Home Truths

‘MEMO to TV producers – idea for new TV series.

‘Mirror, mirror on the wall, who’s on TV most of all?’

Think Changing Rooms meets The Salon. Think Carol Vorderman’s Better Homes meets Big Brother. Think Linda Barker and Jade Goody mud-wrestling.

The project, which currently goes under the working title Watching Paint Dry, involves getting a different celebrity in every day to paint one wall of an unsuspecting member of the public’s house.

We broadcast an hour-long highlights programme every night, but – and here’s the beauty of the whole thing – we have round-the-clock coverage of the paint drying.

It will be like an interactive version of Sleepless, with viewers texting us or calling on a premium rate phoneline to prove that they’re still awake.

If it’s successful, we can develop the franchise. For instance, we could get celebrities in to mow a member of the public’s lawn and then viewers could watch as the grass grows back…’

Posted: 13th, April 2004 | In: Celebrities | Comment

What If

‘SOME people are fascinated with playing the game of ‘What if…’

Great Big Britain

What would have happened if Hitler had won the war, what would Al Gore have done as US President had the 2000 election not been rigged, what would have happened if Mrs Bin Laden had bought young Osama an Arsenal shirt for his birthday.

Of course, such speculation is a ridiculous pastime, with hypothesis being piled on hypothesis – but it does sometime serve to warn us of the direction in which we’re heading.

Tonight sees the last part of BBC2’s ‘If…’ programmes, which aim to show what life might be like in future if current trends continue.

If we don’t stop eating, the answer appears to be that by 2020 we’ll be really fat.

No surprises there – but more interesting is how the NHS will cope, what it will mean to life expectancy and how a country’s infrastructure will have to adapt to cope with the extra bulk.

In fact, we will become Texas 2004…’

Posted: 5th, April 2004 | In: Celebrities | Comment

Reality Bites

‘REGULAR readers will know what fans we are of the Sky One, er, drama series Mile High, following the fortunes of budget airline Fresh! and all her fly in her.

If you look closely enough, Tracey, you can see your career disappearing’

You may have suspected that this had something to do with improbable plotlines that could put Footballers’ Wives to shame and the regular bedroom antics of the Fresh! cabin crew.

You would, however, have been mistaken – our interest in Mile High owes everything to the courage with which it tackles some of the hottest topics of our times.

For instance, this weekend’s episode sees drama on board a flight to Malaga (one of about three destinations to which Fresh!, it seems, flies) when a passenger hears a young Asian on his mobile saying goodbye to his family and asking for forgiveness.

Needless to say, the issue is treated with the sensitivity that you would expect from the people who brought us Dream Team. Oh – and there’s plenty of sex as well…’

Posted: 2nd, April 2004 | In: Celebrities | Comment

We Love Lucy

‘THIS is the end. Today marks the death of this column as a daily piece, and what more fitting way to go than with an episode of Footballers’ Wives.

‘How dare you say I can’t act!’

And the death knell will be struck by Gary Lucy, the worst actor to have appeared on our screens since Hollyoaks finished at 7pm.

Incidentally, Lucy used to appear on that Chester-based soap, where he played a brooding young male who could model a bit and play football a bit more.

These days, his football skills have improved and the leaps and bounds made in his acting allow him to walk past Top Man’s window display with his head held high.

If ever a sequel to the 1980s flick Mannequin is made, Lucy is a shoo-in to make it big in Hollywood as the all-standing, all-posing clothes’ horse of Andrew McCarthy’s dreams.

But that’s enough. It’s time for Lucy to make us eat our words – and his fist – with some bare-knuckle boxing.

Come on, Gary – give it your best shot. We can take it. We only ask in return that when you are an international star, you look at your clenched fist and remember us.

Bye. Or as they say in Footballs’ Wives, “Shag yer later…“’

Posted: 31st, March 2004 | In: Celebrities | Comment

Child’s Play

‘WHAT if you went into work and all your colleagues were dressed in romper suits? What if you went round to a friend’s house for dinner and were served fish fingers and baked beans?

Tweenies – The Director’s Cut

What if prime time on television was jammed with programmes like The Tweenies and Thomas The Tank Engine? What if your partner invited you round for a game of hide and seek?

Would you not think that something had gone a bit wrong if everyone around you started acting like children?

