You're a beautiful woman probably...

At last - a really good Doctor Who Christmas special! While a former Doctor Who writer would have just thrown them all in at random, Steven Moffat here has the clichés of snow, Christmas presents and Victoriana all present, but now with a plot to support them - a clever reworking of Dickens. Some striking and original images include fish flying through the sky and a "Santa's sleigh" pulled by a shark! Matt Smith is as good as ever, and Karen Gillan and Arthur Darvill are fine in their short appearances. Michael Gambon here is so much better than in the Harry Potter films and the non-actress Katherine Jenkins is skilfully used in a story that handles its tragic elements with an impressive lightness of touch. Ten out of ten from me!

At the risk of increasing my reputation as a Scrooge, I have to say that this article in the Guardian made my blood boil with the unbelievable phrase "there is no downside to a proper winter". This journalist says that weeks of snow and ice in the UK, even as early as this, are a good thing, basically because it looks pretty and children have fun! Evidently she's forgotten the frustration of people who have to try to get around in these conditions, the number of people who will end up with broken limbs after falling on the ice, the people who will lose their lives in road accidents as a direct result of awful driving conditions, or the many who will suffer because they can't afford to heat their homes properly - particularly the elderly. Even worse, her article contains the phrase "and yes...I work from home now"! Words fail me.

A great blog that I've been reading recently is A Thriller a day covering not the 1970s UK TV series (which I also enjoyed) but the early 1960s US series hosted by Boris Karloff. There was a vast amount of "word of mouth" about this, including comments by Stephen King in his non-fiction book Danse macabre but, for many years, it wasn't available on legitimate DVD, only bootlegs. As soon as I saw the announcement that the whole series was being released, with extras, I knew I had to have it. In case I give the wrong impression, let's admit that this is an old series with highly variable standards and some boring episodes. However, the good ones make it worthwhile. So far I've probably watched about a fifth of those with good reputations, and have really enjoyed them. While I didn't quite "get" the supposedly classic The cheaters - yes, it's a clever idea, well worked out, but it's neither chilling nor emotionally involving, as it has no...

I must be one of the last handful of people in the World to watch James Cameron's Avatar . Finally saw it the other night and found it, as expected, visually spectacular, but lacking storywise and characterwise. The aliens' "philosophy" in particular seemed half-baked. Although they were supposed to revere life, they seemed to go into the battle scenes with gusto and, in the latter part of the film, wipe out humans without a twinge of regret. None of the characters was given any light and shade either, with Stephen Lang's baddie being particularly clichéd and lacking in background and motivation. Sam Worthington looks good but already seems to me an appropriate successor to Russell Crowe - and I'm not a Russell Crowe fan. Anyway, the real point of this posting is that The People Who Know keep saying that the film is vastly better in 3D. On hearing the recent hype about the new 3D process, I've groaned on more than one occasion. I'm sure it's fi...

When we recently went to the USA it was interesting to compare the standards of customer service in bars, restaurants etc in Massachusetts (Boston and Provincetown) with the ones in the UK. A very sociable American staying at the same guest house as us thought that the fact that staff in the USA are low paid and rely on tips means they've developed a more definite "service culture", leading to better service. I'm not sure about this. Certainly the service we got in the USA was in general more attentive, but I'm not sure that it was much more polite or, overall, any better. Yes, it's nice to be asked "How are you today?" when you arrive, but we never quite believed the asker was interested in the answer. In one establishment we stood at the counter for about three minutes while the person behind it carried on making some sandwiches, looking up at us occasionally but not acknowledging our presence. Finally she came and said "Hello. How are you...

On a recent visit to London we discovered the excellent BFI Mediatheque where we watched films about the less-advertised recent history of  London like London in the raw . The Mediatheque is described as a "digital jukebox" and you can spend up to two hours in a session there. A much better film that we also saw is The London nobody knows . This is a melancholy trawl around some of the ruins and forgotten bits of London in the late 1960s with James Mason. Unfortunately this one isn't available on DVD and, as far as I know, the only place to see it is at one of the four mediatheques around the country . These are great free resources for anyone who is into film or television so, if you’re in London or one of the other three locations, have a look.

