Month: June 2004

Digital Radio Lust

You will be aware of my love of radio and my delight at Pure’s other products: the Evoke-1 and the Tempus-1. I want a Pure Digital Bug radio. I can’y jsutify it. Is it the look or the features?

Digital Radio Lust

Adot’s Notblog discussed the concept of Tivo for radio a few Fridays ago. This reminded me that only last weekend I had picked up a leaflet for Pure Digital’s Bug in a store. You will be aware of my love of radio and my delight at Pure’s other products: the Evoke-1 and the Tempus-1 (actually, I never mentioned that I also have a Tempus-1). The Bug looks cool (it’s designed by Wayne Hemingway) and has a host of features (including some recording capabilities and radio rewind). I am not sure if I’ll actually invest in it (given I am running out of rooms to put digital radios in), but I will be keeping an eye out for the products that Pure comes up with. I think Pure (or Imagination Technologies, as they are also known) have some really imaginative products of high quality. They only lack one thing in their range: I wish they’d come up with a small, nicely priced portable radio that included FM for times when you can’t get DAB reception.

Elsewhere: Here’s my comment on notblog:

I know it’s not for the car, and it’s not available in the US, but Pure Digital’s ‘The Bug’ has those features for the UK digital radio market. It’s designed by Wayne Hemingway (of the Red or Dead fashion label). Personally, I can’t wait to get my hands on one of these (or – at least – one of the other Pure models with the same feature) for exactly the reasons you point out. http://www.thebug.com

Posted by:Jonon May 28, 2004 08:04 AM

archived here

Thoroughly Modern Millie

Amanda Holden was good but the rest of the show wasn’t great.

PY and I have a knack for seeing musicals in London’s theatreland just before they close. We’re just back from seeing Thoroughly Modern Millie at the Shaftesbury Theatre, which we decided to do very last minute.

Amanda Holden is the Kansas girl arriving in New York at the height of the Roaring Twenties and is something of a revelation. She was truly excellent and carried the show. It’s such a shame that it’s closing, and she has had some of the blame, but I didn’t think it was a killer show.

Although it’s set in the twenties, it was written much more recently, yet, sadly, it had a somewhat dated feel, which Anything Goes (which is older) didn’t have when we saw it a few months ago. I don’t think it’s helped by Anita Dobson’s character, Mrs Meers, a failed actress pretending to be an Oriental landlady. The character seems dated, and the impersonation of a Chinese woman is somewhat patronising. I had wanted to see Maureen Lipman in the role (she starred when the play first opened) and was described by one review as, Grotesque and comical, she’s verbally and physically sharp-witted” [source], but I think I am glad I didn’t. I don’t think it was Dobson, but the character who was uncomfortable.

Still, it’s such a shame so many of London’s plays and musicals are closing right now. I do enjoy a good night out at the theatre. This, sadly, was only mediocre.

S.W.A.T (Again)

Repeat movies? Sometimes it’s OK to watch a film again.

So last night I saw S.W.A.T on DVD. PY had not seen it, although I had watched it back in December on a plane to the US. It was as good as I remembered, and I don’t think they cut too much from the version I saw on the plane. Always worth watching Colin Farrell in – almost – anything.

The Day After Tomorrow

The message to all of Planet Earth is, of course, corrupted to work for the film and lost after the first third. But that doesn’t make any difference.

Jake Gyllenhaal in The day After Tomorrow

So I’ve just got back from a nice – but rushed – meal and a visit to Clapham Picture House to see Roland Emmerich’s The Day After Tomorrow, starring Dennis Quaid and Jake Gyllenhaal. It’s a vision of what will happen if we don’t all take up cycling, ditch the cars and stop throwing out refrigerators with the trash (or some such thing).

Actually, it’s a disaster movie with a message, and it certainly makes the grade as the first, although the message is somewhat lost along the way, and the plot is, like all movies in this genre, ridiculously enjoyable. Basically, it starts to rain and then gets very cold, and the only place where you seem to be able to survive is in New York, the public library (and that’s because you can burn the books). Gyllenhaal’s dad is, of course, the only person on the whole of the American continent who can save him, so he tries to. Marvellous, stupid and thoroughly entertaining.

Ian Holm puts in a notable performance from a remote Scottish weather station where, at the moment of disaster, they decide to toast England, Manchester United and Mankind (so not very convincingly Scottish – although they, of course, drink a decent malt to ward off the end).

It’s a mankind-in-peril, gripping disaster movie, and I found it immensely entertaining. It’s stunning when it’s building, and the effects are at their best (and who cares if the ice at the start looks computer-generated)? Sadly, it does fade a little towards the end – especially as any last elements of believability fly out the window – but as a couple of hours’ entertainment, you must go and see this film.

The message to all of Planet Earth is, of course, corrupted to work for the film and lost after the first third. But that doesn’t make any difference.

Excuses To Show Semi-Naked Men

The “Absolut Hunk” is suing the Absolut Spirits Co., alleging it promoted the make-believe ad as an actual advertisement.

Not that I really needed another excuse to show this picture again, but hell, it’s Friday, so who cares? AdAge is reporting that ‘the hunk’, Jason Lewis, is claiming Absolut used the fake ad as a genuine one:

The actor who posed as the “Absolut Hunk” in a fictitious ad that appeared in an episode of Sex and the City is suing the Absolut Spirits Co., alleging it promoted the make-believe ad from the HBO series as an actual advertisement without his permission [source]

Previously: Silent For A Week.

Brother Beyond Star Charged

Brother Beyond star charged with kerb crawling.

The Scotsman is tonight reporting:

The former lead singer with boy band Brother Beyond was charged with trying to pick up a street prostitute in London’s seedy King’s Cross red light district. But friends of the former model claimed the accusation was ‘ludicrous’ because he is gay. Moore is to appear at Highbury Corner magistrates’ court in north London tomorrow, charged under the Sex Offences Act. [source]

And more on this story from Google.

UPDATE: 6 JUNE 2004: Moore pleaded guilty to soliciting a prostitute at Highbury Corner magistrates’ court.