Three episodes in and I’m magnificently underwhelmed.

It’s mainly bish-bosh action and rushing on. The dialogue isn’t coming over well, at least to me. Is it the actors’ diction, or too much background noise, or am I going deaf?

And Karen Gillan ought to have refused to utter the line, “Well, I’m still here, aren’t I?”

As a Scot she should have insisted on, “Well, I’m still here, amn’t I?”

Okay. Charges of gingerism dropped for the moment since no new mention of it was made. Plus the latest companion (like Catherine Tate before her) is a redhead.

Except… The child she was when she first met the doctor was not redheaded. Now how is that exactly? I know this is loosely Science Fiction but usually hair colour diminishes on ageing.

As a setter-upper the episode was passable but no more. A bit harum-scarum. And what is it with Who and creatures with fangs?

I’m not yet convinced by Matt Smith in the role. Full marks for the new assistant’s Scottishness, though.

The acting of the wee lass playing the young Amelia was excellent. Don’t suppose the doctor could have such a callow companion, though. Not nowadays anyway. (The original Doctor had his granddaughter, Susan, An Unearthly Child, with him, of course. She was supposedly of school age but was played by someone much older than that.)

The BBC has been showing trailers for the series – some scenes appeared before the end credits of Episode 1. I was tickled by the khaki Dalek (complete with canvas webbing belt) emerging from the sandbag enclosure.

Pity it can’t carry a swagger stick. That would have been even funnier.

I don’t believe I’d ever heard this song by Aphrodite’s Child until it was on Radio 2’s Sounds Of The Sixties recently. It’s clearly influenced by the mid 1960s British group Nirvana whom I featured some time ago – see my category. (Or perhaps it’s a Greek thing. Nirvana’s composer was Greek as were at least two members of Aphrodite’s Child.) There’s also a touch of Procol Harum’s A Whiter Shade Of Pale in the bass line and the organ.

It’s Five O’Clock:

The Aphrodite’s Child song I most remember, though, is Rain And Tears. There’s a murky sound quality film/video of them playing it on You Tube but I also came across this crisper version. A touch of Pachelbel’s Canon in the intro methinks. It gets everywhere.

As I recall (and Wikipedia confirms) Aphrodite’s Child spawned Demis Roussos and Vangelis but I’ll not hold that against them.

On second thought…..

I settled down last night at 9 pm to watch the second swatch of the latest BBC adaptation of John Wyndham’s The Day Of The Triffids only to find it wasn’t on. This was because Holby City had been bumped to an hour later by River City and so we in Scotland didn’t get to see The Day Of The Triffids until 10.20. I went and had a bath instead.

But… The main BBC news was on in Scotland at 10. The Day Of The Triffids lasted 1½ hours and so the news in the rest of the UK wasn’t till 10.30.

Was there a special news, for Scotland only, at 10? What did the (London) BBC news unit think of that? (The Scottish news opt out which normally follows the news – the “where you are” bit – came on as usual afterwards: it wasn’t a BBC Scotland main news.) Or did they just use the BBC 24 hour news feed for the fifteen minutes?

Anyway, The Day Of The Triffids adaptation itself was well done and, apart from some updating and an unnecessary emphasis on the hero, Bill Masen’s, family, (I blame Russell T Davies) reasonably true to the book as I remember it, with a fine performance by Eddie Izzard as the baddie, Torrence.

It was, however, – even the daylight scenes – filmed almost entirely in what I call Super Murk-O-Vision. This was probably to avoid too many shots with triffids in them as, no matter what you do, plants are not really that scary in appearance. Here, the book definitely scores over any possible visual version. The depiction of the triffid sting, showing it as a potent disabling weapon, was also much too late.

[Edited to add: the voice over was a mistake too.]

I doubt this version would have converted anyone that didn’t already have a penchant for it to SF, though.

For anyone who wants to see them, the iplayer reruns are here and here.

I happened to be listening to Radio 2 when Jonathan Ross’s Saturday programme on that station came on yesterday. (I know, but Sounds Of The Sixties had just finished.)

Before Ross spoke there was broadcast the official announcement of the adjudication on the Ross/Brand Sachsgate affair – which said the BBC had been fined £150,000 over the to-do and gave an email address to see the whole judgement.

Ross’s first words were to the effect, “Why do you never have a pen when you need it? Did anyone get that email address? I can’t read enough of that.”

He then proceeded to play The Lunatics Have Taken Over The Asylum by The Fun Boy Three.

Has Ross learned nothing? The clear implication is that the ruling was given by lunatics. It hardly shows contrition, nor any amendment of ways.

This is like Barry Ferguson and Allan McGregor making their rude gestures. It compounds the original offence.

There are two defences. One is that Ross did not intend to imply any such thing and that the song he played was a mere coincidence. Except he commented to that effect after it had finished; thereby only increasing the suspicion he knew exactly what he was doing. The other defence is that he himself was the target of the lunatics reference and then, the implication is that the BBC is mad to allow him to remain on air. (Which it obviously is, in either case.)

Jonathan Ross? Jonathan Tosser, more like.

Here’s The Fun Boy Three anyway.