For the third year in a row, I did the full series of liveblogs for guardian.co.uk. The links below represent all the ones I did - the ones when I was double-booked or otherwise indisposed we by Heidi Stephens or Carrie Dunn, and were ace, but clearly not mine to claim on this site.
1 | 2 | 4 | 5 | 7 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12
For the sake of it, the final of The Apprentice 2009 is reproduced below.
(more…)
[Another TV Group meeting, this time discussing the seminal Grand Designs]
Good evening, and welcome to another week of Watch With …, the weekly feature in which we take a hour of UK television and review it in real time, and try and decide if it’s all worth it or not.
This week, we’ll be lapping up the adventures of Kevin McCloud and his merry band of invariably self-assured and unrealistic self-builders in Grand Designs, from 9-10 on Channel 4. If you have any opinions on the show or the episode, during or after the event, any observations, wittisations, dissertations or condemnations - do leave a comment - otherwise press refresh for updates and new comments….
(more…)
[Another TV Club outing, this time for Torchwood]
Good evening, and welcome to Watch With…, our regular kind-of-weekly-ish feature delighting in, dissecting and digesting a different piece of television every week, in real time. So like a bit like television review, but live, and faster, and less considered, with fewer clever bits (um - in a good way).
This evening, we’ll be watching Torchwood on BBC2 from 9-10, indulging in a bit of the Doctor Who spinoff that probably keeps wishing we’d stop calling it that. So what will happen? Will there be thrills and spills and the fighting of aliens? Or will it mainly be sex, sex, sex, like last series. And most of the first episode of this series. Only time, and us, will tell.
(more…)
[For another week, TV Club is in session, this week watching a live ‘cookalong’ with Gordon Ramsey]
With adverts splattered all over the 4’s and commercial radio, it’s been trailed more than my uncle Barry’s caravan, Gordon intoning ‘Three days to go…’ in a voice that suggested we were all going to die rather than, say, do some cooking.
(more…)
Jason Donavan in a soap? Martine McCutcheon? In a soap? Johnny Briggs out of Corrie? And all created by Mr Eastenders, Tony Jordan? What IS this, some kind of pot luck super made completely out of soaps? That sounds icky. I’m going to end up with a scummy mouth. Or, you know, more scummy than usual.
That’s right, it’s Watch This, our generally-regular feature where we take a hour or so of UK television, dissect, digest and deconstruct it live, as it happens and try and figure out what there is to be gained from British light entertainment on a weekday evening. I’ll be here from 9-10, this week watching ITV’s new concept series, Moving Wallpaper and Echo Beach.
(more…)
Good evening, and welcome to ‘Watch with’, a weekly feature taking a slice of British television, watching, dissecting and reviewing it in real time, in order to truly attempt to understand what this ‘entertainment’ being thrust upon us is, and whether, in fact, it is entertaining. At all.
Good evening and welcome to Watch With … our weekly feature taking a slice of British television, watching and dissecting it in real time, in order to truly attempt to understand what this ‘entertainment’ being thrust upon us is, and whether, in fact, it is entertaining. At all.
Last week, we dipped our toes into the murky world of non-terrestrial in the shape of Streetmate on ITV2, and an unprecedented number of actual contestants (two) actually turned up in the comment box to say hello. Tonight, we’re running back to the loving arms of ITV1 and will be covering I’m A Celebrity… from 9 until - What? It’s on until when?! Jeeez - until 10.30, because it’s terribly popular. And because we’re hoping that some of the ex-contestants might in turn log in and contribute. Don’t be shy, Katie…
So here another of our weekly forays into the new world of real time television commentary. Well, not that new a world, but it was certainly more difficult before the internet, with people having to watch the one television in the county AND shout what was going on - as well as critical commentary on what was going on out of the window to the local peoples, who would in turn pass it on, Chinese whisper style (is that PC? Can I say that? What’s it called now, if not?) to the rest of the populace, who would in turn add their own insights to the spreading critique.
Still, it’s very similar now. Just makes the throat hurt slightly less. So do leave comments if you’re watching I’m a Celebrity, if you’re watching something else, if you’re here later but did watch it earlier or, you know, if you’re passing by and just happen to want to bemoan the state of television, journalism, the internet or anything else that’s bothering your poor gigantic brain this evening.
SO. I’m a Celebrity then… I shall have to go and find out what’s been going on…
Oooh, I SAY. … Well I never! … He didn’t, did he? … OOoooOOOOooooo! …. Etc.
9pm “So no one left the camp last night, but there were some new arrivals!…” says the continuity woman. What an earth does she mean?
The ‘previously on’ section doesn’t help. They just seem to be the same five people, and some rain, and a trial and … no, no, no new arrivals here. Just Antandec. Hello Antandec.
9.06: All the celebrities are expressing their incredible surprise and disappointment at the non-eviction. “Oh no! I really thought I could be going!” “I had my bags packed and everything!” “We’re here for a whole ‘nother DAY” says Gemma Atkinson “No! Worse than that, it’s a whole ‘nother 24 hours!”
What?
9.09: So who’s left? Christopher Biggins, Janice Dickinson, Jason ‘J’ Brown, Gemma Atkinson and Cerys Matthews. And they’re talking about what a happy, happy little family they really are. And what a bizarre one, let’s face it. Imagine having Christopher Biggins as your Dad, and Janice Dickinson as your Mum. Just imagine it. Go on. Imagine it.
