BAD GIRLS XMAS SPECIAL: PRISONER CELL BLOCK H.E.L.L.

I was going to write something about this but it is hard to mock something that is so patently ridiculous. Suffice it to say that anything that features
- murderous, knife wielding ghosts
- the daughter of Satan
- someone being stabbed to death with a sharpened crucifix
- exorcisms
- Bodybag having her gusset attacked by giant rats;
is alright by me. Also Stephanie Beacham turns out to be a crack electrician! That is surely the most unbelievable plot twist of all!

ROMEWATCH

This week Cleopatra is coming at ya, as Caesar and his minionators (including Pullo and Vorenus) ponce around in Egypt – land of the CGI Lighthouse. First of all they have to deal with Ptolemy, who is a chubby brat with a felt tip beard and a coterie of drag queen stroke eunuchs with crazy wigs. There is some business with decapitated heads etc and then our heroic duo are sent to rescue Cleopatra, who turns out to be a dope fiend with a pixie haircut. Hmmm. To cement her position, Cleo decides that she has to get pregnant pronto so she can then seduce Ceasar and convince him that the kid is his. Now who can knock her up in a hurry I wonder?? Why yes, it is Pullo, who has already impressed Cleo by stabbing a nubian assassin to death in her bed chamber. Sexy. Don’t come knockin’ when the palanquin/mobile room thing is rockin’.

All of a sudden a year has passed – Ceasar and Cleopatra are a couple with a bouncing baby boy, Ptolemy is ptoast, Marc Anthony is still ruling Rome with a rod of iron and, if the montage is to be believed, Servalan and Octavia have spent the entire year stroking each other’s bosoms.

No Jullii Cooper this episode. Booo!!! No Niobe moping around this episode. Hurrah!!!

ARSE FACTOR

I managed to not watch this at all last series, which is just as well given that the smarmy looking winner bloke has completely vanished without trace. Unfortunately I actually got sucked into it this time round as (a) my boyfriend’s housemates watch it and (b) it is repeated on Sunday morning when nothing else is worth watching. Hangover TV a go go.

Oh how annoying it is – first of all the judges are beyond irritating with their carefully scripted banter and conflict and their carefully delineated personas – Simon = grumpy one, Sharon = saucy but nurturing one. Louis = wet rubbish one.

Also I used to hate it when the two losers had to reperform a song and the judges had to give them advice. The advice from these seasoned industry professionals mainly consisted of such gems as “Just do your best and put your heart into it.” Gee thanks a lot, Simon. I never would have thought of that. Thank God I have all your years of industry experience on my side to deliver such incisive advice that no-one else could possibly have thought of. Idiots.

Also the “drama” of the three judges choosing who is dumped is a pile of shit too and a big slap in the face to everyone who bothers voting. The judges should just write down the name of the LOSER on a bit of paper and all hold them up at once a la Weakest Link.

I hate a lot of the contestants too.

Chico is basically the Cheeky girls melted down and remoulded as a male stripper who performs for hen parties in Croydon.

The Conway sisters. Ha ha ha ha. Every week they grimly karaoke-ed their way through some forgettable Wilson Phillips type song, with a non-winning combination of wobbly harmonies and weak individual vocal parts. Only kept around to weaken the competition for the judges’ favourites.

Journey South. Who is voting for these two and are they supposed to brothers or gay lurvers or what? There is a disturbingly blank faced one who looks like an Auton and a rough one that inexplicably reminds me of Orville the Duck. They sing insipid adult oriented rock songs whilst jangling on a guitar that should more correctly be used to batter them over the head.

Andy sang at a mate’s wedding in the summer so I’m not allowed to say anything bad about him.

Brenda should have won as she has a fantastic voice and is a great performer. Shane is cute (but not that cute – lads like him are ten a penny on Old Compton St) and has quite a versatile voice. I think he will be the winner but what kind of career will he have? A string of increasingly pointless cover versions? (Unchained Melody again? oh good. That song is still reeling from being savagely assaulted by Gareth Gates and Robson und Jerome). If his manager had any sense he could be turned into a kind of Brit Justin Timberlake but who is going to come up with a bunch of cracking original songs for him to record?

WEEDS

This series has just finished on Sky telly but it is bound to be on Channel 4 soon so watch it then, I implore you! Basically it sounds like a “gosh gasp, behind the smooth exterior of suburbia weird things happen, who would have thought it!?” type thing but it is better than that rather clichéd scenario would suggest. Basically Mary Louise Parker plays Nancy, a 40ish suburban housewife with two sons who decides to make ends meet by selling pot to all the other suburban denizens after her husband dies and leaves her up financial shit creek. Weeds = “widows weeds” and also “reefer”. Do you see what they did there?

MLP is very likeable and good as the widow and should secure best actress noms aplenty. Also her best friend Cynthia is a cracking character as played by Elizabeth Perkins (ditto for her with the awards noms). She starts out as an evil, icy control freak bitch, spying on her teenage daughter with hidden cameras, mercilessly tormenting her other “fat” daughter and drugging and shaving her husband when she finds out he’s been having an affair. But then she gets breast cancer, turns into a more sympathetic character (but is still way acerbic and watchable) and goes on a hilarious mid life crisis style bender. I also like the maid character and the cool deaf girlfriend. As the program airs on cable in the US, it has proper swearing and shagging too. Hurrah!

Unfortunately it is not all plain sailing – Nancy’s brother in law character (a stoner waster who moves in and inexplicably is allowed to stay, even though he is an annoying bastard) is irritating and not funny and takes too much screen time from the ladies. The eccentric younger son is also kind of annoying, though I liked the Godfather spoof (with him in the Diane Keaton role) in the last episode. Nancy buys all her drucks from a black family in a rough part of town and the sassy matriarch character is sometimes very stereotypical. It is hard to tell if this is ironic or not. Sometimes the plots are a bit worthy and didactic too, ie when brother-in-law has a rant about the War in Iraq and when Cynthia uses her bitch powers to stop a gay teacher from being sacked – all valid points but coming across as rather out of place. Still, these faults are bearable in the post-Friends sitcom wasteland when all we have to keep us happy is “Joey” (how to improve Joey = kill off any character not played by Drea De Matteo or Jennifer Coolidge)) and “Will and Grace” (how to improve Will and Grace = kill off any character called Will or Grace).

ROMEWATCH

This week was a bit rubbish, with many unbelievable coincidences and random plot shenanigans.

Ceasar finally confronts Pompey in battle. Even though Pompey has, like, zillions more men than Ceasar he still manages to lose somehow. The battle scene takes about three seconds and is re-enacted by a cast of several, and later on Pompey explains how he got his ass kicked by drawing a diagram on the floor with a stick. I’m not sure where they spent their multi million pound budget but it certainly wasn’t in this episode. Next thing you know, Pompey is disguised as a merchant, hanging round with a bloke with a metal nose and trying to get to Egypt without any soldiers or anything, and Brutus and Cicero are sucking up to Ceasar. It is all a bit disjointed.

Meanwhile, Jullii Cooper’s daughter and Servalan randomly start lezzing it up. Eh?

Also meanwhile, Pullo and Vorenus miss the big battle because they are shipwrecked on a desert island. Really. They escape by building a raft out of bloated corpses. Mmm, I bet that smells almost as nice as the P&O ferry from Harwich to Zeebrugge. Also, believable much? They get washed up right next to Pompey and decide not to arrest him, because he is already a pathetic loser. When Ceasar finds out, he is not very pleased but daren’t punish the blokes as they are obviously blessed by the Gods of Plot Contrivance. It doesn’t matter much anyway, because as soon as Pompey gets to Egypt he is murdered to death by some random bloke on a beach. Oh well.

ROMEWATCH

Male full frontal nudity is actually a plot point this week as Attia of the Jullii Cooper tries to suck up to Servalan by giving her a well hung slave as a present (something that I suspect will be missing from the “Christmas gift ideas” sections of weekend colour supplement magazines this month). I have decided that, entertaining though she is, Jullii Cooper is actually a rubbish manipulatrix – she totally blew it with Hot Marc Anthony by blurting out “let’s get married, betray Caesar and rule Rome together, bwah hah haha!” (sigh, you’re supposed to get him to do all that shit but think it’s actually his own idea). Marc called her a harpy and stomped off to bail out Caesar and (spoiler) will probably start boning Cleopatra soon too. Also Jullii thinks that Servalan doesn’t know that she fucked things up between her and Caesar, even though Servalan is sitting at home spending all her time practising making dead eyed evil faces and sticking pins into a doll in the likeness of Jullii.

Btw, I’d love to know what happened to Jullii’s first husband…

In other news, Vorenus is still BORING. Pullo looks quite handsome with his hair grown out. I imagine there was a 3000% increase in Pullo/Vorenus slash fiction (vom) on the interweb when Vorenus got drunk and Pullo gave him a big hug and carried him home. Pullo is training Walter the Softy (aka Octavian) in the arts of sword play and whoremongering and now all the blokes have ponced off to Greece to fight Pompey.

24

Jack Bauer’s cunning plan to escape with Chief Overacting DrugLord under cover of a large scale prison riot turned out to not be a very good one. Surprise surprise. They dressed up as prison guards, perhaps failing to notice that prison guards were being KICKED TO DEATH in every corridor and were promptly captured by hunky prisoners and forced into a lame Deer Hunter rip-off Russian Roulette game. You’d have thought the prisoners had better things to do than recreate classic 70s films (like, oh I don’t know, trying to escape??) and everyone knows that Jack isn’t going to kark it so early in the season. In the end Square Headed Chase bailed them out and let them escape in a chopper. Um, couldn’t have Chase let them escape in a chopper in the first place without all the guards being KICKED TO DEATH? Just a thought, Jack. Anyway, now CODL has turned the tables and captured Jack and is taking him down to Mexico. No doubt the sultry drug wife will help Jack escape (in fact, I bet that Jack and SDW had a steamy affair when Jack was undercover) but I hope he is tortured a bit first, just to teach him a lesson for being such an idiot.

CTU is still a hive of backstabbery and bitchiness. That useless gimp Chappelle (aka the smarmy vicar from Sopranos) has been brought in, presumably to tell Michelle off for moping around about Tony and hacking into webcams so she can watch doctors rummaging around in his neck. Gross. (he’s going to be fine btw. boring) and to tell Kimmeh off for moping about Jack (she knows he has gone off the rails. Also Chloe found Jack’s drug fixin’s in his office and told everyone. Doh). Kimmeh has managed to discover that Gael is the mole (yes, CTU is so rubbish that the stupidest member has discovered a major security leak) and is now at gun point. That is pretty good going for Kim to wait for 6 whole episodes before getting herself in mortal peril.

It turns out that Surfer Boy doesn’t carry the Killer Space Flu after all. Phew. I totally guessed that was going to happen btw. I suppose that means the bio threat is over and they can all go home and relax now.. or can they???? (not - seeing as there are still 18 hours to go…)

Meanwhile over at the President Palmer zzzzz… What? Eh ? I must have dropped off for a second there.