So, why is it acceptable for grown men and women to read Harry Potter? We have no great opinion on whether the JK Rowling books are any good or not, but we do know one thing about them – they’re for children.

And Linda Smith was quite right on Room 101 last night when she nominated for destruction those among us who think it is acceptable to read the same books as a six-year-old.

It’s not a question of being in touch with the inner child or anything like that; it’s just sad. Time to grow up and read something written for grown-ups. And that doesn’t include Lord Of The Rings…’

Posted: 30th, March 2004 | In: Celebrities | Comment

Real Deal

‘NEWSREADERS have become personalities. This is not to say that newsreaders were never blessed with personality, as anyone who saw Angela Rippon high kick with Morecambe and Wise knows.

Fiona liked nothing better than a chat over an imaginary pint

But they have become personalities in the way of weather girls.

Trevor McDonald was been simpering and stressing the second word in every sentence on his show, Tonight With Trevor McDonald, since 1999.

It’s the US formula of news TV, of course, where stories deemed to be of public interest are dressed in nice shiny suit and slapped silly with greasepaint.

And now the Beeb’s at it, with Real Story with Fiona Bruce. Half an hour before Trevor, Fiona follows last week’s chat with that barely comprehensible lip-chewer Rio Ferdinand with a show about, er, ‘shaken baby’ death.

From a spoilt footballer to baby death in one step – that’s TV for the Ritalin generation.

And it can only get worse…’

Posted: 29th, March 2004 | In: Celebrities | Comment

Honest Endeavour

‘IN the final episode of Sex And The City, we at last got to learn the first name of Mr Big, Carrie’s on-off lover through all six seasons of the show. For anyone who cares, it was John.

‘John, eh…’

But it is not the first show to keep viewers guessing in this way up to the very last minute -Inspector Morse was the first to do so, and viewers had to wait seven series before the truth came out.

The Inspector Morse programmes seem part of a very distant past these days, a relic from a world that hadn’t invented reality TV.

John Thaw is sadly dead and Kevin Whately returned whence he came to Auf Wiedersehen Pet via Peak Practice.

But long enough has now passed since the demise of Oxford’s grumpiest detective for ITV to revive him (and his faithful sidekick) as the centrepiece of its Friday evening offering.

Tonight, Morse is dragged into a family feud when a well-known business tycoon is murdered – and finds himself the target of a hate campaign in the local press.

By the way, it’s Endeavour Morse, in case you were wondering…’

Posted: 26th, March 2004 | In: Celebrities | Comment

The Frost Report

‘DOES anyone remember what Sadie Frost is actually famous for, apart of course from being married and more recently not being married to Jude Law? Oh, and for being a friend of Kate Moss.

What happened next?

No, we haven’t got a clue either. She’s a bit like the guests who used to appear on Celebrity Squares, the only reason they were celebrities being that they used to appear on Celebrity Squares.

So, when E4 entitles a programme What Sadie Did Next, is it presupposing that we know what Sadie did before or is it just a way for the programme makers to mask their own ignorance?

Anyway, what Sadie is doing after doing whatever it was she did before is a new arts programme which involves Sadie interviewing (if that is not too impressive a word for what she actually does) pals like Gwyneth Paltrow, Samantha Morton and Tracey Emin.’

Posted: 25th, March 2004 | In: Celebrities | Comment

Banana Love

‘IT’S Wednesday again and that means more Footballers’ Wives – the everyday tale of football folk at Earl’s Park FC.

‘Can I have a new husband please? My old one’s broken’

Tonight, Amber (Conrad’s mad wife) sacks her witch doctor after jabbing pins in a voodoo doll of Tanya (grieving widow of Frank, who was literally shagged to death last week…and of Jason) fails to achieve the desired results.

Meanwhile, Conrad doesn’t seem to mind which side of his bread is buttered, just as long as there’s lots of butter, and is now having a fling with team-mate Noah.

“I like sex,” he explains – just in case the viewers haven’t quite grasped that yet. “Man, woman, banana. Who cares?”

Well, the banana might care, for one.

Kyle (grieving widower of Chardonnay) is getting over his loss by getting his leg over Elaine, the club physio. He has also got a gambling problem and is being drawn deeper and deeper into the underworld fight game.

If the scriptwriters could only add in a bit of dogging, it would almost be like real life.’

Posted: 24th, March 2004 | In: Celebrities | Comment

The Paedo Files

‘IS it any wonder that parents are terrified into believing that every second adult is a paedophile preying on their children when they are served a constant media diet detailing every instance of abuse?

A typical paedophile

Mercifully, incidents such as the horrific murders of Sarah Payne in July 2000 and of Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman two years later are very rare – and there is no evidence to suggest that they are becoming more common.

But fear of crime has never had much to do with the actual incidence of crime, with people almost universally overestimating the likelihood of becoming a victim.

And one wonders whether the media’s fascination with crime in general, and paedophilia in particular, is in part responsible.

The main culprits are, of course, the tabloids, which are guilty of irresponsible sensationalism and blatant scare-mongering, culminating in the News Of The World’s aborted Name & Shame campaign.

However, tonight the BBC gets in on the act, with a new series called Police Protecting Children. No doubt, this is a responsible documentary, but one can’t help but worry that it will only succeed in feeding the national hysteria.’

Posted: 23rd, March 2004 | In: Celebrities | Comment

Becks In Time

‘SOME ideas work well on paper. Other ideas work well on the screen. And some others work as well as a one-armed Scouse roofer with piles.

Becks and a friend pose as Samson and Deliah

How Beckham Back In Time came to be made is a programme in itself, and one more interesting than the main event.

We cut to scene one of TV Execs Exposed and see the young man with interesting square-rimmed glasses writhing in his bed.

In his dreams he sees David Beckham. But Becks is not clad in the strip of Real Madrid or England, rather the panoply of the heroic knight of yore.

Just as Day-vid is preparing to do battle with the green knight or a mighty dragon, he’s transported to ancient Rome, where he’s now a charioteer.

The TV exec wriggles and moans in ecstasy as Day-vid changes uniform to be an army officer and then a matador in 1740s Spain.

This is a fantasy to end them all. Our TV exec has managed to combine the historical bent of Simon Schama with the titillation of Channel X and the best of Sky Sports to produce a TV show for all ages and all men.

It’s perfect. He reaches for his pad, the one he keeps on the bedside table in times of such great inspiration, and jots down the idea.

And then he wakes and can make no sense of what he’s written. But the show gets made by the BBC anyhow, with a look-alike as Becks and fronted by Nick Knowles.

And it gets broadcast on BBC3 tonight at 9:30.

And then we all wake up and find out it’s been a terrible dream. Or do we…?’

Posted: 22nd, March 2004 | In: Celebrities | Comment

Don’t Carrie On

‘HOORAY! The last ever Sex And The City is broadcast tonight on Channel 4 and, judging by stories of bitching between the four principals, it could be the last we ever see of the most annoying four women ever to be assembled in the same set since the, er, Spice Girls.

Getting ready for the climax

Talk of a film version of the mysteriously popular TV series has been punctuated by reports of fights between Sarah Jessica Parker and Kim Cattrall – all of which means that the project may never get off the ground.

So, barring the inevitable repeats, join with us in wishing a less-than-fond farewell to Carrie, Samantha, Charlotte and the ginger one.

For masochists and those women who believe four women bleating on about men and clothes is in some way empowering, the last episode is preceded by an hour-long look back at all the six series.

How this can take an hour given that every episode is nearly identical to the one before and the one after we don’t know, but it does at least mean that we’re an hour closer to the end of this tosh.’

Posted: 19th, March 2004 | In: Celebrities | Comment (1)

Can You Repeat The Question?

‘YOUR writer was not always locked in a dungeon away from it all. Where now the naked and broken light bulb swings, there was once a vision of the sun. (Is it still there, gentle reader?)

The hot seat

Back then, I once took a taxi cab driven by a certain Fred Housego, or “’Ows-ego”, as was his wont.

I found him no less than the genius who won Mastermind back when it was the big brainbox show on TV, as he managed to not say a single word to me during the journey.

Fred knew that I was not worth the effort, talking to me would have been a waste of his brainpower.

How different things are now that Mastermind has a celebrity element, and its contestants are not train drivers and librarians but jobbing celebs.

Tonight’s show has the previously likeable Jonathan Meades, Adam Hart-Davis, the increasingly tired Vic Reeves and the female Danny Baker that is Janet Street-Porter seeking to display their expertise in stuff.

