Pintxo

Oddly enough, I didn’t do a lot of TV watching this week, and the programmes I did watch were by in large old favourites so not much new to report there. I did go out to dinner however, so for the second time in its short life, TV Casualty goes foodie.

On paper Pintxo had me. Having perused the online menu and read a number of gushing reviews, my taste buds positively tingled all day Thursday as I dreamed about the upcoming Iberian feast. Letting my imagination run riot, I indulged in ramekins filled with new and exotic dishes, knowing smiles as I ordered the house speciality, then praise and admiration of companions for my choice as I sat back in my seat, satiated and looking ahead to when prudence might allow me to return.

Such was the anticipation that I advised everyone I met of my dinner plans at length, and had all but booked my birthday meal there before even setting foot in the door, so it was with childlike excitement that I got off the tube at Partick and made the short walk up Dumbarton Road.

Pintxo, (pronounced pin-cho) is the latest addition to Glasgow’s increasingly varied tapas scene, taking its name from the small £1 tapas that were purportedly for sale at the bar. Occupying a compact, understated space opposite the medical centre, the restaurant is heavily influenced by cooking from Spain’s Basque region, with the regions dishes featuring prominently on the expansive and tantalizing menu.

I had made an informed choice of Scallops with chorizo and the crisp baby squid with saffron and green apple alioli earlier in the day, leaving a space open for a wild card choice which I filled, wonderfully spontaneously I thought, with a “trio of gazpacho: andaluz, ajo blanco and pimiento.”

The scallops were the first to arrive, sat on top of wafer thin slices of chorizo and looking lonely on the plate with only a slice of lemon for company, and at a hefty £5.99, a touch underwhelming. Sweet and lightly seared just past the stage of gooeyness, the scallops were wonderfully fresh, although the flavour of the chorizo never really pushed through to give the dish the mild smoky heat the combination suggested.

Shortly after the crisp baby squid arrived, the small tentacles delicately fried and served in a bowl with an apple aloli dip on the side. Again, the freshness of the produce shone through giving the squid a deep, oceanic quality. The saffron and green apple alioli however, was little more than glorified mayonnaise, with little evidence of either apple or saffron.

A good 5 minutes after I had finished my other dishes the trio of gazpacho arrived, rather disconcertingly, in three plastic shot glasses on a crescent shaped plate. Mid way through the second shot I flaked, foregoing the last to a companion who then had similar difficulties.

Elsewhere on the table courgette stuffed with goat’s cheese proved greasy, bitter and inedible (actually) while coriander, red peppers and rioja did little to enrich a spongy slow cooked lamb dish. Redemption came, however, in the form of a chunky, perfectly cooked traditional Spanish tortilla, and encouraging noises were being made about some King Prawns with olive oil, garlic and chilli up table.

Overall, I left Pintxo in a mood closer to optimistic realism than brutal disappointment. While failing to live up to my frankly delusional expectations, the restaurant boasts some interesting variations on the standard tapas fare and comes as close to an authentic taste of the Basque country you’re likely to get in deepest darkest Partick. The three tapas for £8.95 lunch and early dinner option looks inviting, and I get the sense Pintxo might work better if approached in the Spanish style of tapas as an accompaniment as opposed to an end in itself.

I also learned to take restaurant reviews in future with a pintx of salt.

The Droogs of Society

Every dog has its day and this week it was the turn of the TV bottom feeders to bark. Bolstered by morbid curiosity and a peculiarly bereft schedule, I’ve recently been trying to score in some of the less salubrious corners of digi-land and this is what i turned up.

Excess all areas: Rock Stars was a remarkable Sky Three docu-druggy-drama that retold the final highs and lows of rock stars Kurt Cobain and Jimi Hendrix with a unique mix of reconstruction, personal testimony and computer animation.

Interviews with close friends were cut with reconstructions of the errant rock stars eating out of bins, smashing up hotel rooms and generally making a nuisance of themselves before injecting, snorting or dropping their way into oblivion. At this point the graphics took over as the image dissolved into a representation of the stars insides, replete with heroin molecules attaching themselves to receptors inside their glowing exo-skeletans.