Tick... tick… tick…

ROMEWATCH

Attia of the Julii Cooper has managed to break up Julius Caesar and Servalan through the medium of lewd graffiti. Well, I suppose they didn’t have the internet in those days. Servalan found out who was responsible and went mental. Bring it on!! So far she has just cursed the pair of them. I hope she does other stuff too though (catfight! swimming pool!).

I suppose we know how it’s all going to turn out though as Servalan’s son = Brutus as in “Et tu Brutus” fame/stabbery etc.

In other news. Octavian is still a psychotic little brat and has teamed up with Cyber-Pullo. The plot re Niobe’s infidelity is still rumbling on, Vorenus is still a humourless dullard and Ceasar is roaming round chasing Pompey and his army.

Next week Marc Anthony calls Julii Cooper a “harpy”! ruh roh!!

24

They are showing two episodes a week of this, so maybe I should call it 12 instead of 24. Ha ha ha…. ahem…. (tumbleweed etc)

So, it turns out that the VIRUS is not actually disguised in a bag of coke as we had been led to believe, but is instead being carried by a blonde surfer type lad who was just trying to earn some cash to help his family. Cue violins. They tracked him down to a shopping mall, but when Soul Patch Tony tried to arrest him one of the baddies shot Tony in the neck. Nooo!!!! And also Ouch!!! Surfer Boy then managed to wander out of the mall (even though it was supposed to be completely locked down - the C in CTU certainly does not stand for “competent”!) and was seized by the baddies, who have now put him and his girlfriend into some sort of giant washing machine. Hmmm.

Poor Michelle, not only has she come to work dressed like a chorus girl from Chicago but also there is a VIRUS outbreak, the President is in town, her husband has been shot in the neck and now she is in charge of CTU. Perhaps she ought to borrow some of Jack’s heroine to calm herself down. If things weren’t bad enough, she also has to put up with Chloe wandering around saying things like “Michelle, I know that there’s a bio threat of unprecedented awfulness and your husband is fighting for his life, but Kimmeh used the last of the milk in the kitchenette and then didn’t go and fetch some more. Also she left her teabag in the sink! I’m not a cleaner you know, none of this is my responsibility!” I love Chloe.

President Palmer scenes = time to go and make a cup of tea.

Pouty Latino drug wife = still being repulsed by EVIL

That blonde, lesbian, husky voiced, telepath lady from Babylon 5 has shown up as a Disease Expert.

Kimmehwatch = she still hasn’t done anything too ridiculous yet. Come along missy, you are boring me.

CTU is rubbish. Vol MCMXVVI. CTU Mole Gael has set up a Doctor Evil style lair in a broom cupboard and keeps running off to phone the baddies whenever CTU find out a new terror fact and NO-ONE HAS NOTICED YET

Chase had a bratty fit because Kimmeh told Jack that they were going out and now Jack has made Chase be a desk man or something. Chase went to prison to beat up the Main Latino Drug Lord and make him sing like a canary, not knowing that Jack had come up with the brilliant idea of busting MLDL out of prison so they could prevent the virus being released whilst still not appearing to negotiate with terrorists. Pres Palmer said that if Jack went through with the plan then he could never be pardoned and would be a fugitive FOREVAH!! Jack is told this at least once a season and it hasn’t happened yet. Jack gave Chase a beating and then tied him up (paging Dr Freud… Kimmeh is an adult, Jack! She’s allowed to have sex with people! At least she hasn’t picked a kidnapper this time!) but the prison break went tits up so Jack had to release all the other prisoners too to create a diversion. I knew this “plan” would all end in tears…

Tick… tick… tick…

MUTANT X

Sky 3 is repository to all sorts of crap that I have never seen before! Excellent! This is like a really low budget version of the X-Men, where a bunch of “mutants” with “fantastic powers” (ie. catalogue models with low budget CGI) fly round in a magic invisible aeroplane (I thought that was a Wonder Woman gadget??) rescuing other goody mutants from baddies. I can’t really work out what they all do yet except for the best looking bloke = Lightning Lad!!! Their leader is John O Shea (aka Lex Luthor from Dean Cain/Teri Hatcher Superman) and the main baddy looks like Andy Warhol! OMG they have to stop him before he unleashes a really boring three hour film about drag queens onto an unsuspecting world!!!

TV OF YESTERYEAR - 24

In the “TV Dinners” tradition of getting excited about a TV program that was first on years ago (see Melrose Place…) I started watching 24 Season 3 on Sky 3 the other night! Hurrah, this is the first time I’ve seen it – how I missed Jack Bauer, what with his complete lack of ethics and velvety growl.

What I have learned so far!!

Jack has become a junky whilst “undercover” and is jonesing real bad. He keeps pulling gurny faces and shouting at people because he just wants a fix, god dammit! He has a new partner who is quite good looking in a square headed sort of way. The partner is obviously totally doomed as (a) he is Jack’s partner and (b) he is going out with Kimmeh. I just hope he has a chance to take his shirt off before he is killed by Kimmeh’s idiocy.

People at CTU still say retarded things like “I’m going to check his ID by opening a channel on the secure socket” as though it actually makes some kind of sense.

Kimmeh is now working at CTU. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha. She did some gay trick with a computer to prove that she was “competent” but I’ll wait until I see her run across a road before I am truly convinced of that. Also, her new hairdo = hairdon’t

Evil drug barons are going to infect LA with Killer Space Flu unless their brother is released from prison. Over reacting much? Can’t they just intimidate witnesses or raid the prison or something?

Also, if they kill everyone in LA then who is going to buy their drugs??? It just doesn’t seem like good business sense to me and Siralan Sugar would fire you for sure if you tried that on The Apprentice. Anyway, evil main drug baron has a gorgeous pouting wife who is probably going to turn out to a goody (you can tell this because she flinches and makes sad faces whenever her hubby does something EVIL).

President Palmer has a new dull relative and a new foxy lady doctor. I assume that one of these two will turn out to be working for the baddies. Sigh.

Tick… tick…. tick…

Reality TV check

I’M DESPERATE: GET ME ON TELLY
We were at the Breeders’ gig on Sunday (I think this is the only bit of the Internet where I haven’t mentioned that I was at the Breeders gig on Sunday), so we missed the opening night of I’m a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here, but apparently our beloved Elaine “Sullen Slater” Lourdan has been airlifted to hospital following a couple of fainting fits. Even Daniella Westbrook managed a full week, fer chrissakes. .

Oh and the Breeders were fantastic, thanks for asking. Yes, those Breeders…the band with Kim and Kelley Deal. That’s right, her out of The Pixies. We saw The Pixies last year too

ROME
I was going to write something long and complicated about this, but I am a bit non-plussed so far and so will merely list a few good/bad points:

CLASSIC
I like Pullo; the legionnaire who runs around drinking, whoring, gambling, brawling, stabbing people in the neck and saying “RAAARGHHH!” He is practically a PIRATE, only disguised as a soldier. Also he has a metal plate in his head, which makes him a CYBORG too!! Awesome. (his accent is a bit posh though – he should have been a cockerney or from oop north or something).

Attia of the Julii (aka Alexisus Colbeyus, aka Julii Cooper of the OC) is good value. Every roman TV series needs a manipulative bitch type character (see Livia in “I Clavdivs”) and she has been manipulating and bitching like a trooper. Alexisus has had her drippy son-in-law killed, is shagging half of Rome, has bathed in arterial bulls blood for our viewing pleasure and has all the best lines. I am now waiting with bated breath for her and Servalan (or whoever the hell Lindsey Duncan is playing) to have a catfight and both fall into a swimming pool. What? They had baths in Rome, innit?

Mark Anthony is fit and frequently takes his clothes off. Cheers!

There are some quite good sly little jokes, like the graffiti that is briefly glimpsed saying “Attia is a slaggg. Tru” in Latin. Also there was a funny bit where a soldier had just finished crucifying a bunch of Gauls and then had to take them all down again and made a pissy face. I thought it was funny anyway.

DUD
They cut the first three episodes down into two because apparently everyone in the UK knows Roman History – um, hello, no they don’t!! I only know the period of Roman history covered by “I Clavdivs” which appears to have started a while after “Rome” (seeing as how Octavian is a smarmy brat in this and was Brain Blessed (I think) in “Clavdivs”).

I still have no idea who half the people are in Pompey’s Posse or why they were so arsey about Julius Ceasar coming back to Rome in the first place. As if that wasn’t bad enough, all the scenes in the senate remind me fatally of Star Wars I – III. “Caesar has crossed the Rubicon and Naboo does not recognise the Trade Federations authority.” Etc etc.

Then, after having two over-edited, hard to understand episodes they have a really dull one where nothing much happens and Alexisus isn’t very entertaining. Booo.

Vorenus appears to have mistaken “playing an uptight rigid character” with “being totally wooden”. Also his wife and her sister appear to be from totally different continents. What’s that all about? As it happens, I am not particularly interested in common people’s marital problems. I can watch Eastenders for that. More of Attia having people killed and unleashing her bosoms in the name of POWER plz thanks.

Typical – not long after saying that Lost is awesome I get bored of it and give up. Sorry dudes, even Dr Jack’s hotness is not enough to keep me watching. Just as well that there are more series on the horizon – Rome is coming up soon. Woo hoo! - but first of all…

BLEAK HOUSE

Hmmm, I am not a huge fan of Dickens but think it is a brilliant idea to schedule a TV adaptation like a prime time soap, rather than a Sunday evening malarkey with two hour episodes etc, as after all this is how Dickens’ original readers got their fix of thrills. I know nothing about the plot of Bleak House either so all the plot twists and excitement will work brilliantly with me, assuming I keep watching it…

First couple of episodes were OK, with tons of exposition and a host of speedily introduced new characters. There is a long standing legal case about a will and some of the young people who might get £££ from the will are packed off to stay with nice Dennis Lawson and his midget maid. Agent Scully pops up as some kind of posh Victorian goth lady with a shady past, and some bloke who might be her long lost lurver karks it in opium drug shame shocker.

At present, most of the fun is to be had by spotting people in the cast you recognise – Johnny Vegas is a slum landlord! Charles Dance is a baleful lawyer! Irene from EE and Liza Tarbuck are Charitably Inclined Ladies of Good Character! Juhneen from EE is a downtrodden member of the proletariat! Timothy West is married to Agent Scully! the Judge was in that thing about the smarmy politician who murdered people! Uncle Monty from “Withnail and I” is a poncy doctor with a wack moustache.

There are many plot lines going on – some are not interesting (the young ward wondering what to do for a living), some are semi interesting (our heroine is stalked by a young legal clerk with a weird mouth) and some are v interesting (Charles Dance investigating Agent Scully’s past). I am not exactly dying to know what happens next but will continue to give it a try.

