Costume Christmas

The great thing about Christmas is that it usually serves up at last one really good costume drama. The rest of the world seems to love 'Downton Abbey' at the moment, but I just can't get into it. It all seems a bit trite to me.
But I really like the look of the BBC's new 'Great Expectations'. In the trailers Gillian Anderson makes such a wonderfully creepy Miss Haverhsam, but also a surprisingly sexy one. She must be at least 20 years younger than Dickens' own character, but hey - she looks marvellous.
I have expectations for 'Great Expectations', but it will have to be exceptional if it manages to be better than my favourite TV costume romp of 2011, 'The Crimson Petal and the White'. An adaptation of Michel Faber's novel, it was absolutely spell-binding. If you haven't seen it look it out on DVD.
Gillian Anderson was fab in that, but the show was totally stolen by the Romola Garai, who played the central character, Sugar. Excellent.
The sad thing though is that in my house costume drama is treated with no respect at all, so the chances are I'll have to record GE and watch it alone. Otherwise I'd have to put up with smart remarks and giggling, which rather spoil the experience.

Travel section

First-class seating

Four episodes in and I'm loving the costume drama Pan Am. The hype was misleading - it is not the new Mad Men - but it's fun and the costumes are unbelieable (as is the CIA sub-plot). Those tight, blue pencil skirts are worth watching in themselves.  Then there's also the Spanking Startles.
I've only seen three of the four episodes and have notched up two so far. That's a little under a Spanking Startle an epidsode. Maybe in time we'll get an actual spanking... Christina Ricci or Margot Robbie? Tough choice.