christmas is a time of traditions, look you see. some of these are good, a few make sense, and there are one or two (one in particular) which might happen for no apparent reason beyond nostalgia. possibly misguided nostalgia.
with regards to the latter, i of course speak of that once important, now secondary thing which happens around christmas in the UK - the (previously) celebrated "mega" double edition of the tv guide.
exactly, i wonder, how much do i bore you with the same sentimental hygiene of nostalgic waffle that i seem to do every year? well, i guess, for those who are new to this blog, a little. in short, growing up in the 80s meant you had entirely four tv channels, and no way of knowing what was going to be on any of them without the tv guide. the christmas edition, usually covering the weeks of christmas and new year, was hotly (eagerly, perhaps) anticipated, as it revealed the "big" film premiere and various special episodes of (usually or mostly) popular if not loved shows.
but that's all gone, now. we live in an era with dozens of free broadcast channels, hundreds of paid for television options, thousands of "streaming" or on demand things and millions of other visual distractions. what the traditional "big" channels show - predominantly the two main entertainment ones, BBC 1 and ITV - just does not matter any more. and this is reflected in ever decreasing efforts at any sort of quality being reserved.
and yet still nostalgia drives me to purchase the christmas edition of one of the big tv magazines, be it the TV Times or the Radio Times. why? perhaps just to touch a memory of days gone by, a shameless effort to grab the excitement of when Mum came home with it. no, at no point during the year do i purchase any sort of tv guide. it would be silly, as i rarely get the chance or time to watch much.
yes, this year i went back to the Radio Times. this is after a few years of buying the TV Times, and of course swearing off the Radio Times, vowing never ever to buy it again. why the change? mostly it is because TV Times went right ahead and bumped the price of their edition up to £4 on the button, whereas previously it has been somewhere considerably south of this. i figured if that is how they want to play it, fine, i will spend an extra 95p, or if you like just 5p south of £5, on the Radio Times, so that i may look sophisticated and classy in the eyes of the lady at the cigarette counter at Tesco.
indeed i did immediately regret this decision. the Radio Times may be a good deal thicker, and so seem like greater value for money, but it is not. for something predominantly driven by the BBC it sure does have a whole lot of adverts in it, including a really, really annoying 8 page "travel" special right in the centre of the christmas day listings. also, the layout and the way they present what is on each channel is, as you will see in the below, complete sh!t and annoying. my understanding is that only the really posh people of the country buy the Radio Times, and even then it is just so their staff may observe what televisual treats are coming and alert their masters.
anyway, a look at what is to come (assuming you are reading this before christmas day 2019), and do be warned, for it really is as bad as people have been saying.
that there is the "main" viewing on BBC1 and BBC2 for christmas day. no, i have not done anything like them clever "photoshop" people do, this is totes legit. we do indeed have a lot of frequently repeated Two Ronnies, Dad's Army and Morecambe and Wise to watch. also, EastEnders, as absolutely nothing says "christmas" quite like "let us give them cockneys shouting at each other, that is what they want".
quite a few people have already told the BBC that yes, actually, there is such a thing as too much Michael McIntyre, but they seem not to hear. as for Mrs Brown's Boys and Call The Midwife, well, i tape them for my Mum & Dad so i cannot complain too much, but neither feels like all that great a christmas treat.
for those of you particularly worried that there is only a small fraction of christmas day handed over to Kylie on the BBC, fear not. as you can see below Channel 4 has kindly agreed to also broadcast some of the celebrated antipodean marvel.
the best thing which can be said of ITV's main entertainment for christmas day is that it makes BBC 1 look like they are actually trying. at least BBC 1 just throws one soap opera at audiences, whereas ITV make it two. other than that, it appears to be just "celebrity" versions of (either average or dire) gameshows, with some people that some viewers might have heard of participating in watered down versions of lukewarm contests to benefit charity. maybe just rather give the money to charity and put a decent film on instead, but no matter.
