THE CONCRETE ROUNDABOUT (TCR)

The Big Match Revisited on ITV4.

Chanced upon some re-runs from February 1975 earlier this week on ITV4, which followed the live stages of this year's Tour of Britan.

The hairstyles & sideburns & fashions are hilarious, as are the abysmal state of the pitches that mostly either resembled ploughed fields or had more sand on them than Bournemouth beach, in the case of Luton's pitch.

Brian Moore was great, with some reasonably incisive (for the time) interviews of managers and players.

Lots of games & season available here on the ITV Hub, eg.
https://www.itv.com/hub/the-big-match-r ... a6464a0073

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APL Champion 2018 + 2025
APL Hall of Fame Champion 2024 + 2025
140 grounds - 78/92

'Can I expect my team to stay in the Championship when they have to train at a school when the weather is bad?'
'Every year we’re in League 1 is a year too long'
Pete W

That 'submarine thing' is pretty darn good.

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Gimme Gimme Shock Treatment

If you want to know what being on board a real submarine is like Channel 5 9pm tonight. A long time ago I served on the submarine in the programme.

Squid Game

Unless you've been living under a rock for the last couple of weeks as it's all over the media, then I'm assuming that you're already aware of this. It's Netflix's most successful show, by some considerable distance. I get the fact that they throw cash about like it's going out of fashion, but the sheer amount of fantastic things they put out is astonishing. The Crown, Narcos, Better Call Saul, The Queen's Gambit, Dark, and on and on. And you can add this to the list. Admittedly they have a lot of stinkers, but like me, you don't have to watch those.

It's Korean, and therefore it's in Korean. Which is an interesting point right there. Netflix's most successful show has subtitles. That's a good thing.

Basic premise... An extremely unlucky gambler, played by the outstanding Lee Jung-jae, agrees to take part in a winner take all game, where all of his gambling debts will be wiped out. Arriving on an island with almost 500 other participants, likewise in debt they'll never pay off, the games start. They're children's games. The first being Grandma's Steps. However, if you lose, you die. And it progresses from there. Alliances form, and break, friendships likewise form, and then horrific betrayal inevitably ensues. It's an outstanding piece of work.

And speaking of outstanding. The cast...
Almost all Korean, with a few notable exceptions, are absolutely wonderful. The aforementioned Lee Jung-jae is possibly the greatest actor I've seen in anything for years. He's unbelievable. Likewise the astonishingly beautiful Jung Ho-yeon as an immigrant from North Korea, is utterly mesmerising. You can't take your eyes off her when she's on screen. I'd be lying if I said I knew the actors, a couple of which I vaguely recognised, but they really were brilliant.

It's a really good watch, if unbelievably violent, which I'd urge everyone to give a go.

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They say don't kick a man when he's down. Show me a better time.

Doctor Who

Sigh - it's really difficult to know quite what so say

Having watched the Doctor since the early seventies it's been a real journey, and whilst I would like to think I have remained true to the cause (with the exception of the Sylvester McCoy era) I suddenly get that awkward feeling that perhaps it's not the programme, but instead it's me. It's been a real blast since the creative and artistic renaissance from Ecclestone's Doctor 9 in 2005 to the end of Matt Smith's in 2013, although sadly since then it seems to have been Doctor Who in name only, a slow decline into mediocrity

The current series seems to encapsulate my current predicament, a basic plot line that sounds great and fires the imagination (re-writing of time itself) but bogged down by banal characterisation, an absence of any real drama, and the un-necessary onboarding of a celebrity - in this case John Bishop, a gobby scouser playing a gobby scouser, which just leaves me cold. In theory it should work, but despite having all of my fingers and most of my toes crossed it doesn't - instead feeling lacklustre and bland

I'll still keep watching and hoping that natural justice and the new Doctor might make things right, but instinct says it might be a long wait

It's honestly nothing against the actors and I think given a decent script and a competent showrunner Jodie could actually have been good, but the writing nowadays is so poor. Thankfully Russell T Davies, the man who spearheaded the first 4 years of the return to TV, is coming back to run it so the next run should go back to some resemblance of the show I loved as a kid.

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Those that we love never truly leave us. There are things that death cannot touch. Paint... and memory... and love.

Let's hope so. I'm all for diversity and inclusion but that should go along with good dialogue, plots and acting. Not replace them.

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I don't need your ill-informed, half-baked, idiotic opinions. I have plenty of those myself.

Succession - the best thing on tv, and if you're not watching it you're missing out. Probably my favourite show of all time.

It's outstanding.

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They say don't kick a man when he's down. Show me a better time.

Last night's episode was the best one yet.

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They say don't kick a man when he's down. Show me a better time.