Terry Christian narrated in a cynical attempt to inject some cult cool into the travesty with the result that both Christian and the programme dropped a few notches more in my esteem. Towards the end I couldn’t even laugh at how shite it was, and had to turn off the TV before they showed Sid Vicious stabbing Nancy Spungen and telling people to fuck off a lot (although this might have been cool in retrospect.)

Over on More4, I’ve spent the last few weeks dipping into Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip to see whether it was something I could dig. As far as I can see this is little more than a shit programme about an even shiter programme.

Based around the lives and loves of a bunch of smart arse American media types as they quip their way through the production of what looks like one of the most boring programmes ever fictionally created, Studio (I’m doing that irritating thing people do when they try to make something sound better than it is by shortening the title) suffers a lot from its association with political cheeser The West Wing. Much of the programme is given over to proving that the actors can walk, talk and crack jokes at the same time, as well as demonstrating the quirkier sides of the characters’ personalities (which it becomes quickly clear is incidentally the only side of the characters’ personalities.)

I think there was a plot in there somewhere, and definitely something about snakes, but other than that the hour or so I spent watching this mush has pretty much been erased from my memory, heroes style, and that’s probably for the best.

As such Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip does provide something of a therapeutic function. In much the same way as high-powered executives like to submit to a dominatrix, watching this programme allows your brain to take a holiday from worrying about all your personality defects and making decisions such as whether to buy one of those new i-pods after all.

The rest of the week News 24 and BBC Parliament was pretty much the default option, as at least with it something exciting could happen. Sundays on the latter are taken over by C-Span, the American political channel and in my view, lengthy footage of the Senate’s ratification of the presidents Attorney General nominee trumps the Hollyoaks omnibus any day.

BBC Heaven

I’ve been all over BBC this week like some sort of computer rash. First up was Charlie Brooker’s Screen Wipe (BBC 4) where I dully had the extent of my plagiarism chopped up into little pieces and laid out on a plate for me.

Non-stop media came under fire this week as Brooker dismantled rolling news coverage and shone a floodlight through each component, calmly exposing the absurdity at the centre of most “breaking news” coverage and round-the-clock reporting.

Packed with sharply observed witticisms and pointed analysis, Brooker’s Guardian Screen Burn Column translates well onto TV. Having only recently started watching this, I was a little concerned that the column wouldn’t flesh out well to a half hour TV programme, but Brooker succeeds admirably as the show becomes a whole different beast altogether. Emphasis is very much placed on the processes behind TV, as Brooker exposes the trickery and manipulation “behind the story” and coolly lacerates the genre.

While unfailing in its sardonic humour, Screen Wipe also manages to be educational and informative, aided no doubt by Brooker’s clear, matter-of-fact presenting style. Any criticism I make of this would likely be out of bitterness, as it feels like there is literally nothing I can ever think or say about TV again that this man won’t already have expressed, in an infinitely more humorous way, ten years previously.

Next up against the wall was this week’s surprise gem Please Vote for Me, (BBC4) a documentary charting the tears and tantrums of the first ever class elections in a primary school in the city of Wuhan, China.

Screened as part of the BBC Why Democracy? season, the film captured China’s first baby steps into the unfamiliar as the class was introduced to the new and volatile concept of democracy, creating a hotbed of political intrigue and rendering a race as hard and closely fought as the toughest General Election campaign.

On the ballot was the incumbent, Luo Lei, challenger Cheng Cheng and Xu Xiaofei, the only girl in the race and its first casualty as the boys increasingly dominated the debate. Bribery, trickery and backstabbing became par for course as the three battled it out, egged on by over-ambitious parents and determined to keep their eye on the main prize that offered respect, power and privilege.

The subsequent election campaign alternated between the hilarious and downright dirty. During Xu Xiaofei’s crucial election speech, Cheng Cheng orchestrated his classmates to shout her down, reducing her to tears and adding a sinister twist to the contest. It wasn’t long before the whole class was in the throes of anguish and despair as the effect of their ill treatment of Xu Xiaofei became apparent. The next day, Cheng Cheng told her it had all been arranged by Luo Lei, and then once again led the class in a round of intensive heckling as Luo Lei tried to set out his own vision for the class.

