Comic Relief

A must see for anyone who misses the Doctor until the next bonus episode comes out in November. Catherine Tate and David Tennant get together for comedic short for something called the Red Nose Day, which is a British charity that helps raise money with the help of comedians. I'll be honest, I don't quite understand it, I think it's one of those things you really have to be British to understand.

But the point is, check out the link below for BBC's Youtube page. The sketch is only about 6 minutes long -- Catherine Tate plays an unruly high school student and David Tennant is the new English teacher. Who's Scottish. Which means he can't teach English, amiright? Well use of six minutes. Copy and paste this link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WxB1gB6K-2A or use the Comic Relief link on the left side of the page.

Speaking of David Tennant (okay, yes, I could just write "David." But could you refer to the Doctor that way? I can't.) Speaking of David Tennant, he is currently working on the movie Hamlet, which is why I think he left the show. As far as I can tell, every Scottish boys' dream is to play Hamlet (according to an interview on Top Gear.) Or maybe he said that it was every boy's dream to be the Doctor? I guess I'll have to watch the episode again.

Also, Catherine Tate has her own show called, big surprise, The Catherine Tate Show. It's another sketch comedy that plays on Friday evening on BBC America. I love Catherine Tate's "in your face" type of attitude, and she's plays a great unruly British brat. Love it, love it, love it!

And while your spending your Friday evenings with BBC America (which I think has an HD channel, but I don't get it, so it doesn't count) tune in for the Graham Norton Show. (This is what I love about British people -- it's like everyone knows everyone.) However, it's a talk show, not a sketch show, but I would still call it comedy. He's over-the-top gay and says what he wants. I've only caught clips of episodes, but I definitely need to watch more!

Hope I've filled everyone's Friday nights! All of these shows (in my area, with my cable programming) is on rather early -- as soon as I get home from work, I turn on the telly and for about three hours it's British humor almost non-stop. But since it's on early, it doesn't interfere with Friday night shenanigans. So I can watch their comedies while cooking or cleaning, and still have a night to party. Now only if they had Saturday morning cartoons....

Pirate's Life for Me!

So this *barely* qualifies as a "British," but I wanted to announce that Portland's Pirate Festival earned the Guinness Book of World Record of "Largest Gathering of Pirates."  YARR!!!  I believe the title was held by the Germans (think of James May anytime you refer to "Germans") in one of their theme parks.

I was on the scene, first hand, to make sure we beat them! In the end, we had more than 1,600 people qualify, and that wasn't even everyone!  It was quite a pain; it took FOREVER to get through the gate, sign your name, and then wait until EVERYONE was counted.  Thankfully, about halfway through, Captain Bogg and Salty performed on stage, and helped keep everyone entertained.

Here's me and my husband-to-be at festival.  I hope to get more pictures later, I just have to wait for the mum-in-law to upload the 5,000 pictures she takes everyday.  (I must say though, with all the shenanigans we get up to, it takes about that many.)

A Trip Through Time and Space

Emphasis on "trip."

I finally sat down and started watching the Mighty Boosh.  I hesitate to say that I understand the show now; let's say I'm now able to differentiate between the things I should understand, and the things that have no understanding. 

The show is about two friends, Howard Moon and Vincent Noir, who work at the "Zooniverse," a crap-tastic, underfunded, badly run zoo.  Shenanigans ensue.  No, really.  In the first episode, Howard Moon is black mailed by his boss, Bob Fossil, to fight a kangaroo.  Noir convinces him that he can train Howard before the fight, which is less than 2 days away.  They buy horrible training suits, those nasty vinyl, speed suit type atrocities.  There's a scene where Noir is showing Moon tapes of previous kangaroo fights, with words like "disembowelment" and "eat off a man's face" but I couldn't quite focus on what was being said.  The scene is set up so it your looking at Moon and Noir from the back of the TV, and while the tapes are playing, the only thing you could really see is Howard Moon's distinct man-bags in the vinyl suit.  I deserve either an apology or breakfast, one of the two.

Noir gets help from their local mystic, Naboo, who blows special dust on Noir's face that sends him on a vision quest and....look, it's ridiculous.  Do you even believe me?  I wouldn't. 

