Tune in, Switch off - Ray writes a regular TV review column for TES which has become the blog entry for a while:
I am glad I ignored the Guardian preview on the first week of ITV's Whitechapel crime series and didn't go into a dark room with a pizza on my face, as advised. You see, we've had no cops on our telly for some time now - I didn't take to the snowy wastes of Wallander, the acclaimed Swedish detective series with Kenneth Branagh.
All those long drives through the ice reminded me of local weather programmes I watch when trying to decide whether I'll need to close the school. But Whitechapel's trails of blood, a Ripper copycat and London streets have me hooked.
Fresh from Spooks, Rupert Penry-Jones stars as novice detective inspector Joseph Chandler, who clashes with the Jack-the-lad old guard detective Ray Miles, played by Phil Davis.
Chandler is in for a hard time, as the team work him over. Don't we all love to see a new boy making mistakes? An obsessive compulsive, with much hand washing as well as wringing, his subordinates think they have the new boss sussed: "He's gay." How do they know? "I've got gaydar". Loud guffaws.
So Chandler has to face down the real enemy - his colleagues - before he can even contemplate catching the Ripper-esque murderer.
But our stumbling, fumbling senior officer has his own dark secret: he can't even look at a bloodied body without covering his mouth with his silk handkerchief and going off to vomit behind the bushes. I'm with Chandler when it comes to gore: I can't even have an injection without passing out, so this is scary stuff.
However, we know he's finally going to be at the scene during one of the murders because, if you've studied your Ripper history, the times and places are predictable; though we're fed enough false clues to create a Times crossword.
We viewers, however, always know when the flash of knife and outpourings of guts are about to appear on our screens. The eerie music and dark photography are such a giveaway. Why don't the victims ever notice, I wonder?
So this nice, clean detective has to work with those dirty, unruly policemen. Of course, that's the trigger he needs to assert himself. Holding a piece of chalk and using something we used to call a blackboard, he tells them to put on their ties, clear their desks each evening and stop belching and farting.
We could use this sequence on a staff training day with our NQTs. Self-discipline, self- respect and deodorant are the learning points. There's even a great punchline if you want to fast-track them out of teaching: "And you smell."
All the big, burly police officers go off quietly at this point for a shower. How does Chandler get away with it? It's like Alan Sugar in The Apprentice glibly mouthing: "You're fired."
Seriously? Surely he knows about the three stages of capability investigation, four years of evidence-gathering and thousands of pounds in damages just to suggest to an employee that, as they're not pulling their weight, their job might be at risk. I might go and lie down with that pizza now.
Ray Tarleton is principal at South Dartmoor Community College in Ashburton, Devon.
Original can be found here: http://www.tes.co.uk/article.aspx?storycode=6009054
Thursday, 26 February 2009
Friday, 13 February 2009
Curry.........Curry........Curry.........Curry....
Some people will do anything for a tan and I’m no exception. Actually the weather in Delhi where I’m working for the British Council this week (they pay the school for me and I think it makes everyone happy!) is variable. And for most of the week I’ve been holed up in conferences and meetings. But Indian food is my favourite so it’s even been curry for breakfast. I wrote about food this week in the TES column below which I know some blog readers like me to quote. So here’s a snippet:
‘For food lovers and people watchers, the return of Gordon Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares in a double two-hour feast was a taster’s delight. As in the best formula-driven programmes, there is an anticipated plot. First our hero, the rugged Ramsay, face like a lunar landscape, rides into town to clean up local kitchens. His target? The re-cycled, re-heated and re-volting food served up in restaurants that don’t deserve the name.
So Mick Martin’s Bistro in Okehampton is caught out serving up vacuum-sealed, shelf-stored lamb shanks bought in from the Cash and Carry. Mick clearly has never watched Ramsay in action or he’d have avoided serving him the duck a l’orange made with orange squash. Meanwhile, in Sheffield, Justin’s Spanish place is more tasteless than tapas, more gloop than gastronome.
All this is just for starters. Next it’s onto the main course which the viewer knows will be heavily spiced and served with lashings of vitriolic sauce. This is the ‘Gordon as Shrink’ phase but without the psychiatrist’s chair. Instead, our hero goes into destruct mode, exposing the tensions and deep emotions in the kitchen relationships. You can’t learn this from a recipe book. His kitchen skewer probes deep into what makes these people tick. Message: you can only turn around a failing business if you make individuals face up to their shortcomings.
