Amazing Greys with their hammer of comeuppance

 Do you know what's cracking good fun? Laughing at other people and TV show creators just know it.
Many modern entertainment programmes are based exactly on that premise, making us all feel better about ourselves as we sit watching TV every night getting slowly older, balder and full of aches which must be nothing...not worth bothering the doctor about surely.
The Only Way Is Essex? Ha, they lack primary school level syntax. Deal Or No Deal? Chortle, some people think chanting will change what they will find in a box. The Jeremy Kyle Show? Well, you get the picture.
Laughing at social groups or 'show title first, show format second'. That's the secret to TV success. I know the rules, but just don't want to exploit them to my own ends...
Amazing Greys (ho, ho) fits both of those categories - a pun title and the mild titillating thrill that you'll get to laugh at a segment of the social strata - this time the older generation.
The premise of the show is a strapping young person, cocksure and fancy-free, strides on to Ant and Dec's Saturday Night Takeaway stage (decorated slightly differently) to take on a series of challenges where he or she will take on a person who experienced food rationing, the Suez Crisis and men always wearing great hats.
Said young person is seemingly encouraged to make a series of thrusting pronouncements the jist of which he will beat someone who has 50 years on him/her at any game - making them look less confident and more of a bullying 'banter-saurus'.
The show sets you up to think the young person will sweep all before them and take home £10,000. I mean, look at the opposition. Take a good, long look at them. They're old! They like slippers and read the Daily Express and wear fantastically ironed trousers.
But, wait, hold the phone, all is not as it would seem. This older generation are all experts in their fields (like a 1940s-born version of Eggheads but far less annoying). They make amusing cracks and jokes. Some of them aren't even grey!
And lo! More often than not they wipe the floor with their opponents and it is wonderfully life-affirming.
Not the fact older people are showing off mad skillz, bur rather arrogant Take Me Out-standard knobheads usually getting their comeuppance handed to them from someone three times their age.
They even get the chance to be given a 'headstart' in one of the games and get gimme questions about Katy Perry or TOWIE and still they fail.
Ha ha, screw you young people with your sexual promiscuity and your haircuts and your Daily Star and your skinny jeans - you got beaten by people with decades of experience in their field, a field you presumably have very little experience in. Ha ha! Oh.

The Voice vs BGT

Say what you like about the state of the British tabloid newspaper and what ‘it’ regards as ‘news’ currently but it doesn’t pick a front page story if it isn’t going to engross a potential reader into picking up the paper and then parting with some change to read said story.

And lo, it came to past yesterday that a dispute between a middle-aged man, a septuagenarian man, a woman that says “beautiful” a lot and two TV shows and TV channels was splashed across the front page of the Daily Mirror as the “battle of primetime, Saturday talent shows” started to warm up.

This is the TV equivalent of Blur vs Oasis back in 1995 with Amanda Holden launching a “death slur” at Sir Tom Jones (“death slur” certainly being an out of proportion description), Jones biting back about the essential purity of his show and Cowell sitting back ala Sir Alex Ferguson, pulling the strings and making his puppety rivals, and indeed his own puppety people, do exactly what he wants them to do; generate some 'buzz'.

But here’s the thing, ITV and Cowell are obviously rattled by the BBC’s challenger for two reasons. Firstly, Cowell sat out Britain’s Got Talent last year in what was widely perceived to be a failure of a series but whose launch still got more peak viewers than last night's party starter. You don’t return from the USA to bolster a show that was still pulling in the viewers if there isn’t an exterior challenge to your superiority.

Secondly, Britain’s Got Talent historically began towards the end of April, reaching a overblown conclusion as May drew to a close. This time around, it began on exactly the same day as The Voice was launched, presumably in  a bid to nullify the effect of the latter reaching its final stages when the former begins in earnest. It’s all about viewer numbers of course.

But, well, actually, it isn’t now, what with on-demand services and Sky+. The figures may show that Britain’s Got Talent had a higher peak audience and that The Voice had more viewers in the 20-minute slot in which both shows were being broadcast but all of that is neither here nor there as, in the world of Sky+ and on-demand, people can and will watch both shows. 

There is no real winner here. Britain’s Got Talent will inevitably get a higher peak viewing figure as it’s in the optimum slot where people are not eating dinner, the kids are still awake, people on a night out are still at home and so on.

The Voice probably got that 20-minute slot of dominance as viewers wanted to watch the end of it whilst Sky+-ing through the adverts of Britain’s Got Talent to catch up. One wonders whether advertisers will continue to pay extortionate fees to advertise on Britain’s Got Talent if so many viewers of both shows (4 million or so with some basic maths and assumptions using these figures) can Sky+ through the adverts to catch up with the broadcast (hence the peak five-minute slot being around 9pm) or go on-demand, but that’s another story.

The really interesting part to come out of last night is just how different two things that are essentially the same can be.

The Voice has made a big song and dance out of its format of the ‘coaches’ (like judges but not) not being able to see the contestant and so judging them solely on their voice (an admittedly ingeniously simple idea in marketing and pitching terms). This concept of it as a ‘nice’ alternative to Britain’s Got Talent´ is continued as very few acts are sent home and even the ones that are packed off are lavishly complimented on their talent and given a handshake from will.I.am for their troubles. Perhaps the only nasty thing about it is the logo which occasionally gets spun around over the visuals, inferring a solid “up yours” directed at Cowell in the most ostentatious attempt at subtlety ever and the balls-out lying about there being no sob-stories. There was. Lots.

On the other end of the scale, Britain’s Got Talent powers on over the seas of ordinary people’s dreams, captained by the Dark Lord Cowell, crushing the hopes of people all around the country with said people giving up their time voluntarily for the privilege. Even the good ones are ridiculed for their looks before they display their depths of talent (note Jonathan the operatic singer last night), showing how Black Mirror wasn’t a dystopian parody but actually a documentary about contemporary life (to paraphrase a Daily Mail line about 1984). But hey, come on, we don’t always like ourselves for it but we come back every week as it crushing a soul underneath a size-9 does make some good TV. Michael McIntyre was just too nice and we can’t be having that so back came Cowell and in came David Walliams who does a good line in bastardry beneath the cheeky exterior.

In many ways the two shows complement each other perfectly and in whichever order one watches them (Sky+ again) can probably provide you with an insight into what kind of person you are. If you watch The Voice first, you need the dream destroying aspect of Britain’s Got Talent to get over all of the faux-niceties of the former. Meanwhile, observing them vice versa provides you with a nice fluffy detox.  It’s all up to you.

The Anti-Social Network @9pm, Monday, BBC3- 8 out of 10

And so once again I return to a favourite reviewing ground of mine; the BBC3 documentary at 9pm on a Monday evening. Great to be back.

So, let’s run The Anti-Social Network stacks up against my BBC3 documentary checklist (patent pending). Celebrity presenter? Check. Fellow celebrity guests? Yup. Real life people like you or I interviewed? That’s there too. Content aimed at a young adult audience? Oh yeah.

Formula stuck to but that isn’t much of a problem. These days BBC3’s documentary making style has come on leaps and bounds since the bottom-of-the-barrel-scraping that was Hotter than my daughter. Hardcore issues are tackled and brought to a wider audience.

The celebrity in question hosting this show is Richard Bacon who, I’m not saying it to kiss arse, is a talented broadcaster from the hard broadcasting of Five Live in the afternoon to the slightly less hard broadcasting of...ummmm... “Richard Bacon’s Beer and Pizza club” on ITV4.

Everyone in the entire country now knows what trolling is as its no longer a phenomenon stuck to the Internet. It’s all over the national newspapers, including the Daily Mail and Daily Telegraph which means old people now know what it is now and have something else to fear.

As the show explains a concept we all already know, there are two types of trolling. The first is random, usually anonymous abuse toward both celebrities and regular people over the Internet. This consists of largely mindless drivel but also real threats, all delivered from safely behind a monitor.

Most of us who post creative items on the Internet (whether as a writer or artist or whatever) have been there; this blog has a couple and another blog I write for takes on loads of awful, terrible, lame attempts at trolling. Easier enough to deal with but rather unpleasant to deal with.

However, other trolling of this type is seriously vindictive and includes abuse aimed at Bacon, his wife and his son. Elsewhere, it led to a 15 year-old boy hanging himself due to online abuse.

The other type is just as harrowing and involves tribute pages to young people who have tragically died being hijacked and causing distress to family and friends.

The documentary itself is, in a similar way to Britain’s Gay Footballers, the issues covered are largely common knowledge but greater exposure to the issue is always welcome, particularly when it’s done well.

And done well it is, aside from the frequent intermittent footage of iPad and Mac use (Apple had better of paid for this product placement) and Bacon on his phone to show off some modern technology to appeal to we yoof. Largely, the public infomercial element of the show isn’t too overbearing as to make it unbearable.

There are some fascinating insights into the murky world of trolling where there is something of an arms race between trollers and the law going on. As the former take over innocent people’s accounts, creating fake accounts, covering their tracks and so on, the police struggle to catch up with them. They’re success is obvious as only two trollers have ever been arrested under the 2003 Communications Act.

There is also the awesome sounding passion of troll hunting, such as a man by the (fake) name of “Michael Fitzpatrick” who tracks down trolls but fears for his safety as a result. The almost military planning that goes into trolling tribute pages for children Fitzpatrick outlined was particularly disturbing.

Bacon accuses suspected trollers but when they are confronted they do pretty much what they expect you to do; deny, deny, deny. Obviously it’s easier to be assertive and in your face when sat at a keyboard and not in person. Either they deny or their strange justification from trolling that largely a sympathetic comment from a random person on a tribute page isn’t right so needs readdressing. Twisted logic thy name is the Internet.

Three positives and three negatives from the new series of 10 O'Clock Live

We’re now four episodes into the new, streamlined version of last year’s hugely trumpeted, all-star casted 10 O’clock Live so now is probably a good time to see what’s been good so far this series and what could do with some improvement.

The Pluses

1. Streaming down to 45 minutes worth of content

The first series weighed in at only 10 minutes longer per episode than this series but the slim down has done 10 O’clock Live the world of good for three main reasons.

Firstly, the over-reliance on David Mitchell for both serious interviewing and humour has been reduced now that he anchors just the one leg of the show, instead of his previous three. Although this meant cutting the usually amusing “Listen to Mitchell” segment, it does allow a stronger debate with the experts section and means he can contribute to the roundtable discussions more (more on that later).

Secondly, as a result of the loss of “Listen to Mitchell”, Charlie Brooker now has the sole ‘ranty’ section of the show and with good reason to as it’s what he does best. Dropping his to-camera, fast-as-a-bullet-but-still-eloquent rants from two to one an episode has allowed him to refine his piece and the show is not overloaded with to-camera shouty-ness.

And thirdly, 55 minutes of live, largely unscripted television is a difficult enough task for long running programmes, let alone a new kid on the block. As such, the show felt overextended with not enough content spread too thin. Whilst the reduction in running time has meant certain positive elements of the programme have had to be cut, it is to the benefit of the show as a whole.

2. Increased frequency of group, roundtable discussions

Along with the reduction in running time, using a roundtable discussion (technically a square-table discussion I guess) to bookend each segment of the show before the ad breaks has given greater structure to 10 O’clock Live, helped bridge the gap between the political and the humour aspects of the show and given the presenters greater scope to showcase some rapport and eliminate any lingering clunkiness from the first series.

3. Better usage of Lauren Laverne

As the only presenter with real experience of how live broadcasting works, Laverne was given the role of leading the show in the first series of 10 O’clock Live and she has, rightly, been given even more responsibility this time around, being charged with leading the discussions and steering the show in the right directions.

Whilst her pieces aren’t quite as humorous as the other presenters (naturally, as she is a broadcaster by trade rather than a humorist) and she sometimes struggles to keep the discussions on the straight and narrow (in fairness, God’s own job with three men trying to out-humour each other), her role in the programme is the most important of all the presenters and she has risen to the challenge.

The Minuses

1. Questionable usage of Carr

The first series of 10 O’clock Live had a clear role for Carr which consisted of; get the show off to a flier with some near-the-knuckle topical jokes at the start and interview someone newsworthy that week (a skill which he proved surprisingly adept at). Towards the end of the first series, a strange, weekly attempt at putting Carr into a sketch came into place, an element of the show I was hoping would be quietly dropped seeing as Carr is a comedian and presenter, not a comic actor.

However, this second series, his interviews have been abandoned to be replaced solely by these weekly sketches which, if last night’s was anything to go by, are getting worse; even worse than that ill-conceived Vladimir Putin impersonation in the first episode, somehow.

Better use of Carr’s talents should be made. The ambiguity of his political leanings should be made better use of in an otherwise very left-leaning presenter line-up.

2. Equalling out the humour/politics ratio

Perhaps the biggest challenge still facing the show is consistently keeping a balance between the humour and political aspects that the programme wants to get across.

By vacating the Thursday 10pm slot, Channel 4 has rightly pulled 10 O’clock Live out of the firing line of juggernaut Question Time and so might be able to gain some politically-minded viewers from the rescheduling.

However, segments like the Putin sketch feel a bit too lightweight (almost patronising) for a show aiming to attract a more political audience, if indeed, that is the aim.

3. Continued issues around the live aspect of the show

Whilst this is less of an issue than in the first series, where the presenters lack of experience on live TV (despite their Alternative Election Night together) was clear to see, there still remains some slip-ups, whether it be with slight fluffing of lines or presenters appearing in the background of someone else’s piece.

But this might be something of a harsh criticism as it is live TV and there never will be a 100% gaffe-free live TV show as we’re all humans and we make mistakes. That’s why they put editing suites at TV studios…

Blast from the past; pain with your cereal

Growing up around the dawn of the age of widespread satellite TV had many benefits; not having to go outside and the sacred ten minute freeview being two positives that immediately spring to mind.

Another advantage was the sheer breadth of viewing options covered for that vital period between waking up and going to school/college. This wealth of viewing alternatives meant you were never short of something to watch whilst you ate that retrospectively foolish chocolate-heavy cereal.

For the golden age of your childhood innocence, Cartoon Network and Nickelodeon were all you need with their bright colours, jaunty theme tunes and mild flirtatious banter between the presenters that largely went over your innocent head.

However, come the age of 11 or 12, secondary school had changed the way you saw the world. Laughing at other people’s misfortune became far more fun and we hedonistically hunted for something to appease that particular urge, a skill that would come in handy again around the age of 16 when another urge began to strike.

Uniquely, Challenge TV and, less uniquely, Japan, provided the solution to our morning schadenfreude craving; a man taking a football to a place where objects travelling at a high velocity hurt (his tescticles) was the perfect addition to our somewhat more adult, though still heavily-sugared, cereal of choice.

I am indeed talking about Takeshi’s Castle, the show that (may have) saved the (probably) floundering dental and chiropractor industries in late 80s Japan.

For those select few who are not familiar with niche, Japanese game shows from nearly two and a half decades ago that were only ever broadcast on satellite TV in the UK, here is the basic premise of the show; Japanese sadists smiling, laughing and only occasionally screaming as they have pain inflicted on them in a startling varied number of cruel, mad, ingenious ways.

The pretence for the biggest public display of pain-infliction since last John Terry last took a penalty, was a fictional Count Takeshi laying down a challenge; 100+ mad Japanese folk had to storm his ‘castle’ which was constructed out of what appeared to be cardboard and firework remnants, defended by dignity-free guards armed with water guns. These water guns were later upgraded to rather sad and pathetic looking lasers, presumably to match the sad and pathetic costumes.

To sort the wheat from the chaff and to prevent 100 very 1980s looking Japanese people breaking aforementioned cardboard castle through sheer weight of numbers, a series of challenges had to be overcome by the victims/contestants/ mental patients. These challenges often included the risk of facial disfigurement, permanent limps or loss of ability to bear child. Loss of dignity was never an issue however, as this was the 80s so uni-colour jumpsuits and God-awful hair were par for the course.

What was quite remarkable about Takeshi’s Castle was the staggering number of variations on challenges and games the producers managed to twist out of the term ‘ritual humiliation’.

There was a game where people ran through a maze of doors, being chased by men who looked as if they should have been on a government-enforced register, before having their faces blackened (for no discernible reason) or running through a door into some water. The Benny Hill theme tune was thankfully absent.

Elsewhere, people lost teeth and broke ribs as they skipped along stones, risked cranial damage by having giant balls dropped on their heads, ran headlong into potentially solid walls and received footballs fired from cannons into their unwelcoming testicular zone. Sadly, the challenge where contestants wrestled

Inevitably, more fails were shown than successes because, as the internetz knows, fails equals fun. However, a handful of victims made it through to the final showdown where leader of the assault on Takeshi’s Castle, the suspiciously dark-haired and dangerously inept military leader, General Lee led to them certain failure. Only nine contestants ever won the show, meaning you probably had a better chance of winning the lottery, although the constant hope-disappointment cycle of the lottery is less painful than a one off headlong dive into some mud.

Probably the one real flaw of the show, aside from the Craig Charles commentary, was that it eventually spawned in the UK Total Wipeout, 101 Ways to Leave a Gameshow and about a million other programmes with the same basic premise but all without the certain special something Takeshi’s Castle had; most likely a 1980s Japanese woman in her 20s making the peace symbol before cheerfully setting off at a brisk pace and the scene ending in her bouncing off of a wall that looked like a door.

Britain’s Gay Footballers @9pm Monday, BBC3- 7 out of 10

Over the last few years, BBC3 has managed to find a niche market in the realm of documentary making; oscillating between hard-hitting issues and trivial bollocks, often with a semi-celebrity host to add some white smiley teeth and good hair.

Without even watching the hour-long programme (seriously, I’m typing this sentence at 8.46pm), Britain’s Gay Footballers will be using the standard BBC3 documentary format; get a celebrity face, said term stretched to breaking point here it must be said, to front a look into the cutting subject of homophobia in football. Perhaps it’s for the common touch to draw in the audience figures. Or a C-list celebrity is cheaper than a journalist these days. Who knows? Not me, that’s for damn sure.

However, there is one very marked and hugely important with Britain’s Gay Footballers. A difference anyone with even a passing knowledge of either football or the fight for gay rights in the UK, not the most exclusive centre circle in a Venn diagram in these increasingly enlightened, will recognise the name Fashanu.

Justin Fashanu was the first openly gay British footballer, ‘coming out’ in late 1990 and, depressingly, remains the only one to have come out. He essentially became an outcast in football, with no club offering him a full time contract since he broke the story in an interview with the Sun. His brother and fellow professional John Fashanu even appeared to ostracise him; a decision he clearly deeply regrets now. Fashanu would later commit suicide in 1998 with his suicide note reading he “did not want to give any more embarrassment to my friends and family”.

This documentary follows Amal Fashanu, niece of Justin, son of John Fashanu and near subject of nominative determinism (she works in fashion), as she looks into the reasons why out of some 5000 professional footballers in the UK, none are openly gay.

Straight from the off there are some damning indictments of the football world's attitude towards the issue of homophobia in the sport. Cases in point; the outright refusal of nearly all current professional footballers to talk on camera about the issue, albeit not helped by Amal’s to-the-point-not-so-subtle interviewing technique, the generational difference of ex-professionals who still operate in the sport exemplified by John McGovern’s quotes regarding the word “poof” and the refereeing union blocking a gay assistant referee to be interviewed.

Even the players that do talk about the issue seem to treat the issue somewhat trivially and banally, occasionally slipping back into the “banter” default mode and not confronting the issue. However, credit where credit is due to people like Darren Purse and Paul Robinson at Milwall and Joey Barton to break ranks; particularly the latter who tackled the issue with now trademark intelligence and perspective. If more footballers take the stance of these three, the apparent perception from inside football that speaking about the issue means you are homosexual may well hopefully abate.

As a documentary, the show is a bit on the weak side with Amal’s lack of interview technique causing problems and irrelevant asides such as Amal chatting to her friend over coffee about their thoughts on the issue, which just smacks of filler due to a lack of cutting interviews with those in the field; the Barton and Anton Hysen interviews aside.

All in all, for anyone with a knowledge and interest in the issue of homophobia in football, there was very little new ground covered on why there are no current openly gay footballers; the fear of ridicule from both teammates and fellow professionals, abuse from fans, the culture ingrained from previous generations of players and the unfortunate precedent of Justin Fashanu's eventual fate.

However, that’s not really the point. The real point is that the subject needs coverage and to be aired in the public domain. Despite many column inches and blog bytes (that’s the phrase I’ll use for that idea) devoted to the issue, the oxygen of TV is far more important. A slightly soft documentary on the subject, but heart-wrenching on the Fashanu family level of the programme, is a great starting point but there is a long way to go yet.

Noel Fielding’s Luxury Comedy @10pm, Thursdays, E4- 5 out of 10

Finally, a show that has lived up to the promise of the Channel 4 comedy sponsors’ Fosters’; “original comedy”. Let’s face it, there are very few places where you might find a Miami-based drug dealer character with a sword and shield (and a bug face) and a man with a seashell as a head dancing to a radio broadcast of a Sherlock Holmes novel.

However, the apt catchline of the sponsor is one of the few positives to come out of Noel Fielding’s latest creation, a surrealist part live-action, part animation half hour romp that even seems to be seeping into the adverts on 4OD, if Gail Porter emerging from portable toilet in Cardiff that had been dropped in by a helicopter is anything to go by.

“Luxury Comedy” brings together the cast of BBC3’s The Mighty Boosh (let the inevitable comparisons begin early), minus Julian Barratt, for a sketch show with a  slight difference as characters from each sketch glide into one another’s segments, each battling for “look at me, aren’t I bizarrely unique and weird” screen time presumably.

The trademark left-Fielding (ha! Word play) ideas are in evidence from the start with outrageous concepts for sketches like a cookery show cum space mission starring Rennie and Gaviscon (who I cannot even begin to describe just exactly how they look) and Roy Circles, the teacher with a military history but happens to have the body of a chocolate finger. Clearly, no expense has been spared on the clothing and make-up departments of “Luxury Comedy”; it would appear blue or yellow are the standard colour faces for the occupants of the “Luxury Comedy” universe.

The seamless transition from live action shots to the oddly beautiful animation of Nigel Coan works a treat but, with this being surrealist comedy, inevitably, the sketches are particularly hit and miss. The Boosh worked, for me, because it had some semblance with reality (identifiable job locations of the main characters for example) and a linear structure. And having Barratt around to reign in Fielding’s wackiest ideas and to provide identifiable character traits for the audience; a middle-aged man not really going anywhere despite (and probably because of) his passions in life.

The best parts of Luxury Comedy are the pieces with the aforementioned semblance to reality. Dondylion, trapped in a zoo with nothing but a tyre on a rope, some Hula Hoops and a picture of David Lee Roth (“King of the lions”) jabbering to himself and slowly going mad is a lovely a oasis of satire about animals caged in zoos in a desert of surrealism.

Elsewhere, against the odds somewhat, Sergeant Raymond Boombox’s tales work as they also have this basis in reality (a cop doing a job) that can be subverted to add the bizarre dialogue of his talking knife wounds and the drug dealer mentioned way back in the intro (well done if you’ve stuck with me this far, incidentally).

However, elsewhere, one just got the sense that the show needed reigning in. It wasn’t a sense of surrealism for the sake of surrealism on the part of Fielding (an outstanding comedic writer and actor in the right dosage and setting) but a lack of input from the producers to keep the show just about enough on the straight and narrow.

Or my descent into premature aging has begun, coupled with not being a resident of or regular visitor to the independent Republic of Camden, and I just didn’t get “it”.