As usual, Magnus Magnusson asks the questions. And you at home are invited to join in and see how well you do.

Of course, you have something of a head start – what with this being the BBC and all, the show has been on before and thus the questions already asked.

Anyone getting less than full marks should hang their heads in shame. And be sent to the dungeon. (How d’yer think I got here?)’

Posted: 18th, March 2004 | In: Celebrities | Comment

Amber Alert

‘HER attempts to bump off her husband having backfired (with Frank looking at a new lease of life rather than the inside of a coffin), Tanya sets her sights on trying to wreck Conrad’s marriage.

Tanya tells Darren Day: ‘Even I’ve got standards’

Last week, Conrad’s wife Amber emerged bedraggled from the woods following her ‘kidnap’, but Tanya knows Amber better than this – so tonight she sets about making sure that Conrad knows his missus has been telling porkies.

It’s easier said than done as Conrad is so glad to have his unhinged wife back in his arms that he isn’t in the mood for the truth (especially from Tanya), although he belatedly has to accept that he has been tricked.

Yes, it is of course another episode of Footballers’ Wives tonight – a programme that is now so far removed from events on the pitch at Earls’ Park that it might be mistaken for a fly-on-the-wall documentary about Leicester City.

Elsewhere, the odious Darren Day talks about his image as a love rat on Tabloid Tales, while the diaries of another womaniser, Alan Clark, are dramatised on BBC2.’

Posted: 17th, March 2004 | In: Celebrities | Comment

Slipping The Mickie

‘CASUALTY should run and run forever. How can the show ever run out of plots?

‘Who’s taking the Mickie, then?’

If it needs sensation, the writers can just cause a pile up on the M4 between a Boeing 747 and a small coach full of kiddies. Oh, and a dog.

If it needs to look up-to-date, with its finger on the pulse, it can play at politics and have a minister visit with the Machiavellian hospital governors.

And if wants to get men to watch, writers can remind mankind that nurses are not medical professionals at all but out-of-work lap-dancers and extras from Footballers’ Wives.

Pricked by the arrival of No Angels, Casualty welcomes two new arrivals tonight in the shapely shape of Donna and Mickie.

They look all very prim and proper in their uniforms. And yesterday we saw that they look pretty good out of them too, as the Star shot Kelly Adams (Mickie) and Jaye Jacobs (Donna) in their underwear.

And it was clean underwear, because you can never be too careful about these things, and if you are run over by a bus, the very last thing you’d want is to be serviced by a nurse in anything untoward, or dirty.’

Posted: 16th, March 2004 | In: Celebrities | Comment

Bunny Spoiler

‘IT is at times of crisis, such as in the immediate aftermath of the 9/11 attacks on New York and the Pentagon, during the war with Iraq or while the grief caused by the Madrid bombings is still fresh, that the vacuous would of celebrity seems just that.

At it like rabbits

Indeed, it is more than vacuous, it is obscene – and our celebration of its empty world only serves to make us collaborators.

Tonight, VH-1 presents a programme entitled The Fabulous Life Of Hugh Hefner, part of a series of documentaries that make Hello! magazine appear hard-hitting.

Hefner, as we all no doubt are aware, is the founder of Playboy, a sort of adolescent stuck in the pyjama-clad body of someone old enough to be your grandfather.

To the observer and depending on your perspective, Hefner’s life appears either to be one long bachelor fantasy or a sad escape from having to engage with the complexities of the real world.

For VH-1, it is just an excuse to show lots of scantily-clad women…’

Posted: 15th, March 2004 | In: Celebrities | Comment

Terrible Television

‘WITH the proliferation of docu-dramas and reality TV shows, it takes a while to believe that The Worst Week Of My Life, BBC1’s new comedy offering, is actually fictional.

Sarah Alexander prepares for another put down

The presence of Ben Miller and Sarah Alexander as the two leads – Howard and Mel – who are about to be married helps to set it apart from the normal fare of fly-on-the-wall voyeurfests.

But the subject matter – how the preparations for what is supposed to be the happiest day of Howard and Mel’s life start to come unravelled – would lend itself perfectly to the Driving School-Airport school of programme-making.

Indeed, one imagines that the only reason that The Worst Week Of My Life was made as a comedy was because the BBC drama department saw it before the BBC documentary.

