My top ten British sitcoms – number eight

Today I continue the list of my top ten British sitcoms with a modern classic.

Number eight – The Office

Set in the less than glamorous Slough Trading Estate, The Office is a fictional documentary about the employees of Wernham Hogg Paper Company. The star of The Office is David Brent, a general manager at Wernham Hogg who considers himself to be a talented comic, musician and philosophical thinker. In reality, he is none of these. Much of the programme revolves around David Brent’s misguided and often cringeworthy attempts to get what he most wants in life… attention and recognition. Other characters include Gareth Keenan (a man who attempts to compensate for his many flaws by always trying to be something he is not), Tim Canterbury (a likeable character whose purpose in the show is to highlight his colleagues’ shocking behaviour) and Dawn Tinsley (a down to earth secretary who, with her engagement to Lee, faces an unfufiling life ahead).

The fact that there were only ever fourteen episodes of The Office make it the second shortest running sitcom on this list. What it lacks in length however, it makes up for in originality and polish. Also, more than any other sitcom on this list, The Office divides people between those that love it and those that hate it. I understand that there may be a lack of in-your-face comedy (or arguably a lack of anything). However, in my opinion, the bland setting and subtly of the humor make the whole thing more meaningful and funny.

Here is a clip from one of the best episodes “Training”. In this episode, David Brent continually tries to divert attention away from the training instructor and onto himself by any means necessary.

You can buy the complete series of The Office for just £8 from Amazon.co.uk. Also, if you enjoy The Office, you may also like Extras; another sitcom by Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant.

My Lovely Horse

After listing Father Ted as my ninth best British comedy, I came across this live version of My Lovely Horse, the song featured in the episode A Song for Europe. Enjoy…

Check out this blog tomorrow to find out what my eighth best British comedy is.

Sony PSP2 – first look

On Thursday, Sony gave us our first glimpse of the successor to the Playstation Portable (PSP1). I have owned a PSP since 2009 and whilst it hasn’t sold as well as Nintendo’s portable system, I love the thing. I was therefore excited to hear the announcement of the PSP2 (codenamed NGP).

When I first saw the images of the PSP2, I thought I was looking at the original PSP1 (PSP1000/2000/3000, not the PSP Go). The reason for this is that like the PSP1, the PSP2 features a brick shaped design. The layout of the PSP2′s controls is also somewhat similar to its predecessor.

Whilst on the surface, there may appear to be a lack of innovation by Sony, the PSP2 has an impressive list of new features. These include:

• Flash memory based cartridges (not USB disks like the PSP1)
• Five inch touch sensitive screen (960 x 544 pixels)
• Touch pad on the rear (mirroring the screen)
• Six-axis motion sensing system
• Front and rear facing cameras
• Built in GPS
• Wi-Fi and GPS connectivity
• Two analogue sticks

There more I think about the PSP2, the more I like it. At first I was quite sceptical about the inclusion of a touch screen. On reflection however, I think the move was a good one, allowing the system to play the sort of mini games so popular on the iPhone. So long as touch controls are not shoehorned into games for which they are not suitable, this in my view can only be a good thing. The touch pad on the rear of the PSP2 can only stimulate innovate game development too.

Overall, my first impressions of the PSP2 are very positive. The fact that it looks similar to the PSP1, in my mind, is a good thing. The inclusion of a second analogue stick is a small but significant development that should bring the controls in line with home consoles. Also, having a front facing camera should make video calls on Skype possible.

 

Song of the week (number 19)

flying home
flying from a land once thought so strange
below me a dream left behind
above me the clouds in which I shall stir

soon I will open my eyes
soon I will emerge into myself once more
this dream is fading fast
for now at least it still seams pure

someday I will sleep again
someday I will visit this land anew
my future is uncertain
but my dreams are mine and mine alone to shape.

Blind card sorting puzzle – the answer

Here is another puzzle that I never got round to answering… Until today. Firstly, here is the puzzle again:

“A blind person is given a normal deck of 52 cards. They are told that exactly 10 of the cards are facing up, all the rest are facing down. How can the blind person divide the cards into 2 separate piles, with each pile consisting of an equal number of cards facing up?”

The answer is below

What is your favorite sound?

The topic from The Daily Post that I have chosen to write about this week is:

What is your favorite sound?

Firstly, a bit of context. For the last three and a bit years, I have been doing a PhD in Orthopaedic Biomechanics (see ‘My Work’ page). Coming to the end of my PhD, I still have some computer models to run. Since I need to run a number of models and each model can take days to complete, my computer is nearly always on. Indeed, it is a blessing when I get the chance to turn it off. My favourite sound is therefore the Windows XP shutdown sound. When I hear this sound, the constant agonising over whether the model will work or not is lifted from me. This sound lets me know that I have nothing to worry about… lets me know that I can think about something else for a while.

Outrageous! What is Sooty doing in The King’s Speech?

