★★★★☆
Four Stars

Espionage works best as a period piece.  It’s a fact that the Bond franchise has been struggling against for several decades, having shed the post-war context that made the atmosphere of the original Fleming novels so compelling. And it’s telling that Bond had to escape to the timeless vistas of the Scottish highlands to get back onto comfortable cinematic territory.

William Boyd’s screenplay adaptation of his own book, Restless, is a gorgeous and compelling three-hour thriller, which leads us through a tense tale of wartime subterfuge. Boyd knows how to capture the claustrophobic intrigue of the wartime spy-thriller. And it’s Boyd who has been commissioned by the Fleming estate to write the next instalment in the Bond novel series. As Charlotte Rampling’s 1970s incarnation of Restless’s heroine Eva Delectorskaya tells us, ‘Never assume anything is a coincidence.’

Delectorskaya is a British agent, whose involvement in the secret service sees her embroiled in a team attempting to bring the all-important US forces into the war. All (almost inevitably) is not as it seems, as a double-agent is at work.

Our first meeting with Eva is, however, a generation later, as her daughter discovers her secret past. Said daughter, Ruth Gilmartin, is played by Michelle Dockery of Downton-fame, and has cast away her corsetry for willowy 70s chic and ill-advised period eye makeup. Little else has changed.

The first instalment seems a little anxious to get going, rapidly flitting between the two periods and trying to get the bothersome matter of exposition out of the way. Once it settles down in the incredibly capable hands of its gorgeous leads, Hayley Atwell and Rufus Sewell, all is indeed well, as the piece becomes atmospheric and engrossing. An early highlight is Eva’s visit to spy-school, in which she prepares for wartime espionage with a practical blend of ‘spot the difference’ and memorisation of US states. Enough to equip oneself against the Nazi war-machine, at any rate.

The second instalment is a real treat; utterly captivating and exciting throughout, as the link between past and present begins to unravel. Each period is beautifully shot and stylised, with one of the best-dressed casts on television. Sewell really knows how to carry off a tan fedora.

Some of the more snotty televisionadoes might turn up their noses at the slightly uneven way in which Boyd’s screenplay moves between periods and seems a little self-consciously adapted at both beginning and end. But this is more than made up for by the sheer stylishness of the piece, the quality of the acting, and, most crucially, its emotional integrity. The success of this adaptation is in its preservation of human feeling in a depiction of a world of espionage that is all too often repressed and cold.

Taking a central cultural fixture of your childhood and giving it a makeover has multiple risks attendant, but none more utterly distressing than the prospect of disappointing diehards by tarnishing, or tragically even kamikaze-ing, the shimmering, standalone glory of the original. The creators of The Snowman and the Snowdog, the centrepiece of Channel 4’s Christmas programming, knew its forebear loomed heavy; thankfully, at least Raymond Briggs, the notoriously irate The Snowman creator, had given it the nod to proceed.

The new film involves the additional canine character, but apart from a back-story, the plot follows the 1982 original almost identically. A new boy moves into the old boy’s home, bringing with him a sickly old pooch who soon croaks. Distraught kid then finds a hidden box left by Original Boy containing a photo and all the paraphernalia used to make the snowman, complete with the original dried-out satsuma nose. Snow falls; boy builds snowman. In a tribute, he also decides to build a snow dog (which receives for a nose the old dried-out satsuma). Then snow-beings come alive, play in house, learn hot and cold hazards, fly to North Pole, de der de der de der.

Various authoritative reviews of the 23-minute re-rendering have basically decided unanimously: warm and fuzzy sequel of children’s classic, alas sh*te and unnecessary. As much as I was loath to admit it, I cringed with them some of the way. But on repeat viewing, the general verdict seems harsher than it deserves, and needs rehabilitating a little bit.

If Snowdog is seen, and held up in comparison, as a direct sequel to The Snowman, it falls down any day of the week. It’s not intended to be either: the last time The Snowman creators consciously tried to emulate the original’s success was in 1998, with the much lesser known The Bear. Its minor status testifies to that approach. Snowdog has to be seen as an update; a remake that doesn’t pretend it’s trying to outdo the original story. Hence, the distancing devices. There’s an updated setting (the area surrounding the house has been massively urbanised), new protagonist, and new snowy character.