Man Vs Food @ 10am and 2pm Wednesdays, Dave

As human beings, every so often we need to ingest a combination of carbohydrates, fats, protein, sugars, salts, vitamins and various other (technical term alert) things to keep our body functioning it properly. When they’re together in one product, we call them food. Food is our ally. Food is our friend.

Except, in Man Vs Food when food is made into an enemy that must be eaten and eaten and eaten and eaten and eaten until there is nothing of it left and we stand triumphantly over a mountain of carcasses and plants. Yup, this is the deadly sin of gluttony in HD.

Naturally, the show comes from America where competitive eating not only has TWO governing bodies but is also occasionally aired on sports broadcaster ESPN and the Fox Network.

The premise of the programme is that Adam Richman, actor and food enthusiast (at what point does “food enthusiast” become “greedy, fat bastard?”) travels around the USA sampling food and…well, that’s pretty much it really.

Essentially, the half hour can be broken down into two parts; local culinary history followed by glutton by the plate load and lots of shots of Richman sweating profusely; the quality and quantity respectively alluded to in its Wikipedia page.

To be fair to Richman, somewhat obviously, he does really love his food. He really knows how to verbally express the tastes of food and would make a decent food critic. This makes the first half of the show eminently watchable as he enjoys local delicacies or age-old family recipes that are invariably fried.

But there is a reason that Man Vs Food has racked four seasons worth of offerings now and it isn’t food/travel documentary-ing. It is watching a guy inching closer to a coronary one French fry and one segment of what used to be a pig at a time.

The second half of the show involves Richman attempting some manner of food-eating task; a variant on something being really hot (chicken wings, chilli, sushi etc.) or really, really big, like a pizza as large as the wheel of a cart, a burger bigger than Richman’s head, enough catfish fillets to cause a problem for the local ecosystem, those kind of things.

In this afternoon’s episode, for example, the challenge was to consume 6 pounds worth of meat and bread with a side of a pound and half of French Fries. All in all, it would be like eating a less hairy version of my cat. Pork and ham and turkey and beef burger and sausages and some more pork, each smothered in BBQ sauce, all come together to form a burger type object as thick as a man’s thigh.

“A human can’t fit that inside him” Adam exclaims as the monstrosity emerges from the kitchen before proceeding to try. Perhaps he has the memory of a goldfish. Or the stomach of a whale. Or both.

Either way, neither physical mutation aids him in his quest as the 45 minutes elapse with only two thirds of the food clogging up Richman’s colon and making for an uncomfortable morning the next day.

This is where the slight ethical dilemma that the show presents becomes apparent; leftover food and eating for the sake of eating. Despite Richman’s end of show sign-off (“In the endless battle between man and food, this week, man/food is the winner”), some people could quite do with that leftover food. The issue is less apparent than if the show was half an hour of Richman eating a pizza the size of a paddling pool and shouting “NO FOOD FOR YOU! ALL FOOD IS FOR RICHMAN!” in Ethiopia whilst locals look on. Even racists wouldn’t watch that. But still, the issue kind of lurks over the whole affair.

The other slight concern/ reason for watching is the physical condition of Richman himself during the challenge. Whilst not being noticeably fat, an hour on a treadmill a day sees to that, clogging up one’s arteries with the various fats that only a six types of meat sandwich can bring cannot be contusive to a healthy lifestyle. But, hey, he’s having fun as this clip clearly demonstrates. Besides, it wouldn't be the same if he was eating tonnes of healthy food like four bushels of apples or a trough of pears or a barrel of carrots.

In a way, Richman is like the Charlie Sheen of the food world; people tuning in to watch him slowly breakdown and threaten possible death through ingesting way too much of an item into his body.

As he chugs through the half cow before him, sweat develops on his brow, the breaths are deeper and more strained and some twitching occurs; almost as if the bovine’s last seconds of life are being recreated in the body of the man eating his corpse.

It’s all strangely mesmeric, compelling and quite an addictive guilty pleasure. And so is the show.

Blast from the past- Nerdtastic TV

It is fair to say that the last five or six years have been good to the nerd. The world has come to us which is a relief because we damn well weren’t going to pluck up the courage to come to it.

All we had to do was keep doing what we always did and it eventually became cool. We played the waiting game with the law of averages and we were the lucky generation of nerds it paid off for. Video gaming, glasses, skinny jeans and faintly ironic T-shirts were in.

The fact that we became mainstream and hated it is another thought for another day because we’re here to examine an old TV show that just missed the point at which nerdism (totally a word) became acceptable. That show is the BBC's two series wonder, Time Commanders.

My generation of history and video game nerds was well served at the start of this century with the masterful Age of Empires series and the not very masterful but purely epic Total War series dominating our lives and guiding us on our first tentative steps into the world of online gaming. Yeah, thanks for that experience at the age of 12.

Essentially, Time Commanders took the Total War series and made it into a television show, thus instantly allowing thousands of people like me to do a primitive LOL at the contestants who failed show after show. Victory was a seldom seen outcome as the scales were tipped by getting contestants without experience of video gaming. Somewhat unrealistic perhaps as I don’t think the Romans ensured that their enemies’ armies were commanded by farmers but there we go.

Shot in an old warehouse reminiscent of any torture porn film set, Time Commanders allowed a team of four people, usually work colleagues (or, on one happy day, an all star celebrity team of Kate Silverton, Al Murray, Raji James and Ricky Flower), who took control of a virtual army in a battle from ancient history on a game engine similar to Rome; Total War.

Two of the team were “Generals” who ‘controlled’ (very loose term that) the battle from a raised platform in the centre of the warehouse, using a real-time overhead map and huge main screen in front of them. Much like real life Generals, these team members would pretend to have a plan whilst other team members would put in the hard yakka. Naturally, when things went wrong, it wasn’t their fault.

Said other two team members were “Lieutenants” who took incoherent or foolish orders from their Generals. The “Lieutenants” would then relay the orders in a further incoherent manner on to their own individual techie, resplendent in a black cap and seemingly without voices, who would control the units of the army for them. Chinese whispers clearly made battle a lot more confusing than the simple expedient of a phone.

Meanwhile, high on a balcony overlooking the team stood a pair of military historians judging the team and occasionally speaking to the camera. These men (they were always men because weapons and war and shit is manly stuff) were the real heroes of the show.

Ever-present Dr Aryeh Nusbacher was as excitable as a man who just found out his chat up line might be working. The other role was on rotation and was usually most fun when Mike Loades came in and played about in a faintly aggressive manner with some ancient weaponry. Other times, Saul David disappointingly didn’t wear a brown leather jacket and future Newsnight ‘Diplomacy Editor’ Mark Urban dreamt of more respectable TV appearances.

Completing the line up, initially at least, was the superb and currently dreadfully underused Eddie Mair with his funky earpiece thing that made me think he was deaf at first. After the first series, the decision was taken to begin the now customary task of finding a non-Top Gear role for Richard Hammond. The host’s role was to basically be very friendly and helpful whilst occasionally stating the obvious of what was happening on the big screen.

The fun of it all came when, inevitably, the team’s battle plan survived all of five seconds of contact with the enemy and then cue panicking and ultimate failure amongst much bickering, which was probably how battles worked in the ancient world although it’s fair to say there was almost certainly not a celebratory/commiseratory orgy at the end of the show.

Thankfully, if the team lost, the two historians would come down to them and say “Not to worry, you may have lost the battle but so did Alexander the Great in this particular conflict so, yeah, that’s fair enough.” This allowed everyone to go home happy with their day’s work. Apart from the thousands of dead or wounded CGI Celts who were less pleased with their day’s lot.

If you're sad like me, YouTube has plenty of clips to while away your time http://tinyurl.com/bv4nyoz

In defence of the BBC and the licence fee

Everyone has their own fall back phrase and actions they use to describe their feelings when something has infuriated them. Mine usually involves the word “ridiculous” and a subsequent blog post that’s wonderfully unselfconsciously self-righteous, but that’s me.

