All posts by Paul Lang

Advance warning

Video February 22, 2003 Paul Lang Leave a comment

Felicity Kendall is to make a return to our TV screens as a gardening detective.

She will team up with Pam Ferris to solve all manner of horticultural puzzles in (wait for it) Rosemary and Thyme.

The pair will play gardeners Rosemary Baxter and Laura Thyme, and we are hoping for something along the lines of Murder, She Wrote, but with trowels instead of typewriters.

Filming ends in June, and we can expect it on our screens by 2004.

2013 UPDATE: This was almost exactly as we predicted.

Get fresh

Video February 21, 2003 Paul Lang Leave a comment

There’s been frantic activity in the mint market over the last few months, with new and ever-more-ridiculous products hitting the shelves at an alarming rate.

Of these new products, the most sinister are Wrigley’s Extra Thin Ice strips.

lowculture is genetically programmed to want to try all stupid new consumer items, so we trotted of to WHSmith in search of some.

For around 70p, you get 24 little blue strips of minty strangeness that turn to goo on your tongue and make you want to retch. They’re quite strong, too – as an experiment, we stuffed five in at once and just about blew our head off.

In a way, it’s kind of like going to church and taking communion, except you get a mint, and you will probably still go to hell.

2013 UPDATE: I couldn’t find a video of the TV ad for these mints, only the storyboards.

Music, TV

Every dog has her Van Day

Video February 21, 2003 Paul Lang Leave a comment

We’re very much looking forward to Born in the USA. There’s something about packing a load of old has-beens in a bus and sending them to a different continent that’s got enormous appeal.

The element that’s delighting us the most is that the show will feature the original Dollar line-up. lowculture was discussing the changing fortunes of the former members with some colleages just a few short months ago, when we managed to convince a particularly gullible friend that one of them was running a bric-a-brac emporium in Southend called Thereze’s Bazaar.

Anyway, nearer the time we will be taking bets on which fellow performer will be first to give David Van Day a slap (our money’s on Sonia – we wouldn’t like to get in a fight with her).

2013 UPDATE: Sonia and David Van Day did indeed hate each other on sight.

lowculture.co.uk

We can seeeeeeee you!

February 21, 2003 Paul Lang Leave a comment

Since we started lowculture, we’ve become complete web geeks. We talk in HTML and spend hours looking at our web stats when we should be working.

Here are some interesting facts about you, our lovely readers:

» One of you is from Lithuania. Hello!

» There are lots of people at the BBC who are not workingand are reading this instead.

» Like the Marks & Spencer foodhall, our busiest time is lunchtime.

» 351 of you got here via Popjustice.

Music, TV

Don’t hold back, Louis

February 20, 2003 Paul Lang Leave a comment

We’re still reeling from yesterday’s news about the cancellation of the Popstars: The Rivals tour.

Our pain was made slightly more bearable when we heard Louis Walsh on Radio 1′s Newsbeat saying he was glad the tour was off because One True Voice are “a bunch of arseholes”.

Bet they speak highly of him as well.

Special request

Video February 19, 2003 Paul Lang Leave a comment

lowculture reader Nikki, a big fan of Footballers Wives, writes:

“Please print pic of look on Jason and Jackie’s faces when lady doc told them wee Paddy was an ‘intersex’ baby – I laughed my tits off.”

Sadly, we couldn’t find a picture of that, but using the latest hi-tech methods (pointing our camera phone at the TV is fairly hi-tech, isn’t it?), we managed to get this shot from the moment where Jason announced that the baby couldn’t be intersex because: “It’s got a dick – I’ve seen it!”

Enjoy.

2013 UPDATE: As we are now LIVING IN THE FUTURE, you can watch the actual episode and not have to rely on my dreadful phone snap.

Music, TV

It would take a strong, strong man to write a song for One True Voice

Video February 17, 2003 Paul Lang Leave a comment

According to the official PWL website, none other than Rick Astley is working on tracks for One True Voice.

Let’s hope they capture the imagination a bit more than Lauren Waterworth’s line-dancing anthem, the Show.

2013 UPDATE: They did not.

Music, TV

Give that boy a slap

Video February 17, 2003 Paul Lang Leave a comment

Fame Academy winner David Sneddon has flown in the face of popular (ie our) opinion that the cancellation of Scot-soap High Road is nothing short of a national outrage.

“I’m glad it’s finishing,” he told the Scottish edition of The Sun.

But what has poor old High Road done to attract the ire of the weasel-faced singing muppet?

It’s all because he shares a name with High Road’s chief villain, Davie Sneddon.

“I’ve had the mickey taken out of me for years because of High Road,” bleated Sneddon jr. “It was always ‘Is Davie Sneddon your dad’?

“It got worse when I had a No.1 and people would recognise me in the street and shout out: “Hey Davie – how’s Mrs Mack”.

“So although it’s a dreadful shame for fans of High Road and the actors involved, personally I’m glad to see the back of it – because now I’m the one and only Davie Sneddon.”

David – you’re officially barred from Scotland, or at least the very tiny bit of it that lowculture owns.

2013 UPDATE: Poor old Sneddo.

Ouch

Video February 17, 2003 Paul Lang Leave a comment

Just when you thought Dream Team was the only thing worth watching on Sky 1 on a Sunday night, along comes the new shagging-in-the-sky drama, Mile High.

In the first episode, the entire cast’s clothes fell off, the characters snorted and swallowed heaps of illegal substances, two of them did it proper in the hotel pool, James Redmond sucked his gut in a lot and a male stripper with multiple genital piercings flashed them all for our viewing pleasure.

There might have been a storyline of some sort as well, but we weren’t really paying attention.

Anyway, the chap with the Prince Albert reminded lowculture of the tale of a workmate who had treated herself to a pointy new friend in an intimate locaton.

She was thrilled with it (literally), and told us that she had recently met a man who had the male equivalent: “You know – a King Edward”.

2013 UPDATE: No idea whether my former colleague still has her fanny piercing, although she did claim that with it she was rarely more than six steps from heaven so I would doubt very much that it’s come back out.

High Road culture

Video February 16, 2003 Paul Lang Leave a comment

It’s a sad weekend here in Scotland, as our beloved home-grown soap opera, High Road, has been axed.

Like shortbread, tartan, ginger hair and those little Highland soldiers with the furry hats that can only be purchased at gift shops near Edinburgh Castle, High Road is a Scottish institution.

Recently, we have been treated to storylines as thrilling as Mrs Mack’s attempt to triumph over Effie MacDonald in the village soup-making competition, Chic Cherry’s vintage car scam, and Joanna Ross-Gifford’s rebirth as a middle-aged superslut.

To add insult to injury, the series – which we currently enjoy in a prime-time Sunday slot just before Corrie – will end on a cliffhanger, as the current run was recorded two-and-a-half years ago, and there are no plans to film a conclusion.

The last episode will be shown on April 13, and we’ll be sure to report back with news of whose soup was best.

2013 UPDATE: I forget whose soup was best.

It's great to love stuff