proserpina65

She called herself a ginger in the Christmas special. And her hair is a goldish-red. Or a reddish-gold. At least in pictures I've seen of her out of costume. Someone above asked about radio in Britain in the early sixties (this is from Radio London): "By the time Top Forty radio arrived in the UK, the Golden Age of American radio was practically over. We didn't have much to listen to before the advent of the offshore 'pirates'. The BBC did have a few pop programmes on what was called 'The Light Programme'. Besides the Light Programme, the BBC (later christened 'the Beeb' by Kenny Everett), had 'The Home Service' (news and speech-based), 'The Third Programme' (highbrow classical music and avant-garde drama) and 'The World Service' [which oddly enough was barely audible in Britain, but was in the rest of the world! – Chris]. In the early Sixties, teenagers were a relatively new concept and catering for their musical tastes was not considered a top priority by Beeb management. Pop music was regarded as merely a passing fad. However, one of the Beeb's greatest difficulties with regard to playing records was 'needle-time', a regulation whereby only a certain number of minutes of recorded music was permitted to be played weekly. This was due to Musicians' Union agreements and the fact that the BBC employed its own orchestras; playing recordings off vinyl would have cut down on the need for BBC-employed musicians." So no, there wasn't much rock & roll available outside of Radio Luxemburg, if you could get it. Not when this episode was set.

She seemed like one of these "knows where her bread is buttered, and to hell with everyone else" kind of people. She was appalling. One run by the gangsters for whom his father worked.

Harriet Walter doesn't always play tight-assed bitches, but when she does, she's so good at it. Poor Sister Julienne, being shunted aside. And for no good reason that we can see. And poor Sister Mary Cynthia! She really needs proper psychiatric treatment, and she's not going to get it through the Mother House. I wanted Dr. Turner to take off in his car and rescue her. (Speaking of Dr. Turner, I desperately wanted him to punch Trudy's awful husband, but that would've been disastrous for so many reasons.) And Shelagh is pregnant! I knew it the moment Tim said she'd been sick. I'm not sure how they're going to explain it in terms of the tuberculosis-caused infertility, a miracle, I guess. Which under other circumstances would bug the heck out of me, but since Patrick and Shelagh are such wonderful parents and such good people, I'm not going to nit-pick. All I could think was that he worked for the Krays or for one of their rivals, and I was afraid something even more awful would happen to her as a result. Those were pretty nasty people, even for gangsters.

This is the cassette (yes, you read that right) I've been using to test the cassette deck that came with my new-ish car cd player. Man, I really missed having a cassette deck in the car.

Only on tv do loved ones of possible suicide victims go directly to the coroner to beg them to investigate the death as a homicide. And only on tv would said coroner actually investigate that death outside of the morgue, interviewing possible suspects, etc..

This was the first opera I ever saw in person, in Baltimore in 1991. James Morris was glorious as Philip II, cementing the massive crush I had on him ever since I saw him as Wotan in a Met production of the Ring on tv. (In fact, he's the reason my friend and I chose that particular opera as our first.) He's also a genuinely nice person who appeared several times with the Baltimore Opera company even after becoming famous.

Just got a new-ish cd player put in my car (after months of not having a working one) and am currently listening to The Essential Van Morrison. I literally listened to Into the Mystic 3 times on my way to work this morning.

Wunmi Mosaku was in Vera, and was really good, so I might make an effort to at least see the first few episodes. One of the two leads on NCIS: LA is black. But that's the only other exception I can think of.

We don't generally see everything in the clue, and are not always privy to all the rules. I suspect this isn't the first challenge where darkness could be an issue, but we probably haven't seen it happen before. I think it would be unfair for there NOT to have been some penalty for basically skipping the challenge.

Okay, well that was a good episode. Maggie did act like a twelve year old, but having been in the position of watching my father die from cancer, I can at least relate to her a bit. Didn't pack the gut punch of George's dad dying, though; those episodes make me bawl like a baby every time, partly because Mr. O'Malley had the same cancer my dad did. I called my mom, too.

Casino Royale "Spanish steel. Much stronger than our native blades."

Yeah, I realize I was getting my history from a painting. Still can't get over that, though.

I would never have given her credit for maypole - it did not fit the clue. I missed Svetlana, but got the others. I knew FJ right away, but then, I'm a big space program buff. Canada geese poop everywhere, and it's really big compared to the size of the bird. Damn you, Canada!