The new film is based around the ‘Snowdog’. The snowman matters less, because in a way, the snowman’s story doesn’t need revisiting. In the climactic skiing sequence, the snowman crashes out, but that doesn’t trouble us – the final dash between penguin versus Boy and Snowdog shows us where the bonding’s at. Like the Snowman in the 1982 film, the cute frozen pet is the object of greatest emotional investment in this one; the Snowman’s presence simply assures the magic and is a recognisable link to its older cinematic relative. He’s not irrelevant though: the unusually happy resolution is brought back to a sober reflection of loss by his melting, again. Most reassuringly, nothing of merit in the new film intrudes upon the specialness of the 1982 Boy-Snowman association.

About that defining song – yes, it’s not the boy treble tones of Peter Auty; yes, it’s a tad Coldplay. But ‘Light the Night’, written by Andy Burrows, Razorlight’s ex-drummer, was conscious precisely of not trying to be the original: the new setting is “more urban, so the music reflects that”. Despite the initial dismay of my own fresh ears, I found myself being strangely persuaded on third and fourth listening that I could catch myself crooning the tune in a soppy winter moment.

So no, it’s not a good ‘sequel’ – because nothing could be. Yes, there is every possibility it’s “unnecessary”. But it’s a different creature for different times, related but separate, and really, it’s not for us to decide if it deserves to stand. The Snowman and the Snowdog is a product of the 2010s, not the 1980s, and the generational boundary kicks in when it comes to deeming if it soars into either perennial affection or a slot on Dave beside the Wombles’ Christmas single.

The University of Oxford has recently collaborated with the University of Minnesota to launch a scientific project to photograph and classify animals in the Serengeti national reserve.

‘Snapshot Serengeti’ is part of the Zooniverse project and offers users the opportunity to experience an ‘online safari’ using pictures of animals taken throughout the 5700 sq. miles park. Zooniverse is led by Oxford University and Adler Planetarium and allows people to interact with scientific projects online.

Zooniverse projects encourage people to get involved as online volunteers. Scientists involved in the Serengeti project are hoping that users will help to classify animals in the photographs to help identify the different animals found in the park.

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Christopher Lintott, the director of Zooniverse, is a researcher at Oxford University and leads Citizen Science projects. He explained how he got involved in the project, telling Cherwell, “We played this game before in 2007 when we took millions of pictures of galaxies and put the images online. We realised that people were willing to give up their spare time to help researchers and we were then contacted by other researches of different projects. For Snapshot Serengeti, we teamed up with biologists largely from the US, and combined our software expertise with their data. Some of the images are amazing.”

The project has been very successful with 3.7 million animals classified and 70, 000 people visiting the site so far. The pictures are taken with a camera trap, which are remotely triggered cameras that allow photographs to be taken of shy or aggressive animals, which might be too dangerous or difficult to photograph in person.

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Chris Lintott continued, “There are only 230 cameras to cover the whole area. One member of the team from the University of Minnesota, Ali Swanson, checks them every few days to ensure that grass doesn’t obstruct the view of the cameras. Now that so many people have got involved and there’s been so much enthusiasm for the project, we can justify using more cameras as we have the manpower from the public to continue classifying the data.”

Students of Oxford University were receptive to the project – Rebecca Hannon of Balliol College commented, “This is a really interesting and different idea. Getting the public interested in online projects has worked well in lots of other areas of science too.”

Other current Zooniverse projects include classifying galaxies according to shapes using the Hubble telescope, and modelling the earth’s climates.

★★★★☆
Four Stars

Dan Smith’s ambition was never to be a pop star. The lead singer of and driving force behind Bastille has gone on record saying that he always wanted to go into movies. ‘Other People’s Heartache’ is where he combines his passion for film with his music, weaves intriguing remixes and rethought versions of old songs, and just generally has a lot of fun. Part 2 builds on Part 1, with Dan Smith getting even more ingenious with his connections between film and music and adventurous with his production.

The new production team F*U*G*Z, formed by Smith and rapper F. Stokes must take a lot of credit for this album, and F*U*G*Z is accordingly given a number of ‘ft.’ acknowledgements. The team announces itself immediately (after Bastille have updated us with a TV-style ‘previously on Other People’s Heartache’ section with clips of each track from the last album and had a boys’ choir sing the chorus of Bastille’s song ‘Icarus’ of course!) in ‘Killer’ with some slick production; while it does draw attention to itself somewhat, it works well, instantly creating the atmosphere that the album gives off throughout – one of everything happening everywhere at the same time. The song, a cover of Seal’s ‘Killer’, is so eventful it’s ridiculous, with a sample from George Michael’s song of the same name, Liam Neeson promising “I will find you, and I will-” and downbeat electronic wizardry all over the place. And don’t worry, Smith’s tongue remains firmly in his cheek, having Marty McFly announce at the end “Guess you guys weren’t ready for that. But your kids are gonna love it.”