as for Channel 4, well, i am not even sure what the relevance or purpose of the channel is any more. perhaps i am now just too old for it, but i remember it being cutting edge and interesting. now, no.
with the format of the tv listings being poor and the actual listings themselves being rather dire, is there anything remotely of value in this magazine to make me feel like my £4.95 was not a complete waste? i had a flick through to check.
just about the best thing i could find was this interview, really. it is, of course, him out of Communards who was not Jimmy Sommerville but is now a vicar, or something. lovely chap he is, too. a really nice touch is that, as you can see in red, the Radio Times has taken this opportunity to "put the christ back into christmas" and mention some christmas related shows being broadcast.
back to christmas listings, then, and right on to the single, biggest and greatest disappointment. as in even more miserable and sad that what BBC and ITV have lined up. yes, Channel 5. they have done it again, which is to say that they have declined to broadcast one of the best christmas things ever to exist, namely Chas & Dave Christmas Cockney Knees Up 1981. from what i recall they did not show it last year, either.
that's one thing i always look forward to. mostly, yes, of course, Chas & Dave in action, and a whole bunch of cockneys, in a pub, wearing brown suits with flared trousers. but also the bit with Lennie Peters out of Peters & Lee. so far as i am aware this has never been released on DVD; let me have a look around for the video.
for some reason Channel 5 has, and you can see this above, elected to go for a celebrity death celebration of christmas this year. on any given night they have one or two "documentaries" about the final days or the autopsy of someone famous; in this instance Kurt Cobain and Richard Pryor. would it really have been to much for them to, on just one evening, have dropped this sort of show and screened the Chas & Dave classic?
if there was one thing that i always looked forward to happening when i was a Dad at christmas then that would have been having a nice snooze on the sofa one afternoon as something reasonably interesting was being broadcast. for this, BBC 2 has come up trumps on christmas eve.
look at that. between 11:40am and 4:00pm i can lay down and have a nice relaxing sleep whilst two classics of 70s British cinema play on to an audience not paying attention. nice one.
but even then, or of course, this is not quite perfect or as it should be. a reasonable expectation for me or anyone would be that a christmas time snooze on an afternoon with the tele on would feature ITV, with a James Bond film starring Sir Roger Moore being broadcast at either 3:10pm on christmas day or 3pm on boxing day. this is how it was for years, with Moonraker in particular being a big favourite.
not so, and not to be this year, alas.
for some reason (perhaps it is all rights related) ITV has seemingly abandoned all James Bond films bar the last few what have starred Daniel Craig. they are screening all of the Daniel Craig Bond films to have been released so far over Christmas. yes, it is on an evening they are doing this, rather than the traditional afternoon slot. oh well, at least the very best Daniel Craig Bond - and one of the best Bond films ever - in the form of Skyfall is the big boxing day treat.
so far it would be fair to say that the christmas edition of Radio Times, and the christmas tv schedules, have all been an underwhelming disappointment. it pretty much carries on like this for the new years eve schedules, with the "major" channels for some reason still believing that what the people want involves the likes of Alan Carr and Jools Holland. at least our friends what do the Challenge channel get how important it is to put something decent on.
yes, ladies and gentlemen. what you are seeing is quite true. from 10pm on december 31 to 4:30am on january 1, Challenge TV are having an ace, mega, boss and totes excellent festival of Bullseye. i shall indeed be watching, and best it be proper and correct Bullseye with his holiness, the eternal and excellent Jim Bowen, and not that revival they did with the false prophet, Dave something.
well, that's about that, then. everything, or most of everything, about the tv listings this christmas screams if not says "do not watch much television this christmas". perhaps that is no bad thing at all, really. everyone can just do all sorts of other stuff.
shall we be here again, around about mid-december 2020? yes, i would expect so. here i could make all sorts of wild claims and statements about how i am not going to bother buying a christmas edition of the TV Times or Radio Times again, but assuming i am still around, then yes i surely will. the temptation and the lure of nostalgia shall always and forever win this wrestling bout.
be excellent to each other!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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