9.12: I’ve just realised - no one’s going to be watching this/reading blogs right now, are they, because there’s loads of football on. And so even if you came back later, you’d have no idea what I’m saying here actually happened or not. Brilliant. I could say anything.
Ok, so at the moment, Cerys is stripped down to a t-shirt and a very nice pair of lacy pants, which Janice is admiring. Cerys stands up, and runs her hand over them, and they really are terribly nice pants. All this is true, by the way. Christopher Biggins then asks if he can try them on. He does, and they look even better on him. That bit was not true.
My, this could be fun…
Next, a Bushtucker trial. It looks a bit dull, so I may just make it all up. Who knows. Who cares, in fact, no one’s out there! Hurrah!
9.18: Jason ‘J’ Brown is doing the trial. He has to stick his his head through a table on which will sit a dome containing some critters or other from the jungle. He can’t see them before he sticks his head in, and if he stays there a for some amount of time, and collects a star with his teeth, he gets the star.
Antandec, after a break are describing how disappointed he was not to have to eat any weird things, any eyeballs or penis or testicles. They giggle at the word penis. And say it four more times for good measure. Penis. Penis! Penis!!!
See, if I can’t get readers, I’ll get google hits from unsavoury internet searchers. I’m not proud.
J’s doing his Bushtucker trial. He’s so far had his eye gouged out by a monitor lizard, swallowed a large poisonous rat, and had some unidentified insect shagging his ear.
None of that is true. It’s all really dull. I mean, I couldn’t do it, but it’s still dull. He sticks his head into an upside down bucket of critters, and then takes it out again. Job’s a good’un.
9.26: Christopher Biggins, in the diary hut, is topless and happy, and rubbing his naked manboobs with pureed jungle bugs. They’re full of vitamins. Some of that is true.
9.29: Everyone’s talking about how happy and wonderful the whole experience is; how much they all love each other; how little they want to leave their new little family. Well that’s very very lovely. But a bit dull. Can we have a little more conflict please, dullards?
9.31: Deep in the jungle, they’re having deep conversations about life regrets and heartbreak. Really open, honest talks about relationships and children and marriage, in quotes which, in approximately four hours time, will be appearing under the banner ‘Cerys talks EXCLUSIVELY to us about love, life, and how she got her heart broken’…
9.33: Suddenly, a gang of terrorists breaks in and holds everyone to ransom! Seriously, we have ten minutes in which to transfer one million dollars and a nuclear warhead into their post office account or they’re going to set their weather machine to ‘BAD!’ This is big news, people. And where are you? Watching the bloody football.
9.37: Advert break. I try once more to move one of the new tiny kittens living in my house off my knee, where he’s proving not the best wrist rest in the world (too high) and sit him somewhere else. Within 5 seconds, he returns. Oh god, here comes the other one. If I start typing complete gibberish, you’ll know why.
Well, and also because I’m bored. Obv.
9.42: “Party like a celebrity with Iceland” I would like statistics to back up that slogan, please.
9.45: Cerys and Gemma do some kind of trial where they have to fill a bucket of water to get a key. They half fill the bucket with water and then fill the rest with rocks. This too is apparently ok.
9.47: Past celebrities who have appeared on IACGMOOH; and other celebrities who have nothing to do with anything - oh, and Holly Hilloughby, hello Holly - talk about how they feel the remaining celebrities are doing.
Quite well, apparently. Thanks for that, celebrities.
9.52: The celebrities do a maths quiz, the prize for which is a chocolate cake. If they lose, Cockroaches will eat the cake. Do cockroaches even like chocolate cake? I thought they ate poo. Perhaps it is poo cake! They joke is on them!
9.55: Janice believes 20% of 60 to be 22. Sadly, this turned out not to be so, and the cockroaches get the cake. They love it. Poo cake!
9.58: Mysteriously, for a reward, Cerys gets given a guitar. She sings a song to the amassed celebrities. It is a nice song, and we get to hear all of it.
Cerys has a new album out. I wonder, could this nice song possibly be on it?
10.00 We’re getting hear all the best bits of the Diary Hut. Most contain celebrities asking for laxitives, prunes, or other stool-related relief.
This is this pinnacle of British entertainment television, people. The national television awards said so.
Can’t I just liveblog my new kittens instead?
10.06: It’s an ad break. Oh look, Phil Collins has a Best Of out. What a big shock. It’s amazing what someone in a gorilla suit can do for your flagging career.
I’m going to film someone liveblogging in a gorilla suit and stick it on the YouTube. You just wait and see how this blog will take off. Next week: TEN comments! No kidding! TEN! Maybe more! Maybe 12!
10.08: All the celebrities are talking about food that they’re craving. Cheap chocolate is much in demand. As is, from Gemma Atkinson: “Have you ever had a pizza with, like, peppers and sausage and mushrooms and something and something …” Oooh, yes, that sounds lovely “…and then covered it with a layer of chips? That’s what I want”
What?! That’s Vile! And she’s tiny! Tiny and wee, with enormous breasts and a tiny waist and … hang on, is that it? Are her breasts full of chips?