Watching the repeat of Filth! The Mary Whitehouse story on the BBC last night, I was again surprised that Julie Walters had agreed to appear in it. To me, Ms Walters seems a liberal-minded person, almost the opposite of Mrs Whitehouse, and she admitted in an interview when the play was first shown that she never agreed with Whitehouse's views. And yet, it seemed to me that the play was much too sympathetic to Whitehouse, portraying her as a bit misguided and sometimes comical, but basically a nice, "cuddly" sort of person. This was never my impression of her - many of her pronouncements showed her as vindictive and intolerant in the extreme. The play also seemed unfair on Sir Hugh Greene, ex Director-General of the BBC, portraying him as a boorish, closed-minded buffoon and apparently ignoring the good work he did in "opening out" TV drama in the 1960s. Trawling around for more information on the programme and the Whitehouse legacy (she died in 2001), I found...

I voted Labour in the General Election and wanted another Labour government, in spite of its faults. However, I do feel strongly that it's now time for Gordon Brown to leave Downing Street and resign as leader of the Labour Party. It's clear that the Tories polled the most votes and for him to cling to power is just prolonging the uncertainty that is the last thing the country needs. Perhaps our best hope (although it's a slim one) is for the Tories to form a government with the LibDems which might last a year or so. That would give the time for Labour to regroup under a new leader and, hopefully, come back to power at the next election. Of course, anything could happen to the economy in the meantime but, if there's to be any hope of a real economic recovery, we obviously need a government that's as stable as possible soon.

We tend to forget that this fascinating city, with a vast store of history, beautiful streets to walk around, and quite a few free assets such as the Botanical Gardens and Arthur's Seat, is almost on our doorstep - well, an hour and a half away by train, to be precise. We're both keen to avoid the crowds of the Festival, and Easter last year was pretty busy, so this year we timed our visit a couple of weeks after Easter, at the end of April. Something we hadn't seen before was Mary King's Close , a sobering reminder of the lives that many people had to endure a few centuries ago. More photos of the city in general on my Flickr pages .

As it now looks as if the Tory party is in the lead in election polls, I'm alarmed by the way spending cuts are being discussed. David Cameron has said quite openly that he's going to target areas like mine (the north east of England) in his cuts. It seems he wants to start making these as soon as possible and give tax cuts to his rich friends, instead of putting the burden of extra taxes on the better off, as it should be. While I agree that the deficit needs to be tackled, this was largely a product of the banking system. Shouldn't even heftier taxes be levied on the banks, then, and the rest on areas like VAT, rather than creating unemployment deliberately and increasing the benefits bill by sacking public service workers? As you'll have gathered, I'm not a Conservative supporter. The LibDems have, in the past, seemed to me to have some sensible policies. However, Nick Clegg has shown himself completely out of touch with a large segment of the public on the iss...

Is it just me, or do things around the world (and particularly the UK) seem so much more uncertain in the past year or so? First there was the economy, with the spectacular failure of some financial institutions. The Labour government's "prudence" with the public purse suddenly looked like a complete illusion. Despite the fact that this is meant to be a global recession, for some reason the Pound has fallen to an unprecedented low against the Euro and looks weak even against the US Dollar. Then there was inflation, with certain items rocketing in price to an extent that doesn't tally at all with the official figures - some foods in my local supermarket have gone up by 20% or more in one jump, and margarine actually increased by 100% in a matter of months. We were assured that the leap in fuel prices was due to an increase in the cost to the suppliers but, while oil fell in price, we are still waiting for a reduction in domestic gas and electricity prices. Thi...

I think I've found the perfect film for Blu-ray - the one it was absolutely made for. A brilliant film - not really a children's film in any sense as it features death, loneliness, oppression of a senior citizen and attacks by a pack of dogs. The overriding theme is loss. However, for adults who have an open mind, this is a genuinely up lifting experience. There are two reasons why I say this the perfect film for Blu-ray. Firstly, it's the best and most detailed transfer I've ever seen, with an astonishing amount of detail and excellent contrast range. I don't have a full surround sound system, but the soundtrack seems to make full use of the frequency range (my Rel sub-bass speaker was certainly working). Secondly, the aspect ratio is 16:9 or as near to it as makes no difference. This means that the picture fills the whole screen. I'm certainly not one of those people who would stretch a picture to fill the screen, and I'm not averse to having black bars ...

This radio play by Matthew Broughton stemmed from an unusual idea - to look at the turbulent relationship between the (arguably declining) American horror star and Michael Reeves, the young, British "up-and-coming" director of the brutal but compelling 1968 film Witchfinder General . Intended to be lighthearted, the play was vaguely entertaining, but didn't quite come off. The major problem in my opinion was the casting of Nickolas Grace as Vincent Price. Mr Grace seems to have played "camp" parts on a number of previous occasions and certainly brought this quality to his portrayal of Vincent Price. Unfortunately he sounded nothing like him; his American accent was unconvincing and there were few nuances in his vocalising. The other actors were much more believable, particularly Kenneth Cranham, as good as ever as producer Tony Tenser, although he wasn't asked to do much more than narrate. While it's hard to believe that Vincent Price was quite as cam...

