Late Show UK

I’ve just watched the last Late Night with Conan O’Brien from the week in San Francisco (here it is in 4 mins 30). Foam orange hair, some great guests, hilarious VT’s and the return of the Chuck Norris lever this has to be one of the funniest weeks of Conan yet. Intel got a plug every night (although they’re quite obviously not as good as Sam Wo’s), and on the last show Conan does a tour of the Intel building. It’s a must see for any fan.

The exclusives continued on Tuesday when Conan managed to book a guest every show is after – the piano playing cat. Pender puts away the laptop (showing hornymanatee.com, naturally) for a summer crush, and two lucky kids get an audience upgrade. As mentioned in the exclusive news bulletin, someone closer to home has announced their resignation.

Craig Ferguson (originally from Glasgow) isn’t one to miss a good UK story. Here he discusses Newcastle and Tony Blair. (On both occasions I’ve been there it’s been 8.30am in the morning and there wasn’t a lot of drinking going on.)

Equally important is the news that Paris Hilton may be going to jail. Craig picks up on whether jail will do Paris any good, and David Letterman airs a report from NASA on the news that the brightest star yet has been found, along with the dimmest one.

Although, if you really want analysis on the big UK news of the week, go no further than Jon Stewart. John Oliver was even back on College Green for some reporting with a somewhat Russell Brand feel to it.

That’s all for now. I do realise there’s a show each yet to go out today, and I couldn’t find any Dave videos - shout in the comments if I missed something good!

Cheers - James

Meet me at Camera Three

I sometimes find the Global Edition a bit hit and miss - but this weeks was easily the funniest I’ve ever seen.

It starts with Florida’s Seminole Indians and their purchase of the Hard Rock chain of restaurants. A clip is run of one of the tribe hoping to buy back New York one burger at a time. Jon asks whether they know you can’t buy things with burgers - we use money. Would the band Korn have their name changed to Maize?

Goodness gracious. On his departure, Don with the Wind, Donald Rumsfeld littered his speech with 50’s phrases. Hard, grilling questions, such as the books you read in office were asked of the audience attending. In an interview with Hannity of Fox News we learn that he “skimmed” the Iraq Study Group report. Rumsfeld explained how the whole country wasn’t on fire, and things looked ok from the air. Cue Aasif Mandvi, to explain that yes - Iraq is a big country and not all of it is on fire. From 20 feet up, things are a little better. Get to a mile and it really isn’t at all bad. It’s the ground there’s a problem with.

Followed a look at Al Jazeera English with Samantha Bee. The spokesperson from AJE started to explain about quality journalism when Sam interrupts, “but you’re broadcasting to America”. Sam goes on a tour around the Washington studio and starts to look at the content, graphics and music. Apparently the music wasn’t good enough and there weren’t enough graphics, so a rebuild from the ground up is in order. Although would it be worth it, with “Al Ja-zero” viewers? US Cable companies haven’t taken the channel.

The new AJE starts with a title sequence featuring plenty of gradients, the Statue of Liberty, the Hollywood sign, the US flag, the McDonalds symbol and Bart Simpson among things. The graphics are slightly obvious in their influence, with weather, tickers, a LIVE logo and so on. The new music is composed on a keyboard (with a nice dance and explanation) to stunned, stunned looks from AJE staff. Sam says how the music is the sound of people working, and asks if something bad is going to happen? A button is pushed and yes, something bad is going to happen.

One of the anchors names isn’t quite right, so is changed to Peppermint Gomez, and the autocue loaded with “Anyhooo” between stories. It was impressive to see that AJE let them do it in their studio and go along with things.

It’s up on YouTube and well worth a look.