10.15: The seventh person to leave the jungle is …
Oh who cares: I’ve had a request to blog my new kittens. Cat and Rabbit, as they are presently called (they were the only two bowls left in the pet shop) are now asleep, after having spent the last hour literally climbing over my head as I type. However one, cat, has chosen to sleep in a very precarious place on my knee, while Rabbit is perched on my shoulder like a parrot, if parrots had claws like tiny razors. This means I cannot move. My right arm is literally going dead as we s’[pea;’k.
Oh, you want to know? It’s Gemma.
This is good. She’s been banging on about wanting to go home for a couple of days, apparently, so this is the British public being kind. Or, perhaps, being bored by the home-whinging, for it is ‘vote to win’ not ‘vote to evict’, after all.
After the break, an interview. AND THEN THIS WILL HAVE FINISHED!
10.22: Gemma arrives in the interview treehouse, says how ready she is to go home. She’s missed being able to phone her mum and tell her everything about what’s been happening. So she’s going to phone her mum and tell her all about it now. Her mum, I’m guessing, hasn’t got a television.
10.24: We see Gemma’s highlights. They are very impressive highlights. Especially in a bikiki. She’s been just a nice, sensible young woman, as far as I can tell. The producers must be very very disappointed in how little she chose to wear that bikini, but Antandec say she’s done very well.
Well done.
10.27: She would like Biggins or J to win.
We would like Biggins to win.
10.28: It’s finished. It was, I thought, a bit flat - and there are only four people out there (and I love you dearly, don’t get me wrong) but just because it was just a bit … I don’t know … flat. Was it just me?
I hope not. The ratings are supposed to be good, so there must be some important magic that I’m missing. I will think on that. Back in a moment to sum up what we’ve learnt.
Post-10.30. So! What have we learnt 1) Gemma Atkinson is a nice young lady - if somewhat underwhelming in the interestingness stakes - who is not as bad at maths as Janice Dickinson is. 2) Her breasts are impressive specimens of the genre, which she refers to as puppies. 3) Putting chips on pizza is apparently a thing. 4) Either Iceland chocolate cake is made of poo, or cockroaches like chocolate. 5) I’m a Celebrity isn’t as fun as we remembered it to be. Or as everyone seems to think it is. Or as kittens. 6) Monitor lizards are quite mean, close up. 7) The word penis is still funny even when you’re closer to 30 than ten.
PENIS!
Thanks and good night. We’ll meet again, don’t know where - though quite possibly here - don’t know when (although maybe next week at a similar kind of time), but I know we’ll meet again some sunny day. All five of you
[Original can be found here]
Hello, good evening, and welcome back to our weekly feature in which we take an hour of UK television, watch it, critique it in real time and then try and work out in what way this piece of programming might have enhanced the lives of the television-watching public, and perhaps the world. We do this up here in this box (hello), and down in the comment box too, with our intelligent, verbose and witty commenters.
Apart from tonight, when I’ll be doing it alone, as everyone has thoroughly foresworn us due to our choice of programming. Yes, from 9-10, I’ll be here, watching and attempting to learn from Streetmate, on ITV2
8.49pm: That’s right, some people aren’t able to get the channel, some people are conscientiously objecting to impact of promiscuity-promotion programming on British television, while most are simply stating their absolute right to rather chew their own remote-holding hands off at the wrist rather than watch Holly Willoughby run around the god-forsaken high street of some drab suburban town trying to get attractive young people to sleep with each other for our entertainment.
But who knows? Perhaps it will be better than that. Come back between nine and ten and we’ll find out. If you’re watching, leave a comment and discuss YOUR findings with the room. Well, me. If you’re watching something else - tell me why I should have been watching that instead. And if you’re coming back later to tell me what a complete waste of space this is/how glad you are to have missed this hour of excrement, then ho-ho-hold on a second there, mi’laddy. Perhaps it was quite good. Read on to find out …
(When there’s something here to read)
9.01: Hello, good evening (’ning, ‘ning, ‘ning, ‘ning) and welcome to Streetmate (’ate, ‘ate, ‘ate, ‘ate). I’m sorry, there seems to be rather an echo in here.
Holly Willoughby is here to save the single people of … Brixton, apparently. She’s going to walk around a corner, find two single people, and find them a big old date! Yes she is! “Trust me” she says, “I’m a presenter!”
Oh yes, because television never lies.
9.03: It’s the funniest thing, she says. When she left her home in London this morning, it was dark and grey and rainy, and now, she’s walking around this street market in Brixton, and it’s suddenly she feels like she’s in Jamaica or something!
Whatchoo trying to say there, Holly? Ah, it’s sunny. Yes, it is.
She goes around asking people what they’re looking for in a partner. She meets some young handsome black men by the tube station. “So!” She squeaks “Have you got some good dance moves for impressing the ladies?!”
Um. Luckily, they happen to be dancers, because that could have been a little bit dodgy otherwise. Maybe.
9.04pm: Holly has picked up an attractive young lady called Beryl! Job done.
Oh, no, Beryl wants to go out with a boy.
9.05pm: Holly Willoughby is dragging Beryl around the streets of Brixton, asking men if they are single. They all say theu are, and then, when they realise this is going to appear on television, they change their minds, ‘fess up, and say they aren’t.
