The last few days have resulted in a certain kind of blogstipation for me here in Wellington. The weather has been a bit dull and boring and so have I.
Just came back up the hill in the arse rocket after the bi-weekly trip to New World, the Kiwi version of my local K-Citymarket in Myyrmäki back home. Already the store is so familiar after only three weeks that I can prepare a shopping list and subconsciously list needed items into my iPhone shopping app in the order that they will appear on the shelves as I wheel my basket round the store. This is yet another sign of having settled in, I guess. But how nice that there is such an influx of happy young people to the job market here that shoppers never need to pack their own groceries, as we have to in good old Suomi. In general there is a pleasant service culture and people are usually friendly and interested. It takes away some of the stress and angst that we certainly suffer from up there on the North-Eastern rim of Europe.
I was also invited in to have dinner Wednesday by my neighbour 'B' and her friend 'J'. I thought to myself, how many times have I been invited to dinner by my Finnish neighbours? Finns know the answer to that one. So now I know my new neighbour and she knows a bit about me, and my background and family and plans while I'm here these five months on the other side of the wall of our little semi-detached house on stilts. The good neighbour tradition is certainly familiar from the UK. 'B' made a lovely steak and I wonder if she'd appreciate my spicy curries just as much?
I was watching David Attenborough's Life of Mammals the other night. There's a man who can't be said to have 'settled down' for a moment. I doubt whether he would ever confess to have had a disappointing life or dull existence like some people of his age tend to do. And if so, nobody could believe that. I'm from the generation who has seen a large part of the transformation of television in the UK. From the heavily controlled and limited 'picture radio' with broadcasts of news, weather, watch with mother, documentaries of World War II and not much more, totaling only a few hours every afternoon and evening we've moved to the era of 24/7, multi-channel, multi-national, mega-commercial TV animal we know today. And it's hard for me to remember a time when David Attenborough wasn't a part of TV. Well he started working for the BBC before I was born and is now, still working at over 80. I think he is a rather clever and rather lucky man and when he eventually does retire TV will lose one of its few remaining pioneers and masters of the genre of natural history.
Having said that it's also obvious that the Attenborough series are made to a very clever format. The credit for majority of the audiovisual content can hardly be claimed by Sir David for he is only the story teller and the magic of the images and the sounds is the work of some highly skilled professionals, technical innovators and cinematic geniuses. The 'making of' documentaries on the Attenborough DVD productions are real eye-openers! But Sir David surely would not associate himself with the mundane or productions lacking in quality or the Attenborough wow factor. I'm sure every time a new series is being planned that all involved know that it's not going to be an inexpensive operation.
What a contrast to so much programming that comes from our 'television sets' these days (and lets avoid thinking about what a TV really is in 2009!). Here also in New Zealand we are bombarded with all the same old (US) series or formats that I see in Finland, in the UK and, let's face it, most everywhere else too, local censors permitting.
New Zealand's Got Talent? Hmm, we shall see...
Just came back up the hill in the arse rocket after the bi-weekly trip to New World, the Kiwi version of my local K-Citymarket in Myyrmäki back home. Already the store is so familiar after only three weeks that I can prepare a shopping list and subconsciously list needed items into my iPhone shopping app in the order that they will appear on the shelves as I wheel my basket round the store. This is yet another sign of having settled in, I guess. But how nice that there is such an influx of happy young people to the job market here that shoppers never need to pack their own groceries, as we have to in good old Suomi. In general there is a pleasant service culture and people are usually friendly and interested. It takes away some of the stress and angst that we certainly suffer from up there on the North-Eastern rim of Europe.
I was also invited in to have dinner Wednesday by my neighbour 'B' and her friend 'J'. I thought to myself, how many times have I been invited to dinner by my Finnish neighbours? Finns know the answer to that one. So now I know my new neighbour and she knows a bit about me, and my background and family and plans while I'm here these five months on the other side of the wall of our little semi-detached house on stilts. The good neighbour tradition is certainly familiar from the UK. 'B' made a lovely steak and I wonder if she'd appreciate my spicy curries just as much?
I was watching David Attenborough's Life of Mammals the other night. There's a man who can't be said to have 'settled down' for a moment. I doubt whether he would ever confess to have had a disappointing life or dull existence like some people of his age tend to do. And if so, nobody could believe that. I'm from the generation who has seen a large part of the transformation of television in the UK. From the heavily controlled and limited 'picture radio' with broadcasts of news, weather, watch with mother, documentaries of World War II and not much more, totaling only a few hours every afternoon and evening we've moved to the era of 24/7, multi-channel, multi-national, mega-commercial TV animal we know today. And it's hard for me to remember a time when David Attenborough wasn't a part of TV. Well he started working for the BBC before I was born and is now, still working at over 80. I think he is a rather clever and rather lucky man and when he eventually does retire TV will lose one of its few remaining pioneers and masters of the genre of natural history.
Having said that it's also obvious that the Attenborough series are made to a very clever format. The credit for majority of the audiovisual content can hardly be claimed by Sir David for he is only the story teller and the magic of the images and the sounds is the work of some highly skilled professionals, technical innovators and cinematic geniuses. The 'making of' documentaries on the Attenborough DVD productions are real eye-openers! But Sir David surely would not associate himself with the mundane or productions lacking in quality or the Attenborough wow factor. I'm sure every time a new series is being planned that all involved know that it's not going to be an inexpensive operation.
What a contrast to so much programming that comes from our 'television sets' these days (and lets avoid thinking about what a TV really is in 2009!). Here also in New Zealand we are bombarded with all the same old (US) series or formats that I see in Finland, in the UK and, let's face it, most everywhere else too, local censors permitting.
New Zealand's Got Talent? Hmm, we shall see...
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment