TV & Radio Category
Television and radio programme reviews, trailers, highlights, twilights and cinema news. Also the neglected gems from years past.
RIP Jim Bowen: When Gameshow TV Hit The Bullseye
So it’s farewell to Jim Bowen, my Bullseye Tumblr muse. He was the engine of that show, propping up hours of awkward banter with shy contestants like Colin the carpet tufter from Dridlington (my favourite ever contestant name town and occupation combo) shuffling in their seats, eyes down. They had only come to win a dinner service, maybe a luggage set, they didn’t want all this razzle dazzle. He chatted to them about their home town, their family, their job, and would valiantly press on whenever the banter couldn’t overcome the nerves and didn’t land, as it once didn’t with a shopkeeper from Diss who took umbrage at Jim saying he had DISS-satisfied customers. The man disagreed (DISSagreed!) Jim explained what he meant. “I know what you meant,” he muttered irritably; right, on with the show!
Jim really came into his own during the quiz portion of the show, routinely asking anyone who responded to a question with a self doubting tone “are you asking me or telling me?” They would confirm that they were indeed telling him and he was duly appeased. Except for one time, when a woman threw him by saying “I’m asking you”. He paused and in a low sombre voice said “I’d prefer it if you’d tell me”.
He wasn’t very consistent bless him, oscillating between violently and unnecessarily shushing the always silent audience whilst the contestants considered their answer and then occasionally jabbering all over their thinking time. My favourite such occasion was when he asked a woman about a cathedral that had burned down “…which cathedral was it?…it was a cathedral…but…but it’s got another name for a cathedral” MOOOOOOOO. Thanks for that Jim.
Another classic was when he spent a man’s thinking time telling him he looked like Rumpole of the Bailey. The man looked annoyed at this comparison and then came Bully’s roar which annoyed him further. Afterwards Jim apologised to the glowering contestant for offending him but maintained that he did look like him.
That man should count himself lucky that at least he didn’t get the “I’m surprised you didn’t know that” treatment on a question about STDs.
The quiz section led to everyone’s favourite part of the night; the famed prize board. Where Jim would get to announce such bizarre prize hauls as “pound puppies and fine wines” (GAMBLE!) and physically drag people to what they had won and also to what they hadn’t won. Like when he pushed two unhappy contestants up onto a beach set and made them sit unhappily in cane chairs so they could watch footage of a holiday they had failed to obtain, having lost all of their other prizes in the process. But they had a good day and that is all that matters. Plus you got a tankard win or lose.
I will leave you with a clip of Jim being serenaded by some very 1980s men for far too long. His face in the middle is wonderful.
Thank you Mr Bowen for all of the awkward moments, the great chat, the deliberately bad jokes, and for a show that I always find gives me the biggest of hugs whenever I watch it.
James Bowen (born Peter Williams; 20 August 1937 – 14 March 2018).
Posted: 15th, March 2018 | In: Celebrities, News, TV & Radio | Comment
How they do the weather on Sky News (video)
And now on Sky News, the weather….
"…and here's the weather" pic.twitter.com/g3ZoEfmCmk
— Andy (@alreadytaken74) January 21, 2018
Spotter: AlreadyTaken74
Posted: 4th, February 2018 | In: Strange But True, TV & Radio | Comment
Well-paid BBC women are not thick as mince Grid Girl women
Spot the differences between the “BBC women on the march” for equal pay and ‘Grid Girls’ women being told they can’t work at Formula One events. Clue: age and class.
First up, the women who know what’s best for themselves and all women. The women taking a stand for equal rights, more money, opportunity and the sisterhood:
The women told they don’t know what’s best for themselves and who don’t know their own minds, being presumably too thick and infected by misogyny to earn an honest living of their choosing. Thankfully, more intelligent and higher ranking women are here to lend these losers a steer.
And then this, in which the female expert in all things female schools two grown women no longer working the darts circuit in the right and wrong way to dress, earn money and conduct themselves. (Neither group is from the 70s – that’s the 1970s for the ‘babes’ and the 1870s for the bluestocking.)