They try another street. No one single. Beryl is dragged behind Holly, looking ever more unsure. They go into the gym, the camera can’t follow them, find a single man who is working out, and says he will call when he is done.
9.06: Four hours later, apparently, and Holly and Beryl are still street-walking, finding no one single At ALL, when they find the working out man. After his four hour work out (seriously, FOUR HOURS?! He must have a neck the size of his chest, and a chest the size of the moon. Is that really attractive?) he is now having coffee. With his girlfriend.
Oh, sorry about that, says Holly to Beryl. That didn’t work out, did it? Good luck!
And then we cut to Holly in a car. She is heading off to Bournemouth. Oh come on! You’re kidding me, no? That was the first segment? Where nothing happened? Whatsoever? That’s the bit that’s supposed to end up on the cutting room floor, no?
9.14: Holly has arrived in Bournemouth and, after a while speaking to a very large, very sunburnt man on the beach about what makes a perfect partner - tender, apparently. With the aftersun lotion, especially.
Here, Holly picks up a deckchair attendant on the beach, finds out he’s actually an extremely posh medical student, and makes off with him. They target one, two, three, four women who turn out to have boyfriends, and one Latvian lesbian. Seriously.
9.19: The attractive young medical student wonders if the Latvian lesbian can be ’swayed from the dark side’. We brush over this, and carry on with the hunt. The hunt for …
Ooh, a young attractive Austrlian, who IS single, but can’t go on a date, some other young women - one of whom is getting married the next morning, another non-single person, another, another. We are 20 minutes into this dating show, in the second location, and haven’t found one single viable person yet. Not one.
9.21: THEY’VE FOUND ONE!
Holly is very exciting, and shouty about that. She’s squeaking. She’s squeaking more than usual. Seeing is she is about 4 inches tall and already quite heavily reminiscent of a doggie toy, vocally, this is quite remarkable. We have turned the sound down a little.
9.25: We learn a little bit more about Ben (the posh medical student is called Ben) and Victoria (I think), they are very aveage, and both like sports; she used to be a tomboy, and as far as I can work out, he’s posh enough to possibly be distantly related to royalty.
Before we go to the break, we visit ‘Streetmate HQ’, where Holly tells us that on their date, the pair are going to go clothes shopping, and then for a meal. Clothes shopping indeed. Clothes shopping?
9.28: Clothes shopping breaks people up. FACT. It is not an activity for a first date. Frankly I wouldn’t go clothes shopping with anyone I hadn’t been going out with for at least - god, I don’t know, I don’t want to be accused of being a bad-tempered crowdopath, but I am - three years?
Is that too much. I just don’t want anyone to see me try and knock a slow-walking shopper off a pavement with a swinging placcy-bag until there’s some sense of commitment there, you know?
9.31pm: They’re shopping. First impressions, they both think the other is ‘all right’. It’s ground breaking stuff. No, it isn’t, but it doesn’t need to be, does it? It’s a simple dating show for simple brain-chewing entertainment. I think. I hope it doesn’t want to be anything else…
She keeps pulling up her boob tube. “Sorry, I keep having to pull up my top” “You keep touching your breasts!” He says “No I don’t!” she says. “Why not?!” quoth he.
Ah, the young men of today. They are charmers.
9.34: Now out at dinner, they’re ordering champagne, wine, no food I can see as yet, just lots and lots and lots of drinking.
You know, I was reading something today about some semilebrity who was being hooked into some channel to try binge drinking for a month and see how it affects her. You know, I’m not sure they need to. This is pretty much doing the job. They’re both getting a bit drunk and a bit lairy, and it’s not especially attractive.
9.37pm: Several weeks later, and Holly is catching up with Ben. Ben had a very good time on the date. She phones Victoria, who he hasn’t heard from since. Ah, she’s been on holiday. Brilliant. She regrets drinking too much - yes, yes, we always regret too late, my love, you will learn in time - and had a nice time, and yeah, they might see each other again, but there’s nothing sure, and …
Oh, she’s off to Dublin. Here we go again.
9.41: Holly can’t even find a single person to drag around with her in Dublin. We see her ask one, two, three, four, five, six, oh, hang on, here’s a possible, no, forget I said anything, seven, eight, nine …
SCORE! She’s found a single trainee music producer named James! He appears to be a local boy, and she manages not to ask him if he can do Irish dancing, which is at least better than she manages with at least a couple of others. So the Irish can dance too, Holly? Excellent work there, young lady. No one in Bournemouth was asked if they could dance, please note.
We go to a break, now that shy James has been talked into going on a date. Or rather, possibly, into walking around Dublin failing to find anyone single, as we all know can happen.
9.47: This show is apparently - just reading the press information thing - part sponsored by a dating site with the same name. How does that work. How do you carry this ethos through into internet dating. Is that like a flash mob type scenario where they name a particular street and then they all just go and hang around that street and try and pull?
They have spotted someone! Actually, James knows her and went to school with her. Surely that’s cheating, but Holly runs after her anyway. She has just been through a bad break up, and doesn’t want to go on a date.
We reject people as we walk. Not that one. Not that one. Not that one. Oh for the love of Cilla get on with it.
9.51: They’ve found one!!! There’s only a few minutes left of the show. How’s this going to work?
