What I'm Loving This Week

I haven't posted in a little while, due to exams and laziness. Exams are now over and I'm back in the blogging spirit. Hoping someone wants to read it. Hello?! Is there anyone out there? Calling all sentient beings!

Mmmmm'kay. Things I am loving this week. I might do this every week. If I remember. And find things to love.

The Shadow Line (BBC2 - Tuesdays)

I love this programme. The weird thing is, I'm not even sure why. There are times when I have absolutely no idea what's going on (lots of times, actually) and, 5 episodes in, I still don't know most of the character's names (I still call Gatehouse 'that guy with the hat'). But there's just something about it which pulls me in, and I've found myself on more than one occasion looking forward with excitement for the next installment in this 7-part series. Perhaps that can be chalked down to me not having a life, or maybe it's because this show is actually superb. More likely it's a bit of both.
The Shadow Line, in a nutshell, is about the blurred boundaries (okay, the shadow line) between good and bad, the police and the criminal underworld, et cetera, et cetera. After a drug lord called Harvey Wratten is murdered hours after he and his nephew Jay (a mental Rafe Spall) are mysteriously released from prison due to a Royal pardon thingy, both the police and Wratten's guys want to know who did it. Chiwetel Ejiofor is a copper who is more mixed up in all this drug business than he'd like to be, especially after finding a briefcase full of money hidden in his wardrobe - and to add to his frustration, he can't remember anything because there's a bullet lodged in his head. Christopher Eccleston is Joseph Bede, a guy who worked for Wratten but is pretty much the most likable character in the series. Having invested everything in Wratten's business to make it look legit, Eccleston wants to do one last big deal with another big drugs guy, Bob Harris, and then he's out because his wife is dying from early onset Alzheimers. Problem: there's a rumor that Bob Harris ordered the hit on Wratten. So poor Joseph has to deal with all this, the emotional stuff regarding his wife, and control the wild and unpredictably mental Jay Wratten. Oh, and there's a mysterious and sinister man in a trilby wandering around killing people - Gatehouse.
That is the short version, believe it or not. And some of that's probably wrong, it's hard to keep up.
I decided to watch the first ep of the show because the review in the magazine sounded good and I'll watch anything with Christopher Eccleston. I kept watching because the first scene hooked me (two coppers looking at Wratten's body, one not very pleasant - he turned out to be a bad cop - and no music in the background, giving it all an eerily silent feel). Then Gatehouse came along and got me even more hooked - I thought he was good, helping the driver of Wratten's car evade the police and the crazy Wratten Jr. who wanted to question him, and then he went and shot the poor guy and his mother and pregnant girlfriend too! Since then he's gone around killing all sorts of people - in a beautifully orchestrated and restrained scene in the last ep, he killed the motorbike-riding journalist poking around Ejiofor's character. You don't see the killing since both Gatehouse's car and the motorbike just disappeared into a dip in the road, then Gatehouse drives calmly away and the journalist is left sitting in the road beside the wreckage of his bike, looking almost alive until the trickle of blood down his face. Superb.
All in all, it's a convoluted, intelligent and tense thriller which is hard to keep up with, but who cares? The beauty is, you don't need to. You just need to enjoy the ride and assume everything will eventually become clear.

Music-wise, I'm all about Lady Gaga's latest album Born This Way this week. I love her, I absolutely adore this woman. Born this Way has nary a dull song. Yoü and I is my favourite track, at least in part due to the wonderful Brian May on the guitar. It's passionate, heartfelt, and one of the least messed-with (I don't know how else to put it) songs on the album, almost raw, a bit like Speechless on the Fame Monster. Judas and The Edge of Glory have me dancing around like a maniac and belting out the lyrics, and Born this Way and Hair make me feel all warm inside. All in all, it's a fab album and this week inspired an impromptu saucepan-dance from me while washing the dishes. Love it. What I hate, however, is the lazy comparisons people are making about Gaga's work. Like saying she copied Madonna. Why? Because they both had songs about the same theme, are both singers, and are both women? If people are going to criticize, they should at least do it well. Rant over.

My guilty pleasure this week has been chocolate waffles from Aldi. Had one for breakie this morning, stuck it in the microwave for twenty seconds and oh my god was it good. A zillion calories perhaps, but SO GOOD.

Finally, I'm all about the zarking amazing TV series on CBBC - Horrible Histories (Tuesdays, 5:15pm). If you are not watching this, why not? Don't tell me it's for kids. I'm seventeen. My little brother got me into this after the first series (it's now on it's third) and I know all the songs by heart and never miss an episode. IT IS AMAZING. Children's TV series tend to be... Well, let's face it, they usually suck ass. Especially ones trying to be educational. But Horrible Histories is an amazingly rare breed - in fact, I think it's in a league of it's own: a children's TV show which is both educational and more entertaining than most adult shows put together. It has
Horrible Histories, based on the best-selling series of books by Terry Deary (who features in every episode somewhere), is a mishmash of sketches, quiz questions, and impressive songs teaching you history with all the gory, weird and unbelievably true bits left in. I have learned more from this series than I ever did in 4 years of high school history. Sketches include historical takes on modern TV shows and adverts - Come Dine With Me, Wife Swap, a Gok Wan style 'Fashion Fix', Masterchef, and countless Cillit-Bang style item-promotions starting with 'Hi! I'm a shouty man!'. Pure genius.
I could talk about this show all day, and sometimes I do. Okay, so it's not always entirely historically accurate, and some of it is just speculation (but then again, so is a lot of the stuff in the history books). But it's amazing, and I dare even the most mature adult not to titter at it. You know when things say 'bringing history to life'? This is one of the rare things which achieves its promise. And in spectacular style.