The standard fall back phrase when the BBC produces a TV or radio show that someone doesn’t like is “it’s a waste of licence fee payers’ money”.* For the record, over 75% of BBC revenue comes from licence fee income so it is a large part of the broadcaster’s income that comes from the public so the loosely defined public has a right to get their money’s worth.

It’s kind of an easy target really is the poor old BBC as one is paying money directly to the institution for the programming and journalism one receives. One wouldn’t say it’s a waste of your weekly shop at ASDA money when ITV broadcasts a terrible show, despite the fact that said money is indirectly paying for the production of said show in the form of advertising. Although it’s something of a stupid concept, it’s vaguely valid in its own roundabout kind of way.

Firstly, the annoying semantics. Technically it isn’t a waste as you pay your licence fee for the BBC to produce programming on television or radio. Throwing said money into a giant hole and burying it or buying all the tickets to Glastonbury and not showing up would be a waste of money. If the BBC broadcasts something you don’t like, that would be a misuse of licence fee payers’ money, not a waste as there is guaranteed to be someone out there who liked the broadcast which made it viable.

Anyway, semantics aside, the real bone of contention I have with the lazy, fallback phrase outlined is that I find it very difficult to believe people do not get their money’s worth from the most renowned and admired public service broadcaster in the world.

For example, if you just watch the national and local news on the BBC five nights a week (that’s 4 million people on average), that’s around 270 hours of broadcasting you have watched a year meaning you pay around £1.90 an hour to watch. Which sounds like a lot.

However, no-one watches just the news on the BBC. From Eastenders to Match of the Day to QI to Top Gear to Strictly Come Dancing, there are shows on the BBC that draw in huge numbers viewers each and every week, all with large production values that must cost a bomb to make. According to the Broadcaster’s Audience Research Board, BBC1 and 2 alone have an average 21.3% audience share of TV viewers which is a whole lot of hours and licence fee being justified.

Then factor in the other aspects of the BBC’s output from a radio service that has a total listening share of 54.5% nationally, a news website that offers full multimedia interactivity and as up-to-date stories as any paid for media, various digital output at specialised audiences (from children to minority social groups) and the ongoing digital switchover to give more people the chance to have more access to more channels.

Taking into account all of the services the BBC offers, it is something of a miracle the revenue it produces is stretched so far.

Factor in all of this and even the staunchest non-BBC user probably swallows up more BBC output than they realise. Your commute to work? Might well have some BBC on the radio. Want to check up on the latest news? The BBC News website might be your first port of call. Need to keep up with the latest football scores? BBC Sport online is at least the equal of its competitors in this field, and with TV highlights to be found on the website to boot. The hours consuming BBC output soon adds up. It would be a very interesting experiment to see just how long you spend using some form of BBC service. And when I say “interesting” the result would be, not the procedure.

Yes, the BBC does screw up occasionally with its choice of programming and its ‘impartial’ journalism but to get either of these spot-on 100% of the time is a fool’s errand and fool’s expectation.

*Disclaimer; due to circumstances dictating that I am living at home with my parents once again, I am not currently paying for a TV licence. Go forth and state my reason to have an opinion on the matter is invalid.

That’s Britain- BBC1 @ 8pm Wednesdays- 3 out of 10

At the risk of sounding like an advert for stereotyping Britishness, we Brits all love a good moan. That and not making eye contact. And hiding our prejudices under a veneer of awkward politeness. Just to clarify, the first thing I said is what ‘That’s Britain’ is all about.

Fronting the show are second coolest stubble wearer in the world Nick Knowles and Julia Bradbury (of whom I have nothing to say really) who proceed to participate in awkward banter and bonhomie about Tube drivers, dog poo, recycling and why Warwickshire County Council shouldn’t make huge towers out of gold sheets.

To start with something called The Wall of Anger is introduced, which is a bit strong but then again, the Wall of Mild Annoyance isn’t quite as grabbing. It’s basically like a Tweet Clod and allows Knowles to rant, well, like an amateur really. Queues at the petrol station are caused by “turning them into supermarkets”. True, but hardly enthralling ranting their Knowlesy. Hopefully Twitter can organise some sort of campaign whereby the biggest thing on the wall is ‘That’s Britain’ itself making a paradox of embarrassment.

It’s not the only name that’s misleading. The kind of things that are investigated or the cause of annoyance are the same anywhere in the world. It probably should be called “That’s the world” or something a whole lot more imaginative than that.

Elsewhere, there are four reporters who tackle an issue each week in their own ways.

This week, first up was call centre operator’s nightmare Grainne Seoige who kicked off with a political piece on junk mail which was interesting at some points but incredibly boring at others. Not even Seoige’s Irishness (usually a surefire way to this reviewer’s heart) could redeem the feature. Oh, and it was spliced with tonnes of vox pops as why get expert opinion when you can ask the average plank on the street for a monotone monosyllable answer?

Next up, we had Shaun Williamson who looked dreadfully angry whenever he was referred to as “Eastenders’ Shaun Williamson”, which is fair enough as he left eight years ago. At least refer to him as “Extras’ Shaun Williamson”. Williamson was basically asking a question no one really wants to know the answer to; should we get bus conductors back? It would be quite nice to have bus conductors back but it would also be nice to have a house with four bathrooms but, for financial reasons, it probably isn’t going to happen. To cap it all off, a poll was conducted asking whether you would pay 25p extra on your bus fare to get said conductors back. Unsurprisingly, in a hypothetical, people went for the option that made them look good. The Pullitzer Prize is in the post.

Third on the hit list we had usually entertaining Ade Edmundson do a piece on just where our luggage goes at the airport. The report’s content was about as interesting as reading the latest issue of “Beige Magazine” on a train from Slough to Milton Keynes which couldn’t even be livened up by Edmondson’s natural sense of fun. No wonder he looked to be in a rush to get the hell out of there at the end of his piece.

Finally, Stanley Johnson, father of Boris (boy could you tell that) did a hidden camera experiment with an old fella parking his car badly and asking for help which was to investigative as Boris himself is to speech making.

You’ll notice that my description of each of the reports is getting shorter and shorter and, to be quite honest, by this point I’d lost 99% of my interest and had started to watch the clock ticking toward 9 o’clock so I could turn over and watch some Nick Robinson talking about taxation which might well tell its own story.

Interspersed with all these reports were more opportunities for Knowles to rant badly, for Bradbury to make an occasional decent quip and for Williamson to shout out nonsense from the sofa on the stage. It all felt like a really bad episode of Watchdog meets every single episode of The One Show bundled up with a lovely feeling of the BBC reaching out an olive branch to the Daily Mail with tales of local council spending and ridiculous health and safety stories

It’s not that it’s not very good, it’s just really, really, REALLY boring. If you want to make a show about current affairs, you would hire journalists to make the reports. If you want to make an entertainment show about issues, you hire well known faces to make films. ‘That’s Britain’ can’t seem to decide what it wants to be and ends up being neither. Which makes it not very good as well as boring come to think of it. And that’s what’s annoying me ‘That’s Britain’.

Blast from the past; The Crystal Maze

One of the great joys of my youth was being ill as it allowed me to stay at home and watch Nickelodeon or Cartoon Network all day.

However, there is only so much Doug or Arthur you can watch without feeling a bit sick at all the bright colours, dodgy animation and the bizarre looking characters. And so, channel hopping would begin which would eventually lead to the glorious then and but slightly less glorious now Challenge TV.

I can’t pinpoint the first time I watched The Crystal Maze but it was probably before the turn of the century and I was, to an extent, terrified of it. A creepy fortune telling woman, people getting locked in small rooms for either failing some pretty basic challenges or failing at games tantamount to torture and Richard O’Brien all probably contributed to this.

But minor peril never really hurt anyone and thus, The Crystal Maze became my entertainment of choice when I was ill and off school right up until the very moment the Playstation 2 arrived in my life.

