November 2009 Archives

By Dan Owen

Based on her Radio 4 comedy series, Miranda Hart's self-named sitcom has breezed onto BBC2 and is proving to be curious fun. Everything about it should guarantee it falls flat on its face, but it somehow achieves the impossible and leaves you feeling aglow. Perhaps it's because Miranda's a dose of "old-fashioned" sitcom that embraces its own format with open arms, mining humour in breaking the fourth wall and giving us that rare inclusive feeling of watching a play. You don't get that kind of relaxed informality with single camera comedies like The Office or The Thick Of It.



Miranda Hart plays a comic version of herself; a posh-accented owner of a small joke shop who delegates the everyday running to her friend Stevie (Sarah Hadland), while essentially trying to get her thirtysomething singleton life on-track. Think a girly Black Books with penis-shaped pasta instead of books, and no alcoholism. Anyway, trying to get her life in order is something that proves immensely difficult because Miranda's always been a clumsy, socially-awkward, underachieving, posh, slightly agoraphobic giant of a woman.

By Jay Garrett,

I’d like to start this week’s gadgety update by congratulating Swindon on its new achievement.  It has officially become the UK’s very first Wi-Fi Town.

You may have heard about a little game called Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. Well, if you haven’t loads of others have – to the point that it has enjoyed the largest launch of any entertainment product in history – it’s even trounced that little Batman film.  You know the one. It’s got the Joker in it played by Heath Ledger.

If you cast your mind back to last week I was rabbiting on about some self-tinting contact lenses – well, if that’s not really your bag; howsabout some that overlay Augmented Reality right against your peepers?

Audio makers of note, Bowers & Wilkins have announced that they have some Zeppelin branded computer speakers on the way.  I’m sure they’ll be lovely and also not cheap.

Fancy tracking ghosts, ghouls and other things that go bump in the night?  Well, no self-respecting ghostbuster should be without this natty 3-in-1 device!

Have you got a bunch of data that you need to store for.......oooooooh.... let’s say 1,000 years?  Well, Cranberry will gladly slap it all on a stone DVD for a small fee.

By Jay Garrett

Here we are once more – faced with a joyful catch-up of titbits from the shiny world of gadgety loveliness.

What have I got to share with you 12 days in to the 11th month?

Well – howsabout some speakers? You can have surround sound coming out of what looks like an archery target, one that looks like a bird cage, one that clips onto your laptop screen or one that will dwarf the iPod that’s docked to it.

There have been a couple of female singers associated with new Nokia mobiles since we last met.

Rhianna is to perform live and this will be streamed on the Nokia-a-a-eh-eh blog on the very same day that the spanky looking X6 becomes available.

Not to be outdone:  Blonde pop warbler, Pixie Lott, just loves the girly chic-ness of the Nokia Illuvial range. Fact!

By Dan Owen


For many people, impressionists are only above ventriloquists on the ladder of entertainment. Both are "party trick"-style skills that audiences find diverting, but the actual content of their material can leave a lot to be desired. Consequently, both have their peaks and troughs in widespread popularity, but there's generally an appetite for lighthearted impressions-based sketch shows – something less politically-motived than Rory Bremner, and more along the lines of Alistair McGowan's Big Impression or Dead Ringers.