TV & Radio Category
Television and radio programme reviews, trailers, highlights, twilights and cinema news. Also the neglected gems from years past.
Big Brother 9: Mario Opens His Eyes To Michael
BIG Brother 9 Watch: Anorak’s looks at Big Brother news in the media…
MARIO is in the kitchen with Michael. Wag-alike Stephanie walks in and wants access. Mario:
“Food comes first. Mikey’s got a disability – open your eyes”
Michael is blind…
Get rid of the aged Buzz Lightyear – A free £10 Big Brother FREE BET for all Anorak readers…
Posted: 10th, June 2008 | In: TV & Radio | Comment
The Barack Obama Fist Bump To 24 Hour Rolling News
“TELL me about the Barack and Michelle Obama’s fist bump,” commands the blonde with the stuck-in the-craw contraceptive voice. The fist thump. The Fisting.
“What happened to..the hug?” Well, there was that sexual harassment case in Oregon and …
George Bush did a chest bump. “What does that mean?” It means he’s American. Bumping chests is what Americans do in the country’s big two rackets: porn and politics.
“Has our communications style changed as a culture in America – non verbal communication?” – like bombs, rolling your eyes a lot and the finger?
Did Obama flip a finger to Hillary Clinton? Yes, he did. Only, Obama flips the finger with his thumb – he’s all about change – and has been flipping the finger to just about everyone of us for years.
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Posted: 9th, June 2008 | In: TV & Radio | Comment
GMTV Celebrities On Tony Blair
FORMER EastEnders’ actor Joe Absolom tells Teltext that he ducked out of giving Tony Blair a piece of his mind.
The actor said had planned to challenge the former Prime Minister when they appeared together on GMTV. Says he:
“I planned to say to Tony, ‘Why are we in the war?’ But when I met him in the studio I just said, ‘Wotcha, Tony!'”
It’s the wotcha on terror…
Posted: 9th, June 2008 | In: Celebrities, Politicians, TV & Radio | Comment (1)
Big Brother 9: Mario Marconi On The Telly
“MARIO beat me up, says ex-lover,” says the Sun. “Big Brother’s Mario is a violent bully with a vicious temper,” says Denise Bailey, “now happily married with three children.”
Says Denise: “I want people to know the truth — that he is a very nasty person who does not deserve fame and celebrity status. He is jealous, obsessive and violent. I think in 13 weeks on Big Brother, his true colours will show.”
Denise is not bitter nor obsessive, just keen to tell Sun readers that 20 years ago Mario, nee Shaun Astbury, aka the “BBEAST” is a complete swine who gave her a busted lip, black eye and punched her in the stomach.
Says Denise, who lives on “an exclusive estate near Premiership soccer players”: “I am not saying this for financial gain but to tell people what he is really like. I am not scared of him any more.”
Mario has appeared on BBC2’s Kitchen Criminals, Brits Behind Bars and Ant and Dec on Saturday Night Takeaway.
Posted: 9th, June 2008 | In: TV & Radio | Comments (12)
Big Brother 9: Bring On The Christians
BIG Brother 9 Watch: Anorak’s looks at Big Brother news in the media…
THE TIMES: “Why Big Brother represents a return to early Christianity”
Feeding the idiots to the lions?
For all its screeching abuse and sexual antics under the blanket, Big Brother really represents a return to early Christianity. In the early days of the church, confession was a public affair. Rather than whisper sheepishly through a grille to a priest who was probably asleep, or engaged in some secret sinful practice himself, people used to proclaim their sins in public.
Posted: 9th, June 2008 | In: Broadsheets, TV & Radio | Comments (3)
Big Brother 9: Stephanie McMichael’s Sex Secrets And Free Bet
BIG Brother 9 Watch: Anorak’s looks at Big Brother news in the media…
IT’S Big Bro Steph, or to give her her full front-page title, it’s Big Brother Stephanie McMichael.
“I’LL TELL CLEBS SEX SECRETS,” says Steph, the Wag-Alike assisted blonde Liverpudlian.
You’d suppose that any over-eight would know that if you are going to make your fame and fortune in shag ‘n’ tell stories you’d best not advertise the fact before the deed.
Says the Star: “SHOWBIZ stars are terrified that Big Brother babe Stephanie McMichael will reveal the secrets of her sex and drugs diary.”
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Posted: 9th, June 2008 | In: Tabloids, TV & Radio | Comments (3)
Big Brother: The Daily Mail’s Racism Row
BIG Brother 9 Watch: Anorak’s looks at Big Brother news in the media…
BIG Brother is upon us and the Mail screams from its front page: “C4 PAID CHIEF OVER SHILPA ROW.”
The Mail would never comment on the actual show – why bother when it has already has such a rich stock of pictures of drunken young women in short skirts to shock and appal its readers with?
The paper introduces readers to Trevor Phillips, “the Government’s equality chief, who is responsible for making businesses and public bodies obey anti-discrimination laws, was paid by Channel 4 for giving advice following the Big Brother racism scandal.”
Obey.
