My friend Adam Noble (no relation to Donna Noble) mentioned that the perfect title for the new Jay Leno show would be Anyone Remember When I Was Funny?

NBC is all but capitulating dramas. Last night Caroline and I watched the first two episodes of TNT’s new drama Leverage. TNT keeps ordering and airing these microbrewed 13-episode run series with quality scriptwriting, high production values and interesting casting (including Gina Bellman, famous as Jane in Coupling). Leverage is nicely entertaining, a grown-up A-Team crossed with The Saint.

Life should be first-run on USA or TNT so it doesn’t get smothered by NBC.

Some (entertainment reporter, probably from EW) goon exclaimed that NBC’s announcement that Jay Leno will be given a prime-time show is unprecedented. Steve Allen and Jack Paar had prime-time series. Where did he learn his trade??

I had wondered for a very long time why NBC didn’t make this kind of programming move for some of the very reasons now being cited. The only flaw is that Jay Leno stopped being funny a long time ago. The announcement did not clarify what will happen to existing drama series. It would be bitterly disappointing if L&O were dropped; this year and the last have been as consistently great as the first two.

I finally had the chance to watch the 1968 Otto Preminger film Skidoo a few days ago. It is not as psychedelic as I’ve been led to believe. The few scenes that deliberately attempt to depict a psychedelic experience are pretty colourless. Harry Nilsson’s performance, however, is great, and the sequences set to his songs (particularly “I Will Take You There” and the end title sequence, “The Cast and Crew”) have a timelessness the rest of the film fails to sustain. The characters in the film are either in their early twenties or they’re over fifty.

You don’t often see one of the picture sleeves for “Arnold Layne” and you apparently don’t see ‘A’ label promo copies of the disc too often either. eil wants £4995 for their copy.

The promo film is included as a bonus on the recent A Technicolor Dream DVD. So is the Pathe Newsreel clip of “Scarecrow” and “Astronomy Domine” from Look of the Week.

The fortieth anniversary of the release of my favourite LP was a week and a half ago (22/11/08). No remastered mono reissue materialised (as was hinted by Mojo), but the Apple Shop revealed some unbelievably nice shirts.

The delay is being blamed on EMI by Paul McCartney—the story is about iTunes and other digital retailers, but physical releases are connected to this.

Which reminds me about something related to the Apple Inc. issue. I don’t think it was expressly stated, but it would likely have been implied during the last round of litigation by the former that Apple Corps Ltd. was in a state of dormancy. This isn’t the case. There are more Apple Records discs and DVDs than I can afford.