent introduction of Channel 4′s +1 channel suite that makes it possible for the Minister’s Sky+ box to catch everything decent.

Still quality as it nears its denouement is Studio 60 On The Sunset Strip. While the show has undoubtedly suffered a little as the world of broadcast politics has been marginalised at the expense of greater comedy and love story subplots, it remains at times deliciously subversive.

In this week’s episode, K&R (Part 1), the 19th of a mere 22 episodes made and the most overtly political episode yet, the pregnant Jordan was hospitalized with pre-eclampsia. As she argued with Danny in the hospital about the need to improve the show-within-a-show’s ratings, he observed: “Your own network research says that the number one audience manipulator among women is a pregnancy in jeopardy.” Self-referential in the extreme and clearly Aaron Sorkin having a pop at the NBC execs berating him for Studio 60‘s supposed own poor ratings performance, but a laugh-out-loud moment in a world with too few of them.

The final five episodes of the series play out over a single night in the story’s timeline, an almost unimaginable conceit for a show on a free-to-air network in the States where under-performing series deemed to be too slow to sustain their audience’s attention can be pulled after just one show. The series was too clever and too knowing for its own good, amply demonstrating Sorkin’s continuing penchant for self-immolation. It’s been great while it’s lasted, though.

Meanwhile, quietly tucked away out of sight late on Thursday nights on Channel 5 is the best new comedy to hit British telly for a while, the Emmy-winning 30 Rock. Another NBC show, devised and written by its star Tina Fey (a Saturday Night Live alumnus), it might just be the most subversive thing on TV.

Set in the NBC network’s headquarters at 30 Rockefeller Plaza, New York (the Minister highly recommends the studio tour…), Alec Baldwin has put in a revelatory and Golden Globe-winning performance as the GE executive (NBC is owned by GE) Jack Donaghy tasked with overseeing the revival of a comedy show (spot a theme?).

This week’s episode revealed that Donaghy has been dating US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. Fey (playing the show-within-a-show’s producer Liz Lemon) asks Donaghy how his relationship with Condi is going:

Jack: Actually… I broke up with her.
Liz: Really? What happened?
Jack: Well, I finally realized we’re not compatible. I mean, I’m all for fantasy role play but Abu Ghraib…?

Underplaying the line to the point of perfection, the Minister genuinely choked on his cup of tea and applauds Baldwin and the show’s writers and producers on the size of their cojones.

Other highlights were a few seconds of an alleged Black Frasier and an astute subplot feud between two black characters over the use of the word ‘nigger’. Fortuitously – 30 Rock‘s first series gained fewer viewers than Studio 60; accepting the Emmy, Fey thanked the show’s “dozens and dozens” of viewers – NBC stood by this project, so we have another 13 episodes of the first series still to go, with a further 22 commissioned for a second series (writers’ strike permitting).

On that point, Fey – as a writer/performer – has been one of the more high-profile striking writers. A fortnight ago, 30 Rock‘s cast put on a live performance of an not-yet-broadcast script at a tiny New York theatre to raise money for the show’s production assistants, currently laid-off as a result of the strike. Reviews here and here. The lovely Tina Fey, 30 Rock and striking writers everywhere: the Minister salutes your courage, your strength, your indefatigability.

Finally, a moment’s pause to remember the memory of Robert Craig ‘Evel’ Knievel, who died yesterday. The Minister shares a birthday with Evel and was a childhood fan. After all, for sheer insanity, it’s hard to beat this sort of thing:(Random mildly interesting fact – the now famous head-on footage of Kneivel’s unsuccessful landing was shot by Linda Evans, who went on to star in Dynasty. Seriously.)

(And this was the Minister’s eye view of 30 Rockefeller Plaza back in the day:)

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