The gift of sound and (tele)vision... It's a long one!

So, how are we? Today, as you may have guessed from the title, I am going to have an ill-informed rant about television. Before you read this I'd like to point out that this was in a night, over the course of around three hours, I didn't sit and watch TV all day...
Firstly, after my Big Brother and the death of British TV rant, did anyone see 'Sherlock' tonight on BBC 1? It's a 3 part series of 90 minute episodes, written by Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss of Doctor Who fame and another writer named Stephen Thomson. As some of you may have guessed, I did indeed watch this because it was written by Steven Moffat, who is one of the best television writers of... ever. He's almost as good as Joss Whedon. Though not quite. No-one is as good as Joss Whedon... Sorry, I got distracted, ah, yes, Steven Moffat. Basically, before becoming head writer on Doctor Who he wrote all the best episodes. 'The Empty Child', 'The Doctor Dances', 'Blink', 'The Girl In The Fireplace', 'Silence In The Library'... And then he cast Karen Gillan as Amy Pond and made my favourite series of Doctor Who after Christopher Eccleston's. Genius. Oh, and just to clarify, I thought David Tennant was great, I'm only referring to the storylines over an entire series in my ranking of favourites... So, back to my original point, Sherlock was brilliant. It took the familiar character and placed him in modern-day London, which didn't sound promising, but actually made it much better than the recent film, although having never read any of the books I don't consider myself an expert. The story was exciting, and fast-moving, the characters seemed more real than previous adaptations I've seen and the dialogue was, of course, fantastic. I'll give you an example. Basically, Holmes arch-enemy briefly kidnaps Watson, and offers him money to spy on Holmes. Here is the conversation between the two after Watson's release :
Watson : I met your friend.
Holmes : *looks confused* A friend?
Watson : An enemy
Holmes : *looks relieved* oh, which one?
Watson : Your arch-enemy according to him. Do people HAVE arch-enemies? Who is he?
Holmes : He's the most dangerous man you'll ever meet, and none of my concern at the moment. Did he offer you money to spy on me?
Watson : Yes
Holmes : Did you accept?
Watson : No
Holmes : You should have, we could have split the fee, think it through next time

Utter brilliance. I realise I haven't discussed the story, which is deliberate as I want you all to WATCH IT on iPlayer. You won't regret it, trust me.
Ok, second of all, the welcome return of 'Young, Dumb and Living off Mum'. This programme is by far the finest example of a phenomenon I call 'BBC 3 tv'. You can't sleep, you turn on the tv, you flick to BBC 3, you sit and watch an hour of something or other, not really caring either way. Then, slowly, you begin to look forward to the next episode, and before you know it, you're hooked. It's like befriending a tramp you see on the way home. Essentially, the premise of the show is that a bunch of lazy, spoiled teenagers move into a house together and get jobs and a budget, to show them what it's like in the real world. So far this series, 2 contestants have left, both only in the first episode! I can't remember their names, one was posh, kinda hot and dirty (as in she didn't wash... but now you mention it she DID look like... sorry back to the point) and the other was Beef Curry II. This will make sense to hard-core viewers such as me. This series may even turn out to be better than the first...
Finally, or possibly not, I'm in full flow at this stage, the highlights of the German Grand Prix. I was out during the live race and only managed to catch a few laps on the radio but I gather something controversial happened? Basically, Fernando Alonso was behind Felipe Massa, his Ferrari team-mate, but lapping at a faster pace. The Formula 1 rules state that a team cannot give orders to influence a race, however, in the 48th lap, Massa visibly slowed down to let Alonso pass, having been told over team radio "Fernando is faster than you, do you understand Fernando is faster than you". Following the race, Massa insisted it was his decision to let Alonso pass, as this would be beneficial to his team-mate's attempt at the world championship. However, Ferrari have been fined £100,000 and referred to the world motorsport council. Now, my opinion. Massa clearly WAS given orders to let Alonso pass, there is no doubt about that, it was plain in the voice of Massa's technician that he wasn't happy with the decision, even saying "I'm sorry". However, it shouldn't BE illegal for such practice to take place in Formula 1. What were Ferrari meant to do? Have Alonso stuck behind Massa? That would leave him open to being caught by Vettel, or risk over-taking Massa and causing a crash to put them both out of the race. Alonso is the number one driver, he is the better driver, he has more chance of winning the world championship for his team, OF COURSE Massa should let him pass, in any other sport it would be the case, rather than throwing the book at Ferrari, Formula 1 should re-examine this ludicrous rule.
Ok, I believe I will end it there, as this blog is rapidly approaching biblical size.
Until next time, thanks for reading!