kelly58 Posted January 11, 2012 Share Posted January 11, 2012 I have just seen advertised a new program on BBC4 Wednesday 18th Jan 9pm a 3 part series exploring parts of France ignored by British Tourists by Jonathan Meads may be worth a look. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
starvin marvin Posted January 11, 2012 Share Posted January 11, 2012 Thanks for the information, I like J Meades. I hope its a proper interesting programme and not like Fry in America but that was on TV, all the better "pictures" are on the Radio. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest JudgeMental Posted January 11, 2012 Share Posted January 11, 2012 i enjoyed the first of new series on Sicily the other night..It is a 3 parter, a mixture of culture and wonderful cooking! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
malc d Posted January 11, 2012 Share Posted January 11, 2012 starvin marvin - 2012-01-11 10:50 AM Thanks for the information, I like J Meades. I hope its a proper interesting programme and not like Fry in America but that was on TV, all the better "pictures" are on the Radio. It's on BBC4 TV marvin, so if you prefer sound only you'll have to watch it with your eyes shut. :-D Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
starvin marvin Posted January 12, 2012 Share Posted January 12, 2012 malc d - 2012-01-11 12:57 PM starvin marvin - 2012-01-11 10:50 AM Thanks for the information, I like J Meades. I hope its a proper interesting programme and not like Fry in America but that was on TV, all the better "pictures" are on the Radio. It's on BBC4 TV marvin, so if you prefer sound only you'll have to watch it with your eyes shut. :-D Didn't know there was such a thing, whatever next! My wife has often said that I watch most TV with my eyes shut, so no change there then. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lennyhb Posted January 12, 2012 Share Posted January 12, 2012 Thanks for the info Kelly, pleased it's on BBC4, not so many people will notice so the nice quiet areas shouldn't get invaded on mass. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mike 202 Posted January 12, 2012 Share Posted January 12, 2012 Thanks for the info Kelly, I am off to france at the end of march for a few weeks, so I will view with great interest. Mike Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Keith T Posted January 12, 2012 Share Posted January 12, 2012 kelly58 - 2012-01-11 10:36 AM I have just seen advertised a new program on BBC4 Wednesday 18th Jan 9pm a 3 part series exploring parts of France ignored by British Tourists by Jonathan Meads may be worth a look. Oddly enough, my wife has just been perusing the Radio Times for next week and commented on this programme. We shall certainly aim to watch it - those of you residing in 'less populated' parts of the UK may not realise that here in the heavily populated South East we currently only have channels 1-4 Analogue, and since we shoose not to pay for SKY or similar will be unable to record it....!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
malc d Posted January 12, 2012 Share Posted January 12, 2012 Keith T - 2012-01-12 5:42 PM kelly58 - 2012-01-11 10:36 AM I have just seen advertised a new program on BBC4 Wednesday 18th Jan 9pm a 3 part series exploring parts of France ignored by British Tourists by Jonathan Meads may be worth a look. Oddly enough, my wife has just been perusing the Radio Times for next week and commented on this programme. We shall certainly aim to watch it - those of you residing in 'less populated' parts of the UK may not realise that here in the heavily populated South East we currently only have channels 1-4 Analogue, and since we shoose not to pay for SKY or similar will be unable to record it....!! BBC4 is on Freeview - so you don't need Sky. I thought most places down in the south east could get Freeview ? (You can always check the Freeview coverage on their website) 8-) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Keith T Posted January 12, 2012 Share Posted January 12, 2012 malc d - 2012-01-12 7:11 PM Keith T - 2012-01-12 5:42 PM kelly58 - 2012-01-11 10:36 AM I have just seen advertised a new program on BBC4 Wednesday 18th Jan 9pm a 3 part series exploring parts of France ignored by British Tourists by Jonathan Meads may be worth a look. Oddly enough, my wife has just been perusing the Radio Times for next week and commented on this programme. We shall certainly aim to watch it - those of you residing in 'less populated' parts of the UK may not realise that here in the heavily populated South East we currently only have channels 1-4 Analogue, and since we shoose not to pay for SKY or similar will be unable to record it....!! BBC4 is on Freeview - so you don't need Sky. I thought most places down in the south east could get Freeview ? (You can always check the Freeview coverage on their website) 8-) Ah, yes,some but not all, though they are now in process of changing and all will be able to by June 2012....it just depends where your aerial is lined up to,, and regrettably where we live, the current Freeview is on a low powered transmitter, which we cannot receive, but the digital one for the future is not yet converted! I check quite regularly, but the transfer date shown is May/June,over the course of 2 weeks! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kelly58 Posted January 13, 2012 Author Share Posted January 13, 2012 Keith T - 2012-01-12 11:02 PMmalc d - 2012-01-12 7:11 PMKeith T - 2012-01-12 5:42 PMkelly58 - 2012-01-11 10:36 AMI have just seen advertised a new program on BBC4 Wednesday 18th Jan 9pm a 3 part series exploring parts of France ignored by British Tourists by Jonathan Meads may be worth a look.Oddly enough, my wife has just been perusing the Radio Times for next week and commented on this programme. We shall certainly aim to watch it - those of you residing in 'less populated' parts of the UK may not realise that here in the heavily populated South East we currently only have channels 1-4 Analogue, and since we shoose not to pay for SKY or similar will be unable to record it....!!BBC4 is on Freeview - so you don't need Sky.I thought most places down in the south east could get Freeview ?(You can always check the Freeview coverage on their website) 8-)Ah, yes,some but not all, though they are now in process of changing and all will be able to by June 2012....it just depends where your aerial is lined up to,, and regrettably where we live, the current Freeview is on a low powered transmitter, which we cannot receive, but the digital one for the future is not yet converted!I check quite regularly, but the transfer date shown is May/June,over the course of 2 weeks!You could always watch it on the computer via bbc i-player Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest 1footinthegrave Posted January 13, 2012 Share Posted January 13, 2012 Thanks for the info, ;-) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
