Day 120. The night is long and full of terrors. (29/4/19)

(Soundtrack: At this very second 'The Flashing Blade Theme' by The Musketeers. It'll change soon because it's only 1:58 long but it's still one of the greatest TV themes ever created by human beings. "You've got to fight for what you want, for all that you believe.... and life and love and happiness are well worth fighting for." Stick that at the beginning of a kids' TV show in the 70s and you've created a motto for life in a generation. Perhaps if we'd had that in the mid 60s nobody would have grown up to vote for Thatcher and the entire world would be a better place.

And that's your 1:58 so I'll switch back to the new Springsteen single for the 4,000th time since its release at the midnight that separated Thursday from Friday. I'm never entirely sure what day midnight falls on. Is it a time between days all of its own or a time that exists in both days at once?)

Anyway. Let's talk telly. Because there's a bit of catching up to do.

J was awake in the middle of the night. So she was on her phone, checking if anything was happening in the world. Not checking to see whether the Queen had died, which is my insomnia practice, just general stuff. Her first words to me when I returned from my run this morning were "I really want to watch Game Of Thrones right now after seeing what everyone was saying on twitter."

Which came as a surprise as she's not been remotely pro Game Of Thrones at any point over the last however many years we've been on this journey. Even the presence of Sean Bean in season one didn't drag her in, and that will usually do the job.

"Well I've got a press release to get out for Those Two Weeks at the Epstein," I replied, "and I need to do this edit on Silver Meadows to get it down to an hour for the rehearsed reading in May. I'm deffo watching Game of Thrones but it'll have to wait till tonight."

So I'm Likely Lads-ing the whole thing. Avoiding the result until tonight. I can't really do any social media in case somebody blurts something out, can't look too closely at The Guardian in case the review has a headline that's a giveaway.

After the fairly tepid, uneventful, first episode the second managed to be uneventful in a quite brilliant manner. Character arcs were completed, the Battle of Winterfell was anticipated. All bets are off, basically anybody could go in this episode. There will be deaths. Lots of them. More major characters could die in ten minutes than in the entire run of Line of Duty to date.

Speaking of which: it's her isn't it? The solicitor. She's behind it all. There's no way it's Ted. No highly placed officer doubling up as a criminal mastermind would use the first letter of his surname as his codename. That'd be madness.

Hold on, I've just clicked - 'H' stands for 'Her'! They use the computer for messages so we can't hear a female voice.

Or that's what they want us to think.

What else have we got?

Beyonce. On Netflix. In my mind because Lauren Laverne covered it on her show this morning. Talking about how spectacular it was.

Me and J watched it last week. Kind of. I'm not a Beyonce fan but I was up for this. Up for this because I thought Lemonade was genuinely incredible - as an audio/video piece, as a record it's not for me - and because of the clip of Crazy In Love I'd seen from Coachella.

And Crazy In Love was, once again, unbelievable. I don't actually like the song. Mostly because, for me, there's no song in there. It's a beat, nothing more. Does nothing interesting. Melody is not its concern.

But the live production on this? Beyonce's entrance, the band movement, the stack of supporting players, the accompanying dancers, everybody moving in unison, everybody moving at all times. One of THE great live performances. One of THE greatest pop stars of all time.

And then the second song did the same thing. But with less of a song. Then the third. And the fourth. With the melodies decreasing by the moment. From a poor start in the first place.

It was honestly staggeringly impressive, brilliant staged, amazingly performed. And sterile and utterly boring.

We turned off after twenty minutes. J, who actually likes Beyonce, was happy to bale after ten. It was me that dragged it out in the hope that something interesting would happen.

It didn't. I only realised late last night that we hadn't bothered going back.

(Soundtrack: now 'Raw Honey' by Drugdealer. Very 60s/70s, some of the vocals are a little approximate in places but my god they've got tunes. Thanks to Ste Evans for the shout on this one.)

What else have we got?

Two comedies for you to catch up on, both featuring Charlotte Ritchie, who proved in the New Years' Dr Who special that she'd have been an excellent, interesting companion.

Dead Pixels, I'd read about and got round to downloading a couple of episodes last night. In places it's terrible, in places it's actually pretty damn decent. Set in the closeted world of online gaming and covering all the trifles that community seems to find life altering. Couple of laugh out loud moments in the two episodes.

(Got a  bit further on in this Drugdealer album, it's now sitting somewhere between Crosby Still & Nash and early Hall & Oates. Which is a very fine thing.)

So yeah, Dead Pixels. Give it a watch.

Ghosts, meanwhile, on BBC One is an absolute must see. It's about Ghosts. Obviously. And it's from the Horrible Histories team. So you have a quality mark on there right away. It's gloriously daft, very knowing, skirts close to being cliched and stupid and then looks at you and goes 'bit cliched and stupid that bit, look what we're going to do now'. For somebody who genuinely hardly ever laughs out loud, this has me in double figures per episode.

Seek it out. You'll love it. If you don't it's your own fault.