TOP FIVE MOMENTS IN STRICTLY COME DANCING – SO FAR (in no particular order)

1. Darren Gough transforming before our very eyes from a burly beer monster into Fred Astaire

2. Patsy Palmer’s 1930s style tango hair helmut

3. Will from Casualty taking his shirt off (PS. How gay is he???)

4. Fiona Phillips attempting to look sassy and swing her sash around in the jive. Ha
ha ha. If you looked up “hapless” in the dictionary it would be illustrated with this clip.

5. Colin Jackson jumping 6 feet into the air and doing a fancy toe touching manouevre – wowsa!!!


Colin to win!!!

Toddler TV: a warning from the edge of sleep

This is what parenthood does to your taste hormones.

I like Hi-5.

They're pleasant, they sing in tune, and they seem to genuinely like small children. Mr P reckons that Charli's boyfriend has a special DVD of her crawling around pretending to be a fluffy animal to help him through those long lonely nights when she's off on tour with hunky ocker Nathan and sensitive Tim.

I have also discovered what happened to all those Star Trek crew members who got zapped in the first ten minutes. They ended up in Australia as The Wiggles. They scare me.

What is it with Australia and weird preschool programmes? First Bananas in Pyjamas, then Hi 5 (Steps without the edge), now Star Trek Extras sing with Dinosaurs.

It's like Canada and cartoons. Speaking of which, the five commissioners have managed to find the most Canadian cartoon ever. Roly Poly Olie - an alien robot child constructed entirely out of deely boppers, goes on a manners hunt, where he finds examples of politeness and explains them his little sister. We also get BottleTop Bill (and his best friend Corky), in which a former cohort of Jasper Carrott teams up with Miranda Richardson (no, really), in a world made up of recycled cardboard and kitchen utensils.

I'd tell you more, but I'm still trying to work out how come I ended up watching TV at 7am. I used to be a grown up. I listened to the Today programme...

I wish there was something to Blog about apart from LOST

After initial doubts (and boredom) this is now kicking off in a major way. First of all Dellen from Babylon 5 is discovered on the island, pretending to be a French lady! (called Rousseau – yawn, what with her and Locke, I am just counting the days until we discover that Bitchy Girl’s surname is Wittgenstein, Alpha Girl’s is Heiddeger, etc etc) Then someone has the bright idea of counting the survivors and checking their names against the flight passenger list. They discover that one of the castaways is actually not on the list and therefore can’t have been on the aeroplane – gasp – and what’s more he is Tom Cruise’s cousin or something!!

In other news, preggers aussie girl Claire is subjected to flashback fever this week. (Claire is v pretty and likeable but she runs around far too briskly for someone who is supposed to be 8.5 months pregnant) It turns out that her no good boyfriend abandoned her and she was going to give the baby up for adoption, but then a spooky psychic said that she had to raise the baby herself or else GREAT EVIL would come of it or some such. There is the idea that he deliberately put her on the flight as he knew it would crash and she would be forced to raise the baby far away from evil cultists.

So let’s see – we have spontaneous healing, polar bears, invisible bitey monsters, mysterious whispering, French-alien-yugoslav ladies who do not run out of anything in 16 years and now Rosemary’s Baby??? What are the chances that any of these things are going to be resolved by the end of the series??

Anyway, Claire thinks someone tried to attack her in the night. Dr Jack thinks she is hysterical but Claire is sure it is true. Who could it be etc?? Of course it is Tom Cruise’s Cousin, who appears at the end of the episode looking all mean and evil and ready to drag her and Hobbit off to the Secret Valley of the Scientologists.

Cliffhanger!!!

The Magic of Live TV Not

I attended another BBC TV show recording the other week, but this was for a rubbish “Sound of Musicals” thing, presented by Aled Jones and just perfect for the Saturday 6.30pm slot. It is all very Lite Entertainment. The guests were the two singing coaches off Fame Academy, the blonde bloke ex of S Club 7, Ruthie Henshall from The West End and Captain Jack off Dr Who (who is much better looking in real life, hubba hubba). Also there were cast members from Mama Mia doing lame Abba karaoke type shenans. Oh good.

The plot of the show is ***SPOILER*** that they sing songs off musicals and dance around a bit. Zzzz. With all the reshoots and technical pauses it seemed to last an age and I amused myself by spotting how many gays there were in the audience (answer = many). The highlights were (a) whenever Ruthie Henshall sang – she was v good and I especially liked “All That Jazz” from Chicago, performed with a bunch of dancers and (b) when they were all told that they would have to do a complicated medley sequence again from scratch and Ruthie said “Oh for fuck’s sake” loud enough for the whole audience to hear. I know how you feel, love.

The lowlights were the rest of it, basically. We had to listen to Red Haired Fame Academy Lady murder “Don’t Cry for Me Argentina”, not once but twice. Capt Jack is a very good singer but was given shit songs to sing. I especially hate Maria from West Side Story. Whoever thought it would be a good idea to have a song where someone basically sings “Maria, Maria, Maria” about fifteen times in a row deserves to be shot. I don’t think I’ll be setting my video for this one when it finally airs.

Questions for the LOST

So, where did the crazy French lady come from and how come she didn't hear the plane? Is she crazy, or is there really an island-specific disease that turns human beings into polar bears? How come her hair is so well-conditioned after sixteen years on a tropical wilderness, and is it just the innate French style that makes her wear her castaway rags like Agnes b? Where is that electricity coming from? How come Hurley hasn't lost any weight? How did Sayid escape the murderous forces of Saddam's Republican Guards and make his way to freedom without whatsername (who also had pleasantly tousled locks, even after a month in a desert hellhole prison). What was a nice boy like him doing in a crack psycho military unit anyway?

I kind-of agree with Frank about Lost being a teeny bit crap, but it's nice to unwind to after my evening class. Though it does leave me too tired to watch The Apprentice

Random thoughts on LOST no 324

It's the Hobbit's turn to look dreamily into the distance. He manages to do this while Kurtz is using him as boar bait, which is quite good. Hobbit drifts back to a confessional, where he is busy confessing to some hot groupie action the night before. Hey, hang on a bit, they're from Catholic boys from Manchester (via Glasgow and Brentwood, judging by those accents), there's a wild child singer brother, and his name is Liam. Hobbit plays guitar and writes all the Quo-heavy stadium rocky song. There are blondes, drugs, party shenanigans a-plenty...but Noel Gallagher as a junior priest? Hmmm...maybe I do need some of Hobbit's drucks.

Dr Jack's squeaky little voice messes with the roof structure, and the cave collapses in on him, becoming a cave of DEATH.

Music Television and its Discontents

When I got a freeview box I was very excited about the music channels and used to have them on all the time – basically you get two channels: TMF which is owned by MTV/VH1 etc and "The Hits"; god knows what that one is all about. It was like listening to the radio! But with pictures! Unfortunately that was before I realised that (a) their transmission time is about 50% adverts for the Crazy Frog (from his unequal pupils I surmise that the so called “Crazy” Frog has actually had a stroke or some other brain trauma rather than being “crazy” – thank god those years of watching ER were good for something); and (b) that they only ever play about five videos, three of which are by Usher.

As though they do not make enough money from their HALF HOUR LONG advertising slots, the freeview music channels also try and gouge their viewers by making them pay to request videos and also by running lame “love match” type things along the bottom of the screen, i.e. you pay £1.50 to txt two names in and it spews out some random bollocks like “This love has no future. Melinda is a honey but look at James’ pants.” When I was recently on holiday in the Baltics, we would put on German freeview music channels in the hotel and I saw the next disturbing stage to this texting madness – people actually have an inbox and profile and send in pictures of themselves. It is like “faceparty.com” meets “The Chart Show”. From my extensive research, the kinds of people who send their pictures in are goth girls called “drklver”, teenage boys who wish the world “peace” or “love” in txtspeak, fans of Tokio Hotel (shit german band who have apparently been cloned from Duran Duran’s toenail clippings) or pasty faced forty year olds looking for wives. I have seen the future of “The Hits” and it is some spotty 14 year old from Dortmund informing us that “schone madchen sind groovy LOL”.

“The Hits” channel is the worst for this; at least TMF sometimes shows “documentaries” – these mainly seem to consist of old episodes of “Cribs” or “Jessica and Nick: Newlyweds”, or else are about Paris Hilton’s 100 most vacuous moments or the way that Lindsay Lohan once called Hilary Duff a bitch. These list type shows are just like the ones in the UK (ie they have some minor celebrity making non witty comments about the entries) so if you ever wanted to know who is the US equivalent of Paul Ross or Kate Thornton then you should watch these programmes for sure. My boyfriend’s housemates recently won free Sky Plus for a year and so have about three million proper music channels which actually show different genres of music. I am very jealous. We watched the rock chart on MTV and they showed things like Arcade Fire!!! Amazing! Arcade Fire would only ever appear on TMF if Paris Hilton tripped over one of them and her boobs fell out of her dress.

US Apprentice: Crimes of Fashion part 2

I have still been watching US Apprentice but haven’t written much lately as it got a bit dull for a while. I liked the parts when Poison Dwarf Stacey and Irritating Nerd Raj got fired though. Oh yes. I also enjoyed a recent episode in which the teams had to design a promotional catalogue for Levi’s Jeans. It had to demonstrate the brand’s core strengths (um, being overpriced and not fitting very well?) blah blah blah and show that Levis fit a wide range of body types (apart from mine).

Ivana was actually quite useful for once and came up with a nifty wheel design thing where you turn a dial to your body type and it tells you what style of jean to get. I love things like that which rotate and are gimmicky etc so that gets full marks from me. Evil blonde lawyerette Jen took credit for the idea, even though she didn’t actually understand it at first. Ivana accused Jen of casting a “fembot spell” on male team members and made a hilarious “my breasts are like guns” gesture. I am starting to dislike Jen. The team members decided to model the jeans themselves, which is quite vain really, but Ivana and Jen looked very pretty with their fancy make-up on and Kevin (the only remaining halfway decent looking bloke) took off his shirt a lot, so I’ll let them off.

Tall blonde Wes was the project manager for the other team and put blinking maniac Maria in charge of taking photographs and dealing with models etc. Maria went into a sort of Zoolander Fugue State and ran around screaming things to models like “Give me bitchy or give me death!” Comedy gold! There was a priceless interview clip of her saying “I’m not a control freak” and then blinking rapidly about fifteen times. She bossed everyone around, refused to let anyone help her, took ages on everything and basically messed things up on a mammoth scale while Wes sat around looking hapless. Of course they lost, mainly because Maria didn’t manage to take any decent butt shots in her photo session and so left them out completely. Apparently the butt shot is vital for jeans advertising but I prefer a good package shot myself.