Posted: 1st, February 2018 | In: Broadsheets, News, Sports, Tabloids, TV & Radio | Comment
Unemployment now! Women rejoice as all F1 babes are sacked
F1 will no longer feature female models – Grid Girls – in the pits. Women won’t be in the cars, either. That tradition stays. Says Sean Bratches, managing director of commercial operations:
“While the practice of employing grid girls has been a staple of Formula 1 grands prix for decades, we feel this custom does not resonate with our brand values and clearly is at odds with modern day societal norms.
“We don’t believe the practice is appropriate or relevant to Formula 1 and its fans, old and new, across the world.”
The BBC spoke with one of the newly sacked: Charlotte Gash:
“It’s upsetting and I’m rather disgusted that F1 have given in to the minority to be politically correct…. I know the grid girls are there to look pretty when they’re out on the grid but my role was interacting with the crowd and we were there as an advertisement for the sponsors. We love doing it we don’t want it taken away from us.”
Charlotte Gash, there.
Men, start your engines…
Posted: 31st, January 2018 | In: Sports, TV & Radio | Comment
Spurs manager Tim Sherwood explains Stoke City’s malaise in classic Coleman Balls
On Sky Sports, Tim Sherwood, the former manager of Spurs, Aston Villa and Swindon Town, turns his mind to Stoke City. Mark Hughes is no longer with Stoke, sacked after spending five seasons building a team. When still in the role, Sherwood explained what Hughes needed to do to continue.
Mark Hughes can’t win. But he can win if they win. Apparently. pic.twitter.com/dl4oZBDKAV
— Shelley Johnson (@shelleyj89) January 6, 2018
“Mark Hughes cannot win. The only time he can win is by winning this football match”
– Tim Sherwood
Spotter: Shelley Johnson @shelleyj89
Posted: 14th, January 2018 | In: Sports, TV & Radio | Comment
BBC: Jeremy Corbyn pays tribute to ‘Prince Harry and Hezbollah’
Jeremy Corbyn wants to say a few things about “Harry and his brother”. Or as the BBC’s subtitler puts it: “Harry and Hezbollah.” A typo or is ‘Hezbollah’ the new nickname for Meghan Markle? Bit harsh.
Spotter: Giles Dilnot
Posted: 28th, November 2017 | In: Politicians, Royal Family, TV & Radio | Comment
Paul Hollywood’s Indian Summer
No topless photos of Paul Hollywood, 51, the TV baker leaving his wife of umpteen years. No photos of Paul in his undies, posing with a cheeky glance to camera as his taps his buttocks. And no revelations that he likes to hang homemade ring donuts on his manhood in the way the actor John Bindon used to hand five half-pint glasses on his penis.
Instead we get Paul telling us that years ago a fortuneteller told him he would be “very wealthy and very famous” (Daily Star), and two big photos of Summer Moneys Fulham, a 22-year-old barmaid (Daily Mail). In one, Summer does the splits on the bar of a Kent pub where she met the TV oven stuffer. In another she smiles in a low-cut top.
The Mail recalls Hollywood’s affair with Marcel Valladolid, his co-judge on the US version of the Great British Bake Off, telling readers that he called it “the biggest mistake of my life”.
On the Mirror’s front page, it’s “Bake Off Paul” and the “barmaid”. Hollywood ‘Splashes the dough” (geddit?) on “young barmaid Summer Monteys-Fulham”, now given a hyphen.
The message is clear: he is money and fame; she is seduction and regret. Love and sex are different for girls.
We read that Summer has “apparently quit her job”, deleted her social media profiles and moved out her parent’s “£1m home”. Her life seems to have been changed since the Sun on Sunday broke news that she and Hollywood had become friends. “It has clearly upset her a lot,” says an unnamed source to the Mail.
So the single woman gets profiled and finds herself in the paper, the object of our heated debate and judgement. Wonder what the stars said lurked in store for her.
Posted: 27th, November 2017 | In: Celebrities, News, Tabloids, TV & Radio | Comment
Jack Maynard: let’s feed him to the cockroaches and Dennis Wise
They’re gunning for Jack Maynard, the YouTuber who left the I’m A Celebrity Jungle accused of making alleged racist and homophobic tweets. Exposed by the Sun, Maynard is hammered by the Mirror, which leads with his face and the headline:”Teenage girl: I’m A CelebJack begged me for pic in my bra.” It might have been kinder to have Jack Maynard buried in a cockroach-infested hole in the Australian jungle with Dennis Wise for company. But that’s not to diminish from his apparent offence. Being buried alive for TV entertainment was too good for him.
