The return of Mock The Week? But…

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Well, yes. But actually, maybe. Or not?

Metro reported thus:

The scariest thing about this was that it was apparently four years ago. I thought that it was 2023 or something. And with a whole Google search, it turns out that neither of us were right.
The last episode was on the 4th November 2022.

That’s not even three years ago yet, let alone four.

But surely the rest of their reporting will be accurate and truthful, right?

And look, if it is correct, then this is clearly great news, but the issues here are twofold. Firstly, that so much of the original MTW was good because of the regulars and especially Hugh Dennis and Dara O’Briain. Without them, you might as well just make a different show. And although no cast announcements have been made yet, it’s not sounding good:

A statement from Warner Bros. Discovery confirmed that the show’s return, produced by Angst Productions, would give the ‘much-loved’ series a ‘new look’.

As we’ve said so many time regarding music on this blog, sometimes change isn’t good. Especially when it was the familiarity that drew you in in the first place.

And there’s more iffiness because it’s apparently allegedly making a comeback on TLC:

As soon as I heard the news that Mock the Week was returning, I felt a tingle of nostalgic excitement.
Then I continued reading an article about it and saw something that immediately made me think the reboot is doomed to fail – it’s being aired on a relaunched version of TLC, which is a digital and Freeview channel known for reality TV screaming matches with shows like 90 Day Fiancé and 1000-lb Sisters.

These shows are hardly top-tier political satire like Mock the Week is, so it feels completely out of place.

There’s no doubt that the show calmed down a lot in its later years. There were definitely improvements in panel diversity, which was great to see, but at the same time, a lot of the edginess dropped off. And actually, we really need that edginess now. We need to be able to look at clowning politicians and take them down with satire and humour. See Colin Jost and Michael Che on SNL – no holds barred.
Honestly though, I think that there will be a further dumbing down of the hard-hitting content that MTW became known for in its early years (Frankie Boyle was a huge proponent of this).

The viewing figures dropped away as well with that lack of edginess, and it did feel like the show was held together by the regulars and the long-time fans [waves], rather than people looking to laugh at something a bit dangerous or risky – because that wasn’t going to happen.

Of course – of course – I will give this a go when it comes back out. But sadly, I’m ready to be disappointed.

We keep going

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Another win, and this one after we’d been really poor in the first half. And then we went and scored three goals. I don’t know what happened, but it looked like the same old, same old when we got to half time, and then someone put a firecracker under our collective arses in the second period.

Still, I’m not complaining. My only gripe is that the excitement and adrenaline prevented me from sleeping for quite a lot of the night. And that’s left me a bit broken today.

On the plus side, I’m off to emulate some of the heroics from last night by playing a bit of the old togger tonight, for the first time in ages.

As I type, it’s only 33C out there, so I’m sure it’ll be an extremely uncomfortable a fun and pleasant experience.

Another day, another car park

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Gone are the days of the twice weekly sojourns to the old car park in Milnerton.

But Tuesday afternoons bring me to a different car park at the moment.

We nearly died getting here. In slow motion, sure, but still. The Stanhope Road bridge in Claremont – IYKYK – was like the Wild West this afternoon, with four lanes of taxis, Checkers bikes and old women in Mercedes fighting it out to get into the one remaining lane over the bridge. The traffic lights weren’t even being treated as a suggestion by anyone.

Every man, woman and vehicle for him, her and them self.

Absolute chaos.

And this car park is somehow worse today in that there’s a water polo match going on just over there [points], and water polo is the most whistle-happy sport in the world.

Every. Three. Seconds.

Additionally, Vodacom is misbehaving. Not in an illicit corporate way (possibly, anyway), but in just not providing any decent service. And that’s making my time here rather fruitless and very frustrating.

Who even knows if this blog post will work? But I need to get it done now because it’s curry for dinner and Sheffield United for the win this evening.

Well, definitely the curry bit, at least.

Let’s pray to any available deity and hit the PUBLISH button. 

Buys Ballot’s law

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I honestly thought* when I saw this that it was how Trump “won” the election, but as probably all my readers already know, Buys Ballot’s law is:

the relation of wind direction with the horizontal pressure distribution named for the Dutch meteorologist C.H.D. (Christophorus Henricus Diedericus**) Buys Ballot, who first stated it in 1857.

It’s a rudimentary method of estimating the position of varying centres of local atmospheric pressure from the prevailing wind direction.

Obvs.

Basically, it works around the relationship that (theoretically) states that the angle between the wind and the pressure gradient is a right angle. That means that in the Northern Hemisphere a person who stands facing away from the wind has high pressure on the right and low pressure on the left; in the Southern Hemisphere, the reverse is true.

We’re in the Southern Hemisphere [checks quickly… yep], so that means that if I stand with my back to the wind, then the low pressure area will be on my left (to be more accurate, it’s actually just slightly forward of my left), and the high pressure area on my right.

But why would I need to know this? Well, I probably wouldn’t, because I’m not a seafarer, miles out in the oceans. And if I did need to know it, then I’d just look at the nearest computer and it would show me where everything was. But in 1857 and for a long time before and afterwards, that wasn’t an option, because the internet was still dial up and that meant that you had to be attached to a really long cable.

Not possible in the middle of the South Atlantic (I am reliably informed).

So this law allowed sailors to estimate where the storm centre was, and thus allowed them to try to avoid it. Of course, you might not have been able to avoid the storm completely, but you could avoid the most dangerous quadrant – that is, the section of the ocean in front of you where the chances of damage from the storm was highest (Northern Hemisphere – front right, Southern Hemisphere – front left).

Less damage in those days (and maybe still even these days) meant more chance of survival.

There are a lot of factors that can mess up the wind/pressure relationship – it doesn’t work near the Equator, for example. But we’re not [checks quickly… nope] near the Equator. And though technology has far outpaced Buys-Ballot and his work, his law obviously still holds true. We just do things differently now.

Next time it’s a bit windy, cancel a marathon give it a go, then impress your friends by comparing your estimates with your modern day synoptic chart.

.

* I didn’t, this was just for comedic value.
** Crazy name, crazy guy.

First home win

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It’s almost November. I shouldn’t be writing that title.

But it happened, despite the BBC’s best efforts to pretend that it didn’t:

O’Hare with the only goal, and I think that even this image – taken as he wheels away to celebrate – somehow sums up our season so far:

Everyone going in different directions, Japhet Tanganga slightly unfocussed.
The only bit that looks more positive are some happy faces in the crowd.

It wasn’t pretty, but it didn’t have to be. No-one looks at the history books, sees the result and posthumously knocks off the points “because it wasn’t a classic”.

Onwards and upward then, quite literally, as we’re not bottom after this weekend.

So who are, you ask?

They are, obviously.