In the board room Donald and his Trumpettes had a difficult time deciding who was the most useless out of Maria and Wes. Everyone slagged them off and Maria got so tight lipped that I thought her mouth was going to disappear completely. In the end Donald sacked both of them just like that. Oh my God! When you’re Donald Trump the rules of reality TV mean nothing to you! Nothing!!! Embarrassingly, Wes and Maria had to take the lift down to the lobby together and then share the taxicab of loserdom. I bet there was one hella frosty atmosphere in that cab.

LOST: MORE RANDOM THOUGHTS
Hobbit, Kurtz, Dr Jack and Alpha Girl went to get water from the magic stream. There's lots of what Hobbit calls "verbal copulation" between Dr Jack and Alpha Girl.

Hobbit tried to sneak away and sniff his last bit of Charlie or whatever it is he has in his secret pocket and stands on a beehive. Hobbit's purpose is to do stuff that girls used to do in the old days before Buffy. The bees get angry and chase everybody back into the cave where Alpha Girl and Jack stand panting, with their tops off, trying not to notice each other. Then somebody discovers some strangely mummified dead bodies that they call "Adam and Eve" (bletch) and Jack starts thinking that the group should move off the beach and into the caves. Alpha Girl's all "No! We would be giving up hope of rescue if we did that!", while Dr Jack says they could build a whole new world where love is the king or something. No he doesn't really. The others aren't keen though. They say it's because they want to keep the beach fire alive, but really they're all thinking "move in with mummies? Ewww!". Even Kurtz.

Kurtz decides to follow Hobbit around and give him some wisdom or discuss flatted sevenths...whatever. We discover that Hobbit's real addiction is to his guitar (well, duh!), and he's jonesing real bad. Kurtz tells him he has to give his drucks to the island, and the island will give him back his guitar. Hobbit: "hunh?". Kurtz tells him to look up, and lo! there is a carefully dangling acoustic with all its strings intact! What are the chances of that happening eh? Kurtz will regret that, because instead of hoped-for Frank Black-style songs about swimming with crustaceans, we get bad folk rock and strumming. Lots of strumming.

Meanwhile, back on the beach, Korean Guy leaps on African American guy and starts trying to kill him in front of the kids. Cute hairy Iraqi guy (oh yeah?) separates them and handcuffs Korean guy to the plane. Wifey looks into the distance and yes, we're back in flashback mode. Hubby turns out to be a former waiter who joins Wifey's dad's "organisation" as a general gofer so that he can marry Wifey. Wifey obviously wants to break free, especially when she discovers that Hubby has become one of her dad's hired assassins. So she somehow manages to take secret 'lessons' and gets a woman posing as an interior decorator to arrange her escape. But then Hubby does something sweet at the airport, and she decides to stay with him.

So there you go. Back at the beach, AA Guy is angrily chopping up bits of bamboo when Wifey creeps up on him and explains in perfect English that AA Guy's watch that he found on the beach is in fact her father's, and Hubby has to protect his boss's property at all costs, and by the way, could he keep it a secret that she speaks English, because Hubby doesn't know. AA Guy looks incredulous, but frees Hubby anyway and gives him the stupid watch back.

Dr Jack persuades everybody except the blond marshall bloke, AA Guy and Alpha Girl (I think)to go and live in the magic water cave - mummies notwithstanding. Hobbit strums his guitar in the firelight and everybody looks a bit dreamy. He'd better learn some new chords or he'll be vulture food by the end of the week.

Random thoughts on LOST

Could C4 have hyped this programme any more? no, they could not. I thought it was OK but nothing special - it all seemed very cliched and generic. Still, I have heard it improves over the next few weeks and will carry on watching for now.

Dr Jack is fit but has a suspiciously squeaky voice. I still wouldn’t say no, though. It was very annoying when he ran round saving everyone for ages and generally acted all super and heroic – I am looking forward to finding out what his secret shame is and hope he is not so square-jawed and lunkish for the whole series. It was also annoying that his photogenic scratches did not change colour the whole time he was on the island. Hello, make up people! It’s called “blood clotting!” look into it!

There is a hobbit amongst the survivors, but for some reason he is pretending to be a has-been rock star. His character’s name is Charlie and he is apparently addicted to charlie! OMG – do you see what they did there?!? I’m looking forward to the episode where he goes cold turkey and wanders round clutching himself muttering “I’m jonesing real bad, man. Etc”. Then I expect he will gaze off into space and there will be a flashback about his drug shame. Those flashbacks are so cheesy (esp with the staring etc) - if only they had a wibbly wobbly screen fade too. The hobbit had the thankless role of having to trip over while being chased by a MONSTER. Normally they make chicks do the the falling over thing, so that's progress for you, I suppose. To go with the hobbit there is a cheap version of Aragorn (ie a square jawed bloke with stringy blond hair and a scrubby beard). Robin has met him in real life and says that he is smoking hot – I will have to take her word for it.

Naveen Andrew is quite nice looking but his hair is rotten. Somehow I don’t think they encouraged members of Saddam’s Elite Republican Guard to ponce around like Diana Ross. The one who played Dawson’s hot gay friend in “Rules of Attraction” is also quite nice looking but his hair is also rotten. Why does the Lost hair dept hate me so? What have I ever done to them?

I recognise that angry Korean dude from 24, where he was a CTU squad commander helping Jack Bauer carry out one of those harebrained schemes that probably ended up with all of the important witnesses dying in a hail of gunfire. Good one, Jack. I think his plot will revolve around his wife becoming empowered etc – she’s already undone the top button of her cardy against his express orders, the hussy.

I am not sure what to make of the giant invisible bitey monster. It is all very “Forbidden Planet” and I will not be surprised at all if Terry Quinn snaps and starts running round yelling “Creatures of the Id! Creatures of the Id!” Also, Mr Annoying Narrator from Oz - is it really wise to let your son become too pally with the murderous protaganist of the Stepfather films? I think not.

Main girl character is supposed to be some kind of master criminal, but you can tell she is really a goody so I expect she did something like rescue a bunch of puppies from an evil vivisection lab, or stole from the rich to give to the poor or something. Perhaps if I stare into space hard enough I can generate a flashback and find out for myself...

BB6: WHATEVER HAPPENED TO BABY CRAIG?

Big Brother got cool again briefly when evil gay dwarf Craig could no longer control his obsessive love for orange dance-freak AnTHony. AnTHony is, of course, a straight and so was not really interested in Craig but did not want to hurt his feelings by telling him to leave him alone. We ended up with the painful/watchable situation where Craig could only get attention from Anthony by either picking a fight with him/accusing him of obscurely wronging him somehow (ie, not “sticking up” for him in a discussion, not thanking him with sufficient ardour for making a cup of tea, A telling C to shut up after C has been pestering A non stop for hours with questions about his penis, etc etc). A typical day would start off with Craig gibbering on like an idiot, AnTHony eventually losing his temper to tell him to shut up, Craig running into the garden to shudder with sobs and moan “It’s tearing me apart!”, AnTHony feeling bad and giving him a hug, Craig glowing with love that he has been hugged, return to step one and repeat). Seriously, it makes “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf” look like that sitcom with Judi Dench. Craig is acting like the worst kind of torturing, passive aggressive, clingy boy/girlfriend and poor AnTHony wasn’t even getting laid to make up for it!

A particular highlight of the most Tortured Relationship on TV occurred when AnTHony got paralytically drunk and Craig basically tried to molest him. That is Not Cool, Craig. There was also edifying footage of Craig staring at AnTHony while he was asleep and, um, pleasuring himself vigorously. Class. I also enjoyed the part when AnTHony told Craig that he kept staring at him like Myra Hindley. I was hoping that everyone would wear Myra Hindley masks for Craig’s eviction but was sadly disappointed.

What makes it even funnier is that Craig is a complete delusionoid who is constantly denies ACTUAL REALITY THAT WE HAVE SEEN ON TV!!!! He says that no-one could possibly think he is gay (even though he has talked about having gay sex loads of times. Plus, just look at the state of him) He says that no-one has any reason for thinking he fancies AnTHony (see above). Also he thinks that he looks Brazilian. If he looks Brazilian then I look Inuit!! I laughed like a loon when Craig was evicted, even ahead of desperate attention whore Kinga. Oh schadenfreude – you taste so good!!

Apprentice USA: Crimes of Fashion

This week wasn’t as bitch-tastic as previously, basically because the women did well and didn’t have to find another sacrificial victim (though that didn’t stop them being mean to Elizabeth a lot (she seems alright, if a bit whiny) and sending the unpopular girls off to talk to shop people while the popular girls had lunch with a fashion designer and “brainstormed”). Also that evil Stacey wasn’t in it very much. The task was to create a fashion line with a designer – the one who sold the most clobber to store buyers after a fashion show would win! Blinking maniac Maria led the girls’ team (and selected an affable young male designer to work with) and Cute John led the boys’ team (and selected an intense german looking woman with a crewcut and mad staring eyes. Ruh roh). The designers basically did all the work while the teams flapped around and got in their way. The best part was when the men went to help chose fabrics. John basically sat in a corner and wept while the other dorks wandered around the cloth shop picking out hideous swaths of white nylon covered in pink giant polka dots. The designer was giving them death looks and Ice Maiden Carolyn was absolutely cracking up. It was nice to see her express human emotion for once.

The women made up their garments without much trouble and then all tried them on and pranced around squealing “Gawd! I feel so fabulous!” The men pestered their designer (especially this one called Raj, a preppy dork who always wears retarded bow ties) and got lots more death looks while she was trying to make the clothes – I don’t think she was as well organised as the other designer. John and his mates fucked off to letch over models and left two other guys to price the lines. Raj was even worse when the models arrived and tried to impress them by speaking German. “Raj ist ein Dumpkopf, ja!” “ Ja! Das stimmt!” etc. The fashion show came around and the clothes were borderline hideous – some of them quite nice individually but all put together in weird combinations. Maybe ladies will disagree with me? There was this dark red blouse that was quite nice but anyway... It turned out the men had seriously overpriced their stuff and the women sold three times more clothes than them. Ouch!

Loser John chose to take two people into the boardroom with him – this young guy called Andy that the others all pick on and one of the people who messed up the pricing. It would have been more sensible to take both the pricing guys and Raj, who was a dick of the highest order. John was criticised for picking an odd mix of people for the boardroom, for picking designer Ilsa – She Wolf of the Pret a Porter, and generally for being a bit crap (which he was). Buh Bye John – you are fired! It is a shame he had to go before he got a chance to answer the Donald–Fone with his shirt off but never mind...

Melrose Place Apocalypse

In the last few episodes, loads of incredibly random things happen, all of which lead up into the most insane season finale I have ever seen. Seriously, it makes 24 look like an Open University program about organic chemistry.

After stumbling along like a wounded dog all season, Mancini Designs finally goes into liquidation. Jane displays hitherto invisible reserves of moxy by barging into a D&D meeting to speak to the director of a famous fashion house. The best part is when she pushes Amanda against a wall so she can chase the bloke into a lift – they cut away just as Heather Locklear starts cracking up. Jane gets a job and immediately starts (a) bitching that no-one knows that the clothes are being designed by her! Jane Mancini! (what an ungrateful bitch) and (b) shagging the handsome young director, even though he is supposed to be going out with the famous, harridan, past it, designer lady who founded the company.