Think of the show as if Family Guy musical numbers got mixed with Robot Chicken's randomness,  fourth wall jokes a la Chowder, and horribly trippy segments like Misadventures of Flapjack. But all live-action.  And British.

I'll mention again that you can catch The Mighty Boosh on Cartoon Network during their Adult Swim  time slots.  However, I suggest that you watch it unedited -- it's difficult enough to distinguish what should make sense anyway.

Happy Emergency Services Day!

Today, being 09/09/09, is Emergency Services Day in the UK.  Their emergency hotline number is 999, instead of 911 for us Yankees.  Other than the Queen thanking the coastguard, and fellow blogger at cakewrecks.blogspot.com with some interesting cakes, there's really nothing special.  But check out those cakes!

I recently started watching Torchwood, finally.  It's a spin-off of Doctor Who, so I was afraid it was going to be awful.  But other than having a few insights to one liners ("That hand is worthless to anyone but me!") Torchwood is definitely it's own show; instead of the cheery, "save the day" feeling you get from Doctor Who, its a much darker, more realistic show.  Realistic in the sense that feelings get hurt, situations don't go as planned, people die (oh yes, do people die).  There's still a lot of wibbly wobbly spacey wacey type stuff (including a secret underground compound), but so far it has been nowhere near as fantastical as Doctor Who.  And the sex!  My goodness!  Sure, it's not real sex, but as an American (and a liberal one, in my opinion) I was quite surprised to see simulated (stimulated?) sex, repeatedly, in almost every episode.  Not that I mind, I'm an adult, but someone could have told me! (Maybe I would have tuned in sooner!)

I have failed to mention the Mighty Boosh, which can actually been seen on American television through Cartoon Network (check local listings blah blah blah).  It's a comedy show, about ...uhhh....there's these guys, and they uh, and one of them is a magician? A fortuneteller?  Okay, seriously, I have no idea what the show is about. Even trying to read the Wikipedia page to pretend I know something did me no good.  My friend showed it to me one night, at 2 in the morning, after drinking since 7 that night.  Since then, he's talked non-stop about how great it is.  I swear I'll watch it, promise! If you're going to watch it, I suggest getting the DVD; Cartoon Network edits it so it'll fit in the time slot.  Stupid American commercials.

Billie Piper's Secret

What do you do after travelling through time and space with the Doctor?  Apparently, become a hooker.  Or more specifically, a call girl.  And then write about it. In a secret diary.  And then tell everyone about it.  Because that's the way it works, right?

Check out the attached link for Showtime's official page for Billie Piper in "Secret Diary of a Call Girl" with our very own little Miss Bad Wolf (ruff ruff) as the "call girl." 

I haven't actually seen this show yet.  In fact, I knew about it for exactly 15 seconds before I rushed over here to tell everyone.  So if any of you have seen it, PLEASE let me know!  I'm dying to find it now!

Shameless Plugging

Okay, so maybe its not British, and it certainly isn't telley, but I wanted to direct everyone's attention to Girl Genius,which you should see the advert to your left, or the bottom of the page. It's a webcomic/graphic novel/comic book by Kaja and Phil Foglio. Very steampunk, and the location is their made up version of Europe, and England exists, so that's good enough to make it British, right?

Agatha Heterodyne is the main character, who thought she was no-good at building machines, but turns out she's actually the lost heir to the near-mythical royal family. I'm not giving much away -- it's obvious from the start that Agatha is "more than she seems." What I love about Agatha is that she doesn't seem too stuck on herself -- instead of wallowing in a pool of self pity or despair, Agatha bravely marches forward, accepts who she is and what she is, and gets to the things that matter: building death rays. It's the must have accessory of the year!

You should visit at www.girlgeniusonline.com. I'll also post a link on the left.

Girl Genius just won three awards from the WCCA, Web Cartoonist Choice Awards, for Outstanding Comic, Outstanding Writers, and Outstanding Environmental Design. Something gives the hint that they are, what's the word? Oh yes, OUTSTANDING or sumfing.