Last night, Channel 4 aired Ricky Gervais’ pilot “Derek“. The comedy/drama features Gervais as Derek; a man with learning difficulties who works in an elderly people’s home.
There is much discussion over whether it is right for Gervais to play a character with learning difficulties. Is it moral? Is he poking fun at those with such challenges? Of course much of this discussion was before most had seen a single second of the show.
For what it’s worth, I think Gervais is being far from mean-spirited. Indeed, Gervais imbues Derek with a sweet innocence; a kind of naive kindness that only children foster for others. But this is the problem for me. The first half was genuinely uncomfortable because I wasn’t sure how Gervais was playing the character. Gervais is David Brent. He’s Andy Millman. His persona is acerbic, vaguely obnoxious and superior. Watching Derek shuffle about with his lower jaw pushed out and his hair slicked forward was like watching David Brent aping around The Office or Andy Millman hamming it up for Maggie’s yucks.
Would Derek be better if Gervais had cast an unknown in the titular role? Definitely. But that’s not because Gervais is a bad actor; there were several scenes where he summoned up real emotion from his audience: the death of an old lady and being protected from mean jibes in a pub where stand-outs.
Karl Pilkington essentially plays himself which is no bad thing. His world weary view is perfect for Dougie the caretaker. The chemistry he has with Gervais made their friendship instantly believable. The scene on the bus where Dougie is driving the bus and Derek is winding him up with stupid questions could have been an outtake such is their real life relationship.
The acid test for a pilot is whether we want to see more and I definitely do. I hope to get past the discomfort of Gervais playing a character with so many quirks and ticks.
Derek’s friend Hannah is interesting. She left school at 16 and has been working at the care home for 15 years. She’s still waiting for her life to start but sticks close to Derek so she doesn’t have to. It’s an interesting dynamic and I would love to see how that develops especially as a potential love interest was introduced in the pilot.
What did you think? Do you think it should be given a chance to flourish or are you sick of Gervais already?
A few weeks back, I blogged about switching to a standing desk and I wanted to throw a little update together to share my progress.
When researching standing desks, a recurrent theme was to expect discomfort. Some bloggers recommended standing for 15 minutes to start with and extending the standing time slowly. Other bloggers found it painful and uncomfortable around 3pm and went off to sit down with a laptop. I was expecting a similar experience and prepared myself for short standing sessions between perching on my stool.
Happily, I’ve found it very easy to adjust. I’m certainly aware of mild discomfort towards the end of the day, but it’s not enough for me to sit down. I do finish the work day feeling like I’ve done a days work which is refreshing as I used to uncurl myself from my chair and hobble downstairs feeling somewhat restless.
Not including exercise, I average about 5 hours of standing a day. I tend to start work sitting on my stool around 8am. I generally exercise (weights or running) around 9:30 for around an hour and sit to rest and eat a post work out meal afterwards. I generally start standing around midday or a touch earlier and continue standing until I finish work around 5pm.
As other bloggers have noted, I do feel more alert and ‘present’ while standing. I find I’m more efficient, productive and less likely to procrastinate. In fact, when I do sit down, I feel my brain and body slowly shutting down until I’m leaning over my desk mindlessly clicking forum topics or refreshing Facebook. The mental change between sitting and standing is astounding. Likewise, when I’m on my feet I feel energised and focused. I like that I can just take a few steps back to focus on a problem.
I don’t feel that I’m in any significant discomfort or pain. I’m currently working through a barbell strength program and hit a PR of 5 sets of 5 x 100kg (220lb) last week. I’m happy that this proves there is no long term fatigue from standing most of the working day.
If I may share some tips for those thinking about making the switch: Make sure the desk is high enough. I fiddled with the height adjustment for a few days until I found a comfortable position. It’s important that your elbows are around 90 degrees to the floor when resting on the desk. Hop and shuffle around as you work. It helps if you have upbeat music to listen to. I find myself half dancing which is a terrible mental image but really quite enjoyable. I find myself resting a foot on my stool quite often to shift the weight into a different position.
It’s been a very positive experience for me and I don’t think I could return to a sitting desk. Why not give it a go? Pile up some boxes on your desk and raise your laptop up and try standing for half an hour or so?
Are you sitting comfortably? Any office worker chained to their computer for the best part of the day will undoubtably complain of RSI, lower back pain or mysterious cramps and aches that come and go. I am the same. I’ve been working at a desk for nearly 15 years now and I’m convinced that it’s [...]
If you like modern classic music and/or Sigur Ros, then you’ll probably like these guys too. Check out the YouTube video of one of my favourite songs from the album. Absolutely beautiful.
Last night’s episode of The Secret Millionaire focused its cameras squarely on my home town of Peterborough. Peterborough rapidly expanded in the 70s and 80s by adding ‘townships’. Some of these townships have fallen into disrepair and there are some very unsavoury parts of our city. However, on balance, I’d say that generally Peterborough is [...]
When I was a child, I always wanted to stick a pin into a map of all the places I’d been. Happily, all I have to do is take a photo with my iPhone and a digital pin is stuck in a map for me. How cool is that?
Unless you’ve been walking around with your fingers in your ears while humming “nah-nah-nah” you’ll be aware that Facebook recently announced a major new change to how profiles are viewed and managed. Thanks to a tip off from Tom Ford, I was able to enable a preview of this feature on my own Facebook account [...]
“Pow!” “Thwap!” That’s the sound of Google+ and Facebook slugging it out for our continued patronage. If you’re not a geek then you could be forgiven for not knowing much about Google+. It’s a brand new social medium which takes the best from Twitter and Facebook and rolls into a really flexible “life stream [...]
If you press your ear to your monitor, you can hear thousands of people gnashing their teeth over the new Facebook news feed changes. For years, we’ve had a simple chronological list of status updates. I log in a few times a day to get a snapshot of what my friends and family are up [...]
Are you happy? Truly happy? Perhaps you would be if you had a better job or a more expensive car or more friends or won the lottery? You aren’t alone if you feel this way. Many of us do. The elusive promise of happiness is just out of reach. Indeed, most of us assume that [...]
I'm a web developer (PHP / MySQL / DOM) based in the UK. I am the co-founder and C.S.A of Invision Power Services, Inc.
I'm a dad and I also have a strong interest in the Paleo diet/lifestyle.
@mattmecham
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