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Posted: 8th, June 2008 | In: Tabloids, TV & Radio | Comments (6)
How To Have A Big Brother Threesome
BIG Brother 9 Watch: Anorak’s looks at Big Brother news in the media…
“THREESOME secret of BB Babes,” announces the Star’s front-page headline.
Readers learn that “Big Brother hunk Mario Marconi is at the centre of a raunchy love triangle in the TV house”.
Mario, who looks like Buzz Lightyear from Toy Story: The Tanning Bed Years, is 42. He is said to have “wooed and won hot blonde” Stephanie McMichael, a pouty blonde 19-year-old Wag-a-like. That’s two parts of the threesome, and now in steps Lisa Appleton.
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Posted: 7th, June 2008 | In: Tabloids, TV & Radio | Comments (3)
Big Brother Watch: Freak 16 And This Summer’s News
BIG Brother 9 Watch: Anorak’s looks at Big Brother news in the media…
DAILY MIRROR (front page): “BB AFRAID.. BB VERY AFRAID.”
Is this an in-house memo to Mirror hacks, notice that their jobs are threatened by the Big Brother housemates, who write their own news?
“THE BIG BROTHER WANNABES ARE BACK”
And they’re kicking off their media career by appearing on the front page of a national newspaper. That’s not too shabby. The Mirror’s front page is usually given over to tales of Gordon Brown successes and football. So thank f*** then for Big Brother.
THE SUN: (front page): “BB FREAK S16”
The Sun has the 16 housemates in details. They are, in no special order:
ALBINO, BLIND, SEX-MAD, SWOT, TREE-HUGGER, DOZY, BEAKY, MICK, PADDY, PRODDY, TORY, HORNY, HONKY and a few more…
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Posted: 6th, June 2008 | In: Broadsheets, Tabloids, TV & Radio | Comments (3)
CNN Wants You To Its Job For Free
WANT to work for CNN? Want to get close to the action? Sure you do:
It’s 24-hour rolling views…
Posted: 5th, June 2008 | In: TV & Radio | Comment
Big Brother 9: Sex Is Blind
FOR those of you not rutting under a pier or shagging on the sangria, there’s the Big Brother live sex show.
Turn off that internet feed to a porn shop in Eastern Europe, lower the volume on that CCTV back-of the-bike-sheds-feed, and know that you can watch two wannabes dry humping the sofa on the telly.
Says the Star: “Big Brother is back tonight with a nympho, a pervert, a blind man…” All we need now is a punchline, something smutty, like which came first the pervert, the nympho or the blind man?
And what is a nympho but a more attractive pervert?
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Posted: 5th, June 2008 | In: Tabloids, TV & Radio | Comments (6)
Those Euro 2008 News Updates In Full
IT promises to be a footy-tastic summer for Britishers on the sofas and playas as they break off a game against the Waiters XI and cheer on the Germans.
The BBC TV trail for the big summer of football wonders what team you’ll be pumping for. As a guide, the Beeb’s Richard Bacon is gunning for Greece because he likes feta cheese and the Greek’s zero-tolerance policy on drugs.
BBC Five Live voice Shelagh Fogarty opts for Spain because she’s been there and as Sylvia Vrethammar’s No.1 fan knows all the words to Y Viva Espana (“I’d like to shag a matador”) ; and Simon Mayo is rooting and a tootin’ for the Dutch because they are – get this – “very entertaining people”, for whom the cheap drugs and rented sex are just the warm-up acts.
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Posted: 3rd, June 2008 | In: Back pages, TV & Radio | Comments (4)
Big Brother 9 Contestants Revealed: Julie Birchill And Caitlin Moran:
BIG Brother 9 is casting a shadow over the Club 18-30 toilet bowl and the columnists are coughing up their opinions as what lies in store.
Caitlin Moran in the Times, spends 740 words explaining why Big Brother is rubbish and she will not be watching it.
Of the show’s tabloid, and broadsheet, fodder, Moran says: “To me, in 2008, they are dead.”
“’It’s such a bloody relief,’ said my friend Mark, who gave up BB last year. ‘I felt as if I’d been released from a cellar.'” Austrians can only nod.
Over in the Sun, Julie Birchill tells readers: “REALITY TV was recently listed alongside capital punishment as one of the worst inventions of all time. Which really tells you all you need to know about the kind of airy-fairy seat-sniffers who hate it.”
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Posted: 3rd, June 2008 | In: Broadsheets, Tabloids, TV & Radio | Comments (5)
Critics Review Fern Britton Weight Loss DVD
FERN Britton weight loss DVD in hand, we flip the over and cover see what the reviewers are saying about it.
Mirror reader T. Blair: “”This is the most sickening act of deception I think I have come across.”
Fern Britton: “So anything you’ve read that has anything I’ve said about image, diet, bla bla bla, I haven’t said.
Britton, Fern: Who wants to be a slave to all the fads and put your body through stresses and strains it doesn’t need?
Message boards: “Gastric band!….Wot no 100% commitment to dieting?….She sort of cheated big time didn’t she!…. Whats the title of her her next book/fitness DVD ‘How To Do The London Marathon On A Moped’?”