9.52: We find out some more about James and Jane. James is a hopeless romantic who simply loves music. Jane … is … not very obvious in this segment.
Ah. Sad music. A producer arrives at James’ house and is filmed telling him that, bad news, after they finished filming Jane decided she didn’t really want to do it after all.
But does he want to go out on the street anyway?
He does! But hang on, he’s telling his friends, we’re going out on the street to find another girl … but they have to do it without Holly.
9.55pm: Wow. Holly’s narrating the segment ‘back at Streetmate HQ’. IE: weeks later. Seriously, the filming schedule is THAT short on time and budget that they couldn’t hang around 12 hours longer? Wow.
The boys are running around the streets trying to find another girl and they’re asking people and they’re looking for people, and they’re approaching people … they fail.
So they all go out on the town and get pissed instead. Paid for by the production company, I imagine.
James snogs some girl drunkenly in a club, we hear little more about it.
9.57: AND THAT’S BLOODY IT.
Three towns, one hour, and out of that came one date that kind of turned out alright but not really that well.
Back in a second to round up what we’ve learnt from this hour of British television programming.
So. What have we learnt? 1) Holly Willoughby, model/television presenter is very cute and bouncy, and squeaks quite a lot. Those same adjectives can be applied to many things, but I feel it would be unsisterly for me to point out which things those might be. 2) If you’re working with a small budget and a tight shooting schedule, it might just be worth stretching both of these things a little in order to avoid ending up with a ‘Dating Show = FAIL’ situation. 3) Anyone regretting they do not have freeview/cable/a dish should not, for this hour, have regretted that. They are fine just the way they are. 4) There is clearly a gap in the market for some youthful date-based television, but does this really service that market? Particularly with the whole lack-of-actual-dating vibe they have going on. 5) Going clothes shopping is not a date, and any television that suggests it should be is peddling disinformation and should be banned. 6) Seriously. That was terrible.
Join us next week for something that’s a) On terrestrial and b) Not This Show.
Thank you, and good night
[Original can be found here]
Because that’s the entire point of I’m A Celebrity, isn’t it? Especially as perennial OG favourite Katie Hopkins has hit the jungle. Or so I hear.
We’ll be here Watching This from 9-10, to find out just what happens when a group of people meet another group of people in the jungle and they do stuff and there are cameras there. I don’t know about you, but I’m on the edge of my seat!
8.45: So what’s been happening. Seriously, 20-word summary, anyone? I’ve been out of the country. I have some tabloids, and a list of names, but that’s about the sum of all my knowledge. No wonder my mother’s so proud.
I hear that Cerys WhatUsedToBeInCatatonia is lovely, Janice Dickinson is the new David Gest (perhaps quite literally, thanks to some revolutionary journeys into new plastic surgery techniques), and …. that’s about it. Anything else I should know?
8.52: So, ten celebrities, and one missing Malcolm McClaren - who flew an enormous amount of miles in order to change his mind - and no Christopher Biggins, who everyone was expecting, but who clearly suddenly remembered that it was pantomime season and that that’s all he ever does. Ever. But we do have Katie Hopkins. And I have to say, I love the culture of people being able to qualify for a celebrity reality show on the basis that they became a celebrity for being on a non-celebrity reality show, before which they were just like, you know, real people … oh, it’s almost on.
8.58: First, of course, the Marks and Spencers Christmas advert, to whole series of which are enormous fun if only you turn them into world’s shortest drinking games - 1 shot every time Erin O’Connor makes a face like a smug parakeet, and 2 every time Noemie Lenoir loses her outerwear. Any extra rules are welcome - if perhaps physically inadvisable.
9.01: “I’m A Celebrity Get Me Out Of Heeeeeeeeere!!!” shout two cheeky chappies on a rope bridge - a feat that might, I feel be easily achieved with a box of matches. Or some really good nail scissors.
“I’d do anything for a coffee” says someone who used to be in a boyband. “Would you have sex with a wombat?” Says someone who used to be a model. “If I had a condom. And I knew I wasn’t going to get done for animal cruelty, probably, yeah” He says.
Well. Isn’t that reassuring?
9.07: The trial is announced for this evening - tomorrow? How does this work? Seriously, I’ve not seen this before, how does it work? Whatever - new trial will be ‘Grave Danger’ in which someone (but not Janice, not again, as she’s already done it too many times - sorry, as she has been ruled out by ‘the medics’)(You know, the ones who backed up the ‘Doctor’ for Spirit In The Sky) So you can vote for lots of other people, and they’ll have to do it instead.
9.08: In other exciting news, the two camps have, just over an hour ago, been merged into one - and we’ll see that later.
9.11: I now understand, as we are now watching a trial that has already happened. It’s Janice Dickenson - who doesn’t seem to have seen this programme either - versus John Burton Race. And hurrah! It’s an eating trial. Surely all other trials are pretend.
There are some complex rules about a little choo-choo train carrying plates. The person who meets the train first can turn down the thing that it brings on the first carriage, but then they have to eat the thing on the end carriage, which they can’t see before decided because - I’m not really making this much clearer, I feel.
Whatever the rules, Janice doesn’t seem to have much of an idea what might be going to happen. She is unprepared when it is suggested that she might be having to eat unsavoury critters, and unhappy when an actual critter - locust, we think - appears around the bend. She turns it down, and is presented with a cockroach instead.