On page 8, we read: “Your boobs are nice & would look good in bra shot…Ever take one?” The claim is that Jack “pestered the girl” when Jack was 17. We’re told there is “no suggestion he knew the girl was only 14 at the time”.
We then get introduced to the ‘victim’, who says she was a fan of Jack’s brother Conor Maynard and “sought his advice on becoming an online model”. They then allegedly got into an exchange, in which Maynard was told he is only famous through his brother and he told her: “Who the fuck even are you? You’re an ugly freak.”
We then hear from her: “I looked up to Jack as a role mode and I found his persistence annoying. But I saw it as relatively harmless flirting given the small age gap… I don’t think he was aware I was younger than him. He was just a bit of a dickhead…” The Sun ignores the bra and says, “he had also begged a 14-year-old fan to send him nude pictures.”
The Sun also quotes the ‘victim’, no aged 10, who says: “He was 16, I was 14. It was something that happens to everyone. [The Mirror said he was 17.] I never once felt harassed. We were kids, it’s not once harmed me at all in any way. It’s in the past. It is a serious allegation to make, but you’re a kid, you make mistakes. He didn’t know how old I was, and I didn’t know how old he was at the time. I cannot stress enough that the messages were harmless.”
And that’s it. “I’m sorry to anyone that I upset, anyone that I offended, anyone I made feel uncomfortable,” says Maynard. “Growing up I was all over social, my entire life was on social media an through that it led to be my job. I’ve tweeted some bad things, some horrible things, that I’m just ashamed of.” The Sun says he wad “grinning” and “smirking” when he apologised in a video.
Thankfully, no journalists ever said anything that might have caused offence.
Posted: 24th, November 2017 | In: Celebrities, News, Tabloids, TV & Radio | Comment
Jack Maynard: outrage as ‘racist’ vlogger avoids being eaten by rats
So farewell, Jack Maynard, aka ‘YouTuber Jack Maynard’, who has left I’m A Celebrity… Get Me Out Of Here! to sort out “circumstances outside camp”. Maynard wanted to “do the internet proud”. And he did just that, introducing the TV-watching tribes to life on the web. As the Sun thunders: “YouTube sensation, 22, was forced to apologise for racist and homophobic slurs on his Twitter account where he branded users ‘retarded’.”
Twitter’s a bit like a 1970s comedians showcase, albeit without the wit, laughs, likeable characters and fun.
The Sun took it upon itself to “reveal” some of Maynard’s “racist and homophobic tweets”, although it saw reason to edit them. Too rude for the paper that used to feature stunnas on Page 3 and still advertises phone lines for onanists seeking on-the-clock relief – yesterday readers were invited to call “X-Rated Cheap Girls – 18-94 Year Olds” and “HOT GIRLS [age unspecified]”. Thankfully, Pink News is less prudish. Damning Maynard as someone “famous for being the younger brother of singer Connor Maynard”, we read:
When an abusive commenter suggested he had profited off of his brother’s fame, Maynard hit back: “Completely forgot you know how I got it YOU RETARDED FAGGOT”.
He also used what the mainstream media terms ‘the N-word”. Censorship is provided by the Sun. (If you want to read the bad words, you need to get yourself on twitter.)
So Jack’s gone to spend time with his selfies, denying his accusers the chance to watch him being locked in a buried coffin and terrorised by rats. You had your chance.
Even better is the “spokesperson for the vlogger” – yep, even narcissists have their limits – who tells the Sun:
“Jack is ashamed of what he said in these tweets, many of which were deleted a long time ago and were sent in response to a neighbour who was bullying him. Jack was a lot younger when he posted them in 2012 but realises that age is no defence.”
Anyone else read that and see an adult explaining the action of a child? Jack is a big boy, says the grown up, and he knows he has done wrong. That leads to the a classic non-denial denial with sympathetic back story:
“He would never use that language now and realises that, as someone who was bullied himself, this kind of retaliatory, inflammatory, insulting language is completely unacceptable.”