With the announcement that the new Doctor Who is definitely to start this Easter, I thought it was time to express my hope that Steven Moffat will give us a better programme than Russell T Davies did. Don't get me wrong - I am grateful to RTD for reviving the programme after a long hiatus, and letting us see brilliant stories like The empty child/The Doctor dances, Human nature/The family of blood, Blink and Silence in the library/Forest of the dead. It's no coincidence that none of these were written by RTD - he just isn't a very good writer and, with his light entertainment propensities threatening to kill the show in the same way as the appalling 80s version, his departure in January was long overdue. The "Christmas Specials" in particular seemed to be pandering shamelessly to the lowest common denominator. Do we really need to have it hammered home that it's Christmas with references to the season or snow every few minutes? In The runaway bride we ha...

We went to see the new film A single man at the Tyneside Cinema today. Based on a book by Christopher Isherwood and directed by fashion designer Tom Ford, it's a melancholy story set in 1962 about a middle-aged gay man about to take his own life after the death of his partner in an accident. The story follows him through the day when he has planned to kill himself. Having heard of Isherwood in connection with the brilliant film Cabaret , I remember browsing the book in a bookshop many years ago but deciding that it was too depressing for my taste. Although the film was sometimes self-consciously "arty", it was beautifully shot, impeccably acted and emotionally quite affecting. The very well-chosen cast including Colin Firth, Julianne Moore and Nicholas Hoult ironically has a Brit playing an American and an American playing a Brit, although you wouldn't know this from the accents. The novel may well have been of only marginal interest to my younger self. I seem to r...

I've recently been re-watching the stunning TV series Rome on DVD and was sad to remember that, after two seasons, it was considered too expensive to keep going. Visually it's absolutely magnificent - there aren't many TV programmes that can transport the viewer so completely into a different time and place. The beautiful interiors of some of the villas take the visual side of the story a big step beyond earlier depictions like the otherwise excellent I, Claudius. I have both seasons of Rome , but not on HD discs. Such is the quality of the lighting and the DVD transfers that, on my Sony S-350 Blu-ray player and 40W5500 TV, it's hard to tell the difference between the upscaled DVD image and a Blu-ray. Performances are generally excellent, particularly Kenneth Cranham as Pompey, David Bamber as Cicero, Polly Walker as Atia and Lindsay Duncan as Servilia. For me, this portrayal of Rome works much better than, say, the film Gladiator because it isn't so "po-fa...

I recently splashed out on a box set of 21 Laurel and Hardy DVDs. As they haven't been on TV nearly as often as they were in my childhood, I've enjoyed reminding myself why I love them so much. In case anyone reading this has never heard of Laurel and Hardy (unlikely but possible) they were a comedy film double act who started in silent movies in the 1920s around the same time as Charlie Chaplin , had their greatest successes with their sound short films of the 1930s and ended their joint career in the 1950s with stage tours of the UK. While Chaplin's films have dated fairly badly and now come across as clever but very rarely funny, L&H's films are still hilarious for people with a certain sense of humour. At their best (which means in the 1930s Hal Roach films, almost all of which are included here) they aren't just funny - behind the slapstick is a warmth, somehow an affection for each other and the viewer. This also comes across in Stan Laurel's rep...

I was sad and shocked to hear that Jack Pickard had died suddenly at the weekend. His online postings as a whole were the most insightful and somehow fair of any I read. My sincere condolences to his family and friends.

Unfortunately the bad weather is not bringing out the best in our TV newsreaders and weather forecasters. After getting it completely wrong with their forecast of a "barbecue summer" last year and then, again, saying the current winter was likely to be mild, they don't sound nearly apologetic enough about the current freezing weather (in Gateshead, one single snow-free day since 17 December). Apart from inaccurate forecasts, it also seems they're unable to sing from the same hymn sheet. Just after Christmas the Radio 4 forecaster said "a thaw is on the way" with a temperature in Newcastle of 5 degrees celsius. Ten minutes later, the BBC TV forecaster said "No let up in the cold weather" and predicted temperatures around zero. Guess which one was right? In addition, the BBC has taken to using irritating clichés like "the big freeze" (something I may be guilty of as well) as if it was a tabloid newspaper. More than once lately I've n...