Has the world gone mad?
Somewhere during the last rush of redecoration and home improvement shows, did we actually reach the point where watching paint dry is the type of excitement TV companies aspire to? And if not, why is the only thing conceivably duller going to be hitting our screens this Friday? (more…)
Broadsheet readers may have missed the tabloid excitement this week about the late Diana, Princess of Wales. The hook is this: another one of Diana’s confidantes has written her personal memoirs of the princess, and the Sun has milked every (almost) salacious drop. For those who may have been feeling a little left out, this is what you’ve missed… (more…)
Richard Whiteley has died, and I am sad.
As a child, I would quite often be ill - or at least pretend to be ill - and it always happened that the moment I could convince my mother that, crazy with boredom, I was well enough to lie on the sofa would mysteriously coincide with the beginning of Countdown on Channel 4. (more…)
The Glastonbury festival is upon us, and 150,000 people around the country are watching weather reports with an intensity usually reserved for the rolling of the umpteenth late-night joint or the solemn playing of a seminal album. Weather forecasts, far from being simply “that bit at the end of the news”, have become vitally important. (more…)
Isn’t it typical? You wait for one reality show comprised entirely of programme-makers carefully manipulating honed blocks of plastic in an attempt to make them lie on top of each other for the entertainment of the British television-watching public, and then two come along at once.
But while Stonehenge - Live is just beginning, Celebrity Love Island, having bumped along for approximately 900 years, is finally grinding its way to a climax live on air. An event I’ll bet the producers wished had happened slightly more often. (more…)