Look at Jack Maynard less as the perpetrator, but as a victim living out fantasies born of a difficult childhood.
Posted: 22nd, November 2017 | In: Celebrities, Key Posts, News, Tabloids, TV & Radio | Comment
This Heinz Stranger Things ketchup bottle top is brilliant
Spotter: Adam The Creator
Posted: 9th, November 2017 | In: The Consumer, TV & Radio | Comment
Toothless sex sold for £4 in Liverpool
‘Natalie’
The Daily Mail has a story about on-the-clock sex and immigrants. The news comes via a BBC Three documentary on life in Liverpool:
Sex workers in a major British city are said to be selling their bodies for as little as £4 – with prostitutes blaming an influx of Eastern European competitors for pushing down prices.
That this is bad is pointed to by the Mail’s images of prostitutes and pimps lurking in the shadows looking miserable. Have you ever seen a newspaper story on prostitution featuring a woman running through bluebells? That the women are in need of rescue is a given.
Punters want cheap sex. There’s the obvious economic argument to defer from the headline: increased supply and a steady demand leads to lower prices. But the market for flesh is geared towards risk: it’s legal to sell your body in private but selling it in a public space, kerb-crawling, running a brothel and pimping are illegal. In an unregulated environment buying sex is a crime. Prostitution is a dangerous business. How can a woman complain of abuse and criminality, access safe lodgings and medical support without getting into trouble and running pellmell into judgement?
“The worst thing about prostitution is the lack of respect and opprobrium, and the pity and the assumptions that are piled onto prostitutes,” says AA Gill. “The root cause of all the dangers and misery of prostitution is because society despises prostitutes and the men who use them. So I wouldn’t make any of it illegal but what I would do is insist that anyone who used a prostitute had to work as a prostitute once a year, just to see what it was like.” Good idea.
The Mail continues:
The documentary tells the story of crack addict Natalie, who works on the streets to fund her habit.
Selling sex is a reality. A woman’s autonomous choice to sell her body is often fed by a consuming need. “They sell sex to pay for their habits,” says Michaela Edwards of the charity Streetwise. “Some do it to pay for Christmas presents for the kids. Some to pay the rent after getting their benefits cut.”
It’s about the money, right? “I’ve had to give a blow job out for a tenner because I’d been rattling for the heroin. Some days it’s even hard to make 60 quid,” says Hayley on the show. “Obviously the men are coming asking for cheaper money and we’re saying ‘no’. Then other girls are going and doing it,” says Hayley. “Some girl’s done it for £8, for anal and everything.”
And of the £4 rate, she adds: “Sex, here – some of the girls give it away for four quid. Because they’re battling for business, because they’re desperate to get crack.”
And having introduced the show’s plot, the Mail than adds:
A man named Jack, who lives with Natalie, blames Eastern European sex workers for flooding the market and slashing prices. He claims women come from as far as Serbia and Croatia and sell sex for rock bottom prices.
He said: ‘They’re absolute stunners. But the local girls… Sometimes I have to lend them my teeth.’
Spotter: Mail
Posted: 29th, October 2017 | In: News, Tabloids, TV & Radio | Comment
In 1980 Sesame Street toured a saxophone factory and I was hooked
I used to play the alto sax. Badly. I knew I was not all that good a musician when the school violin virtuoso was invited to listen to me play. ‘Too sharp,’ he said. ‘Too flat.’ To me it all sounded the same.
In 1980, Sesame Street toured a saxophone factory. Background music was supplied by an off-camera sax player, playing freestyle. the only word he said was “Saxophone”. And with that I was hooked.
Yeah! (Anyone know his name?)
Spotter: Laughing Squid
Posted: 22nd, October 2017 | In: Music, TV & Radio | Comment
Simon McCoy delivers a royal breaking news alert and it’s brilliant
This BBC Breaking News alert where @BBCSimonMcCoy announces when Kate Middleton is having her birthday is PEAK SIMON MCCOY pic.twitter.com/GKb4nQOp7J
— Scott Bryan (@scottygb) October 17, 2017
BBC News anchor Simon McCoy has BREAKING NEWS:
“We’ve just got this coming in from Kensington Palace, the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge are delighted to confirm they are expecting a baby in April.