Dan Smith’s humour is a huge part of the album, and it is evident throughout. In the cover of ‘No Scrub’ by TLC mixed with The xx’s ‘Intro’ and filled with excerpts from Psycho, Smith implicitly accuses Norman of being a ‘scrub’ because he ‘lives with his momma’. The track ‘Thinkin’ Ahead’, a cover of Frank Ocean’s ‘Thinking About You’, opens with a reference to a rather different Frank in Donnie Darko’s “a storm is coming Frank says” speech. ‘Sweet Pompeii’, mostly a soulful cover of Calvin Harris’ ‘Sweet Nothing’, almost seems like a practical joke on the listener as we go from the verse to a clip of Bernie Sanders talking about the economy to a hilariously unexpected sample of the exact beat break from Harris’ version. Add to that an N-Trance cover and some more humorously appropriate film excerpts and you have a joyfully playful analysis of popular culture and media.

Despite all this, the album does flirt with sincerity at times. The wonderful Kate Tempest produces a beat poem on ‘Forever Ever’ which combines brilliantly with the cover of Bastille’s single ‘Bad Blood’ Dan Smith enlists the help of Gab Aplin’s spine-tingling voice to produce a beautiful cover of Fleetwood Mac’s ‘Dreams’, opening with Gene Wilder’s excellent Willy Wonka declaring ‘we are the music-makers, and we are the dreamers of dreams’ and littered with moments from The Corrs’ ‘Dreams’ to complete the theme. Ella, one of 2013’s most exciting prospects, assists on a goose bump-inducing rendition of Tina Turner’s ‘Private Dancer’ which explodes into life when she starts belting N-Trance’s ‘Set You Free’ and the album closes with a chilling rendition of ‘Holy Night’, and Dan Smith definitely has the vocal pedigree to pull off the hymn. It’s blended cunningly with clips from ‘Home Alone’ including the band’s parting message: “Merry Christmas, ya filthy animal, and a Happy New Year!”

The band are giving this album away for free, just as they did Part 1, on www.otherpeoplesheartache.com because, as far as we can see, they’ve only made it because they thought it’d be fun, and they want you to hear it. Much as we all wish Bastille would hurry up and release a ‘proper’ album already, it’s so refreshing seeing artists creating for the sake of creating, and obviously loving every second of it.

I love quiz shows, I really do. I love getting the answers right. I love pretending I got the answers right. I love mocking the contestants when they do not get the answers right. Though apparently not as much as Jeremy Paxman and his quizzical brow do. They are a chance to prove one’s unequivocal knowledge of the culture capitals of Europe, or films starring Kevin Bacon; essentially they are a great way to feel like a bit of a clever clogs whilst a wordless word document stares at you from across the room. However, the time of lording my superior knowledge of all things uninteresting over my family and friends whilst they try to enjoy their evening viewing has finally come to an end. 

‘Only Connect’, the most viewed show on the somewhat haughty and grown up BBC 4, is like an intellectual punch in the face. Scheduled to begin just as University Challenge ends, it maintains the mood of civil Monday night viewing (or in my case, aggressive fact fighting), but forces you to climb several rungs up logic ladder. As opposed to reeling off random facts potentially overheard at a pub quiz, the teams have to actually think about things. The basic format requires the teams to make connections between seemingly random images, words, or pieces of music, meaning you have to be able to link stuff like “things made out of melted guns”, or “tube lines if they were translated as snooker ball colours.” It’s torturous. It’s also genius. 

Everything about this program is clever, sharp and a teensy bit elitist. From the titular E.M Forster reference, to the fact that teams choose their question by selecting a hieroglyph (seriously), no academic is left unruffled. Even the classically stringy introductory music gives everything a sense of serious if-I-get-one-right-I’ll-be-a-better-person-ness. Cleverest of all is the show’s presenter, Victoria Coren. I don’t want to be quizzed by her, I want to be her. The somewhat unnerving lack of a studio audience does not phase this lady, as she embarks on monologues and witticisms, gently mocks the teams (most of whom look like they followed University Challenge when Bamber Gascoigne still presented it), and makes us believe she really did already know the answers to all the questions. 

So, though quiz show fans may have a more relaxing time watching QI, or a more successful evening watching The Weakest Link, nothing says ‘wild Monday night’ like a quiz show that repeatedly assaults you with stuff you didn‘t know. All it needs now is a drinking game.