It’s brilliant television and at this point you may have to turn down the volume because the noise from the box reminds me of those playground fights you wonder how you will ever break up. To Justin’s list of ‘things I’ve done right,’ Ramsay screams: ‘It’s lost you the fucking business! It’s gone!’
Yes there are more F words in this programme than I’d care to count. In fact, the F word is sprinkled like pepper on every sentence: Fresh, fresh, FRESH! That’s the mission: fresh produce or die. And we see Justin’s partner stroking the so fresh it’s still alive, so local it lives just round the corner, deer that will soon become his hit venison pie.
Would it work in school? I’d love to introduce him to that awkward Year 9 group that have given up on us. Go on, Gordon, tell ‘em how it is. What’s that? You think we’ve got the recipe wrong? We need to chuck out boil-in-the bag lesson plans? But surely in schools it’s always the kids’ fault isn’t it? ‘
And certainly the food in Delhi is as fresh as it comes so no f word need.
‘For food lovers and people watchers, the return of Gordon Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares in a double two-hour feast was a taster’s delight. As in the best formula-driven programmes, there is an anticipated plot. First our hero, the rugged Ramsay, face like a lunar landscape, rides into town to clean up local kitchens. His target? The re-cycled, re-heated and re-volting food served up in restaurants that don’t deserve the name.
So Mick Martin’s Bistro in Okehampton is caught out serving up vacuum-sealed, shelf-stored lamb shanks bought in from the Cash and Carry. Mick clearly has never watched Ramsay in action or he’d have avoided serving him the duck a l’orange made with orange squash. Meanwhile, in Sheffield, Justin’s Spanish place is more tasteless than tapas, more gloop than gastronome.
All this is just for starters. Next it’s onto the main course which the viewer knows will be heavily spiced and served with lashings of vitriolic sauce. This is the ‘Gordon as Shrink’ phase but without the psychiatrist’s chair. Instead, our hero goes into destruct mode, exposing the tensions and deep emotions in the kitchen relationships. You can’t learn this from a recipe book. His kitchen skewer probes deep into what makes these people tick. Message: you can only turn around a failing business if you make individuals face up to their shortcomings.
It’s brilliant television and at this point you may have to turn down the volume because the noise from the box reminds me of those playground fights you wonder how you will ever break up. To Justin’s list of ‘things I’ve done right,’ Ramsay screams: ‘It’s lost you the fucking business! It’s gone!’
Yes there are more F words in this programme than I’d care to count. In fact, the F word is sprinkled like pepper on every sentence: Fresh, fresh, FRESH! That’s the mission: fresh produce or die. And we see Justin’s partner stroking the so fresh it’s still alive, so local it lives just round the corner, deer that will soon become his hit venison pie.
Would it work in school? I’d love to introduce him to that awkward Year 9 group that have given up on us. Go on, Gordon, tell ‘em how it is. What’s that? You think we’ve got the recipe wrong? We need to chuck out boil-in-the bag lesson plans? But surely in schools it’s always the kids’ fault isn’t it? ‘
And certainly the food in Delhi is as fresh as it comes so no f word need.
Thursday, 5 February 2009
The Back-Burner Blog
During my odd spare hour in the evening, when I generally write the blog, I’ve had to take up television watching. I’m not a great fan but perhaps a healthy scepticism is what they want. You see, the TES (‘Times Educational Supplement’) have asked me to write a weekly TV review column- as irreverent as I can make it.
Don’t worry- it’s going in the magazine so nobody will see it, never mind read it- but don’t tell them that. I’ve always wanted to be a real writer so who knows? From blog to broadsheet?
So here’s an edited (had to cut the adult jokes) version of week one, Gavin and Stacey. I’ll be doing autographed copies on parents’ evening!
‘Confession time: a terrible fidget like me desperately needs a decent TV fix to keep me in my chair. So, wearying of my Fawlty Towers and Alan Partridge videos, I have just discovered the delights of a new comedy, Gavin and Stacey on BBC 3.
New? How did I miss it the first time round? Was I such a snob that their very names sent me scuttling to switch channels for something uplifting like Simon Schama? Probably, but I also know I snored through every episode of that worthy history programme, much as I love the distinguished professor.