For anyone that doesn’t know, all five of you, The Crystal Maze was a loose copy of French show Fort Boyard in which contestants with very bad hair and in primary colour jumpsuits undertook a series of challenges in four different themed ‘worlds’ to win crystals. The challenges the contestants faced fell into four classifications; physical, mental, skill or mystery with sexism dictating male contestants often took the physical games and inevitably failing at them.

The number of crystals that the contestants won contributed to how long they would have in giant crystal filled with pieces of gold and silver paper; the show’s finale. If they grabbed enough of these pieces of paper in the allocated time, they won a prize ‘of a lifetime’ which was non-transferable for cash, I think. Not that it mattered of course, more humans have been on the moon than won The Crystal Maze.

At its peak, the show received up to 6 million viewers on Channel 4 and was the channel’s most popular programme, achieving cult status particularly among the student demographic, unsurprisingly.

Despite the innovative games, for my money, the two real joys of the show were the set and original host Richard O’Brien.

The maze was purpose-built in an aircraft hangar in Essex for £250,000 and the attention to detail and the quality of the production values were stunning, even to my youthful eyes. The dank squalor of the “Ocean” world contrasted so much with the open, bright “Aztec” world as to make them look like different planets, not a mere couple of feet apart. The haunting dungeon of the “Medieval” world was where the money was best spent with numerous genuine-looking props, eerie lighting and a constant supply of dry ice simultaneously produced a homely yet chilling effect.

It’s a wonder why the set piece for the finale looked so budget; a biosphere looking structure filled with fans at the bottom and lots of pieces of foil that, according to Wikipedia, took a lot of experimentation to perfect.

As I was saying before I went off on an inevitable tangent, O’Brien was the other main attraction. The writer of The Rocky Horror Show (yes really) was cast as a host and a bizarre host he was too. He was like a cool version of Dr Evil but more mad. His ‘character’ sounded as if he had been stranded in the maze for as long as he could remember (he had made the ‘Medieval’ world into his home where he lived with his ‘Mumsie’) and despite being a guide to the contestants, he wouldn’t hold back from putting them down witheringly. His seemingly random monologues to the camera and eccentric dress sense only added to the depth of his endearingly odd character. Oh, and every now and then he would start playing his harmonica. For no apparent reason other than he just could.

O’Brien left the show in 1993 and despite his successor, Edward Tudor-Jones (a cross between Dylan Moran and a rejected Doctor Who costume) adding his own brand of oddness to the show, he was no O’Brien as was reflected in the gradual diminishing in audience figures The Maze garnered, resulting in the show’s cancellation in 1995 after six series on Channel 4.

Its legacy can be seen anytime you put on terrestrial TV on a Saturday night with shows such as The Cube, Ant and Dec’s Push the Button and Total Wipeout to name but three all tracing their lineage back to The Crystal Maze’s combination of physical and mental challenges and host’s who either encourage or take the piss out of the contestants (sometimes both). One just needs to see the opening to the first ever episode to see elements of all the shows outlined above in evidence.

Clearly, its legacy is a lot less impressive than it should be but as is the way with trailblazers; the knock-offs will never be as original nor as compelling nor as innovative as they are just that, knock offs.

For one last thought, ITV were rumoured to be planning a remake of the show at the beginning of last year. For reasons no one can ever possibly explain, the host was to be Amanda Holden. The plans were shelved. The world breathed the biggest sigh of relief since VE Day.

Top Gear USA @ 7pm Fridays, BBC3- 7 out of 10

There has been a resolutely one way traffic flow with regard to TV shows appearing on US and UK screens; every over show on in the UK is an unchanged, American import whilst everything that goes the other way gets remade on the journey. Maybe there is an island for the process somewhere in the middle of the Atlantic with a machine for carrying out the remodelling process.

Anywho, Top Gear USA, whilst being a remake, shares enough of the genes of its British forefather to be recognisable to audiences over here in Blighty but enough differences to give it a sense of American….ness.

We’ll start off with the stuff that has been packed up from UK Top Gear and shipped over the Atlantic. Same theme music, same warehouse-style set, same combination of car reviews and challenges, same number of presenters, same dicking around, same interviewing segment with a celebrity driving around their version of the Top Gear test track. Basically what I’m getting at is the format is very, very similar. Not quite sure why that surprises me, kind of comes with the territory of “being a remake”.

One thing they haven’t tried to copy exactly like for like is the three presenters of British Top Gear. There was a larger, nerdier guy with a beard (a bit like James May at a push), a guy with a sticky up fringe (Richard Hammond-esque) and another guy with receding hair who looks a bit older and does the interviewing (Jeremy Clarkson, therefore), all of whom made such a large impression on me that none of their names stuck. And so, for the rest of their review, they shall be referred to by their British names. Oh, and another difference, the gratuitous amount of swearing.

The montage they put together at the start of the show to showcase what would be coming up over the series looked promising; similes, quips, fast cars, challenges that threaten injury, low level property damage and piss taking and the first show of the series pretty much was par for the course.

It involved “Hammond” and “May” trying to outrun a military helicopter in a Shelby Cobra through the streets of a Georgian town, “Clarkson”, “Hammond” and “May” going really, really fast on a long, straight road to find the best Lamborghini ever made and “Clarkson” interviewing Buzz Aldrin for about two and a half minutes followed by the poor old fella tootling around the track in a Suzuki. All pretty standard Top Gear fare then. Which is fine by me as each of the segments worked, if not quite as polished as their British counterparts just yet.

Now for the bad stuff; to begin with, the backing soundtrack, usually such a strong element of the Top Gear package was lacking with inappropriate music being used or it just being too quiet

Secondly, at times all three presenters suffer from a wooden on-screen style and the banter between co-presenters seems somewhat forced though, to be fair, on-screen chemistry just doesn’t happen overnight, even if the participants do happen to be perfect for each other. UK Top Gear took a good four years to develop the interchanges it has now between its presenters and there were glimmers of chemistry, particularly in the out and about, recorded segments.

Overall, I wanted to hate this show. I wanted to despise the fact it was an American remake of a British television institution. I wanted to mock its attempts to import British humour to an American audience. I wanted to belittle it’s presenters for having the gall to try to recreate it. I wanted it to blow up in an explosion of American bombast.

And yet, it was far from unwatchable; the presenters are knowledgable and passionate, the filiming is splendid and the content is thought out, if a little bit on the short side leaving things being rushed through or not fully explored. If it was called something other than Top Gear, I probably wouldn’t watch it so it’s living on its brand for the time being but it’s certainly worth sticking with, just to see what else they’ve come up.

Sam and Evan: From Girls to Men @ 9pm Monday, BBC3- 6 out of 10

In the 21^st century, you can do pretty much whatever you like when it comes to romance; just as long as it involves another human and is within the established legal and ethical framework that has been refined and developed over human history. Thus, new unusual stories pop up and that’s just what Sam and Evan is all about

The documentary follows posh southerner Sam, who at the age of 17 and after five months dating 20 year old Evan, moves 200 miles north to live together which kind of makes it sound like a cross between a buddy movie and a rom-com but in the 21^st century. And set in Rochdale.

Both Sam and Evan were born girls, but are now on the way to becoming men as that is both what they feel they are and so they technically are in a gay relationship. They’re just a typical couple all things considered in the way they act and talk and relate. They probably argue like real (deliberate provocation FYI) couples too though broadcasting couples arguing is reserved for heterosexual couples on TV, it would appear.

Sometimes it gets a bit confusing when its men who are having a period and so on but modern life is quite confusing; working a Sky+ box takes some getting used to. Not that this is anything like working a Sky+ mind, the confusion bit is the only thing that would be in shared circle on a Venn diagram.

As the show continues, the viewer is show the pair undergoing the process of becoming men; starting with names and then moving on to clothes, testosterone injections, something called a “packer” to simulate a penis in one’s trousers (probably not available on Amazon) and eventually exploring gender realignment

The third key character is Evan’s very approving mother Kath who says she is so supportive as Sam “makes my son happy”. The couple live with Kath who even goes so far as to injecting Sam with the testosterone that he needs fortnightly. Other examples show of the bond of support from other members of the pair’s family and their friends; the strength of humanity.