“Now bearing in mind they announced she was pregnant back in September and it was thought she was around two or three months pregnant, I’m not sure how much news this really is but anyway…
It’s April so clear your diaries, get the time booked off because that’s what I’m doing. That’s news just coming in from Kensington Palace.”
Simon McCoy knows what’s coming. Having delivered the Windsors’ press release that another one of our betters is on the way, he can expect to be reporting LIVE on Kate Middleton’s womb to a captivated nation:
Posted: 18th, October 2017 | In: Key Posts, Royal Family, TV & Radio | Comment
Sole Survivor outlives fish: BBC pun of the day
Posted: 14th, October 2017 | In: TV & Radio | Comment
Hugh Hefner serenades two would-be Japanese Playboy Bunnies and it’s horrendous
Next up on the god-awful 1980 TV show Pink Lady & Jeff – a show featuring Japanese female singing duo Pink Lady (Mitsuyo Nemoto (“Mie”) and Keiko Masuda) and Jeff Altman, who was there because he could speak English, is Hugh Hefner.
The girls have rocked up at the Playboy Mansion to audition as Bunnies.
As you watch through knitted fingers, Hugh Hefner thinks it a good idea to sing My Kind of Town.
Posted: 28th, September 2017 | In: Celebrities, Key Posts, TV & Radio | Comment
Did you spot the huge penis in a Netflix children’s cartoon? Here it is
For those of you who missed it, this is the huge penis drawing that featured on a Netflix show Maya the Bee. The Mirror hears from the parent who spotted it and noted her displeasure on Facebook.
“I know that something like this should not be in a kid’s show whatever,” she says in a Facebook vifeo. “I’m extremely disgusted by it…there should be no reason why my kids should have to see something like this.”
Good-oh. Although they can see it on Facebook now, too, and in the national Press and here. But good spot, mum. But you need to go some to beat this knob watcher:
Posted: 20th, September 2017 | In: Strange But True, TV & Radio | Comments (2)
Great British Bake Off does the Teletubbies
Want to feel old? This is what the Teletubbies look like now.
Spotter: Freeview
Posted: 14th, September 2017 | In: TV & Radio | Comment
Manchester City balls: soft Ederson shows us his stitches
Manchester City goalkeeper Ederson is soft. Having been kicked hard in the face by Liverpool’s Saido Mane, who has apologised, the Brazilian stayed on the turf for 10 minutes. TV pundit Tony Gale was aghast, telling Sky Sports News on Monday that Ederson isn’t a “proper man”. He’s not like Burnley’s British goalkeeper Tom Heaton, who dislocated his shoulder against Crystal Palace the following day and walked off the pitch with a cheery wave.
— Wingers (@Wingers6) September 11, 2017
We’ve got no photo of Heaton’s shoulder, but we can share this image of Ederson’s face:
To think Tony Gale was on Sky this morning questioning Ederson’s masculinity because he didn’t wave to fans when he was being carried off pic.twitter.com/hushqtVyN2
— Simon Mullock (@MullockSMirror) September 11, 2017
Something narcissistic and the antithesis of stoic about showing the world your wound, but it does look very nasty. But it is to his face and not his hands, which in Tony Gale’s book means Ederson could have carried on playing. After all, it is only a flesh wound.
Posted: 12th, September 2017 | In: Manchester City, News, Sports, TV & Radio | Comment
Car crash opening to BBC World News (Video)
BBC World News has broadcasts a novel new intro.
😂 wonderful car crash opening to BBC World News just now. Pick a camera, any camera 😛 pic.twitter.com/5XxrdwQXcr
— Andrew Roberts 💬 (@AndyMRoberts) September 9, 2017
Spotter: Andy Roberts
Posted: 9th, September 2017 | In: TV & Radio | Comment
High winds: Weatherman farts on live TV
What’s the forecast, Mr Weatherman. Wind. High wind.
And thanks to the people who made this video – the people who record the weather and play it back.
Posted: 6th, September 2017 | In: Strange But True, TV & Radio | Comment
Spiders alert: Daddy Pig places Peppa in mortal danger
Peppa Pig’s parent are lying to her. In ‘Mister Skinny Legs’ Daddy Pig tells Peppa that spiders are lovely. They are “very very small” and “can’t hurt you”. Daddy Pig does this to stop Peppa freaking out when she spots a spider in his room. Daddy Pig does not vacuum the spider nor does he flush it down the toilet. The pigs pick up the spider, puts it to bed in a dolls’ house and Peppa offers it tea.
