Catching Up

Friday was spent catching up on some documentaries and other factual shows I had recorded over the past millennium but never got around to watching.. Started with a few National Geographic shows; in particular Diving the Labyrinth about exploring the blue holes in the Bahamas, and Manta Mystery about manta rays. The one about the blue holes was fascinating, as I’d heard of them but didn’t know much about them. At one point they were diving past the skeleton of a  1970’s diver who was not very lucky on his dive – just in case you hadn’t heard all the comments on how dangerous and extreme blue hole diving was! I’d like to add, the narrator needs to learn how to pronounce Bahamas. He repeatedly referred to them as the BO-hamas – incredibly vexing.

After the NatGeo session I had a couple of Panoama’s to watch. Panorama is a BBC current affairs show, which has been running for over 50 years. It is very often interesting, thought provoking, upsetting and very informative. The subjects do tend to vary wildly, but are related to recent news stories. I watched ones on PFIs, an alleged Russian spy, supermarket price wars and an adoption crisis. The PFI show was very annoying – to hear of so much money being taken away from the NHS by big business investors leaves one fuming, and then they claim the figures used to convince Liverpool to opt for a new PFI hospital had been fiddled to make them more appealing – I was appalled. The alleged Russian spy farce was so well ridiculed in the press and on TV by the time I watched the show it was nothing new to be honest, though I must admit I hadn’t quite realised how young she was was, and how old the Liberal MP was. Lucky bugger. Supermarket price wars may be in the news, but it’s hardly a new thing, and the main thing to come out of watching that show is that the big four national supermarkets are constantly breaking the Advertising Standards Authority consumer laws and getting away with it. Don’t go shopping if you’re just throwing things into your trolley – check the prices on the shelf and at the till – or the status quo in my case – I don’t trust them. The most heart-breaking show was the one regarding an impending adoption crisis in the UK. Since the Baby P case there has been a 40% increase in children being removed from their parents, with no subsequent increase in social services staff. I’ve seen a few shows regarding adoption recently, in particular plans to drastically reduce the amount of time it takes for prospective parents to become successful. Whilst this is a good move, and will help many children find a permanent loving family, it does little to help those removed with their siblings, whose only hope of adoption is to be split up. Finding a stable, loving and permanent home must be the ultimate goal, and splitting up siblings seems to be a last resort, but it does seem to me to be a rather harsh solution after all these kids have been through, but what else can be done? The liberal in me says give the back to their parents and support the parents more, rather than just taking them away, but I’ve no idea of the specifics of any of the cases and I’m no way qualified to get involved.

I’ll also be updating Wednesday's post with the concluding instalment of Public Enemies.

OK. Enough for now. Nice to see telly recovering from the Christmas break. CSI:NY and Supernatural were on last night, the second season of Portlandia started (more on that soon, I only just discovered it, and I love it!) and Law and Order UK started it’s sixth series, not bad for a show that premiered three years ago. More on those once I’ve watched ‘em. TTFN.