Alison finally realises that she has been shipped to Hong Kong (which looks more like a Shaw Brothers film set than actual real life HK, by the way) as part of an evil plot for Charlotte to marry Billy. She resigns and heads home but will she arrive in time to stop the wedding? Charlotte tries to bring the wedding forward, all the sooner to model her hideous, backless, halter neck wedding dress. Charlotte’s dad takes Billy to one side and says that if he doesn’t make his precious princess happy, he will utterly destroy him. Do it! Do it! Alison arrives just as they are taking the vows (Amanda pulls a hilarious WTF? face) and starts whimpering at Billy not to do it. (Charlotte: “Don’t listen to her! She’s an obsessive alcoholic!” ha ha ha). Billy tells Alison to sod off so she goes home (after calling Jane a traitor for going to the wedding) and starts necking neat vodka from a litre bottle. Mmmm, vodka.

Dr Peter pops up again (with different horrid hair) and offers to bail out Dr Michael if Dr Michael will change his story so that Dr Peter won’t go to prison and be struck off the medical register. Dr Michael instantly agrees, because he is a weasel. Dr Peter starts going out with Kimberly for some reason, but Kimberley is jealous because she thinks he is still chasing after Amanda. Sydney teams up with Dr Michael to spy on Kimberley and prove that she is crazy. She goes to see K for a medical check up and narrowly escapes being stabbed by pair of scissors when Evil Beardy Inner Demon pops up again and carries on with the “Kill them all!” routine. Syd then breaks into Kimberleys motel and finds her hilarious “all the cast must die!” stalker wall of defaced photographs. The police won’t do anything though because Dr M and Sydney are both felons themselves. Dr Kimberley tries to resist Inner Demon Bloke but in the end decides that yes, killing them all is the way to go. She produces some dynamite, petrol and a radio controlled detonator (complete with dramatic red buttons) from SOMEWHERE and goes over to the flats to rig them up to explode. Oh, this makes no sense at all. Sydney follows her into the basement and gets knocked out and tied up, so Kimberley can explain her evil plot like a Bond villain. She threatens Syd with a blow torch and makes her lure Dr Michael over with her giant brick-like cell phone.

It turns out that Gay Matt’s hunky doctor lovah is only stringing him along so he can frame him for the murder of his wife. Hunky Doctor: “Why did you do it, you disgusting pervert?” Matt: “You set me up, god dammit!” Actually, Matt may be better off in prison given the quality of dates he has been getting on the outside.

Jo realises that Jake’s no-good brother is, um, no good when he savagely beats her up when she declines his wedding proposal and then tells her to tidy the kitchen and start cooking his tea. What a catch! When Jake finds out he goes to the building site where Brother works and starts with the fisticuffs. They thrash around a bit and then both take a dive off the half-completed building. The camera follows them half way to the ground and then… CLIFFHANGER! (Actually that is a rubbish cliffhanger, unless Jake’s incredible hotness somehow starts to negate the force of gravity).

OK, so Billy and Charlotte have popped back to their flat after the wedding for some rumpo. Alison is crying into her vodka in her flat and crossing out “Billy 4 Alison 4eva” from the front of her trapper keeper. Jane, Fashion Bloke and Amanda are helping Jo until the ambulance arrives (Harridan Designer Lady shows up for a Dramatic Confrontation too). Dr Peter has been lured to the flats by a mysterious note that he thinks comes from Amanda. Dr Michael goes into the basement and is almost knocked out by Kimberley. They fight and Dr Michael wins and frees Sydney. They both run upstairs leaving Kimberly with the detonator. Seriously, they are too stupid to live. Basically, the whole cast is there apart from Jake and Gay Matt. They run around, getting everyone out of the flats so that everyone is milling around in the courtyard when Kimberley emerges, smiles demonically, presses the big red button and … CLIFFHANGER!!!

Well that was a lot of fun - a non stop parade of unlikeable characters doing completely illogical things, very dated fashion, high speed plots that last three episodes (really, the entire season of "desperate Housewives would have fitted into two episodes of MP) and normally end in death marriage or imprisonment. roll ont he next series!

TODDLER TV: The presenters

As well as encouraging normally sane, well-adjusted adults to obsess about the regularity and quality of baby poo, parenthood opens up a whole new world of TV. I'd call it a twilight world, but it's more of a pre-dawn one. Designed for hyperactive moppets who think lie-ins are for wimps, it is the world of Toddler TV.

Toddler TV is a brightly coloured place, full of smiles and wacky glove puppets, drug-fuelled cartoon fantasies, ex-jazz stars and bouncy people in dungarees. It sings, it dances, it has some of the worst presenters in the history of television. I'm not joking: this lot make The Word's Hufty look cool.

CBeebies
CBeebies markets itself as a learning zone where tiny minds absorb through fun. All the presenters wear playleader bright clothing and could be seen as a warning to youngsters of the effects of drinking too much Sunny Delight. Their eyes are permanently amazed, and they like to break into song and dance at the slightest provocation. We would like to line all of them up against a wall and shoot them and their weird glove puppet companions.

On the children's TV glove puppet. Look, the Muppets were great. Sesame Street was a seminal programme that introduced Herbie Hancock to a whole new generation, but does that mean that we have to have a psychedelically-coloured alien simpering about caring and sharing in EVERY SINGLE BLOODY PROGRAMME?

Notable exceptions to the earnest playleaders are the Wordsworths on StoryMakers - one of whom used to be The Cat from Red Dwarf, and another was Kelvin in Eastenders. My favourite though, is Byron Wordsworth - a shark-suited nightclub owner who probably thinks he's tripping with a purple Michael Howard soundalike and a green-haired cockroach.

ITV
The modish Rathergood-style animated hamster on ITV's Toonattik (Sat and Sun mornings) used to make a refreshing change from the usual presenters because he kept still and didn't try to teach us stuff at 6am. But last week he was sacked in favour of a nondescript blonde and her Alfie Moon-a-like co-presenter being wacky in an attic.

Channel 4 don't bother with presenters. You can almost hear the regular announcers slurping their cappucinos as they attempt to whip up interest in The Hoobs. Not sure if C4 does any other children's TV because as soon as I see the bloody Hoobs, I hit the remote.

five
Five's Milkshake presenters are our favourites. Every single one a Footballers' Girlfriend who stepped into the magic changing room at TopShop, and found herself in a TV studio with a bunch of home-made cards wishing Kayleigh a happy seventh birthday from Granny and Nampa . Their bleary little faces struggle womanfully with the Milkshake dance (a complicated hand jive/hula thing) while expecting the magic shopkeeper to appear at any minute. This morning, I found Ceej gripped by a former underwear model in a corked bush hat singing about making tacos. Priceless

Five is also home to the only glove puppets we can tolerate. Tickle and Patch are a pair of ADHD guinea pigs with their own farm in Wiltshire. Their jokes are crap, they say "Oooharrrr" after every sentence, and they sound like Ceej's dad.

Apprentice Injustice

This week the task is to sell something on QVC – it is not as entertaining as when the UK Apprentice did a similar thing as there is no footage of people laughing for 5 minutes at a wolf fleece. Also the winner is the team who achieves the highest gross sales – not profit; sales – this is stupid as someone could sell loads of things at a massive loss and still win. Anyway, Trump takes Giantess Pamela off the men’s team and says she has to lead the women. Poor Pamela. She immediately lays down the law and says she will boss people about but it is all in order to win and that she hopes people can leave their personal differences behind. The outbreak of cheek sucking and sour face pulling leads me to suspect that her hopes will be in vain.

The men decide to sell a grill type machine and the women sell some kid of miracle sponge thing. Pamela has to demote Blinky Maria Jane Wiedlin alike from TV preventing duties. I have already pointed out that Maria blinks a lot and has a tendency to talk gibberish under stress and this week she goes into gibberish blinking overdrive when the cameras come on in the rehearsal. Also, Pamela has many rows with that poison dwarf Stacey. First she tells Stacey to shut up because she keeps interrupting her when she is trying to allocate tasks, then Stacey is supposed to be setting the price of their product but prevaricates so much that Pamela takes the task off her and does it herself. Also Stacey is supposed to be in charge of legal issues and spends hours fussing about whether the labels are covered up on bottles of fairy liquid etc – when Pamela tells her to get on with it she starts moaning about that as well. I have decided that Stacey is the worst of these women by a long shot. As well as being constantly rancorous and bitchy she never actually does anything useful. Both teams don’t really sell lots of product but the men win by $10. Damn, I really hoped they would lose today – also that means we are subjected to endless footage of them tooling around on a tennis court with Trump’s “close personal friends” John McEnroe and Anna Hornyhova.

The women, of course, go into a bitching overdrive and decide that it is all Pamela’s fault, even though they would have been just as useless as before without her. Pamela takes Maria and Stacey into the boardroom with her – Stacey because she is an annoying wee witch and Maria because she said she was good at public speaking when actually: NOT!!! Maria is wearing a weird black jacket with millions of metal eyelsets sewn into it. I think the audition for "Chicago" is in the other room ,Maria. Stacey says that she was just trying to do her legal job properly but that Pamela stopped her and that could have led to another Enron. I must have missed the part of the news story where Enron collapsed because their detergent bottles were insufficiently disguised. Pamela points out that Stacey adds zero value and actually distracts other people because she will never shut up. Absolutely correct. Maria is nominated because she put herself forward as a presenter and was shit at it. Maria says “I wasn’t that bad”. Auton Carolyn: “Yes, actually you were.” Brrr. Stacey and Maria blame Pamela for setting the price wrong (not mentioning that Stacey was too lame to do it herself) and misjudging team members abilities. What was she supposed to do when she had never worked with them before? Trump says that Pamela was decisive but made wrong decisions – as opposed to the rest of those useless bints who were indecisive and also made wrong decisions – and fires her. So unfair, especially when Maria and Hateful Stacey were also up for the boot. Carolyn agrees with the Trumpmeister but older sidekick George seems pretty pissed off. Me too, George, me too. It is as bad as when they sacked Miriam and her wondrous bosoms in UK Apprentice

Melrose Place Update

Kimberley and Dr Michael’s marriage shenanigans continue – Dr Michael served Kimberley with divorce papers, Kimberley then attempted suicide and Dr Michael had cracked open the bubbly and was set to watch her die when Sydney walked in and spoiled everything. I love the way Sydney just keeps doing mad random things that are completely pointless. Sydney managed to extort a big wad of cash out of both Kimberley (she helped K frame M for moider) and Michael (he had to pay Syd for the suicide note, so he could get off the moider rap) but then decided to throw her money away by investing the blackmail proceeds in Mancini goddamn Designs and is now the President. Given that Mancini Designs only has one room above a shop, that must be like being the President of Heligoland. Sydney’s first executive decisions were to put Dr Michael on the payroll as her gigolo, basically, and to get Mancini Designs embroiled in some kind of mafia pantyhose drug smuggling scam. Good one Sydney. (That plot now seem so to have been resolved, but I think I must have dozed off for the 30 mins or so when it happened).