But humanity has two faces of course. Little, (not gonna mince words here) cunty kids shouting abuse in the street and throwing eggs. That said, with only one instance of such prejudice being shown, perhaps it isn’t as prevalent as the “info” box about the show made out. Then again, an hour where every five minutes a scene of cunty kids shouting abuse isn’t exactly uplifting, inspiring TV. Unless immediately after shouting it they get immediate comeuppance in the form of a kick in the bollocks; damn this unfair world.

Things get even more confusing later on with revelations about Evan and his potential to undertake the sex change process but it only shows the couple’s strength of bond together and their support as they grow up and grow together.

The theme of growing up isn’t just to do with the participants of the show but also the BBC3 channel as a whole. BBC3 used to be more point and laugh style of documentaries but the channel is maturing. The subject matter does sadly have the point and laugh factor, that tends to come with the territory, but it’s so much more mature and refined.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s not exactly award-winning documentary making but it wouldn’t be on BBC3 if it was and the fact that the show ends with a plug for the BBC Action Line for people who have similar feelings only serve to emphasise the show’s responsibility. Perhaps it would have been nice if they played the same message after Hotter than my daughter.

How to solve The Simpsons crisis

There be a crisis brewing over in the land of American television and you will never guess what it’s about. Ya huh, got it in one; money.

The main voice actors for The Simpsons, probably the single most influential television product ever and longest run US comedy series, have refused a 45% pay cut to their $8 million a season salaries and Fox are refusing to play ball. The voice actors have offered a 35% pay cut and a share of the show’s profits, the argument I may well take into my next pay discussion at the supermarket where I currently work.

Anywho, the show is expected to have enough episodes to run until May next year with the dispute being solved by December so the show’s writers can come up with a season or series finale, perhaps involving some kind of Futurama crossover but almost certainly not.

The Simpsons creates billions of dollars in syndication and merchandise for Fox so its loss would be huge to those all important Murdoch profit margins but, being the helpful sort, I’ve come up with some replacement show ideas for them. Free of charge.

1.

An animation revolving around the escapades of a white, American family that consists of the stupidest man on earth as the father, an almost as stupid son, a evil baby who has homosexual undertones, a stereotypical housewife mother, a dull as dishwater daughter and a talking, alcoholic dog. But, get this, you fill it with cutaway cultural gags and make it rather crude! Huh? Eh? Whatadyathink?

2.

Alternatively, you could run with this; a cartoon show that looks at the mundane activities in the lives of a white, working class, Methodist family from a fictional Texas town. The father can work in middle-management, there could be a fat son and a delusional mother where catchphrases are the order of the day.

3.

Or, better yet, I’ve got this. A show that, using the format of drawing, showcases a white, American family and the adventures they get up to. The father can work at the CIA and be right wing, the daughter can be something of a leftist (ooooo cue tension!), a nerdy son and a ditzy wife. Oh, and for some comic relief, a talking, alcoholic alien with a fondness of dressing up and homosexual undertones and a man trapped in the body of a fish who speaks three times a series. Boom, $$$$.

4.

Finally, if you want a branch out a bit and tamper slightly with the formula, there is this idea. Load up your animation software and take the working class family, a moustachioed father figure, the fat son, the talking baby and two generic female characters to make the wife and daughter and, now hear me out here, change their skin colour. Bingo, Yahtzee, prime time gold.

PS. I’m rather aware that this riff may have got old by the time you had read to #2 but hey, you’re the one that read this far

Unforeseen consequences

Returning to a story that has interested me for some time, earlier this week, Portsmouth publican Karen Murphy won an important EU ruling in her favour.

The case revolves around Mrs Murphy using a digital decoder from Greece to screen Premier League football games in her pub for a cheaper price than with UK football broadcaster Sky. Sky promptly took her to court when they found out six years ago under copyright infringement law.

However, Mrs Murphy took her case to the European Court of Justice who ruled that the way in which satellite broadcasters limit themselves to one country is against the freedom to provide services and for individuals in the European Union to choose the service providers they desire; thus, the prohibition on the sale of digital decoders is deemed unlawful. It is unprecedented for a national High Court to not enforce a ECJ ruling.

However, the ruling also pointed out that certain copyright infringements were also being made by Mrs Murphy and other decoder users in that whilst football is not covered by copyright law, graphics and sound and the whole branding used by companies such as Sky and ESPN are covered. Therefore, if pubs were to broadcast a match with this branding in it, they would be in breach of the law.

Quite simply, in the wake of this ruling, broadcasters could put a piece of their branding (a permanent graphic of a £ sign in the top corner perhaps) and thus a decoder user would be breaking copyright law.

I’ll not go into the footballing side of the ruling here (I may well do elsewhere in detail later this week) but on a side note of irony.

As one article notes and makes very clear, the main reason pubs broadcast football matches is that they pack pubs that are otherwise dying a rather slow and painful death. Anyone that’s been to a pub, say, on a Saturday at noon and a Thursday at the same time, it is clear to see that most of a pub’s revenue comes at the weekends when they show football from the hours of noon to about 10pm.

However, the ruling has made it a lot easier for football fans at home to get a digital decoder for themselves and use it instead of Sky to view football matches. Naturally, it is unlikely for a monolith like Sky to sue every single individual user of a decoder (if Sky’s copyright is infringed by use of the branding); apparently it’s not great for the marketing department to take millions of potential customers to court.

Anyway, that means that the opportunity for football fans to sit at home and watch matches is far greater as they can now afford to when prices for a digital decoder are up to a third the price of a Sky Sports subscription and booze from a supermarket of a similar price ratio.

Therefore, pubs, including Mrs Murphy’s, would get less income on their peak weekend times as more punters stay at home, thus hammering another nail into the pub coffin.

Do be careful what you wish for.

Richard Hammond’s Journey to…@ 9pm Tuesdays, BBC1- 7 out of 10

First things, first, technically the name of the show isn't correct as Richard Hammond doesn’t actually journey to the bottom of the ocean, merely to a couple of hundred feet. I say merely, it’s probably about a couple of hundred feet further down than I’ll ever go seeing as my record is six feet at a beach by which time my head was submerged so I aborted, retreated to the beach and had a beer.

Anyway, there is a good reason he does not go down to the bottom of the ocean as only two men ever have been to deepest point on Earth (the Marianas Trench in the Western Pacific, 7 miles down as you asked). That’s ten less than the number of people to stand on the surface of the moon, for the record.

Perhaps the show should have been called “Richard Hammond hits you with some super-awesome CGI that will knock you for six” as that is basically what happens. In a big huge hangar somewhere is a big huge computer-generated Planet Earth. And a cherry picker, for some reason. From his cherry picker vantage point, Hammond can play God and God he does play. Drain all the water from the face of the Earth? No problem. Although he still interchanges between metric and imperial measurements and calls the Earth “The Earth Machine” for some reason. Perhaps I missed the memo on the rebranding of the Earth.

The content of the show is largely drawn from the chapter on the oceans from Bill Bryson’s “A Short History of Nearly Everything” which makes it both very interesting but also slightly well worn.

However, the addition of the graphics is welcome as it presents the information in an engaging and accessible way. This is combined with some wonderfully put together ‘classic’ documentary skills such as beautiful camera work (particularly of underground geysers and burning sulphur inside volcanoes) and interviews with one of the men who has reached the deepest point on Earth and the people who fix broken Internet cables on the ocean floor.

What is striking about the programme is the amount we still do not know about this area of our planet. Each trip to the bottom of the ocean using machines ends with half of the animals encountered being new to human scientific knowledge. The fact that the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, which forms a chain volcanoes and mountains 44,000 miles long, is one of the most active geological features in the Solar System begs more research to be done.

However, like the curtailing of the NASA missions, money is a problem when it comes to areas of discovery like this which is a crying shame.