“No no, I can’t eat that either”, she says.
Yes, Jay-Jay, that’s the point, sweetheart. That’s why we’re watching. Isn’t it?
9.20: John is presented with crocodile eyes, Janice with fish eyes. She says ‘No, I can’t eat that’.
John eats his Crocodile eyes, and reports that they are salty.
9.22: There is a crocodile penis in front of Janice Dickinson. “No”, she says. And is consequently presented with a fish gut. “I can’t eat that!” she says. But then does.
Come on, girl. Get it down you.
John, meanwhile, eats the crocodile penis. Janice calls him gay. This does not make sense. Do you even get gay crocodiles?
9.24: John, a chef, eats everything. Meanwhile, Janice is presented with some silk worms. “Oh no”, she says “Oh nononono”. Apparently she can’t eat that. Who knew?
9.27: Janice returns to the camp, and disappoints everyone. She will not be feeding them today. Can she not just bring back all the things she refuses to eat? They could have eaten like kings! The king of the anteaters, perhaps.
9.30: They’ve just the news - yesterday, this must be - that the two camps are to merge. They all get Very Animated and Very Angry about this. “I can’t believe it, those snakes are going to be slithering in here…”, “I’m going to go over there and give them hell”, “All those people I don’t like”, “This is the worst thing that’s ever happened to me” - how long have they been in there, again? Two days, right? Because I’ve only missed two episodes, correct? They haven’t actually been living together for the last twenty years, then?
9.35: Back to the advert break, and Jason Donovan and Kerry Katona hungry for something that looks like frozen sausage roll, but is probably some kind of frozen roll-of-pigbums and otherwise unusable donkeycock, and turkey nostrils, all minced and reconstituted in to a sausage shape. Not in a Bushtucker Trial kind of way. Just in a cheap frozen food kind of way.
It’s funny to see Jason Donovan again, or rather not that funny, as he seems to be everywhere right now. Generally wanting to tell the world about how great his kids are and how much he likes them. Which is all lovely and that, I’m just not that sure why he’s so desperate for me to know it. Has someone been making naughty allegations, again?
Another trial.
10.41: Cerys Matthews up against someone who used to be in a boy band. They have to hit pinatas and get keys and unlock a box and then they win. Cerys proves everything that I have been reading - in that she’s lovely. Really actually apparently properly lovely.
Meanwhile, there is nothing interesting about Katie, of course. She’s very quiet, she’s looking overawed, all these things - because when it comes to being an edited character in a reality show full of real people put in challenging situations, it’s possibly possible to appear to be a bigger ‘personality’ that you really are. So, you know, Katie Hopkins going in there not a bad idea per se - just would have been better if they could have put some of the editors employed by the Apprentice in there with her.
Someone called Lynn is having a go at Katie for her Sandhurstness. Katie nods and smiles. Then goes into the diary hut and says that Lynn shoudln’t talk about femininity because she is a bit fat. Ooooh, brave AND classy!
9.51: Another ad break, another showing of that Boots one where the men all go to their Christmas party and the ‘girls’ all seem to spend 4 hours getting made up. Seriously, who does that? All the good nibbles are gone, and there’s barely any room left on the bar tab. I never do that. That’ll be me, over in the corner, more drunk and looking a bit scruffy, then. What?
9.53: The ‘Croc Creek’ team settle down to their feast, while the others, the ‘Snakes’, go to bed on an empty stomach (an empty stomach full of beans).
Mark who used to be in Eastenders is so happy to have food - it’s a Roast Suckling Pig - that he’s basically just sitting in front of his plate rocking back and forth and making ecstatic groans.
We seem him in the diary room, later “Ah, it was just, like, Oh, it was just, you know, I saw his little face, and I just bless his mother for giving birth to him; and I just want to thank all the pigs in the world…”
Which I will be using in my acceptance speech for something, one day.
9.56: The two camps are becoming one. Lots of people talk. You can hear Mark who used to be on Eastenders telling someone about his meal “And there were, like, carrots, and other vegetables”. Bless.
9.58: Ant and Dec go into the ‘Jungle’ to the now-joined camp to tell them who will be facing the next Bushtucker Trial thing. Although all the ones up till now have been head-to-head trials, there’s now no point in that, as only one camp.
So only one can be chosen. And … on the first day she can be chosen for a trial (?) it is, of course, Katie. As the other celebrities try and give her a moment to have a final soundbite before they cut to VT by hushing each other, she proves hr inexperience once more, poor lamb.
When she should have been saying something like “The public want me in there already? They’re FIRED!” or something witty and clever like that, she simply turns to someone who was talking previously, ignoring the television thing entirely, and says “Sorry, carry on, what were you saying?”
Sigh.
Still, it’s Katie Hopkins, ex of the Apprentice, several other jobs, and a goodly nimber of people, who will face a live trial tomorrow night at 10. Will you? Will we? I’m not sure. Watch this space.
So, What have we learnt from this hour of British terrestrial television that could benefit programme-makers and perhaps society in general?
Um…
Well, that a) some people don’t like the idea of eating bugs. And b) Crocodile eyes are salty. And 2) That just because television has made you a personality, it doesn’t necessarily mean you have the personality to be a television personality.
Or something.
