Quite Interesting

 We were up and about as soon as the alarm went off. Ellie was expected soon after 07:00 and the Silver Vixen had things to do. Ellie was duly dropped off and the usual start to the morning was executed to completion and the classroom door.

Back home, we grabbed our stuff and climbed into the car to whizz around to the station. We caught the 09:29 train heading for London. A quick change at Clapham Junction and a few stops on the Overground saw us deposited at Shepherds Bush. 

We wandered across the road and made our way towards the Westfield Shopping Centre. After checking the menus at a number of restaurants, we decided on "Busanda" a Bangkok-Thai restaurant. The Silver Vixen had a green curry with coconut rice, and the Gorse Fox had chicken Pad Thai. These were washed down with suitable glasses of wine and then followed by deep-fried banana-filled spring rolls, coated in toffee sauce. It was a delicious lunch and would set us up for the afternoon. 

We still had some time to kill, so took a stroll around the Westfield Mall.

From Westfield, we made our way to TV Centre and joined the queue. We had (guaranteed) tickets to see the filming of QI. The queue was epic, but the production staff saw that we had guaranteed tickets and shifted us to a different queue. We still had a good hour to wait in the queue and were thankful that it wasn't raining. That would have been miserable.

Eventually, the doors were opened and the queue started to move. We were ushered into the Studio and made our way to the seats. We were right at the back, directly in front of the set. It was a very good spot and there were plenty of monitors showing what the cameras were recording, so there was no excuse regarding visibility. It was clear that they were running late and when they were ready to start the floor manager and Sandi Toksvig both apologised for the delay.

The panellists were introduced - Judy Love, Kiri Pritchard-McLean (a Welsh comedian), Gyles Brandreth, and Alan Davies. The biggest cheer went up for Gyles. It was clear that it was going to be a good show!

So it was. The recording took about 90 minutes and was hilarious. Clearly, much will be cut for TV consumption but seeing the whole show was brilliant and was certainly worth the trip. The recording was the penultimate episode of the "U" series and was titled "Unsavoury". 

As we shuffled out at the end, the Gorse Fox asked one of the production staff if they would record the final episode tonight. She said they would. They had a further recording in a couple of hours.

We made our way back to Westfield for a drink and a snack and to let the worst of the rush hour finish. Finally, we grabbed the train to Clapham and the 19:12 to Bognor Regis. We pulled into the station just before 21:00. It had been a fabulous day, but it was nice to be home!

TV Pundit

In keeping with the comments made about the Bosch Series 5, the Gorse Fox thinks it only fair to comment on another excellent bit of TV. Over the past three nights there has been a documentary-drama recounting the events surrounding the Salisbury novichok attack. It is rare that the Gorse Fox gets enthused enough to even watch one of these genre of programmes, but was immensely glad that he did. This was excellent TV by any measure.

Bish, Bash, Bosch

We just finished the last episode of Series 5 of "Bosch" on Amazon Prime last night. Like all of the previous series, it was absolutely superb. It was well crafted, true to the spirit of the Michael Connelly books, and cracked along at a sensible pace that allowed the various side stories to develop alongside the main theme.

We have series 6 lined up, but have to decide whether to wait a while so we don't overdose or to go for the fully leaded immersion / binge.

Binge

Well that was a very enjoyable evening. Last night we settled down and binge-watched 5-6 episodes of Bosch (Season 4). Like the books, the TV series is so well crafted, and Titus Welliver in the lead role has completely supplanted my mental image of Bosch from reading the novels over the years.

Like previous seasons, the story is an amalgam of more than one book, but they are woven together so well that it is seamless.

Couple more episodes to go one evening this week.

Brilliant TV from Amazon.

Frustration

The Gorse Fox got a brief email from Cousteau-Cub. She had been to the doctor, in Trang. It appears that her bought of illness over the past week or so is actually the result of peptic ulcer caused by the prolonged use of the medication she takes. Looks like she is going to have a very bland diet for the next month or so whilst she takes more medication to sort out the ulcer.

Most of the rest of the day was spent getting very frustrated trying to get simple bits of code to work. This is code that, in his preferred language, he could code and test in two or three minutes. Writing in this different language it took the whole day to get the right incantation. Never mind, in the end he sorted it out, and tomorrow he can make progress.

The evening was spent with a bit of binge-watching. We made the most of our Amazon Prime subscription and waded through a batch of Bosch (Season2) episodes. We have saved the last two episodes for another evening, but have thoroughly enjoyed the series.

Strictly catching up

The Gorse Fox is delighted that "Strictly..." is on. It gives him a chance to catch up on other TV shows that he had missed.

Chuckling

The Gorse Fox is not one to watch

• Strictly Come Dancing
  
• Britain's Got Talent
  
• The X Factor
  

or indeed any of this victim-TV. 

Last night he made an exception and watched Peter Kay's spoof talent show "Britain's Got the Pop factor... and possibly a New Celebrity Jesus Christ Soapstar Superstar on Ice". It was one of the most enjoyable and funny TV programmes he has seen in years. Really well produced and acted, it was made to seem absolutely real... but the whole dialogue was laced with wonderfully funny lines - rarely overt - usually very subtle.

Brilliant TV that GF believes will become a classic.