Tonight’s first episode sets the tone for the whole series – anything that can go wrong will go wrong…and then some. Think Meet The Parents meets Whitehall farce.’

Posted: 12th, March 2004 | In: Celebrities | Comment

Survival Of The Fittest

‘IF the world ended tomorrow, what would you do? You would, of course, do nothing, much as you do now.

A year’s ration of Anthea Turner

If the TV continued to broadcast a signal, it’d probably take most of you a few years before you noticed anything was up, and only then after you’d realised the night’s episode of Changing Rooms had been on nine times before.

The biggest impact to your life would be if the electricity supply went down. What then would you do? Light a candle? Pah! Don’t flatter yourself, you’d probably try to plug it in.

You need training in readiness for the end of life as you know it. And actor Nick Frost is happy to give you a few pointers in what to do.

Tonight on FIVE at 7:15 Frost takes advice from former Navy SEAL Jim Martin in how to avoid being shot if someone if shooting at you.

You, a sitting target in your Comfi-Slax and E-Z Chair, would not last too long. Frost, however, would survive, and go onto survive a tribal attack in the jungle, a charging tank and hypothermia.

He’d also know how to keep the human race going in the aftermath of a global disaster. It gives little away to say that the recipe for survival involves a Mini Cooper, a string of copper wire and a signed photograph of Anthea Turner.

Failing that, Vanessa Feltz will make a human race, of sorts…’

Posted: 11th, March 2004 | In: Celebrities | Comment

Simple Simon

‘YOU can say what you like about Simon Cowell – and anyone who foisted Westlife on the world deserves his fair share of opprobrium – but he certainly has a talent not only for knowing what the public likes but also for giving it to them.

A big screaming nellie in a grey T-shirt

A couple of years ago, he was unknown outside the music business, but such has been his success on Pop Idol and then on American Idol that there is even talk of him becoming the star of his own cartoon series.

As a judge in Pop Idol, Cowell was happy to cast himself as the pantomime villain and did so with such aplomb that he is now worth millions after achieving what few of his bands could do, making himself a household name in the United States.

Tonight, he talks to Mirror editor Piers Morgan in another edition of Tabloid Tales about his transformation from a glorified A&R man to TV’s Mr Nasty and how the papers have treated him during that time.

Max Clifford may be a fan, but not every one is. Tony Parsons calls Cowell “a big screaming nellie in a black T-shirt”. True enough – but a very successful nellie at that.’

Posted: 10th, March 2004 | In: Celebrities | Comment

Hello! Dolly

‘EVERY era has its mysteries. Where did Lord Lucan run to? Who killed Cock Robin? Did Jack Ruby act alone?

‘No, dear. It’s not time for your afternoon nap yet’

And so these days we have our own puzzle to solve: who is the Marquesa de Varela, the shadowy figure who travels the better parts of globe securing interviews for Hello! magazine?

Tonight BBC1 tries to find an answer to that question as it broadcasts The Secrets Of Hello! at 10:35.

We do indeed see the Marquesa de Varela at work, and the show pays particular heed to her involvement with photos of the wedding of Catherine Zeta Jones to Michael Douglas.

In order to protect her boss, Varela apparently signed a false declaration, so taking the blame for the picture fiasco.

What else we know is that Varela is a place in Argentina, and the Marquesa may or may be or may not be one of its titled gentry.

It is all pretty mysterious, and serves to make a magazine that is essentially a PR vehicle for nobs, gobs and celebrity yobs look something more than it is.’

Posted: 9th, March 2004 | In: Celebrities | Comment

Fighting Talk

‘THE truth is that, despite the blanket coverage of the recent Gulf War II, most of us have got very little idea what happens in the front line.

The opposition forces were surprisingly friendly

Our image of war, unless we have experienced it ourselves, is probably conditioned more by what we have seen in the cinema than by any other influence – and life, as we know, is rarely like it appears on screen.

The first part of Channel 4’s two-part documentary, The Truth About Killing, concentrates on the psychology of killing and how, far from being murderous, humans are very much conditioned not to take another person’s life.

But it also debunks some of the more fanciful – and even glamorous – notions of war. For instance, only a mere 25% of soldiers fire their guns in anger during a conflict and then they often do it into thin air.

This is a worthwhile antidote to the usual images we are fed. If people sat through a murder trial, they would soon realise that the vast majority of murderers are nothing like The Yorkshire Ripper.

