An idle evening in with the TV. Start watching one of those Channel 4 ‘100 Greatest’ clipfest things, this time on Sexiest Movie Moments. I’m watching alone, of course. Have to turn off after a while, as the constant cutting from famous smouldering sex scenes to the talking heads of balding, slovenly t-shirted critics like Heat Magazine’s Boyd Hilton is rather jarring. Now, I mean this with the fullest respect to Mr H, who I don’t doubt represents the pinnacle of erotic pleasure to someone in his life, and suspect he’ll have a less depressing Valentine’s Day than me (it wouldn’t be difficult). It’s just grotesquely unfair to all parties to juxtapose his appearance with Faye Dunaway and Steve McQueen in The Thomas Crown Affair.
These list programmes are enjoyably enough TV comfort food, but I always wish there were more clips and anecdotes from those genuinely involved with the featured items, and fewer rather obvious observations from whichever media tarts are available on the day.
Of the former, I’m intrigued by photographer Terry O’Neill’s tale of a magazine shoot featuring Raquel Welch in her One Million Years BC fur bikini. Except she was a few years older and strapped to a wooden cross. The implication being she felt crucified by that particular look, and feared she’d never really transcend it. As it transpired, Mr O’Neill never submitted the photo to the magazine: instead, it emerged in one of his books. He’d gotten cold feet about offending religious sensibilities. Plus ca change…
Watch The It Crowd, Graham Linehan’s much-hyped new sitcom. I find myself in that strange position of trying hard to enjoy something despite the bullying hype. There’s giant posters for this programme all over London. Completely unnecessary: no TV programme needs to be advertised on station hoardings, full stop. I also find myself struggling to ignore the studio audience laughter, which if it isn’t canned, is nonetheless intrusive and out of proportion. No laughs at all for the genuinely witty bits, gales of Bo Selecta-like hysteria when a character is on the toilet saying the phrase ‘Number Twos’.
Still, the sight of one character reading a Dan Clowes comic book (I recognise it as ‘Twentieth Century Eightball‘, surely making me more geeky than any character in the show) is reason enough to have me rooting for The It Crowd. They just need to stop hawking it like mad to train commuters, and let it quietly develop a following of its own accord.
