Best of the Decade Lists

Is it law that they are complete before 12am tonight?  If that’s the case then I’m way behind schedule.

Best TV Comedies of the Decade (Part 1)

Well I haven’t written on here over the holidays, I’ve not been doing much more than enjoying a nice long holiday from work which has another seven days to go.

I thought I’d finish off the year with a few clichéd best of lists, starting with the best TV shows of the last decade.  I believe Channel 4 have a Top 100 on (or it has been on already) so keep an eye out for that.

Top 10 Comedies followed by Top 10 Dramas is how I’ll do it though, not 100, that’d take forever.

As with most of these lists you can only really judge on what you have seen and I haven’t watched every show or even all the series I have been recommended or heard good things about.  I shall only have shows that started between 2000-2009 (so no South Park or The Sopranos) and I’ll try and include a little clip from programme that hopefully shows off the best of it.

So here goes, my favourite comedies of the decade number 10 to number 6.

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10. Real Time with Bill Maher

Bill Maher – comedian, politcal satirist and filmmaker – has been hosting his current affairs panel show on HBO since 2003.  It is a healthy mix of light-comedy like your standard talk show, with sketches and other skits, interviews and the core part of the show; a panel discussion where he and his guests discuss a variety of topics making the news.  He has had some wide-ranging guests such as Gore Vidal, Christopher Hitchens, George Carlin, Mos Def and the always captivating Cornel West.  Each show ends with the fantastic New Rules segment.  Real Time is due to return in February 2010 for an eighth season.

9. Penn & Teller Bullshit

On air since 2003 on Showtime, Penn & Teller explain why things we take for granted are ‘bullshit’.  Debunking fads, pseudo-science, religion and seemingly endless other topics.  The show features various guests making the argument for both sides of a debate.  This is inter cut with Penn & Teller in the studio adding their special brand of humour, occasional magic trick and frequently, naked people.  The show has been going strong for 79 episodes, which makes you realise just how much bullshit is around.

8. Early Doors

BBC2 sitcom that ran for two series in 2003 and 2004 written by Craig Cash and Phil Mealey, who also appear in the show.  It is like Cheers meets The Royle Family.  Set in The Grapes a pub somewhere in Manchester, it features a great ensemble cast spearheaded by the brilliant John Henshaw as landlord Ken.  Each episode revolves around an average day in the pub, like The Royle Family it is a still setting with no outrageous plots and is hilarious thanks to the great writing and delivery by the cast.

7. The IT Crowd

After Father Ted, Big Train, Black Books Graham Linehan’s next great success is The IT Crowd which first aired in 2006.  Much like Father Ted it takes a seemingly mundane situation of three people working in the IT department of a big corporation and implants hilariously zany plots and situations.  Chris O’Dowd, Richard Ayoade and Katherine Parkinson make up the main cast with support from Chris Morris and Noel Fielding in series 1 and 2.  The addition of Matt Berry as Douglas was a master-stroke.  A fourth series will begin filming in 2010.

6. Arrested Development

The story of the Bluth family who give the term dysfunctional family a whole new meaning.  Materialistic, manipulative, alcoholic and hyper-critical and that’s just the matriarch Lucille Bluth (Jessica Walter).  The rest of the family are equally complicated and hilarious.  The children; Gob (Will Arnett) the magician, Buster (Tony Hale) the child-like, socially inept buffoon, Lindsay (Portia de Rossi) the self-obsessed daughter at the heart of the story Michael (Jason Bateman) who tries to hold the family together despite the best efforts of his relatives.  In addition to these great characters there’s also Lucille’s jailbird husband George Snr. played by the marvellous Jeffrey Tambor (Hank Kingsley from The Larry Sanders Show) and Michael Cera as Michael’s son George Michael, who spends much of his time obsessing over his cousin Maeby (Alia Shawkat).

My favourite member of the cast is David Cross who plays Maeby’s father and Lindsay’s husband; the aspiring actor, never-nude, blue man, probably gay, analrapist (analyst and a therapist), Tobias Fünke.  In addition to this stellar cast there are also recurring guest appearances from Henry Winkler, Carl Weathers, Liza Minelli and Charlize Theron.  If that wasn’t enough it’s all narrated by Richie Cunningham.

The show was cancelled after three seasons but thankfully a feature film is in development.

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I finished work for the holidays, I’m ill and awake before 7am…

….there must be something seriously wrong with me.  Even more worrying is the fact that I’m considering going for a bike ride, I’d probably break my neck on ice or something like that.  Or freeze half way down the street.  I think the much more sensible option is stay in bed, fire up SKY Player on the PC when the cricket starts and enjoy the beginning of my extended Christmas holiday.

Anyway, with my 19-day adventure away from work (I’ll probably spend most of it watching films and listening to music) I hope to post some good things on here.  Who knows, one day there may be The Scene List #4 if Moff is allowed to work for less than 84 hours per week.

I’m sat in bed eating Weetabix (with chocolate sprinkles on top – what?) and a cup of tea.  If I say that I think Weetabix are a positively marvellous breakfast cereal Weetabix Limited send me a 192 pack before Christmas?

I just stuck my head out the french window and in the sky above I saw a small orange object in the sky.  I’m not sure what it was.  It appeared to be moving and I’m pretty sure it wasn’t a plane, so have I just had an Elijah Wood/Bart Simpson moment and spotted something heading to the Earth to destroy us all?  Of course it could just be down to the fact I still have in yesterday’s contact lenses.

