Real Madrid 0-2 Barcelona

Barcelona won in the Santiago Bernabeu for the second successive year to put themselves in pole position for the La Liga title. Goals from Lionel Messi & Pedro in either half secured a 2-0 victory and opened a 3 point lead at the top of the table. Real's best chance came when Rafael van der Vaart was denied by a smart save by Victor Valdes. With just seven games remaining this season Real coach Manuel Pellegrini conceded that the defeat was a 'big blow' but insisted it was too early to say the title was Barcelona's.

Chuck v the Other Guy

Chuck v the Other Guy wrapped up the original season order of Chuck season 3 before NBC ordered an additional 6 episodes. The 6 new episodes will air in 3 weeks time culminating in a two hour finally to end what the show-runners have described as "Season 3.5". As a finale Chuck v the Other Guy was short of the excellence that was Chuck v the Ring but in it's own right it was strong episode in what has been a patchy season. The episode focused on Shaw & finding the Ring operative behind his wife's death.

Friday Five

For this weeks Friday Five I've decided to pick my favourite sitcom characters. This list unsurprisingly includes some of my favourite sitcoms though obvious not all of them as I do like a heck of a lot of them. Compiling this list I was surprised to find that no female characters made the top five or any where near it. But as a lot of sitcoms are male dominated it is perhaps harder to standout. There are a lot of quality characters that have been left out & special mentions go out to Ross Geller, Kryton, Kramer & Frasier. As usual I've turned to YouTube to provide audio visual evidence of what makes a specific character so good.

1. George Costanza - This list had to include a character from one of the all time great sitcoms, Seinfeld. And they don't come much better or more demented than Costanza. Seinfeld worked so well because each character brought something unique to the show. George Costanza was neurotic, narcissistic & cheap. Yet all these characteristics worked so well to give us so many truly memorable moments in a sitcom full of great ones. He also scores higher for having the most remarkable parents in television history. The selected clip is of George going for a massage displaying his full range of neurosis.
2. Basil Fawlty - If George Costanza was the king of the demented than Basil Fawlty was as they say in some strange parts of England his granddaddy. Combining everything that Costanza brought with some old school English eccentricity made Basil Fawlty & Fawlty Towers one of the best loved sitcoms ever. That Fawlty Towers is so well remembered despite the fact that only twelve episodes were ever made is proof of the fact that quality always triumphs over quantity. This clip is from the infamous scene with some European visitors who have the misfortune of visiting Torquay's finest establishment.
3. Barney Stinson - How I Met Your Mothers womanising Barney Stinson played superbly by Neil Patrick Harris has quickly established himself as one of TVs best characters. There's not a lot to Barney's character, he's a womaniser, selfish & extremely shallow. So you'd assume he'd be completely unlikeable. However that's not the case & he often single handedly carries the entire show. Barney is also the source of an interminable number of rules including the Bro Code, the Lemon Law, & the Platinum Rule. And he has as many catchphrases with the likes of 'Suit up!', 'Legendary' & 'True story'. The clip is of Barney going through his legendary 'Playbook' in order to get women.
4. General Melchett - Blackadder Four was undoubtedly the best of a fantastic series. And one of the reasons it was so good was the superb cast. General Melchett is the eccentric commanding officer of Blackadder's company. Actually eccentric may be too kind a term - he was more stark raving mad, which meant plenty of hilarity whenever he was on screen. The chosen clip has used some strange video technique but it's the best collection of quotes I have been able to find on YouTube.
5. Dr. Perry Cox - The last ever episode of Scrubs aired this last week & so Dr. Cox is no more. Over the 9 seasons that Scrubs has been on TV it has re-imagined what constitutes a sitcom with drama, tragedy & comedy all equal parts of the show. And central to that altered tone was the role of Dr. Cox. As an angry yet brilliant attending who most definitely cared about his patients, Dr Cox was as much the heart of the show as the title character JD. He is particularly famous for ridiculously long monologues, crazy rants & sarcastic quick wit. This specific clip is a best of compiled mainly from the early seasons of Scrubs.

Chuck v the Final Exam

Unfortunately there was no Chuck review for last weeks episode as I was struck down with the flu. I say unfortunately as Chuck v the Tic-Tac was one of the best episodes in the entire series & continued the strong showing from the previous installments. Chuck v the Final Exam focused on Chuck's graduation to fully fledged spy. This final mission would test his ability to function on his own & most of all test his ability to make the ultimate decision - take someone's life. As has been the trend throughout the season the episode was fairly dark, or at least dark for Chuck. The light relief was provided by second storyline featuring John Casey & the Buy More Crew. Overall it was a solid episode but definitely not as good as the last two that have aired, though as they were among the best of the series that's not too shabby. Some other reflections on the episode:

Friday Five

As I have been laid low with the flu this week I haven't been able to keep up to my usual output of postings but I'd have to be extremely poorly not to complete the regular Friday Five feature.

1. Silly Job Titles - A story from the BBC website on the strange job titles that have become pretty common place these days.
2. iPad Magazines - The iPad is coming soon & the hope from the newspaper/magazine industry is that it will revolutionise the industry in the same way the iPod has in the music sector. This feature shows some of the content writers have thought of some innovative ways to use the iPad, which is promising for the giant iPhone.
3. Jose Fawning - John Nicholson with his weekly rant, which this week is about Jose Mourinho & host of other stuff. He's slightly mad but always entertaining (I've just realised that could apply to either one of them).
4. David Villa - Its an old article but given that Andy Townsend stated last night that Villa 'couldn't guarantee' 25 goals a season for a top club I've included it so people can see what absolute tosh he spouts. What I find amazing is that pundits/experts in this country don't have the slightest knowledge of football outside of this country, though perhaps I'm over estimating their knowledge of football at home.
5. Fun Travel Game - I'll finish off with a travel game that is fun as well as informative. I got to level 10 with 388,918 points, which is not bad for hillbilly like myself.

Lionel Messi: The Roger Federer of football

As Lionel Messi scored another incredible hat-trick over the weekend it was clear that we were witnessing greatness before our very eyes. In a game that had seen Barcelona struggle to break down a well organised Valencia team the Argentine star demonstrated once again that it is impossible to legislate for genius. The first goal in particular was sensational, amazing, stunning or any other superlative you can think of.

Classic Music

As the Friday Five feature from a few weeks ago was so well received (there were so many comments I couldn't keep up with them all) that I've decided to make it a regular posting. If for some unfathomable reason you didn't catch that blog - firstly why didn't you, you can't have anything better to do & secondly there's a link at the top of the page for goodness sake - it included links to some of my current favourite music videos. For this posting I'm going to link to some more music videos but with a little twist, rather than new music its going to be classic music, well at least classic music to me.