IQ test is just what the doctor ordered
I T WAS just what the doctor ordered – The Great British Intelligence
Test (BBC Two, Monday). Something to engage the mind, entertain us, enthral us with science. Only one small problem. It had already been done.
Dr Michael Mosley, who’s never more than a heartbeat away from a new diet book, told us that 250,000 people had already undertaken the tests.well I wasn’t told. I’m poised over Zoom.
So that was that. Only there was precious little on, so I persisted.what I was really hoping for was a repeat of the last BBC investigation into intelligent life forms. I’m not talking about Eldorado, even if I would like to see that again for a laugh.you could show it on a new channel called Unforgettable Telly.
I’m actually speaking about Anne Robinson’s Test The Nation show, aiming for a mass IQ result almost 20 years ago. It featured, among other luminaries, Ground Force’s builder Tommy Walsh, he of the, “Course I can lay a patio in minutes, guv’nor!” school of TV. He did the test, and so did millions of people including me, and I’m proud to say Tommy and I scored the same. Our IQS are sealed in an envelope in Broadcasting House.
The latest version was very informative if you’re older, and don’t do any video gaming. For me, gaming involves weird characters jumping up and down on a screen for your “entertainment”, and shooting someone, or both. It turns out if we want to protect our working memory – which tells you why you walked into a room – we should all be playing shoot ’em up games like Call Of Duty.and it must be a combat-style game, in which you’re changing weapons.we look forward to games involving gun-toting grannies on mobility scooters queuing for eggs and flour.
The other good news for older citizens was that we’re more verbally dexterous than younger people. So challenge your children/ grandchildren to Scrabble during lockdown for gratuitous mood boosting. Oh, and we should be more active, blah, blah, blah, so play Call Of Duty on an exercise bike. Done.
Just when I thought I was bored with Killing Eve (BBC One, Sunday), I wasn’t.the opening sequence of episode three was classic Villanelle (Jodie Comer). By which we mean as black as pitch, gruesome but hilarious. Incidentally, watching any pre-lockdown drama is like watching the “old normal”, looking at that Andalusian villa where Villanelle was staying and thinking, “I bet I can’t afford to stay there either...” It’s nice to dream. So Villanelle with a tuning fork at a piano… Nothing can be more innocent. Only one end is very sharp (rather than flat) it turns out, enough for it to be used as a lethal dart.we have new respect for piano tuners. First she killed the owner, then the nanny. But joy, the baby was spared. Villanelle appeared to show mercy unlike Harriet Walter, who put the baby in a bin. Sadly, I laughed. Villanelle and Sandra Oh’s Eve also had a fight on the top deck of a double-decker in London.what a shame that’s no longer possible.and no one even pressed the button to get off. It was far too entertaining. Perhaps they were tourists, impressed by the pair’s brave lack of social distancing. Jodie Comer’s performance has now toppled Dexter as TV’S most enjoyable serial killer. Sky News is playing a blinder during coronavirus. Quite rightly, Ian King – the Brucie of financial journalism – has been given another half an hour slot at 9.30am as well as 1.30pm.the silver fox is one of the politest presenters on TV but asks the tough questions too, especially about our pensions which bounce around like a ping pong ball in a wind tunnel.
David Stratton’s Adventure in Australian Cinema (BBC Four, Sunday) was a fine documentary, charting, in the first of three episodes, the “game changers” in cinema Down Under, which you will disappointed to learn was not Tina Turner singing We Don’t Need Another Hero in Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome however entertaining the hairstyle. But everything got a mention here, from Strictly Ballroom, an inspiration to revive Come Dancing, to what were called “Ozploitation” films, a genre of ultra-violent zombie-style pics. Exploitation? Glad to hear the concept has reached Australia.
There were classics, too, such as
Picnic At Hanging Rock, which got a recent TV adaption, Breaker Morant, a tragic story set during the Boerwar, and Geoffrey Rush’s Oscar-winning Shine performance.
The real “game changer” however was Crocodile
Dundee which Russell Crowe described as “spiritual”. I thought they drank Foster’s. It still has one of my favourite lines in film when Mick Dundee was confronted by a mugger in New York.
All together now: “That’s not a knife... THAT’S a knife!” I must play the video game.