Thanks, and goodnight. We’ll be back again soon. Perhaps very soon.
[Original can be found here]
[another edition of The TV Club]
Hello and welcome to the fourth in our weekly live-review slots. Each week, we critically live-blog whatever happens to be on television on a given day, seeking to commune with the medium by watching it, describing it in mildly disparaging tones, and hoping that this, in some small way, will stick it to The Man, and the quality of television will, where needs be, naturally improve as a direct result.
I’m Anna Pickard, and with Janine Gibson tonight we’ll be live-blogging the National Television Awards on ITV, to find out what important things the Overlords of British Culture can teach us this evening through the medium of the jabbering tellybox in the corner.
8.15: So yes. I, Anna Pickard will be with you for the first half of the ceremony. A ceremony where they haven’t wanted to do anything as judgemental as ascribe the word ‘Best’ to any category - for where there is a best, I suppose, there must also be a worst.
And I’m sure that the big people in television would refute the fact that there could be a ‘worst’ in British television at all. They clearly haven’t seen Food Poker yet.
So instead of the ‘Best’ things, I think we are to be presented with the ‘Most Popular’ things. And we all know what a true purveyor of quality THAT is.
8.18: Sorry, I should have pointed out that when I said ‘with the stars’ I meant ‘the famous people on telly’. Not ‘Me and Janine’.
So why are we here? To reel off the answers? To presume to know better than the deciders of what is ‘popular’? No. The great British public are many things, but they can’t be derided for being wrong, in this case. They may not know much about art, but they know what they like.
So we’re here to comment on the quality of the television programme itself. How does this slice of television reflect on the greater nature of television? When television turns the lens upon itself, what does television see? When television meets television casually in the bathroom at a television awards ceremony ON the television, what does television say? How many times can I use the word television in this paragraph before it stops making sense to me? About eight less than I have, I think.
8.30pm: God, there’s no such things as punctuality on ITV, is there? Where is this show? Here I am, sitting in the dark, typing silently and hiding from the knock-and-mug teenagers hammering on my door, and it’s not even on yet. Instead, it’s a trail for Trinny and Susannah.
No good. Ooh, here it is.
8.33: (tut) “It’s starting! The show that you’ve been talking about all day!” … Bloody liars. No I haven’t … “A host of glittering stars have gathered at the Royal Albert Hall” (yep, there’s Martine McCutcheon) “for Sir Trevor McDonald to present …”
Yes, yes, the National Television Awards.
8.36: It’s all completely live, apparently, so if the Queen looks like she’s walking out in a huff, jokes Trevor, she really is!
Well I say ‘jokes Trevor’. Deadpans. Or ‘Trevor says, a bit like a newsreader would’.
Most popular reality show, first, introduced by Kelly Brook and some dancing man.
8.39: And the nominees are:
I’m A Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here
Big Brother Shipwrecked: Battle of the Islands
The Apprentice
See, I was wondering how they were going to fill this whole two hour slot with so few nominations, but now I realise. All the clips are about three hours long.
And the winner is … I’m a Celebrity.
Really? Oh. I’m a Celebrity is the most popular reality show of the year. There we are. Not the Apprentice. Booooo. Well, The British public are clearly wrong. NEXT!
8.44: Most popular actress in a Drama? No, just Most popular Actress.
And, in a move that may set Gay Children’s rights back twenty years, the award for being the best actress is being presented by camp young character from Ugly Betty. Justin. I can’t spell his correct name without looking it up. No time.
“Oooh! He says! I had not idea how dressed up I should get. I didn’t know how smart you Britain would be!”
Bless him. Can someone page the on-set educator for Ugly Betty, please?
Nominees:
Freema Agyeman
Lacey Turner
Kara Tointon
Sue Cleaver
And I’ve kind of not heard of one of those. Possibly two. Until yesterday, three. The winner is …
One of those! Oh! It’s Stacey from ‘Stenders! She’s getting married tomorrow. Or IS she?…
Adverts: I swear if I see this Katie Melua advert one more time, I’m going to go out on to the streets and brain someone. That’s allowed, right? Halloween? I’m allowed to brain anyone I like, as long as I say ‘Trick or Treat’ first?
What I’m hoping for, of course, is at least one showing of the RSPCA campaign voiced by Simon Cowell. I mean, I know he loves animals and he means it deep down, but getting the most sarcastically-voiced man to try and sound sincere about dogs being used as ashtrays is frankly the most hilarious thing ‘I’ve seen In Ages’. Really. I have it permanently open on my screen for when I want a giggle. That’s not wrong, is it? Oh, we’re back.
8.55:
Best factual: No, hang on, I just saw the list, not ‘best factual’. ‘Most popular’ Most Popular Factual Programme:
Gordon Ramsay’s F Word
The Jeremy Kyle Show
This Morning
Top Gear
And, knowing what we know about television this year, I should have probably put some quote marks around ‘factual’, too. I’m racking my brain and can think of at least eight great documentaries I’ve seen this year…
…I’m currently watching Janet Street Porter throwing plates at Gordon Ramsay while swearing. The award goes to … Top gear
Top Gear is most popular factual programme in the UK. And people will whoop like tickled morons whoever wins, and however famous the whoopers are.