This being China, however, Luo Lei managed to fight his way back with some good old-fashioned corruption, taking the whole class for a trip on the city monorail (managed by his fathers police department) and giving out gifts in a bid to secure their votes.

In the end, the incumbent’s advantage proved too great to unseat Luo Lei, as the class cast their votes by secret ballot and chose him to remain their class prefect, to the bitter disappointment of his rivals.

Please Vote for Me was a rare and interesting piece of filmmaking from a country notorious for its suppression of artistic licence and freedom of speech. As the drama unfolded, local director Weijun Chun had captured what he described as a reflection of the “tough yet hopeful democratisation process in China” and created a snapshot of a rapidly changing country that is facing new challenges and threats in the increasingly globalised world.

As the action cut between the classroom antics and the behind-the-scenes political management of the candidates parents, events unfolded seamlessly and without the need voiceover as Chun stitched together a story of power, politics and intrigue while keeping his eye on the wider social implications.

If this does indeed reflect the first steps in the long and arduous process of democratisation in China, it promises to be one that will have its fair share of corruption, mishaps - and Machiavellian eight year olds.

Proof that advertising isn't always evil

This recent cadburys ad featuring a Gorilla drumming to Phil Collin's "In the air tonight" almost makes me want to quit my job, ditch my friends and go over to the dark side (almost)

Plus i also really like Diary Milk.

TV-linking, smart thinking

Who ever said familiarity breeds contempt obviously wasn't a fan of tv links.

This week I joined the TV revolution with a glut of TV links-facilitated binge viewing. The entire Nathan Barley back catalogue was devoured greedily, a few Sopranos were knocked back and a couple of dabs of the Twin Peaks series sneaked guiltily before I emerged out the other side bleary, confused and satiated.

Desperate to fill the Duchess-shaped gap left in my life while bird brain was on her revenge trip to London, I had turned to the internet and the on demand magic of TV Links for digital solace. It wasn’t long before I was consumed by the heady whirl of infinite viewing possibilities and power and before I knew it my four days off work had been pissed down the drain as a sea of junk and detritus lapped at the bottom of the couch, threatening to reclaim my prostate corpse at any moment.

Such was the intoxicating effect of TV Links that social interaction largely went out the window once again, and I managed instead to spend some serious me-time with some of the contemporary giants of the small screen. Now, let me dispense with self-indulgent rhetoric and get on with showing you my vision for the country – sorry I mean let me get on with this weeks TV round up.

When Nathan Barley was first on TV I was either too stupid to get it properly or too distracted to focus long enough to realise that this was possibly one of the most flawless and biting comedies to come out of Britain in the last few years. Penned by Charlie Brooker and Chris Morris, Nathan Barley takes few prisoners as it tears a hole in contemporary twenty-something culture and leaves little sacred in its wake. While I thought it was funny at first, I tellingly didn’t make it my absolute number 1 priority to watch every episode until my eyes bled and my brain started cooking in its thick skull with all the extra radiation.

Repent I did however and it was with great joy that I was able to enjoy a good couple of episodes of virgin territory. What makes this series so good, is the recognition of my own life in both the shambolic Dan Ashcroft as well as in parts of the title character and his idiotic mates. I defy anyone who has ever picked up a copy of Vice to claim they are completely spotless with regards to some of the behaviour Brooker and Morris satirise so unrelentingly, and this, perhaps above anything else, is what makes it so bleeding good.

Or maybe I’m just a moron.

Still on TV Links The Soprano’s, as ever, hit the mark (I’ve gushed enough about this programme in recent weeks so will leave it at that) and Twin Peaks was as delightfully unnerving as always, but i don't think i'll give up on the more traditional methods of viewing just yet...

TV links has an annoying tendency to stall and for the audio and vision to go out of sync is not uncommon. Whats more, unless you are in possesion of some top notch computer equipment such as Apple's front row package, watching TV on a laptop is compromised by your position in relation to the screen, making watching with a group unreasonable (unless you know them all very well and don't mind bunching up.) Additionally, if you are watching on your computer it means you can't go on the internet at the same time, a real crux to the media multi-tasking we've become accustomed to.

The old girl is safe yet.