I went to watch The King’s Speech at the weekend and really enjoyed it (go and see it if you haven’t already!). One thing that I did not notice during the film was an appearance by popular children’s puppet Sooty. However, as the Daily Mail asks (in a headline no less), “What is Sooty doing in The King’s Speech?“

Here is an extract from the article:

Oh, I forgot to mention The King’s Speech’s worst crime of all. One scene has Helena Bonham Carter’s bitchy Queen Elizabeth trying to strike up a rapport with Lionel Logue’s children by asking: ‘Do you like Sooty?’

Sooty . . . in the Thirties? Actually that most malevolent of glove puppets didn’t come along until 1948 with his hammer and ink squirt and magic words: ‘Izzy-wizzy, let’s get busy.’

Izzy-wizzy . . . once again a scriptwriter didn’t get busy enough.

So is this an embarrassing oversight by the scriptwriters?

As Tabloid Watch (and many of the comments on the Daily Mail article)  points out, Queen Elizabeth was actually asking the child whether they liked sweeties, not Sooty. Indeed, the child in question was not even Logue’s son, but one of Logue’s patients.

How ironic that in an article criticising inaccuracies caused by poor research, the very thing upon which the article was based is completely inaccurate!

What IS Sooty doing in The King’s Speech?

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-1348103/What-Sooty-doing-The-Kings-Speech.html#ixzz2yrvTPZMs

My top ten British sitcoms – number nine

Last week, I started off my list counting down my top ten British sitcoms with The Vicar of Dibley. Today, I continue the list with another religious themed comedy.

Number nine – Father Ted

Father Ted follows the adventures of three priests of the Roman Catholic Church: Father Ted Crilly, Father Dougal McGuire and Father Jack Hackett. All three priests live together, with their housekeeper Mrs Doyle, in a house on Craggy Island. Their assignment to this extremely isolated island off the coast of Ireland is the result of past misdemeanors committed by the three priests; Ted’s involving money, Dougal’s involving something only refered to as the “Blackrock Incident” and Jack’s involving women and booze.

While Father Ted may at first seem to be along the same lines as the Vicar of Dibley, the two programmes could not be more different. Whilst the Vicar of Dibley is a feel good comedy with wide appeal, Father Ted’s cast of seriously flawed characters and often disturbed plots has earned it a cult following. My favourite episode is ‘A Song for Europe’ in which Ted and Dougal enter a song into ‘Eurosong 96′. Here is a clip from that episode:

You can watch full episodes of Father Ted on the 4oD channel on YouTube here or on 4oD here. I’m not sure if these can be viewed outside of the UK. You can also purchase the Father Ted collection at Amazon.co.uk.

Michael’s Marvellous Box of Games

Today is the culmination of my four-month long project to gather together a collection of great games you can play for free. Yesterday, I showed how I made a cardboard box. In this post I will present some photos of the finished game box I created. I made this game box as a Christmas present for a few friends and family. Here is the front cover:

The contents of the game box are as follows:

• Instructions for playing 31 great games. You can view a list of all these games here. To download the full instructions in Microsoft Word, click here. To download the full instructions in pdf format, click here. Note that when printed, the instruction booklet should be folded so that the pages are in the correct order.
• Score sheets for many of the games
• Deck of Bicycle playing cards
• Stack of 50 Bicycle poker chips
• 24 dice (16mm)
• Four pencils
• A pencil sharpener
• Some blank cards

How to make a cardboard box

As the title says, this post is about making a box out of cardboard. It may sound quite simple but I had trouble finding a template online that told me where to cut and glue ect. Therefore, I thought it might be quite useful to post the method I used here in case anyone wants to do a similar thing to me.

The box I wanted to make was the type where the lid could be completly removed, similar to those used for board games. Therefore, the base and the lid would be made seperatly. The cardboard I used was around 1.5mm in thickness. If you can get cardboard of 1 or 1.25mm, go with that instead. The thicker the cardboard, the harder it is to bend. The template I used is shown here:

Step one: Mark the template for both the base and the lid on a sheet of card. The lid should be able to fit completly over the base. Therefore, the top section of the lid should be slightly larger than the bottom section of the base. The top section of my lid was 23 * 16mm. The bottom section of my base was 22 * 15mm. The sides of both the base and the lid were 3.5mm in height.

Step two: Using a knife, cut round the edge of the template for both the base and the lid. If you want to end up with stright lines (and all fingers intact), it is advisable to use a metal ruler here.

Step three: Use the knife again to score the folds of both the base and the lid. Also, cut out one side of each of the flaps.

Step four: Apply glue to the reverse of each flap. It is probabily a good idea to do just two flaps at a time. If you want to know why this is a good idea, go ahead and glue all four flaps at once.

Step five: Stick the flaps onto the sides of the base/lid. If you have trouble bending the sides, score the folds a bit more deeply. You may need to hold the joins while the glue dries. This is the very moment your mum will phone you… be strong, don’t answer, keep holding those joins.

Once all four flaps have been glued to the sides of both the base and the lid, you should have somthing resembling this. Hopefully, the base and the lid should fit snugly together. If they don’t fit snugly together… no, I’m sure they will fit perfectly.