malc d Posted January 18, 2012 Share Posted January 18, 2012 Just a reminder that it's on TONIGHT ! BBC4 - 9 pm ;-) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kelly58 Posted January 19, 2012 Author Share Posted January 19, 2012 Is it me or was it rubbish not what I expected. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Derek Uzzell Posted January 19, 2012 Share Posted January 19, 2012 kelly58 - 2012-01-19 8:14 AM Is it me or was it rubbish not what I expected. Not sure about your "rubbish" critique, but it was a classic Jonathan Meades presentation and pretty much exactly what I anticipated - basically, that's what JM is like. You might want to look at the following http://www.clivejames.com/jonathan-meades I watched the programme simultaneously reading a trashy novel and wondering why I had mentioned on another forum thread that Ford had used a 3.0litre 5-cylinder motor to the Transit Mk 7 when I knew full well it was a 3.2litre. Multi-tasking - nothing to it! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
malc d Posted January 19, 2012 Share Posted January 19, 2012 kelly58 - 2012-01-19 8:14 AM Is it me or was it rubbish not what I expected. As I had read a write-up in the Radio Times warning that it was typical Jonathon Meades, I wasn't too surprised. I think the title was a bit misleading. It was more about the French, and a bit of French history, not really about France or the French landscape. :-| Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest 1footinthegrave Posted January 19, 2012 Share Posted January 19, 2012 How embarrassing that I posted a reminder of this program yesterday evening,still I was very lucky I had painted a door just before it started, so after half an hour I went back to watching it dry. :$ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lennyhb Posted January 19, 2012 Share Posted January 19, 2012 Have to agree rubbish. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mike B. Posted January 19, 2012 Share Posted January 19, 2012 Must admit it wasn't my cup of tea nor what I was expecting-didn't inspire me to change my plans for the Summer French trip. Mike Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dawki Posted January 19, 2012 Share Posted January 19, 2012 Must agree watched 20mins and that was enough for me. still never mind Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Big Momma Posted January 19, 2012 Share Posted January 19, 2012 Just started watching this on "Catch Up" TV, having trouble keeping awake after only 10 minutes, the presenter is boring which doesn't help the programme *-) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Patricia Posted January 19, 2012 Share Posted January 19, 2012 I'm in France and lost all Sky programmes yesterday (due to bad fog) so presumably I didn't miss a thing! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chris Posted January 20, 2012 Share Posted January 20, 2012 This programme could not maintain my interest and those close up shots of his teeth were off putting! Chris Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Derek Uzzell Posted January 20, 2012 Share Posted January 20, 2012 Oh, you are all suuuch Philistines... The INDEPENDENT summed up the programme perfectly: The boilerplate way of beginning a documentary these days is to read out a bombastic contents list. In the first of his films about France, Jonathan Meades decided it would be more instructive to tell us what we weren't going to get: "No strings of onions, no Dordogne, no boules, no Piaf, no ooh-la-la, no Gallic shrugs, no street markets, no checked tableclothes," he said. And, it seems, only a very tiny snatch of accordion music, briefly aired to acknowledge the unavoidable trope and then swiped away with a needle scratch. Instead, Jonathan Meades on France offered "Fragments of an Arbitrary Encyclopedia", a collage of entries, all beginning with V and proceeding alphabetically from Valise to Vosges, by way of Vaugeois, Verdun and Vexatious Litigants, among other things. Not all that arbitrary, it should be noted, despite the apparently random construction of Meades's essay. Because what eventually emerged was a suggestive tangle of subjects, frequently connected by cross-reference and ultimately producing a coherent (or kind of coherent) essay about French patriotism and its self-deceptions. You got reactionary politics, notes on style, digressions into typography and topography, discursions on the food and architecture of border regions and – all the way through – a resolute and dogged resistance to the standard clichés of the television travelogue. Yes, Meades's opening piece to camera was filmed in front of a lovely stretch of French countryside. But what entirely filled the foreground, stubbornly unlovely, was a wedge of empty tarmac. And yes, you did actually get some red-checked material, in an Alsacien bistro. But, let's be fair, it wasn't on the table. Meades is one of the few really distinctive stylists we have left on television. His prose is aggressively undemotic (where another presenter would say "pig farming", he says "porcine husbandry") and his manner is mischievously indifferent to the terror of not-being-likable that seems to pervade so much presentation these days. He gives the impression of not caring in the slightest whether you think Charles Maurras and Action Française are interesting or whether you share his fascination with the utopian architecture of Claude Ledoux, which he described here as "exhilaratingly sullen". A sudden close-up of his face on those words, expressionless and unsmiling, hinted that whoever was calling the shots in the editing suite thought this wasn't a bad description of Meades either. Some won't be exhilarated, I suppose. They'll think it's "elitist" (because they've got used to television treating them as fools and calling it a kind of courtesy). Or they'll get lost in the complexity of the information that is being offered, which includes no forgiving redundancies or short cuts. I wouldn't blame anyone who does get lost – it's a concentrated bouillon of unfamiliar facts and rapid allusion, and if I had any complaint it would be that a series of six half-hours would have been a little easier to absorb. You really do have to concentrate. But it doesn't half repay it. If for no other reason, I would love it for telling me that the French for window shopping is lèche-vitrine, literally window-licking." Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest 1footinthegrave Posted January 20, 2012 Share Posted January 20, 2012 Philistines 10, sophisticated, 1 :-D Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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