Overall, despite the depressing but pointless apocalyptic ending thought (if it can’t happen, why show it?!) this is a very engaging and informative way to spend an hour. If not, gaze in wonder at Richard Hammond and his ongoing battle on the side of continuity errors. His hair changes from mid-life crisis long in some of his shows to short and vaguely sensible in others. Hell, even in this show it’s all over the place, changing dramatically from scenes shot on location to scenes short in the hangar. Really, check it out.

The Hour @ 9pm Tuesdays, BBC2- 8 out of 10

What are the two best things in the world? Not the two best individual things in the world cos sex and a toastie doesn’t really work together, let’s be honest here. The crumbs would get everywhere meaning the clean-up process would be a nightmare and what would you start with? Would you make the toastie first thus meaning that it would be cold once foreplay is completed? Or would you commence the sexual warm-ups and then take a break to make the toastie resulting in either loss of wood or forgetting the toastie making altogether? Such a conundrum.

Anyway, I digress. What I mean to say when I ask what are the two best things in the world is what two things, with their own relative individual merits, combine to make something truly awesome? For my money, it’s period journalism and conspiracy theories. Hells yes, I am a nerd. This brings me neatly on to the BBC’s latest drama attempt; ‘The Hour’.

For the unaware, ‘The Hour’ takes a dramatised look at the creation of a new BBC current affairs TV programme, and with it the dawning of the golden age of British TV journalism, in 1956 with a subplot involving intrigue and conspiracy and murder and general murky stuff presumably the fault of Russian spies. It is 1956 after all so the Russians are the go-to villains and scapegoats should something bad happen (the Muslims of today pretty much).

As dramas and conspiracy theories are a bad combination due to the overlap between fiction and reality, what follows is a short description of the plot of the show laying out what is real and what is fiction, just in case things need clarifying.

Basically, the show follows Freddie Lyon (fictional), played by Ben Whimshaw (real), a BBC current affairs journalist who, along with his long-time friend and target of his love (real/fictional), Bel Rowely (fictional), played by Romola Garat (real), are chosen to head up a new BBC (real) current affairs show based on real issues, called the “The Hour” (fictional). The show would showcase important news like the upcoming Suez Crisis (real) and the possibility of John F Kennedy being chosen as a running mate for Dwight Eisenhower (real), rather than the contemporary current affairs generally regarding the “outing” of young heiresses. Meanwhile, Lyons (fictional, remember) uncovers a sinister plot (fictional) involving the murder of a (fictional) academic on the London Underground (real), a murdered heiress (fictional, probably) and a man in a hat (fictiona/real) that arouses all kinds of suspicion as in a world where many people wear hats, a bowler hat stands out as evil. Further meanwhile, Lyon’s love for Rowley (and vice versa) cannot be expressed due to their own high-mindedness and history of friendship. This situation is compounded with the arrival of suave older gentleman Hector Madden (fictional) (Dominic West, real) as the anchor of “The Hour” to flirt lots with Rowley despite having the constraint of a marriage but hey, it’s the 50s, post-war laissez-faire-ism is all the rage baby. “We’re the greatest generation ever and we do what we wanna do.” was probably their catchphrase.

Played up as the British “Mad Men”, “The Hour” is something completely different. It is its own show. Yes, the casual alcoholism and the excessive smoking  and the casting of a curvy lead woman in figure-hugging dresses and the sexism (a woman producing a current affairs television show?! Heaven forefend) is all present and the fact that the show is set in the same period leads to such comparisons but that is about it.

What “The Hour” is is a very impressive drama around a very important time for British journalism when (for better or for worse) the fourth estate started questioning the establishment. This is embellished in the character of Lyon who wants to chase stories that are out from the left-field like chasing up landlords who don’t admit “blacks or Irish” onto their premises. His character may well be hot-headed and temperamental and arrogant but hey, that’s journalism and that’s journalists. His summing up of why he hates Madden (hard work vs contacts to get where they are) is a terrific summing up of the class battle of the time and the portrayals of editorial battles is wonderfully enacted.

Whilst the linking of a conspiracy theory and journalism is a good mixture as one leads naturally to the other, my one concern so far is the balancing act between the two. Both story arcs are written and directed well enough so far but it will be interesting if this is carried on to such a high standard for the rest of the series.

But other than that, there is more than enough in this show for not just journalism nerds like this writer but for everyone. The cast for every role is perfect and the writing (from Abi Morgan) is as tight as any British drama around right now with the added bonus of the stunningly ironic/suitable/well-timed plotline of the relationship between the press, the police and the government (Hell, Lyon even gives a copper a few fivers in the first episode, albeit for a look at a corpse rather than anything really bad).

Overall, “The Hour” is well worth keeping up with whichever direction the plot looks to go in and if all else fails, marvel at the very 1950s stylings of just everything; the clothes, the hairstyles, the buildings, the transport and Rowley’s suspiciously looking modern watch.

Four talent shows ideas for ITV primetime

At the start of the decade, talent shows were the sole property of failing social clubs and pubs; a desperate alternative to a raffle to raise some cash to fix the roof or repair the urinal in the men’s room or to make a fully fledged ladies bathroom.

Nowadays, they are the new reality shows for TV; cheap, cheerful and clogging the airwaves of terrestrial channels like fat in the arteries of a McDonalds addict.

They come in two distinct flavours; the first features people who have appeared in the gossip pages of tabloids (no need to apply the word ‘celebrity’ here but that’s their defining feature; exaggeration; of the standing of the competitors, of the complexity of the tasks they perform, of the whiteness of the smile of everyone, all exaggerated).

The second involves ordinary people showing off their talent (or wares) to a panel of judges begging for approval with the hope of winning a prize that will further their career and give them a living in the profession. A fantastic example of how society has moved on from a time when better off people played God with the futures of desperate lower classes...

Anywho, the latest ITV creations of this format come in the forms of Penn and Teller: Fool Us and Show me the Funny which must have been pitched by the same producers who use the ‘Find and Replace’ tool on Microsoft Word a lot. Basically, the only differences are the presenters, the judges, the prize and the fact that magicians perform in the former, comedians in the latter. Similarly, BBC3 ran more shows of this kind last year where they sought to find Britain’s best young butcher or mechanic or fellatio exponent (only two of those three are true).

Using this formula, here are four more template talent shows that ITV can have, free of charge from me (not really, I’d want at this least 24 pence, a Boost bar and a Peroni-branded beer glass).

1.    1. 'Pork sword sculptors'

Judged by a panel of MPs (for the hell of it), Ross Kemp seeks to find the best sculptors of medieval weapons from meat products. The competitors have 15 minutes to make their creations, with no bug spray allowed, before the judges deduce who has the best chicken shield, turkey mace or indeed, pork sword. Winners have their products dispalyed in Reading Museum for a week before it all gets a bit smelly.

2.   2. 'I-spy'

A series of wannabe spies show off their various methods of espionage and ways of getting hold of confidential information with the aim of getting a job in the Russian secret service. It will be judged by various members of a major media corporation (executives with red, curly hair, that sort of thing) who know this area inside out but need new exponents of the arts, hosted by David Cameron who has no idea what is going in the show but his PR guy said it might get some public support back.

3.  3. 'Britain’s most incompetent'

A kind of anti-talent show where contestants attempt to do various extraordinary talents but fail magnificently for the pure entertainment value. Points are awarded for cramming in diverse acts into one performance, for example, singing and gymnastics at the same time. Judges include notables failures like John Darwin, George Bush Jnr and Kerry Katona. Winners prize; their own Youtube channel.

4.  4. 'Football bore'

Gary Lineker hosts the longest show ever recorded by man where various keepie-uppie experts from across Britain compete to who can do this act for the longest amount of time. Broadcast nonstop, the judges (consisting of Wayne Rooney, John Terry and, the brains of the panel, a banana with a crudely-drawn face on it) can do whatever they like to distract the contestants using the contents of a bag of randomly chosen products from Tesco. Fee for advertising slots in the breaks? About a quid. The winner receives some sleep and a ticket to one night with Imogen Thomas.