Nobody dies.
It turns out, of course, that Daddy Pig’s lies are putting his kids in mortal danger. As Australians know ABC, spiders are huge and terrifying. ABC, the national public broadcaster, says the show is “inappropriate for Australian audiences” and banned it from future broadcast in 2012
But on 25 August 2017, the episode was broadcast on Nick Jr, a children’s channel affiliated with Nickelodeon. When one mother complained, a spokesman for the TV station opined:
“The context of the way the spider is portrayed in the episode lessens any impact of scariness or danger; the spider does not look real, it has a smiley face and is shown in context of a show with other talking animals.”
Whatever you say, Skippy:
Posted: 5th, September 2017 | In: News, TV & Radio | Comment
Let it Be: a wonderfully ridiculous slice of must see Norwegian TV
In 2010, Norwegian TV show Gylne Tider, aka Gyldne Tider (trans: Golden Times) produced this stupendous video.
The show featured presenter by Øyvind Mund, cameraman Steinar Marthinsen and sound engineer Ingar Thorsen travelling to meet their childhood heroes. Having journey through Scandinavia asking ‘Didn’t you used to be..?’, the third series focused on international stars, such as: Linda Evans, Pamela Sue Martin, Lorenzo Lamas, Sabrina, Samantha Fox, Mark Hamill, Bo Derek, Al Corley, Bruce Boxleitner, Richard Chamberlain, Glenn Medeiros, The Bangles, Duane Loken, Mel Smith and Peter Shilton. For the 2010 series someone thought it a sound idea to get a load of familiar faces sing and have them sing The Beatles’ Let it Be.
Look out for: Pamela Anderson, Mickey Rourke, Jason Alexander, Glenn Close, Ricki Lake, Roger Moore, Daryl Hannah, John Nettles and more…
Posted: 3rd, September 2017 | In: Celebrities, Strange But True, TV & Radio | Comment
Live News epic fail: Fox takes on Hurricane Harvey
Have we reached peak LIVE! news? The Fox News reporter on the scene would like to ask Texans fleeing Hurricane Harvey a question. You, on the crutches stood in the rain, have you got an hour or so to discuss rain, planning policy, emergency procedure, what it feels like to be an unpaid expert on TV news..?
Posted: 29th, August 2017 | In: TV & Radio | Comment
TV new anchor didn’t change her shirt before broadcast
On the Bangalore local TV, news anchor Kannada is wearing a terrific T-shirt.
Spotter: Petty86
Posted: 27th, August 2017 | In: Fashion, Strange But True, TV & Radio | Comment
Clickbait: Conor McGregor thrashes Game of Thrones TWICE
It will cost you £1 to read the Daily Telegraph‘s story “Why dragons and fantasy are ruining Game of Thrones“.
Rebecca Hawkes begins:
On the face of it, asking whether Game of Thrones has “gone too fantasy” feels like a bit of a ridiculous question…
Clickbait isn’t all that easy when you’re not talking about sport. Hawkes can look enviously at other Telegraph headlines in today’s batch, and think about writing her next story as a question:
Alexis Sanchez fit to play against Liverpool – but will it be his final game for Arsenal?
Mayweather vs McGregor: What time does the fight start this weekend and who is predicted to win?
Not to be confused with the other story:
Mayweather vs McGregor: What time will the fight start, what date is it on and who is predicted to win?
Champions League group-stage draw 2017 – when and what time is it, what TV channel and what are the teams?
New Zealand vs Australia, 2017 Rugby Championship – what time is the Bledisloe Cup, what TV channel is it on and what is our prediction?
Can America remove President Donald Trump from office?
Two years after opening Germany’s doors to refugees, Angela Merkel stands tall. How has she done it?
Which celebrities have these GCSEs?
‘I’m a student about to go to university, will I need a TV licence?’
And the Top Most Read stories today:
Posted: 24th, August 2017 | In: Broadsheets, Reviews, Sports, TV & Radio | Comment
