Tuesday, December 29, 2009

When the work is done

In a shock development, I actually went out of the house today.

OK, so the first attempt to go to Meadowhall at lunchtime resulted in us taking one look at the carpark and doing a swift u-turn home, but when we returned at five o'clock it was relatively quiet allowing us to get on with returning some bits and bobs and do some shopping. Jan found a pair of trainers that met Jamie's stratospheric standards for trendiness and design, and I found a new suit at half price from £200 originally and then another £25 off for returning an unwanted pair of pyjamas. Even better, I found that I could still get into a 36" waistline even after all of the xmas indulgences. Result!

Last night we watched part one of the new adaptation of Day of the Triffids, and I can't say that I was overly impressed. The original book and the classic 1980s tv version were very much of the 'quiet English apocalypse' school of fiction where the characters would escape the horror of the urban environment and go to live in the country with an aga and no pesky working class oiks, whereas this one seems to be more like a full-on disaster movie with whizzy CGI landscapes and lots of running around. The characters, and how they react to an unimaginable situation, seem to have been forgotten in all of the blood and thunder.

I also got the impression that this was originally filmed as a six part series with cliff hangers every thirty minutes and it has now been snuck out in the televisual dead zone betwixt xmas and the new year. Not impressed. I also predict that the denouement will involve some McGuffin of broadcasting triffid noises over the handy radio station equipment (that doesn't seem to have been fried to a frazzle by the humungous coronal mass ejection from the Sun for some reason). Oh, and while I'm in nitpick mode, how come the titular plants seem to have developed root systems like something out of a Japanese tentacle porn anime?

In games news, the new update for Orbital on the iPhone brings a whole new Supernova mode which is really rather good. The new aiming mode is offset by increasing the number of hits each bubble needs to be popped and then introducing a shock-wave explosion that makes it possible to set up high scoring combo scores in highly satisfying chain reactions. Quite possibly the best 59p that you will ever spend in the app store.

1 comment:

Lois (three-legged-cat) said...

Funny you should mention 30 minute segments, I got the same impression watching Dr Who on Christmas Day, it all seemed to be building up to a drum banging finale, then it carried for another 30 mins. Are the Beeb making export ready programmes I wonder?

I missed the triffids. Wondering whether to catch up via the iPlayer.