Wendy’s Week of TV: Part 15

Sunday: Who do you think you are?

Barbara Windsor (she of the Carry On films) was the subject this evening. Her family history rooted in the East End of London was interesting but what was more fascinating was THAT HAIR. Many peroxided animals and/or birds may have been harmed in the construction of her “do” each morning I think. It continually upstaged her for the entire hour.

Sunday: First Australians

This was the first episode I had watched of this sombre yet enlightening series. Watch it if you can.

Tuesday: Hamish Macbeth

For me this is one of the more memorable episodes of Hamish as it introduces the supernatural element very strongly, as well as showing the sad death of Wee Jock. How nice it is to see a male character mourning the death of his doggy best friend. The intertwining stories of the prisoners on the run, the dead boy and his auntie and wee jock came together very neatly at the end. And how cute was that new puppy?!

Wednesday: Time Team

You know for big Time Team fans you can now catch this program twice a week – Tuesday evenings at 6pm and then Wednesdays on ABC2 at 5:30pm. This time the gang were in search of Bronze Age burials near Fife (I think – although maybe confusing Tuesday and Wednesday episodes in terms of location and historical epoch). You really would have to like dirt of all colour and consistences to be an archaeologist. Most stressful job on site must be the man in the bobcat who has to lift the aged stones of the graves so they don’t break and fall back into the graves ruining the artefacts within.

Thursday: The Prime Minister is Missing

Harold Holt’s is a fascinating story from Australian political history but in this televisual form after the first twenty minutes when we established that Holt had vanished into the sea never to return, the momentum slowed considerably. I had little trouble walking away before it finished.

Friday: Queen for a Day

Apparently every little girl in Grafton dreams of being the Jacaranda Queen. In fact, apparently little girls everywhere dream of being princesses and queens. I can’t remember this myself from my own childhood but maybe it’s true. Nonetheless, despite the gender stereotyping and generalisations this was a fascinating documentary about Grafton’s Jacaranda festival (in spite of the mildly morbid soundtrack). Good old fashioned non-metropolitan fun is had by all for the duration. The feat of any regional town continuing the same festival for over seventy years is impressive. And those jacarandas certainly are stunning trees.

4 Comments »

4 Responses to “Wendy’s Week of TV: Part 15”

  1. Catriona says:

    I’m still traumatised by Wee Jock’s death. He was the prettiest little thing–that’s what started my desire for a West Highland White. Well, any kind of terrier, really, but West Highland Whites are stunning.

    And I have to admit, I did think about being a princess as a child. A group of us did, for years–but we were intrepid princesses, who travelled in space etc. I can’t remember, now, why we were princesses, but I suspect it was because we realised adventures require an enormous amount of cash and, to a seven-year-old, princess = rich.

    What I never did (and still don’t do) was fantasise about my big, white wedding–and television tells me that’s something that all girls do, without any exceptions whatsoever.

  2. Wendy says:

    I think your space-travelling action princesses sound like fun…but I don’t know that that they would fit the ethos of the jacaranda queen/princesses!

    television certainly has a lot to answer for with those white weddings….I’m trying now to think of a tv wedding that wasn’t white, fluffy and meringue-like but I can’t!

  3. Catriona says:

    Oddly enough, we used to play the game at school under an enormous jacaranda. I’d forgotten that. So, technically, I suppose we were jacaranda princesses.

    But, really, Voltron had more to do with it than Grafton did.

    The wedding industry’s an odd thing. I’ve not been to many weddings, but two I went to years ago were big, white weddings. And they were lovely. But that was to do with the people. These days, it seems to be more about the wedding. I remember some of the criticism of the Sex and the City movie, which I’ve not seen, was about the fact that it was nothing but wedding porn–that it was all about the accoutrements, not the actual relationship or even the process of marriage.

  4. Wendy says:

    you probably didn’t have a tiara I’m guessing!

    I haven’t seen Sex and the City movie either but weddings certainly do often turn into huge production numbers where the actual point of the day seems to get lost in between photographers, video cameras, flowers, food and all the other paraphernalia. It seems to be a tricky balance to get right…some do still manage it nicely though.

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