Now Monday nights are transformed. Dishwasher stacked and feet up by nine o’clock, I have to be on the sofa and ready for the charms of Alison Steadman, playing Gavin’s phoney vegetarian mum, whose overbearing bosoms match her bossiness.
I still remember Steadman as the pure, virginal, dandelion-eating, green prototype, Candice Marie in Mike Leigh’s 70’s TV play, Nuts in May. Candice was a vegetarian in the days when it was deeply unfashionable. The programme was even screened in black and white. How old does that make me? It pre-dated Abigail’s Party- in which she was the jarring hostess, Beverley, the part she now seems to be reprising.
.
I watched the stag night and wedding episodes with lap top in one hand and whisky glass (I have a bad head cold so you can feel sorry for me) in another, desperately trying to catch up on the three thousand emails in my in-box. I told you I was a fidget. But who said men can’t multi-task?
Smithy and his mates remind me of some of the teenagers in my school. In fact it’s the only way I can begin to understand what many of them are saying to me. It’s so useful to know, for example, that his use of ‘shit-faced’ is youth culture colloquial. Now I might not need to exclude so many students for swearing.
Stacey’s uncle, brilliantly portrayed by Bob Brydon, reminds me of my Chair of Governors. His childlike belief in the accuracy of his Sat Nav (‘Let me just show you how it works, Gavin’) reminds me of my Chair of Governors’ fixation with School Performance Tables. Sad, isn’t it?
So, I’m with Gavin and Stacey during the proposal, engagement and marriage. Who cares if I’ve accidently deleted all those emails? For this is television that will remain new, fresh and hold me in my seat. Fellow fidgets, come and join me in a toast to a great ‘new’ comedy.’
Next week it’s Gordon Rambo Ramsay and plenty of the ‘F’ word. Yes, you’ve guessed it, ‘Fresh!’
Don’t worry- it’s going in the magazine so nobody will see it, never mind read it- but don’t tell them that. I’ve always wanted to be a real writer so who knows? From blog to broadsheet?
So here’s an edited (had to cut the adult jokes) version of week one, Gavin and Stacey. I’ll be doing autographed copies on parents’ evening!
‘Confession time: a terrible fidget like me desperately needs a decent TV fix to keep me in my chair. So, wearying of my Fawlty Towers and Alan Partridge videos, I have just discovered the delights of a new comedy, Gavin and Stacey on BBC 3.
New? How did I miss it the first time round? Was I such a snob that their very names sent me scuttling to switch channels for something uplifting like Simon Schama? Probably, but I also know I snored through every episode of that worthy history programme, much as I love the distinguished professor.
Now Monday nights are transformed. Dishwasher stacked and feet up by nine o’clock, I have to be on the sofa and ready for the charms of Alison Steadman, playing Gavin’s phoney vegetarian mum, whose overbearing bosoms match her bossiness.
I still remember Steadman as the pure, virginal, dandelion-eating, green prototype, Candice Marie in Mike Leigh’s 70’s TV play, Nuts in May. Candice was a vegetarian in the days when it was deeply unfashionable. The programme was even screened in black and white. How old does that make me? It pre-dated Abigail’s Party- in which she was the jarring hostess, Beverley, the part she now seems to be reprising.
.
I watched the stag night and wedding episodes with lap top in one hand and whisky glass (I have a bad head cold so you can feel sorry for me) in another, desperately trying to catch up on the three thousand emails in my in-box. I told you I was a fidget. But who said men can’t multi-task?
Smithy and his mates remind me of some of the teenagers in my school. In fact it’s the only way I can begin to understand what many of them are saying to me. It’s so useful to know, for example, that his use of ‘shit-faced’ is youth culture colloquial. Now I might not need to exclude so many students for swearing.
Stacey’s uncle, brilliantly portrayed by Bob Brydon, reminds me of my Chair of Governors. His childlike belief in the accuracy of his Sat Nav (‘Let me just show you how it works, Gavin’) reminds me of my Chair of Governors’ fixation with School Performance Tables. Sad, isn’t it?
So, I’m with Gavin and Stacey during the proposal, engagement and marriage. Who cares if I’ve accidently deleted all those emails? For this is television that will remain new, fresh and hold me in my seat. Fellow fidgets, come and join me in a toast to a great ‘new’ comedy.’
Next week it’s Gordon Rambo Ramsay and plenty of the ‘F’ word. Yes, you’ve guessed it, ‘Fresh!’
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