What I've been watching (168/365)

[white_hart]

The current series of The Great British Sewing Bee came to an end last night. I very much enjoyed watching it, though it did seem as though they were making an awful lot of dresses. Or maybe they always made lots of dresses and I just noticed more this time because I was in a watchalong group on Facebook and people kept saying "I'd wear that" and I wouldn't wear any of them? Anyway, I was pleased by the final result; the winner was the person who I'd had as favourite from week 1 (though I would also have been happy to see one of the other finalists win; the third I felt was probably not really quite up to it).

While I was waiting for Sewing Bee to start last night I watched the first two episodes of We Are Lady Parts on All4. This is a comedy series about an all-female Muslim punk band and so far I'm loving it.

T and I are rewatching This Life, which is on Britbox. This involves regularly shouting "Egg, you muppet!" and "Miles, you wanker!" at the TV, with an occasional foray into "Fuck off with your biphobia, Warren!". Although even the women, who seemed reasonably sympathetic nearly quarter of a century ago, are fairly awful viewed from middle age. (The series also turns out to feature a very early appearance by a young Martin Freeman. And apparently the "10 years on" special, which cannot possibly have been almost 15 years ago, features an early experience by a young Jodie Whittaker.)

Comments

[girlyswot]

They had a lot of menswear in the pattern challenges, but the made to measure were mostly either explicitly dresses or open to any garment. It’s been a lovely series, though. I am surprised by how much I like Joe Lycett on it, when he irritates me so much in other things.

[white_hart]

Yes, they had the lumberjack shirts and Oxford bags (and were there waistcoats? I feel like there were waistcoats), so it was really the made to measures, and I think quite a lot of the transformations ended up that way too.

[white_hart]

Actually, the made to measures had a men's jacket, didn't they? And a Hawaiian shirt, and the child's raincoat. Perhaps it's just the last few weeks that have been dress-heavy.

[alithea]

Yes, I think it's just been dress heavy at the end. I agree on the winner, although I think it would have been even closer if it was not for that raw hem!

[girlyswot]

Waistcoats and flat caps!

Transformations are often dresses because they are much the easiest thing to do without a pattern.

[sfred]

If you haven't yet seen Feel Good (sitcom but with some dark stuff) - it has Ferdy from This Life in it.

[muninnhuginn]

I do feel there's been less tailoring on Sewing Bee recently. I'm not certain I've seen a lot I'd want to wear (other than the Baker Boy hats) for a while.

The reason I loved This Life was they were all (the main characters, at least) so horrible in different ways. I rewatched a year or so ago--how attitudes have moved on! I suspect the quality of London shared houses less so.

[perennialanna]

It took me a long time to work it out (not that I was actually allowed to watch This Life) - streaming keeps cutting off the cast lists.

It is also taking me a long time to watch Feel Good because some bits go straight to the bone. It is wonderful, but not bingeable.

[legionseagle]

I have to say, long practice at "Miles, you wanker!" meant that the actor's character's tragic deaths in both The Talented Mr Ripley and Pirates of the Caribbean came over as simply karma working its purpose out as year succeeds to year.

[legionseagle]

I have to say, "Everyone's awful but I was in that milieu (or at least on its edges) and it really was and we really were."

I also got stuck in Largs with engine problems in the early 00s and it still gave me a bit of a buzz to walk into Nardini's ice-cream parlour. (Art deco styling to die for, darling. It's the best thing in Largs.)

[ankaret]

I am enjoying We Are Lady Parts a lot. I'm not usually hugely into things with fantasy sequences but it's just so likeable.

[sfred]

Agreed - it's not easy watching.

[antisoppist]

I have seen two episodes of We Are Lady Parts due to still being awake and on the sofa when it comes on, one of which was last night's and one of which was earlier in the series but not the first one or the one before last night's and I like it a lot even though I don't know quite what is going on. I shall watch it again from the beginning.

I saw Ramon Tikaram play Judas in Jesus Christ Superstar in about 1998. When he was first in This Life, he was "brother of the more famous Tanita Tikaram". She played my university in about 1988 and I wish I'd gone, although my friends did keep doing impressions of her intoning "This is a song about a cathedral... it's called... the cathedral". I digress and will spend the morning listening to Tanita Tikaram on youtube.

[antisoppist]

I agree and about the raw hem too. You can't win if you didn't finish it. Generally good sewing skills will win over amazing design skills but ideally you have to have both and the winner knew that and deliberately demonstrated out-of-comfort-zone design in the final task.

I was surprised no-one had done one of those buttonholes before though. I found them easier than the thread sort. Though I have discovered my sewing machine has a buttonhole foot and possibly they are easier with one of those. I am about to find out.

[perennialanna]

In my family it was "She's from Basingstoke, you know!". Basingstoke being our nearest practical shopping town (Winchester was about the same distance in the opposite direction, but contained far fewer cheap practical shops).

[white_hart]

When I watched it the first time round I was an underemployed graduate temping in Coventry, and their lives seemed impossibly glamorous compared to mine. Less so now!

[white_hart]

Heh, true!

[white_hart]

At the time, I aspired to be like them - they had serious professional jobs and what looked like a nice house compared to the standards of the places I was living while temping in Coventry - and I am now boggled that I could ever have thought that.

[white_hart]

It's delightful!

[white_hart]

In my family it was "she came to our house once!". (My mother did an access course at Farnborough Tech in the late 80s, and at the end of it my parents threw a party for the people from her course. One guy brought along his girlfriend who went to Basingstoke Tech and bored everyone rigid by talking about busking all the time. And then about six months later Good Tradition hit the charts.)

[sfred]

And yes, one reason I have no dream of being on Sewing Bee is that there are so many dresses and I don't have people to practice them on.

[crinolinerobot]

I loved This Life back in the day, though I suspect I wouldn't now. With that and Ultraviolet, Jack Davenport became one of my faves.

Re: dresses on Sewing Bee, they seem less complex than trousers to me (admittedly I've only made on pair of pull-on trousers) which might be why they tend to make those so often, given a time limit.