Meanwhile, Dr Michael is now stalking Amanda (who, of course, has completely recovered from her 24 hour bout of Hodgkin’s Lymphoma) and Dr K ran away to a special boot camp to learn how to be assertive. They asked her to leave after she broke the instructor’s arm for kicks. Kimberley has now returned to Melrose to wreak revenge and has teamed up with Amanda to get Michael arrested for stalking/assault (all faked of course). In a particularly hilarious moment, a beardy Rolf Harris alike bloke suddenly appeared to Kimberley in a mirror and started telling her to “Kill! Kill them all!” I haven’t seen such a hilariously crass depiction of mental illness since the talking dog in that “Summer of Sam” film. Matt copped off with a hunky doctor and they actually implied that they had sex. OMG! Hunky doctor got up in the middle of the night to phone someone and I instantly assumed that he was going to plot evil shenanigans with Kimberley (I wouldn’t put anything past her now that she’s assertive!) but instead he just phoned his wife to make a lame excuse. Doh. Will Matt ever be lucky in love?

Jake’s no-good half brother has moved in with him and is up to no good. Also he is rotten looking - a giant Fabio-esque “hunk” with an ugly chin beard and stringy hair. Perhaps he is supposed to be “grunge” or something. He is working at Shooters, reading all of Jake’s private papers and putting the moves on Jo. (I don’t mind Jo now that she doesn’t run around squealing “My baybay! My baybay!” all the time). Ugly Brother has been flirting shamelessly – taking Jo to crazy golf and teaching her how to handle his club. Pure filth. Jo said she wouldn’t do anything with Ugly Brother as it would hurt Jake, Ugly Brother asked for one kiss and two seconds later he is ripping off her ugly crushed velour cardigan and pushing her up against a dumpster at the back of the bar. The baby-napping grandparents were right after all! Jo really is a heartless amoral slut! Sydney heard Jake and Ugly Brother knocking boots and instantly grassed them up to Jake. Bitch. Jake and Ugly Bro had a fight (next to a swimming pool but no-one fell in – what’s that all about?) and then Ugly Bro hired some even uglier people to shoot Jake – of course he survived – he is sure that Ugly Bro was responsible but just can’t prove it, dammit!

Charlotte from Sex and the City has turned out to be a right little minx (Billy: “Are you rich?” Charlotte: “Filthy!”). She spent hours telling Billy that he was really sexy (give her an oscar!) while he made his normal constipated faces. Her blatant flattery finally penetrated his thick skull and she got him into bed. At work, she did very well with the (snigger) Glamorous Gowns campaign when she let them use her posh dad’s big house for a photoshoot at the last minute and became Alison’s confidante and right hand woman (Alison is still a bitch on wheels by the way). Alison gave Amanda a lowly job at Depressing and Dysfunctional Advertising and Amanda instantly teamed up with Charlotte and made her her spy. Amanda, of course, did everything she could to get Alison the sack – hiding vital memos, mentioning to clients about Alison’s drunken rehab shame, messing with the Glamorous Gowns print campaign etc etc, the best bit was when she got Alison to pitch an advert to some bloke that reminded him of his mother’s suicide. Ha ha ha, that’s more like it. Meanwhile Charlotte spent all her time pumping Billy for secret information and then making conniving faces over his shoulder when he hugged her. Classic. In the end Alison was sacked in favour of Amanda and order was restored in the Melrosiverse. Charlotte has connived to get Alison a job in Hong Kong (she is still in the programme though, worse luck), tricked Billy into thinking Alison hated him and has got him to propose. That’s an awful lot of effort to land a mega tool like Billy.

More US Apprentice

I wondered who was going to picked on by the women next and the answer is quickly revealed – Elizabeth! (the blonde with the funny eyebrows who was Project Manager last week). Everyone else thought that she should have been sacked instead of Stacie and everyone had a go at her when she got back. They all had a bitchy catfight and someone said something about “not coming into your sandbox” - very mature. When Elizabeth started crying, the women said that she was having a nervous breakdown and was mentally ill. God, shut up about mental illness! (to his credit, one of the blokes criticised the women for their mental health hate fest re Stacie).

In other news, Donald’s aging bloke sidekick was away on business and was replaced by a handsome young man who turns out to be the winner of series one. I’m glad to see that Ice Maiden Carolyn was still in full effect though. The task this week was to open a restaurant in 24 hours and run it for one evening (they were provided with a chef and a venue) – the one with the highest Zagats rating (as voted by the diners) would win.

The PM of the women turned out to be Jennifer – a tall brunette with a Betty Page hair do – she instantly endeared herself to the team by snapping ”It’s going to be asian fusion! End of discussion” and calling one of her arch enemies “the munchkin” (Stacy – a swivel eyed midget who earned my undying emnity by saying that Stacie’s “breakdown” was the scariest moment of her life. I think you need to get out more, love). They went to the restaurant and dithered around until Betty/Jennifer decided that she would rather work back at an office – cue lots of eye rolling and bitch facery. The women got home and heard that the men had hired cleaners to get the restaurant ready and were like “doh, we have to clean the restaurant!?” They went back at 1 am and had to clean it themselves for hours. Good planning, Betty!

I am still having trouble telling the men apart. One of them (Chris?!?) who used to be a waiter was quite funny – giving a spiel about how to suck up to the public whilst still loathing them – I think he is something of a tool though. Another one John had to endure jokes about being “artistic” (nudge nudge, wink wink) when he did some generic abstract art for the restaurant walls. John is quite cute so I remember him quite well. Elizabeth started crying again when she was given a flyer distributing task and felt that she was not given sufficient resources and was deliberatley set up to fail. Take a chill pill, Elizabeth.

The restaurants were fitted out as if by magic. The US version does not give nearly as much detail into the process of achieving their goals and tends to focus more on bitching and conflict. That is quite a shame as I enjoy watching all the running around/schmoozing/problem solving (or not) that goes into achieving (or not) these tasks. Both venues were ready on time and they both looked pretty good.

On the night, the men helped with the waitering and were endearingly clutzy. At one point some gay blokes complained that their starters were shit, so they sent out Cute John to mildly flirt with them and butter them up as he was the best looking. He was a good sport about it and none of the other team mates made fun of him or the gays, which was refreshing – if Paul Torrisi had been asked to that he would have literally exploded.

The women hired waiters and all just basically stood about nervously in their best frocks and loomed over people who were trying to enjoy their tea. Not a good move. (Ivana noticed this and tried to get them to be less clumpy – she was not too annoying this episode). There was a hilarious moment when Blinky Maria (wearing a nice black dress and with about 15 yards of green beads wrapped round her neck) was greeting some diners and said something like “I see that your table is currently being prepared and made ready for your arrival so I should be grateful if you would come with me in this direction of the table.” WTF??? At one point two old grannies moaned to Betty that they were uncomfortable etc etc. This is important for later.

It turned out that the men got a higher score – the women were mainly dissed by the diners for the venue design (too abstract, cold and uncomfortable) and for the way the women lurked around and made everyone feel weird. Of course, the women instantly went into super bitch mode. Betty started going on about “those two Jewish ladies” who slagged them off and ruined everything for her – she is a tool, obviously, but I don’t think it was that bad , anyway, apparently she had to apologise on national TV and lost her job etc etc for being anti-semitic. Yikes. Betty moaned that her traitorous minions were “havoc wreakers!” Evil dwarf Stacey went around telling everyone that Betty was (a) rubbish and (b) anti-semitic (Stacey turned out to be Jewish too) while Betty lurked round corners and made hacky faces and literally shook her fist at her. They had a dramatic confrontation and Stacey said she wouldn’t talk to Betty and Betty said that Stacey wasn’t as popular and well-liked as she thought. God, it feels like I am watching ”Clueless” at times.

Back in Donald’s throne room, Robo-Carolyn pointed out that they failed because of their design. She said that the restaurant was in a fairly casual type neighbourhood and that although everything looked brilliant, the restaurant was too smart and the women were too over-dressed and formal. Carolyn and Winner Bloke said that Betty should choose to sack people based on their performance (ie, she should choose the girl who did the décor) not based on personality, so of course dim bulb Betty selects her two arch enemies Stacey and Elizabeth and lets Designer Girl (blonde, ironed hair, happens to be her best friend, Sandy?) off the hook. Elizabeth started moaning that she had been set up to fail on the flyer task and Stacey was all “Bring it on, bitch!”

In the sacking part there was lots of snivelling and back biting. Carolyn asked why the hell Betty didn’t select Sandy and said that all their carrying on made her ashamed to be a business woman. Also Donald and Carolyn had to tell Betty to stop interrupting and listen to them about five times. Betty made an arsey face as though she couldn’t believe she was being told to shut up. Oh Betty, do you want to be sacked that badly? Of course, she was fired and Donald said it was a very easy decision. Ouch. As she drove away in the EE style Cab of Finality, Betty said that Sandy had betrayed her (WTF?) but that she hadn’t lost the ability to trust people. That’s alright then.

Spelling Bee

Spellbound was one of my favourite films of 2003 and afterwards I kept saying to anyone who would listen that they should have spelling programmes on TV. BBC1's Hard Spell was pretty good and I enjoyed Celebrity Hard Spell, except for that bloody idiot Dick (or Dom) who ruined it for everyone by being useless. Anyway, I'm going to watch ITV's effort and see if it's any good.

Right. It's hosted by Chris Tarrant, which seems better than the Eamonn Holmes version. There are also three different teams and they're playing for charidee. Unfortunately the only people I've heard of are Edwina Currie, Tony Slattery, Samantha Bond and Tara Palmer-Tompkinson. That's only 4 out of 12. Very poor sleb-count, if you ask me. They also have a precocious kid called Samir from the US National Spelling Bee as Expert Help. This seems like a bad idea.

First round. Fiona Phillips, Edwina Currie and Patrick Mower. It's category related and they get to pick the level of difficulty. The category is politics and Fiona gets "adjournment" correct at level 2. Edwina goes for a high level of difficulty (3) and gets "constituency" correct. Tarrant, of course, can't resist delivering his lines as if he was on Millionaire ("That's the right answer - you've got 30 points!" etc.) Mower gets "filibustering" and has to ask Samir because he's not sure about the number of Ls. It turns out that each team can ask Samir twice each and if he gets it right they get the point. Basically it's 'Ask the audience of one' and the one happens to be a spelling expert. Anyway he gets it right and smart-arsedly says, "It's a good thing you waited because you might not have got it right" with a shit-eating grin. Tarrant looks like he wants to slap him but he's protected by a video-link.