If they went to war, they would soon realise how little “fighting” is actually done.’

Posted: 8th, March 2004 | In: Celebrities | Comment

Barking Mad

‘AT the risk of offending about 6 million of you, Crufts (BBC2) is a show designed to make fusty women who summon their dogs in loud shrill voices feel that they are not alone.

Foufou and her new potty

They are part of a gang. It’s a nationwide movement and it’s coming to Birmingham’s NEC centre in a fleet of ageing estate cars with grills separating the boot from the car’s human areas.

If Crufts were smell-o-vision, it would stink. Not in the same way that, say, Hollyoaks stinks, but in a way that gets into your clothes and on your food.

You might have guessed that dog lovers we are not.

Dogs are animals that through generations of in-breeding have reached the heady heights of being able to roll over on their backs at the scream of a command word, and not always in their own excrement.

Yet still they are famed among a certain type for their intelligence. Since such a quality is relative, we can only wonder at the mental capacity of the family Joyce (most dog lovers are called Joyce) left behind.

But, then, they have to put up with her. And would you want to communicate with a women who kisses her “baby” to bed – with tongues?’

Posted: 5th, March 2004 | In: Celebrities | Comment

Hard To Swallow

‘IT’S not as if Jordan is easy to avoid at the best of times, the giant silicone balloons on her chest make sure of that.

Danielle realised she wasn’t going to get laid tonight

But last night we had a double helping of the ubiquitous model as she made a guest appearance in Footballers’ Wives on ITV and chatted to Piers Morgan over on BBC1 about her nine-year career as the darling of the tabloid press.

Tonight, thankfully, we are spared the dubious charms of the woman formerly known as Katie Price and are instead served up a half-hour helping of Club Reps.

One imagines that this is the kind of job Jordan would have fallen into had she not attached a bicycle pump to her breasts all those years ago and pumped her way to fame and a not inconsiderable fortune.

Of course, now we know that what ITV show us of the reps’ behaviour is actually a sanitised version of what really goes on. There are no group blow jobs on tonight’s show, but plenty to make us gag anyway.’

Posted: 4th, March 2004 | In: Celebrities | Comment

Blood On The Tracks

‘ANY programme about Jarvis, the firm that, among many things, fiddles about with train tracks, might not begin on time.

‘The train on Platform 4…’

It might overrun, limping home around a month or so late, and there may be a few casualties along the way.

But you are TV viewers – sorry, TV customers – and must be prepared to put up with a few disruptions while things are improved.

If you do have any issues you’d like to discuss about this company profile, please consult the citizen’s charter and write to Jarvis.

Only don’t send your missives to Jarvis, since things have gotten so bad that they have decided that from now on they would like to be known as Engenda.

A spokesman for the firm denies that the name change is designed to distance the ‘new’ firm from the old one. But whatever the reasons, you should address your concerns to Engenda.

Deborah Cameron, the new Murdoch professor of language and communication at Worcester College Oxford, says: ‘The new names are always Latin. That is another reason why people think it is such bollocks.

“The thing that is particularly crappy about it is it is fake Latin. It is dignifying a very ordinary thing with a ridiculous label.’

“Crappy” and “bollocks”! Hmmm… that sounds like the makings of a decent company motto. What is the Greek for Potters Bar?’

Posted: 3rd, March 2004 | In: Celebrities | Comment

The Bees’ Knees

‘OKAY, so here’s a surprise – Maximillion Deveraux got bullied at school. Even if his parents had called him Bully Me, it is hard to believe he would have got more hassle from the bigger boys than he did with a name like Maximillion.

‘Ledley King to Queen’s Bishop Three’

Anyway, the result of all this bullying means that Max – a bachelor from rural Herefordshire – is now so painfully introverted that he gets probably gets shy in front of his chess computer.

Not too shy, however, that he didn’t agree to appear as the subject on tonight’s final part of Channel 4’s Faking It series with the task of trying to pass himself off as a football manager.

Max should have the tactical side of the game sewn up – he’s a former professional chess player and has seven A-levels to his name (which says all you need to know about his social life).

But can he pass himself off as the Arsene Wenger of Brentford? Do I not think so, as all the best bosses say…’

Posted: 2nd, March 2004 | In: Celebrities | Comment