Tuesday 2 October 2012

The goggle box moan - again

One of my more frequent moans is that there is nothing on television.  Of course, what I really mean is that there are no programmes on television that I want to watch; there is always plenty of rubbish - and that seems to be proliferating.  But having said that I would have been made to eat my words two or three weeks ago.  About two weeks ago there were close on 20 programmes I had recorded because either they were broadcast at inconvenient times or they clashed with a programme on another channel.  What caused the big build up were the repeats of Downton Abbey.  We had failed to watch either the first or the second series when first broadcast but such was the acclaim for this period drama that we decided watch the repeats.  These, unsurprisingly perhaps, were broadcast too early in the evening for us to watch them as at that time we were otherwise engaged - eating, which was far more important.  We have now caught up and watched both series 1 and series 2, but series 3 has just started its first run.  This, however, started before we had watched the last of series 2 so we will need to wait until the repeats are shown.

When we reach the point that there is nothing we want to watch on the goggle box and we have nothing recorded - the situation we have just reached - we fall back on DVDs.  I have bought box sets of various sitcoms, all of which we have watched, one twice over, and we have started watching a drama series from 1990, House of Cards.  This is a political thriller set after Maggie Thatcher's stint as Prime Minister.  It is only four parts long, but there are two follow-ups to make up a trilogy.

Once that is over, we have two films.  The Old Bat was given Titanic as a birthday present six months ago and it is still in its plastic wrapper!  I have just bought Oh! What a Lovely War which was released way back in 1969 and starred so many top British actors that I can't remember them all - Olivier, Geilgud, Richardson, John Mills, Maggie Smith.  It was filmed in and around Brighton which adds to the appeal of this anti-war film.  I'm looking forward to watching it again.

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Still in the Massif Central of France but now in the Auvergne département, we find the village of Leotoing and the remains of its château perched high on a hill.



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