Commerical break already. Bah.

The round continues. Just Slattery from Fiona's team. He goes for level 3 and gets "Guadaloupe". He gets it wrong. Tarrant: "That's the WRONG answer". Roger Black is next for Currie's team and gets "Philippines". he gets it wrong too. Andrew someone next and gets "Montserrat" at level 2. He gets it wrong too. Tarrant looks desperate to say, "Is that your final answer?"

Samantha Bond, from Currie's team now. The category is 'Living La Vida Loca'. The category idea is stupid if you ask me - it doesn't add anything at all. Sam gets "Superfluous" right for 30 points. Tim Vine now, level 3 again. He gets "nymphomania" correct, also for 3. Trudie Goodwin now. (Who?) Level 3 again, even though she admits she'd rather choose level 2. Her word is "ostentatious" and she asks Samir. The little blighter gets it right. Tarrant tries to psyche him out by doing the Millionaire thing of going, "Samir...(big pause)..." but Samir basically tells him to fuck off because he knows he's right. Ha ha!

Next up is Wendy someone. Her word is "chihuahua" and she asks Samir too. He gets it right. Anthony Cotton's turn now - he gets "rottweiler" at level 2 and gets it wrong with only one L. TPT now. She opts for the easiest level and says, "I don't mind if I get it wrong - I've got a nice dress on." She gets "Leopard" and spells it out on the desk like a 5 year old. She also repeats "L" but Tarrant lets her off.

The scores are now Edwina's team: 60, Patrick's team: 70, and Fiona's team: 70, although Patrick's team have exhausted their Samir option.

It's quite badly structured, really. I hope they vary it later on. At least the BBC version had several different rounds and tested both speed and ability.

Round 2 now. "Decision Time". Oh for God's sake. It's basically the same thing again, only once one person has attempted a level no-one else can do that level. The category is "I may be small but I'm hard", which sounds awful, but it's about small words that are hard to spell. Wendy gets "phlegm" correct for 10 points and Anthony gets "abysmal" right too. Tara gets "liaise" wrong, which is silly considering the round (she spells it 'liase'). She says "Did I not say that?", rather amusingly.

Level 2 words for round 2. "It's All Greek To Me" - foreign words that are used in English. Samantha Bond gets "Hacienda" correct, Tim gets "Karaoke" correct (and yes, I am writing these down before they spell them) and some other woman gets "pirouette".

Level 3 words for round 2. The category is "Reverse Spelling" and apparently they have to spell the words backwards. This is just getting stupid now. Fiona gets "Irreversible" and gets it right. Roger gets "bankruptcy" and asks Samir. Samir gets it right, precocious little Boy Genius that he is. Patrick Mower gets "misconstrue" and gets it right.

Scores are now: Edwina's and Patrick's teams have 120, Fiona's team have 130 pts.

Mystery Spelling Round now, with rapid fire spelling at 10 points a word. No, I tell a lie, it's worse than that. Slattery is given several words and has to say whether it's "i before e" or "e before i". He gets 8 right and 80 points. Edwina gets "a or i before b" with -ible, -able words. She gets 6 and 60 points. Andrew gets "a or e before n". He gets 40 points. Scores now: Patrick: 160, Edwina: 180, Fiona: 210. Patrick's team have to leave, which is a shame because TPT is the most entertaining contestant and I'd have liked to see her struggle with something better than "liaise" and "leopard". Bah.

Basically, this is a case of too many celebrities and not enough words. I'd rather watch them all in a straight knockout, like in the States. Fools.

Round 3. Scores back to zero and another team will get knocked out at the end. Level 1 words no longer allowed. I was hoping for a bit of variety but no, it's the same format. Category is "I'll have a P please, Chris." The audience are so bored they applaud half-heartedly every time someone picks a difficult level. Fiona picks 3 and gets "paediatrics" correct, Anthony gets "prerogative" correct and is rather happy about it. Slattery vs Vine now. Category is about phobias. Slattery gets "triskaidekaphobia" and says, "I beg your pardon", after a Comedy Pause. He gets one letter wrong (he says "ophobia" not "aphobia"). Vine gets "arachnophobia", which is nowhere near as difficult. He picks the Boy Genius option and Samir gets it right. Samantha vs Edwina now. Category is "Types of Italian Food". Sam goes for 3 and gets "cannelloni". She asks Samir and he gets it right. Chris tries the fake-out thing again and Samir still knows he got it right. Edwina picks level 2 and gets "linguine" wrong. So do I, actually - I would have spelled it "linguini" too. D'oh! New category: "Back to School." Wendy gets "trigonometry" correct and Roger gets "apostrophe" wrong. Fool. (He spells it "apostraphe".) Tarrant can't help himself and keeps giving extra information, as if it helps. It's now Edwina 60, Fiona 90.

This is more like it. "Speed spell". Both teams are all lined up and have to spell as many words as possible in 2 minutes. Apparently they each get 10 seconds per word too. They're not sticking to the rules either - they're allowed to restart without any penalties. They all do well though. Edwina's team have 110 and Fiona's team have 160. Fiona's team are Slattery, Samantha and Wendy - they now split up to find a single champion for the £25,000 prize.

Hmmm. This round is silly - they have to spell a word between them, one letter at a time. They each have 2 lives. Wendy goes out. Next word is "onomatopoeia". Slattery: "Oh, for God's sake!" Slattery is the only one with both lives left. Fiona's out too, on "renaissance". It's Slattery vs Samantha Bond, which is cool because a) I know who they are and b) they were my two favourites.

This is more like it. It's now "Best of 5" with a Sudden Death round if they're level at the end. Slattery gets "effervescent" correct. Sam gets "perspicacious" correct. I think I might fancy her a little bit. Slattery gets "Leprechaun" wrong - he spells it "Leprachaun". Sam gets "Poltergeist" correct. Slattery gets "assassination" correct. Sam gets "pteryodactyl" which is a bitch of a word to have in your head. She spells it "therodactyl". Oh dear. Maybe I don't fancy her after all - I could never be with a woman who couldn't spell pterodactyl. Slattery gets "iridescent" wrong. Sam gets "minuscule" correct and Slattery gets "opthalmologist" wrong (as do I). Sam wins! Hurrah! She gives the money to McMillan Cancer Relief. Marvellous. I bet I'm one of the only viewers in the country who didn't turn over to Big Brother at 10pm though.

FIVE REASONS TO CONTINUE WATCHING BIG BROTHER

1) Craig's descent into a wailing abyss of self pity as everybody he speaks to, nay cleaves to like a drowning man to a match, gets evicted.

2) Orlaith's Boobies Drinking Game. Every time she flashes her threps, drink a finger of alcohol (for authenticity, this should be Smithwicks); every time she gazes lovingly at her perfect nipples and strokes them Linda Lusardi stylee, finish the glass.

3) Makosi tells Vanetha what she should have told Anthony and tells Derek what she should have told Eugene. Then spontaneously combusts as truth meets anti-truth, and spends the rest of the series drinking cherryade in q rip in the space/time continuum.

4) Eugene invents a machine for counting blades of grass and measuring how much they actually grow in a day. More popularly, he works out how to make alcohol from grass cuttings and Kemal's hairspray.

5) Instead of getting evicted, Vanetha hides in a cupboard for the rest of the series. Nobody notices.

Apprentice US Stylee

As a keen viewer of the Sir Alan Sugar Apprentice Experience, I was intrigued to watch the US version on BBC3 the other day. It is very much the same format, only it is set in NYC with Donald Trump and his bizarre and scary comb-over as the entrepreneur in question. I suppose when you are that rich you could have a pile of dead mice on your head, loosely stitched together with raffia, and still no-one would say anything. As well as the splendour that is Donald, we have many scenes set in Trump Tower, which looks like a Vegas casino and is unremittingly tacky – still, they don’t have Amstrad’s rubbish emailer phones dotted around every scene, so in one respect they are actually LESS tacky than Siralan. Donald’s sidekicks are an older white haired bloke who seems quite normal and a younger blonde woman with an unmoveable hair helmut who never says anything and makes no facial expressions whatsoever. I am a bit scared of her, to be honest.

The contestants are the usual assortment of muppets and dilettantes – the main difference is that the production of the US version just comes across as really cheesy and juvenile – like at one point the male team were “brainstorming” and whenever they came up with a lame idea there was a comedy “boinngggg!” noise on the soundtrack. Hello, are we watching Rainbow here or something? Also, the editing is a lot more soapy, i.e. in the title sequence the Apprentices are all named and there is a shot of eacjh of them smiling or answering the phone or pointing at a flow chart or something. It is like the beginning of “Dallas”! There are also many shots of people making hacky faces and glaring at each other for no reason. (I actually approve of this innovation). Even the receptionist who says “King Donald will see you now!” had about three hacky faced reaction shots – FOR NO REASON!!!

The first time I watched it was in week three, so I don’t really have a clue about any of the contestants. The weekly task was to take $50k and stage a marketing event for a leading-brand-of-toothpaste’s new vanilla and mint flavour. Vanilla and mint? Vomit. PR shills for the Leading Toothpaste Company would judge the winner on how much buzz they generated. The men’s team (called something subtle like “Team Giant Penis”) wanted to put on a Dr Evil style Meellion Dollar sweepstake, but “legal” wouldn’t let them do it. Instead they just hired some circus freaks and jugglers and gave away toothpaste in the street. How boring. If I was Donald I would have sacked all them just for the sin of making jugglers feel useful for a day. The women (Team Ovary) decided to hire a celebrity and have an event with him brushing his teeth in the street with new vile sounding toothpaste. The celebrity was some New York sports bloke I have never heard of – someone suggested LL Cool J but he was rejected because apparently he was too “edgy”. Buh buh but I thought Ladies Loved Cool James??? Also, LL Cool J? Edgy? “Deep Blue Sea” was hardly like the fricking Cremaster Cycle, not even when LL Cool J rapped at the end and pretended that he was a shark. The women were clearly set to win due to their slightly better ideas but unfortunately they overspent the budget to the tune of $5,000 on flyers and promo materials and were thus declared the Losers. Doh, easy mistake to make, I suppose – if you’re a total idiot.

The two women responsible were a Jane Wiedlin look-alike called Maria, who had weird pencilled-in eyebrows and blinked a lot – she supposedly negotiated the price – and the budget manager; an Asian girl called Ivana (I bet she was only selected because of her name). They were both pretty dreadful and refused to even accept the idea that they could have been remotely responsible for the mistake. Blinky Maria: “I told the printer I could only spend $2,000 and he said he wasn’t sure he could do it for that price, and then he couldn’t do it! How is that my fault???” etc.