Anyway here are a few free cool music related things:

Bear in Heaven Lovesick Teenagers.mp3 Heard this on the Pitchfork Top 100 tracks Spotify playlist I did and saw the free download, so if anyone has no Spotify you can at least enjoy one song.

I have yet to be infected with any Christmas bug yet but this might help; an MP3 EP from “Ruffa Lane Records featuring festive covers and seasonal originals from our roster.”

Ruffa Round the Christmas Tree

It features the Lucky Soul – my 14th most listened to band (as of 06:26am on Saturday 19 December) – whose The Great Unwanted is completely wonderful.  They have a new single out on my birthday, surely that means I deserve something free as a gesture of coincidental kindness ?

There is also a very Swedish cover of ‘Last Christmas’ that is dance-pop-insania from beginning to end.  Le Sport, Montt Mardié & Mr Suitcase all contribute to that.  I would probably have been more receptive to listening to that one if I hadn’t heard the original about 8 times in one-hour at the Chinese restaurant I was eating at this evening.

The other two songs are Napoleon (featuring Ali Howard of Lucky Soul) and Grantura.  They are more than pleasant.

Finally, Questlove from The Roots tweeted a link to this blog post which has a simply awesome collection of the band’s various performances on Jimmy Fallon Live.  Enjoy it, you know you want to.

OH and even more finally!  Little Boots has a colloborative Xmas playlist on Spotify which people an add things to and already has enough on there for at least two Christmas shindigs.

Spotify Playlist: Pitchfork Top 100 Tracks of 2009

Pitchfork released their epic Top 100 Tracks of 2009 the other day and I decided to create a Spotify playlist based on this. Obviously the list has a little pretention with it being Pitchfork, but still it is jam packed with quality songs from the like of Neko Case, Fever Ray, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Animal Collective, The Pains of Being Pure At Heart, Lady GaGa and Camera Obscura. There are several bands/songs that I hadn’t heard before – one thing Pitchfork is great for is discovering bands you aren’t likely to hear about elsewhere -such as Phoenix and Bear in Heaven.  There is a good 4.7 hours of time that can be filled over the holiday season.

Right here is the all important Spotify link: Pitchfork Top 100 of 2009

Sadly the list doesn’t include all 100 tracks, but not everything can be on Spotify, however 68 isn’t bad.  You can find the full list on Pitchfork which includes links to purchase the songs if you want to fill the gaps or don’t have a Spotify account yet.

Music to Waste Your Youth by (Swedish Edition)

Over the past couple of days I have been listening to an unhealthy amount of Swedish music over.  I have had a liking of Swedish indie pop for years now but it has waned over the past year, at least for the time-being it has reared its ugly head once more.

Anyway, here are few samples of some of my favourites.

Pelle Carlberg a singer-songwriter from Uppsala who used to be the singer in Edson.  His most recent album is The Lilac Time.

MP3: Clever Girls Like Clever Boys Much More Than Clever Boys Like Clever Girls by Pelle Carlberg

Jens Lekman who has released two albums and recently caught a does of swine flu.

MP3: The Opposite of Hallelujah by Jens Lekman

Hello Saferide aka Annika Norlin aka Säkert!

MP3: If I Don’t Write This Song, Someone I Love Will Die by Hello Saferide

El Perro Del Mar aka Sarah Assbring, whose fantastic album Love Is Not Pop has been nominated for six Swedish Grammis awards (I have no idea how important they are).

MP3: It’s All Good by El Perro del Mar

Finally, The Radio Dept. whose third album ‘Clinging to a Scheme’ seems to be taking forever to be released.

MP3: David by The Radio Dept.

Time Wasters: Online Games

Essential to trying to get through a day at work or wasting away your life at in front of a PC are online.  They are free and usually require nothing more than the ability to press a mouse button.

Here is a selection of addictive time wasters that everyone can enjoy whether with the sound down or with fingers poised over Alt-Tab for when someone walks past your monitor.

First up is a game based on that work-based art form of throwing a piece of paper into a bin without getting up out of your seat.  Throw Paper! is self-explanatory, just throw the paper into the bin.  The only challenge here is that there a phantom fan that keeps switching places and altering the wind speed increasing the difficulty.  The simplicity is key to the addictiveness of the game.

Dots is another seemingly simple game however this one requires slightly more brainpower as you must try and outwit the computer in creating ‘boxes’.  It’s like a slightly more high-brow version of Noughts & Crosses or low-brow version of Deep Blue.  Join up a line and bide your time before you can connect the fourth line to make a box.  It can be intensely infuriating when you think you have laid down a cunning trap for the computer and then it goes and fills ten boxes in one go.  I did just manage to rout the computer 42 boxes to 7 so perhaps he’s not quite the Machiavellian Hal 9000 type opponent I first thought.

Puki 3D is wholly more complex but far easily to explain.  Kill babies with your laser.  Imagine you are making your way down the corridors of the Enterprise only to be confronted by raging zombie babies (or Pukis) and all you have is your trusty side arm to get by.  Things get a little more complicated as the game goes on, there are more Pukis and you have to disable forcefield.  Infanticide has never been so much fun.

Enjoy, I’m sure there will be more on the way.