Obama's Cross

On Boston Legal

While I can't say that Boston Legal is one of my favourite shows, I will admit it has its flashes of sheer brilliance. Wednesday night was one of them.

For those who aren't familiar with the show it features James Spader (Stargate) as Alan Shore, a Boston Lawyer who is the conscience of the irreverent law firm Crane, Poole and Schmidt. William Shatner (formerly the first captain of the Star ship, Enterprise in Star trek - to boldly go where no one has gone before) acts as Danny Crane, lead partner and mad cow disease sufferer.

The episode on Wednesday evening featured an analysis of the 'democratic' process of the candidate selection in the primaries for the Democrats. I've included a clip below where partner Shirley Schmidt discusses her preference for Hilary Clinton while Alan Shore stumps for Barack Obama. Its quite current, topical and educational. Catch it if you can.




I love its political discussions, its moral debates and how it sometimes breaks the fourth wall, (the first 30 seconds of the Wednesday show actually uses the characters to publicise the schedule change from Tuesdays to Wednesdays). Danny Crane and partners are startled to learn that the weekly firm meeting is shifting from Tuesdays at 10 to Wednesdays at 10 (clip below).

On Nigerian Names

I've been having an ongoing debate with my girlfriend over the last few weeks about Nigerian names.  It started out when I commented that there were more Nigerians in the UK with 'English' first names than there were with their 'Original' ethnic first names.  She disagreed as she explained that the majority of her friends use their Nigerian names at work not reverting to any English names. I wonder what percentage of Nigerians retain a Nigerian first name (like Ngozi, Ade and Tosin as opposed to Jane, Kate and Fred) in the working place in the west. 

At my very first job interview in the UK, the interviewer had my CV in front of him and seeing Morountodun (well I am an anonymous blogger after all)  he then proceeded to ask what my 'Christian' name is.  Studies have proven that recruiters tend to prefer to favour applicants with names they can easily pronounce, against applicants that have 'foriegn sounding names'.  

Our conversation has since proceeded to discussing potential child names, where I would prefer 'Christian' names for my children, but my girlfriend favours only Yoruba/African ones.  I think the compromise will be somewhere in the middle where we choose yoruba names with 'english' sounding abbreviations ie Fara (Oluwafaratimi), Kenny (Kehinde) etc.  I wonder if we are compromising...

Paulagate on American Idol

Paula Abdul's bizarre behaviour has made her an object of ridicule on American idol for a while now. Visit Youtube and type in Paula Abdul to get a taster of what I'm talking about. Simon and Randy regularly have to bail her out when she gets incoherent, and things got so bad a couple of seasons ago that there were rife rumours that she was being replaced by Jennifer Lopez.

A couple of nights ago Paula did what the likes of Uri Geller and other false prophets have tried to do, she saw the future. On being asked to critique the first round of performances of the artistes, Paula commented on the second performance of Jastro Castro too, a performance that hadn't taken place yet. Paula has offered two conflicting excuses, after being informed of her error during the show she explained that she mixed up her notes and had meant to comment on David Cook. But during a radio interview the following morning she revealed that she had seen part of the dress rehearsal, which takes place about two hours before the live broadcast, and had mixed up the rehearsal and the live performances. Hmn.

See the clip of Paula's gaffe below, its rather funny.



UK viewers can catch it on ITV2 at 8pm tonight.

Paula's eccentric behaviour aside doesn't this remind you of the phone in fixing controversies from the last year?

And if you live in London don't forget to vote today!!!