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Last year my uncle featured in a TV show about ‘miracles’. He told the story of how he found a photograph of himself in a book he picked up from an antique shop, while on holiday in England. It’s a true story. This month the show is letting viewers decide which stories should be repeated in a clip show to introduce the new series.

Do me and my kin a favour and vote for ‘De foto’ on the ‘Wonderen bestaan’ website. You’ll find the poll on the right hand side and ‘De foto’ is the last option in the poll (which doesn’t give it much of a chance of winning!).

It’s a great story and my uncle, who is an author and lyricist, does a great job of telling it (well, duh, he does readings and theater shows for a living). In short: About 20 years ago he was on holiday with his girlfriend L. and another couple. It was a miserable day and he hadn’t even wanted to go to England anyway. When they stopped for lunch, they came across an antique shop.

My uncle had a thing about ‘a book without a title’. He had been talking about this obsession during the trip, of wanting to find this ‘book without a title’. His friends had said books without titles didn’t exist.

Looking through the books on the shelves in the antique shop, he didn’t find anything he wanted. But there was one more book, sitting on a table. Picking it up he saw the book’s cover didn’t have any marking or lettering. It was a book without a title! And when he opened it, he found a picture of himself taken when he was a young man.

Cue theme of the Twilight Zone. Vote now. Vote often.

While a continuation of the TV show is unlikely, showing the WB and Fox that there is a strong demand for quality television may have some effect on future programming. And perhaps it will encourage suits to fund TV movies, DVD series or other outlets for Angelverse stories.

George Michael’s Older (1996) is in my Top 10 favourite albums. So there. Now that that’s out of the way let’s tackle the long-awaited new album.

‘Precious’ won’t make my top 10 because it’s not really an album. It’s a collection of songs that goes on a little too long, has two old singles on it and sounds just a tad dated. So it’s good old fashioned George Michael schtuff then? Yes. ‘Amazing’, the single, has grown on me, ‘My Mother Has A Brother’ is the touching stand out ballad, but it’s the 7 minutes and 36 seconds long dance floor dark horse ‘Precious Box’ that I’ve been playing on repeat. This despite the fact that it sounds like a theme tune for a mid-90s TV show about the hard-core dance scene in, I don’t know, Sheffield. Yes, it’s got under my skin, as George himself sings in this tribute to… what? Satellite TV? You tell me (lyrics). At the end of the album, George bids the business that comes with music farewell. Here’s to many many future downloads. He may be ‘Through’, but he’s not finished.

Ever since I got a bigger telly and find myself with a little more time to spare, I’ve been spending more time on the couch, rediscovering TV.

Most of my TV intake is very deliberate. I have a few series I watch religiously. I stick to the USA schedule, download the episodes and watch them either on the computer or (after burning a VCD) on TV. But lately I have been enjoying documentaries on the box. I stumble upon them while channel surfing.

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