At this point the show got (a) really nasty and (b) really interesting. Team Ovary were so awful that they make UK Apprentice’s Melty-Face Adele seem like the voice of reason – it turns out that Stacy (the only black girl in the team, which was all white apart from her and Ivana) had had a minor freakout in week one and all the other women had decided that she was mentally ill and had teamed up to shun her and blame her for everything, even though she hadn’t done anything wrong since. Seriously, it was like Lord of the Flies in snazzy business suits. The team leader (some blonde with weird eyebrows) selected Stacy and Blinky for sacking and Stacy got the sack after a depressing scene where all the other women lined up to question her mental health and blame her for disrupting the task, even though none of them could give any examples of actual disruptive behaviour. Um excuse me, Ms Bridal Shop Manager – do you have a psychiatry degree to go with your ugly white meringue dresses? If not then shut up! It is possible that Donald’s Fembot Aide disapproved of the sacking, though it was hard to tell given that she is about as demonstrative as an Auton. Actually Stacy is better off away from those heinous bitches – it will be interesting to see who they turn on next.

GUILTY SECRET: TOP GEAR

My name is Sarah. I recycle my newspapers, compost my leftover veg, and regularly threaten to vote Green every election if Labour don’t buck their ideas up. I have never passed my driving test and either walk or use public transport to get around London. I have even investigated installing a solar panel in my garden.

I love Top Gear.

Why? It's all about men driving cars around race tracks or around leafy Surrey lanes. Or men cooing over useless sports vehicles that come equipped with a personalised micro-climate, the equivalent of 15 stampeding elephants for an engine, and seats made from the skin of unborn baby marmosets. Then they argue about which is the most expensive, and consequently, the most useless.

The Tall Old One (Jeremy Clarkson) regularly challenges the Other Two - Richard Hammond (short but cute in a crazed hamster kind of way), and James May (I'd say he was dressed by his wife but it says here he’s single…)- to travel to, say, Oslo using public transport while he drives overland from Guildford in a 60 squillion pound Mercedes supercar.

Jeremy wins – usually because the other two can’t read a bus timetable or think that flogging the guts out of a powerboat in inclement weather is a good idea. Mind you, I have never seen a face as green as Hammond's as he leaned over the side of the boat and was sick at 70 knots. That’s an awful lot of slightly pissed-off herring.

Given that the Other Two’s strategy was so daft, Clarko could probably have won it in a 15-year-old Volvo and used the money saved to pay off the national debt of Burkina Faso or something.

But that’s not really the point.

The point is that this team knows that what they do is wasteful, profligate and irresponsible, and they quite sincerely don’t care. A proper motoring programme, as Top Gear used to be, discusses sensible family cars, fuel efficiency, safety features and so on, while driving gently around Surrey lanes to demonstrate the car’s handling. That’s what the manufacturers like to see. You’re asleep already, aren’t you? I'ts not that they ignore the family car, but they get their mums to do all that stuff.

By appealing to our inner petrolhead, Top Gear has hit on a winner. Take three scruffy presenters old enough to know better, who know even Kofi Annan would probably give up saving the world to spend the rest of his days playing tiddlywinks with old Volvos; a bunch of cars that nobody could ever afford even if they auctioned their entire family on eBay; a minor celebrity racing a family car; ban being sensible, and there you have it. Perfect Sunday veg-out TV.

And our 2001 Polo doesn’t even make it into the Seriously Uncool list.

TV of yesteryear

Does anyone remember “The Omega Factor”? This is a TV show I remember watching when I was a kid but which no-one else I know seems to have seen. It sounds like a belated sequel to the Krypton Factor but actually starred Louise Jameson (aka Leela from Dr Who or That Stripy Haired Bitch Rosa from Eastenders) and was a supernatural conspiracy drama that reminds me a lot of the X Files. Every week, Leela and some bloke would investigate weird psychic phenomena and be thwarted at every turn by a shadowy secret organisation called the Omega something or other. You could tell when people where in the Omega Organisation because they wore a huge bad taste 70s signet ring with the greek letter “omega” on it. Subtle. I think the Omega dudes were trying to recruit psychics to take over the world and would kill anyone who got in the way (except the protagonists of course). Spooky or what? Maybe they were trying to ride on the success of “Sapphire and Steel” but it only lasted one series as far as I know. Like the X Files, the show was spooky and atmospheric and like the X Files it made very little sense and they had no idea how to tie everything up when it finished. Unlike the X Files, Leela never had her ovaries stolen by aliens and then replaced so she could have a magic psychic baby or whatever. I never worked out what that was all about. I can’t remember any of the Omega Factor plots but it made quite a strong impression on me at the time.

No-one I have ever mentioned it to has ever remembers the programme, but of course there is stuff about it on teh interweb. It has even come out on DVD. Whilst googling, I discovered that it was transmitted in 1979 on the beeb, the main bloke was played by James Hazeldine (who???) and that his character had psychic powers. There are episode guides on the internet but they are pretty lame and just say things like "When and old friend dies, Tom discovers more than he bargained for." Jesus, that could be an episode of Emmerdale. They mention one about a telekinetic kid that I vaguely rememeber - he would bust shit up at school in a Carrie stylee and Tom and Leela tried to investigate but in the end the kid was driven away by a "social worker" who turned out to be wearing an Omega ring. Dun dun dunhhh!!! . It is weird that this show had such a hold on my junior self when I can remember next to nothing about it except that it was a bit rubbish.

MELROSE PLACE UPDATE
I haven’t been blogging much lately because there is nothing good on telly at the moment! Boo! I am still hooked on Melrose though and it has been all go since I started those character guides! Jo has had her baby stolen AGAIN – yes, that’s the second time in less than a month. Having your baby stolen once is unfortunate but twice makes it look like you are really thick, Jo! She did redeem herself in my eyes, however, by giving Dr Kimberly a good smack in the face. Jo tracked down the evil baby-napping grandparents with the help of Jake, who provided support and the use of his penis as required. In the end, the evil grandparents shot Jo with a rifle and it all ended up back in court. Jo decided to give the baby up for adoption, which is as good a way as any of the writers admitting that they have totally written themselves into a corner.

Pathetic drunk Alison went into rehab and met a hunky, mad eyed football star who turned out to be a sex addict. Oh, of course he did. Alison, being stupid and annoying, immediately started shagging him. It all ended in tears when Alison caught him in bed with some floozy the same day he proposed to her. I have no sympathy when it comes to Alison. She has now been promoted to President of D&D Advertising while brave Amanda is off work with her tragic cancer heartbreak and has hired Charlotte from Sex and the City as her assistant. Charlotte is a “special guest star” so I look forward to whatever crazy ass plots she is given. Billy gave Alison a special trapper keeper to congratulate her, but Alison didn’t care because whoever becomes head of D&D instantly turns into a heartless bitch.

Sydney and Jane had a quiet couple of weeks after the Creepy Australian shenanigans. Sydney recently rented out her spare room to porn star Traci Lords, whose line readings suggest that English is not her first language. Traci lured Sydney into joining a creepy sex cult in the middle of the desert and when Syd tried to escape they locked her in a box! In the end she was rescued by Jane and Jake. I think Jake shagged Jane too – basically any time he gives someone a lift he ends up sleeping with them.

Matt had to give Dr Kimberley a psychiatric evaluation and discovered she was crazy. Like, duh!! When he wouldn’t change the report, she had him beaten up by rent-a-homophobes and then snuck into his office and changed “Kimberley is mental” to “Kimberley is lovely!” The policeman who investigated the gay bashing turned out to be gay himself, but was also a creepy, suspect beating stalker with terrible hair. Will Matt ever be lucky in love?

Amanda’s creepy lurver Dr Peter became the owner of D&D Advertising and put her in charge for about two episodes. He hired a foxy “efficiency expert” to investigate the company but – gasp! It turns out they were in cahoots and shagging each other! Peter arranged for Amanda to take pills he had secretly laced with monkey crack so she would fail a drug test, he could sack her and then put Ms Efficiency Expert in charge instead. Amanda said she could prove that her fed her the crack so he injected her with, um something and planned to kill her on the operating table – or rather get Dr Michael to do it for him. Even Dr Michael wasn’t that evil though, so he had fisticuffs with Dr Peter and got him arrested. About a week later, Amanda discovered she has lymphoma - it's just one thing after another when you're a high powered business woman - and now Dr Michael is treating her. She is the healthiest looking cancer patient in the history of the world. De Michael says he has fallen in love with her and is plotting one of his madcap schemes behind Kimberley’s back. Yes Dr Michael, it really is a great idea to cheat on someone who has already run you over once.

24 Great 24 Moments

Sod Big Brother. 24 is The Best Show On TV. It's got everything you could want from an American action show: great characters, genuinely shocking plot twists, a jaw-droppingly laissez-faire attitude to who lives and who dies (compare that to something like Alias where only the bad guys get killed off and most of the annoying cast are still around), a surprisingly high level of criticism of Bush-era politics (you often find yourself siding with the terrorists' point-of-view), and more torture and violence per episode than you could find in an entire season of Schwarzengger movies. It's also brilliantly directed and incredibly suspenseful - I invariably find myself holding my breath for the last 15 minutes of every show. So if you haven't seen it, DO - season 1 is currently being repeated on BBC1 and season 4 finishes on Sunday with a double epsiode on Sky.

SPOILERS FOR ALL SEASONS FOLLOW

24 Great 24 Moments

1) Jack coming BACK FROM THE FREAKING DEAD in season 2. Death is for wimps.
2) Chloe turning Action Heroine in season 4. It's like she was born to shoot.
3) Kimmeh vs The Mountain Lion (season 2)
4) Michelle kicking ass in the infected hotel (season 3).
5) Tony unexpectedly showing up and rescuing Jack and Audrey in season 4.
6) Kimmeh changing into a skimpy top in front of the Environmentalist (season 2).
7) Jack killing his boss -Chapelle- because the bad guys told him to. (Living the American Dream). (Season 3).
8) Evil Marie shooting Reza (her fiancé) in season 2.
9) Jack torturing Audrey's husband, then letting him die after he'd saved Jack's life, then threatening to torture her brother just two hours later (season 4).
10) Jack cutting off a drug-dealer's head to prove his bad-ass credentials when going undercover. (Season 2)
11) Jack pulling the trigger on Chase to prove himself to the Salazars (and not apologising afterwards). (Season 3).
12) Jack avoiding a nuclear blast by hiding behind a rock (season 2).
13) Radioactive Mason going out like a man. (Season 2).
14) Kimmeh's season 2 boyfriend losing a leg.
15) Kimmeh's season 3 boyfriend losing an arm.
16) Kimmeh running across the road like a mentalist (season 2).
17) Alan Yorke / Sheri Palmer / Marie / Nina / etc turning out to be EVIL (all seasons).
18) Jack on smack. (Season 3).
19) The amazing number of 'comebacks' in season 4 (5 to date).
20) Mandy the Terrorista. Just generally.
21) Jack shouting "DAMMIT!" whenever something goes wrong.
22) Jack holding up a liquor store just to buy some time (season 4).
23) Anytime Jack says, "No! That's not the right play!"
24) Tony getting shot in the neck and then walking it off.