9 Comments For This Post

1. Rullsenberg wrote:
   July 24, 2006 | Reply
   

   I think I'd have given it 40... "No that's how I got into the bureau"

   oh pulease!!!

2. Rob Buckley wrote:
   July 24, 2006 | Reply
   

   That's more or less when I started to feel sick.

   But I felt I owed it you guys to soldier on. It just got worse though and I couldn't take it any more.

   I'm sorry. I failed you. And saved myself from extreme pain, which is kind of a result.

3. Rullsenberg wrote:
   July 24, 2006 | Reply
   

   I think you were QUITE entitled to ditch it. Life's too short for crap TV unless there is some really significant motivation (like, you know David Tennant, scottish accent...)

   Anyway, glad to know I matched you for the point where sickness took over. I certainly wouldn't have lasted any longer than you if I had been watching it 'live' for the possibility of viewing the whole episode...

4. Rob Buckley wrote:
   July 24, 2006 | Reply
   

   "Life's too short for crap TV unless there is some really significant motivation"

   You were just watching Secret Smile, weren't you?

5. Rullsenberg wrote:
   July 24, 2006 | Reply
   

   Ahem... Amazing what you can bring yourself to overlook during a hot and humid lunchbreak (lack of plot, feeble and unbelievable characterization, someone screeching "WHAAAT????!!!" every few minutes...)

6. Marie wrote:
   July 24, 2006 | Reply
   

   That was so bad I think I would have watched the whole episode, maybe even the entire series. "I know you have a gift..." What can I say, I have Joe Queenan-like tendencies, as witnessed in his article for the Guardian on Saturday:

   "The show was so bad that it was cancelled after just three episodes. This is hard to do in the United States, where horrible television shows routinely stay on the air for decades. But unlike most run-of-the-mill horrible shows, this show was really horrible. At the time it was deep-sixed, I wrote an article in the Wall Street Journal, complaining about how unfair it was for networks to cancel abysmal TV series before fans of abysmal TV series got a chance to see how abysmal they were. It would be like broadcasting the World Cup without ever letting viewers see the American team in action."

   (The rest is at http://film.guardian.co.uk/features/featurepages/0,,1825303,00.html )

7. Rob Buckley wrote:
   July 24, 2006 | Reply
   

   If you've never read Joe Queenan's America: Red Lobster, White Trash and the Blue Lagoon, I heartily suggest you do, because it's wonderful. He deliberately goes out to take in the worst of American life and culture, such as awful TV shows, Renaissance Fairs, rubbish restaurants, etc. He starts to like it after a while.

   I particularly liked the section where he starts reading rubbish books and wonders why rubbish books always preface themselves with quotes from Shakespeare and the like. He wonders what would happen if you got a work of Shakespeare out and it was prefaced by a quote from Tom Clancey: "The Hughes 500 has baffles to deflect radar scans..."

   You've got to appreciate a man with a mind like that.

8. Marie wrote:
   July 24, 2006 | Reply
   

   Ooh yes. That's one of the funniest books I have ever read. Snorting out loud on the tube with everyone staring at you funny. Which reminds me, why no Charlie Skelton updates lately?

9. Rob Buckley wrote:
   July 25, 2006 | Reply
   

   Charlie's been a bit quiet of late. I think he was on a skiing holiday for a while, and I suspect Eight Out of Ten Cats is occupying his time.

   Last we exchanged emails, a Miami librarian had written to me, asking for signed for books. Charlie said he only had a few copies of his book left and they were in Yiddish, but he'd do his best.