I know it's minor, but it bugs me when people on shows set in the 80s talk about going "to prom". I was in high school then, and we always said "the prom". Seems to me this is something that started in the early 2000s, or the late 90s at the earliest. I will allow that perhaps it's a regional thing, but I grew up about an hour away from Philly, so not exactly a different region. Other than that personal bugaboo, I really enjoyed this episode. I loved Adam finding a girl so nerdy she thinks Star Wars is too commercial. I loved Barry's over-the-top prom plan, and Murray's refusal to pony up more than $80. I loved Erica and Geoff going back and forth with their other prom dates, and their finally finding the right moment. I loved Beverly being the one who fixes things with Adam's prom date. And although I do love The Lord of the Rings, I was amused by Adam's "all they do is walk and talk" complaint - because that's how I feel about a lot of The Two Towers (especially the crappy movie) - and his hunting down the pre-internet form of googling the plot: Cliffs Notes.

Definitely polonium. Something I watched on either CNN or MSNBC over the weekend talked about extensively about Putin's enemies disappearing/dying, and Litvinenko's polonium poisoning came up. Plus there's an episode of Law & Order: Criminal Intent which was drawn from that case. Otherwise I probably wouldn't have remembered.

I hate Will Smith, but still ran that category. I've heard of Fela Kuti, and knew there was a musical about him, so even though I wasn't aware that the Smiths were involved, I still got that one. I was surprised none of them got Tennessee Williams. I knew that wolfsbane is aconitum in Latin (it's also called monkshood - thanks, Brother Cadfael), and was fairly sure that the Latin for belladonna has that word in the name. So hemlock, while a bit of a guess, was arrived at in something approximating a process of elimination.

So do I at 46. No way am I depending on something that is not only portable and thus easy to leave somewhere by mistake, but something I need to remember to charge. No way! Plus, the phone is our doorbell, essentially, so it stays--I need my Thai food deliveries, after all. Edited 26 minutes ago by TattleTeeny. Me, too. Heck, I still have one home phone which is not cordless - for when the power goes out. (Which it did during the last snow storm, so at least I could talk to people in the dark.) Plus, I'll go to my grave remembering the day we had an earthquake in Maryland and no one could get through on their cell phones, but the attorney whose office was next door to the courthouse could call people on his land line.

I don't know whether Garrett really didn't grasp the concept of an all-you-can-eat buffet, or he was just giving Glenn a hard time (which is what I suspect), but that little tidbit of conversation was the funniest part of this episode for me.

For me, the chemistry between Maureen O'Hara and Brian Keith is a large part of what sells this version. That, and the fact I had a huge crush on Brian Keith. I thought they both were fantastic.

RocknRolla "I thought you guys just ate donuts."

It sounds to me like they offered the lead roles to specific actors and were turned down. Then, rather than move on to other actors of color, they had the roles rewritten. Which is pretty shitty. I mean, I get that maybe they really wanted Idris Elba and Zoe Saldana, for example, but it's not like there aren't dozens of equally good actors with lower profiles who would've jumped at the opportunity. Seems like they made one half-hearted effort just so they could say "hey, we tried".

Science is not a good area for me, so I fully expected to have no idea on FJ. Imagine my surprise when I actually was able to drag Linnaeus out of the recesses of my brain, and in time to have written it down, too. I got armadillo, The Others (which scared the hell out of me, but I loved it) and I Write the Songs, and then had it stuck in my head for hours. I don't mind Adam, but it wouldn't kill if he was a one-and-done either.

I saw one featuring fire insurance which implied that other companies won't replace your house and belongings, causing me to shout "they will if you're sufficiently covered" which has nothing to do with the company and everything to do with your level of coverage. I hated that commercial, too. Although it did remind me that I probably should call my insurance company and up my coverage after living in the same house for 12 years.

I'm torn on this one: I wonder how it got approved, but I kind of like it.

He married one woman who said beforehand that she didn't want kids, and one woman who giddily planned their lives with kids and living in the best school district who later changed her mind. Now, had the second woman managed to stick around and talk about why she suddenly changed her mind, it could've made for an interesting storyline, but, as you say, this is just repeating the same old thing with a vastly inferior replacement. He is.