Ok, so I’ve been playing with this tagging thing for a week or so now.

I’m still not convinced by it, but that I think is partly because I’m used to just using my categories. I’m trying to ensure that I at least include the categories of a post as tags, but a big problem I’ve got with tagging in Wordpress 2.3 is that its hard to keep track of which tags I’ve already used.

The good thing is that this is one area that’s been addressed in Wordpress 2.5. I installed the release candidate to get a look at it, and while for readers there’s not a huge difference, once you go behind the scenes as the blog admin, its had some big makeovers that I think will make a big difference. Primarily of interest to me at the moment is that the tag field now prompts you with existing tags when you start typing in that field. Magic.

Well, cracking start to the new series last night.

Poor Nicholas. He definitely deserved to go, but not for his performance on the task. Rather for his boardroom performance.

From what I’d seen, he went in with a strong hand. The team leader had told him to price the lobsters at £4.90, something no one else commented on. He priced the monkfish based on what was written on the box. He was then the one who took the initiative and checked the girls prices and raised the issue that they were selling things way too cheaply.

All he had to do was keep that in mind, and make a big deal of the time Alex wasted assigning blame to anyone other than himself whenever something went wrong.

But the minute he made it about class, he lost the argument. I see what he was trying to say, and there’s a strong argument to be made about the fact that the boys have obviously split into two camps already, but I think he realised straight away he’d made a mistake, and then he tried to get himself out of it, but instead kept digging.

From watching “You’re Fired”, I thought he came over a lot better in that. He seemed a bit more relaxed and able to laugh at himself. From the extra clips shown there, its obvious that he was feeling quite isolated by the other guys from the beginning, so from that perspective I think it maybe worked out for the best for him leaving early. I can’t imagine he’d have found it fun being in that house for the next several weeks, as isolated as he was.

As always, I find it hard to get a feel for who the ones to watch will be this early in the show. Raef, obviously, looks like he should be quite fun to watch though. I hope he goes far, but I also can’t see him winning it. From wht we saw last night as well, the way Alex was trying to shift the blame away from himself constantly won’t go unnoticed for long I’d have thought.

It was a good start for Claire on the girls team as well. Although things were a bit of a disaster at the beginning of the day, she managed to turn things around and reign things in that were getting out of control. Plus she’s gotten her stint as project manager over with early, which can only be a good thing. Lindi seeed to be very strong with the sales as well. She’ll be a big boon to her team in future challenges I think.

Well, the finale of Ashes to Ashes has just aired, and I enjoyed it.   It dragged in places, and the Life on Mars season 1 finale felt better overall, but this did provide a really satisfactory wrapping up to the season.

The biggest shock for me was Evan not being evil.  A really well done red herring by the production team there.   I’d previously been wondering why we weren’t seeing much of Alex’s father, when we’d seen so much of her mother, and it became obvious tonight.  The minute I saw him properly in the court room I noticed straight away he was the clown, so from that point of view, keeping his appearances limited in the past episodes was a good move.

Overall, Ashes to Ashes has been a bit hit-and-miss for me.  Its definitely lacked Life On Mars’ instant grab factor, but over the last few episodes its picked up for me.  Saying that, I think a lot of it was just to do with the direction the show took in terms of Gene Hunt being a bit defanged and institutionalised, and Alex Drake’s very knowing, and at times very smug attitude towards the situation.  In this regard Sam Tyler was a lot more likable.  I don’t agree with the flack Keeley Hawes has been taking.  She’s done a great job with the character.

I’m definitely on board for season 2, and I was glad to see the finale throw open the question of Gene Hunt.   Now we know he’s not just a fictional character.

Well, the end of season 2 of Torchwood is nearly upon us, and its been a cracking season this year. So much improved from season 1, and so much more sure of itself and what its trying to be.

But, one thing I’ve really enjoyed has been the Torchwood ARG. Much like a lot of these new-fangled web things, I was late to the game (pun unintended) with ARGs, and so I only ended up playing the last 4 or so missions of this.

It was great fun though. Getting weekly emails from Ianto to proceed with the next mission, piecing together the story, looking for clues on other (fictitious) company websites, and soaking up all the little touches like the Torchwood inter-office emails.

I’m really sorry I didn’t start playing it from the outset now, but I’ll definitely be keeping an eye open for any others they run. I’m sure Spooks ran one last year, but I’m unsure how a Doctor Who one would work. Something based around UNIT?