8.58: To cover their bottoms, ITV explains how this all came to pass. There was some kind of national poll (of how many? And whom?) and then you could vote online, or by post.
Apart from the newest category, ‘Most Popular Talent Show’, whose eventual winner will be decided by a phone vote tonight.
Nominees:
Any Dream Will Do
Britain’s Got Talent
Dancing On Ice
Strictly Come Dancing
The X Factor
I’m not sure whether I should be making guesses at this point, but I’d go for ‘Any Dream Will Do’, their fans are, to use one word, ‘excitable’.
9.04: Most popular Newcomer otherwise known as ‘Top of the People I’ve Never Heard Of’:
Gemma Merna
Kym Ryder
Joseph Gilgun
Jo Joyner
I remember this category from the voting forms (because I did vote, because women died for my right to do so) and, because you couldn’t skip a category, I just voted for the one with the funniest name.
Oh, she didn’t win. It’s Kym Ryder! Oh wait, now I see her, I realise I have heard of her! She was in that thing with those people in that show with those things in it! Another ad break. Yay!
9.21: Come Ooonnn! Adverts - one of those badly dubbed deoderant ones. Which is good, because there’s still a faintly bad smell in the air from the nomination of Jeremy Kyle for best factual. Peh.
HANG on. The sound of ‘It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas’ is suddenly assaulting my senses. Oh come on, Argos. Please, wait at LEAST until, I don’t know, November has actually started? Please? Though it has reminded me to do all my shopping online this year. Not at Argos though. Just for that. Oh! There’s someone knocking at the door! Turn the sound down!
9.12pm: Best piece of script from Sir Trevor this evening: “I like nothing better than to come home to a small box in the corner whose contents can transport me to another galaxy. Or, sometimes, the local police station. But sometimes I don’t touch the drinks cabinet, and just watch television instead.”
Brilliantly, his delivery is such that this moves past deadpan, into first confession of the ITV newsroom AA meeting.
9.15: Nominees for Most Popular Drama:
Doctor Who
Life On Mars
Shameless
The Bill
Well, I’m betting it’s one of two. And simultaneously wondering how The Bill got in there.
Oh dear, they’re showing that dreadful Messianic clip from the last episode of Who. I hated that bit. Where they’re all chanting ‘Doctor, Doctor, Doctor’, praying his name and asking that he save the world. Not good.
A better clip from Life on Mars, all filmed in their patented ‘ALWAYS FILM POINTING UPWARDS’ technique that saved them so much on sets “Just stand next to a brick wall, or a chimney, in flares. Drive an old car past! BAM! it’s the seventies!’
Who wins? Doctor Who, obv. It was mainly an internet vote you know.
9.20: David Tennant has just wished that he and Freema had time to individually kiss each and every one of the audience/the voters/the watching public.
*Sigh*
Oh, it’s Sharon Osbourne, presenting Most Popular Entertainment presenter. Now, if we can only get her to stay on stage for the whole segment, we’ll be on to a winner. Nominees: Ant & Dec (who are, as ever, one person) Fern Britton (also one person, who has perhaps eaten another person)(like I can talk) Graham Norton (One person who has enough love in him for all the other people in the world) Jonathan Ross (One and a half people, counting height and hair, but being paid the wages of forty-seven cheaper people) Paul O’Grady (Half a person, having left the female one far behind. Yonks ago)
And the winner is: Ant and Dec
Well that’s just bad grammar. They can’t pick up their award, because they’re in LA, working. Which is funny, because Dean Gaffney informed us that they couldn’t pick up the award because they were in Australia. I smell Faking! FAKING!
Aw, aren’t they nice, bless’em.
9.28: It’s Simon Cowell, accepting the award. The flattest voice in television. But he REALLY hates dogs being used as ashtrays, you know. Hates it. Oh! It’s the adverts, and I’m off, ta ra …
UNTIL….
10.40-and-a-bit Hello, Anna back again for the customary What have we learnt summary of this evening’s enlightening spell of British television, which, as you can see, Janine has more than ably covered above. So … Um …
What have I learnt? Well, I’ve learnt A) That the British people stand firm on many things. The Euro. Rice Pudding. Distaste for dogs being used as ashtrays. And Ant and Dec being lovable cheeky chappies no matter WHAT reprehensible audience shaking-down they preside over. B) I’ve learnt that I like the delivery of Sir Trevor McDonald, but cannot cope with Funny Trevor. I admit that he maybe as funny as kingdom come As A Person, but put him in front of an audience and the delivery goes all newsreaderlike and I just can’t hear the jokes. I can just hear Really Odd News. C) Jeremy Clarkson is, apparently, a deity. D) The word ‘Soap’ is gauche. We must now use ‘Dramatic Serial (with slightly wooden acting, cardboard sets and utterly outlandish visions of social interaction)’ because it is more PC.
On a personal level, I’ve learnt that students act like pillocks on All Hallows Eve, that the iPhone is a lot less overhyped than I may previously have thought, and, presently, I’m learning that this Friday’s episode of ‘The Green Green Grass’ should have been put down at birth. Or used as an ashtray.
And on that, thank you, on behalf of myself and of Janine (again), and goodnight. And see you next … Wednesday?
[The original (and the rest of it) can be found here]
You are currently browsing the annapickard.co.uk archives for the 'Minute by minute reports' category.