Soaraway Sun: Fern: I’m not a big fat fibber
Amanda Platell: “Yes, technically speaking, she never lied. But, sometimes, hiding the truth can be as bad as lying. Isn’t her omission a bit like the husband who says he never lied to his wife about his mistress because she never asked?”
Shocked n Dismayed: “Fern has diminished not just in size but also in stature.”
Wendy Sloane: “I’m paying for the operation myself, about £7,000. I look at it this way: if I lose the weight, I can get back into all my clothes, so I won’t need to buy any new ones.”
Slim Whiteman: Gastric band?…. That should really drastically reduce the stomachs capacity for food intake!….They’ll only be enough daily room to eat one whole Victoria Beckham!
Alternative Therapy: “Why not do it the cheaper way? Ditch the surgery and just wrap a gastric band a few times around around the biscuit tin until it’s too tight to open?”
And many, many more…
Posted: 3rd, June 2008 | In: Celebrities, Tabloids, TV & Radio | Comments (3)
Immigrants And Poles Are Eurovision’s New Seekers
BAD news for Eurovision fans is that the 2.3 million immigrants the Mail says have come to the UK in the past 15 years are not all from Eastern Europe.
Or as the Express’ front-page screamer puts it: “IMMIGRATION IS OUT OF CONTROL.”
The Mail says “most migrants” have arrived from the Third World and not Eastern Europe, so reducing hopes of a naturalised Pole winning the big sing off for the UK, and of unnatural Poles voting for their former brethren.
Terry Wogan, who gives voice to Eurovision from an uneven wooden stool in a snow-blown corner of the BBC complex, is said by the Express to have blasted those “Eastern European racists”.
The paper reminds us that no eastern European country voted for Andy Abraham, who on top of singing a rubbish song suffered the double whammy of being a black man with a Jewish-sounding name. Had the finale to his act involved his admitting to eating little blonde children and shagging their mums, he might have scored big. But hindsight is a wonderful thing.
Like Wogan, Daily Express readers are outraged that the voting should be skewered towards the Russians. Taking time out from voting on today’s phone poll (“Should MPS have their expenses slashed” – make that “GREEDY MPs”) a “massive 98 per cent of readers” called the Express – irony of ironies – to complain of “rigged voting”.
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Posted: 2nd, June 2008 | In: Broadsheets, Tabloids, TV & Radio | Comment (1)
Fern Briton’s New Weight Loss DVD
THIS MORNING hostess Fern Britton’s new weight loss DVD comes in a slimline 16 collectable instalments.
In Episode 1, viewers will learn how to eat Ryvita crackers (in private), and listen up as “chubby” (Sun) Fern tells them: “I just ate a bit healthier and took up cycling to work … It’s taken me two years and a lot of hard work.”
Episode 2 comes with a complementary bottle of ether, a pad of cotton wool and instructions how to puncture a wound in a stomach and insert a bicycle inner tube.
Episode 3 and Fern’s celebrity chef husband Phil Vickery is fingering his Sabatiers, drawing lines on Fern’s naked tum-tum and opining: “Fern has lost a lot of weight through cycling, walking the dog and not eating too much – simple as that.”
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Posted: 2nd, June 2008 | In: Celebrities, Tabloids, TV & Radio | Comments (22)
Britain’s Got Sentiment: George Sampson’s Sympathetic Back Story
WHILE Austria looks at the usual suspects, and Europe dances to Russia’s tune, Britain revels in the news that it has George Sampson.
There’s George, 14-year-old winner of Britain’s Got Talent TV show, on the cover of the Mail.
In the Sun, Master Sampson is wrapped in the Union flag, which given his Dancin’ In The Rain routine – and that he was “sobbing his little heart out” (Mail’s Jaci Stephen) – might be Sun “TV Biz” writer Sara Nathan’s beach towel or else a giant Britain’s Got Sentiment Tissue.
George’s Edward Scissor Hands meets Gene Kelly routine enabled him to win £100,000 – which, as is the tabloid way, translates to “could earn £1million within a year, say industry experts (Mirror) – or even more if his talents are showcased globally.”
Surely much depends on George’s background story. Talented George can’t sing and record a hit album the word can hear over and over and over again. So his handlers need to create something else portable, either a little nodding George that sits on the dashboard of cars, or a sympathetic backstory we can carry in our hearts.
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Posted: 2nd, June 2008 | In: Tabloids, TV & Radio | Comments (191)
Big Brother 9: Vanessa’s Arse About Face And Davina’s Dead Mum
BIG Brother 9 Watch – Anorak’s look at Big Brother in the news…
The show is almost upon us, and tabloid hacks prepare for lazy days at the keyboard, hitting F6 and letting the news write itself.
With days until the opening of Big Brother 9 – the show looms like a holidaymaker over a Faliraki toilet bowl – the papers are building to the drama. Look out for Chanelle’s arse and Davina McCall’s dead relatives…
DAILY STAR (front page): “BIG BRO – CHANELLE BIG BRO’S SEXIEST BABE EVER”
The Star resits all urges to add an “OFFICAL” tag to this headline news, but who can argue with the view of Vanessa Feltz, who observes: “A pair of peaches? No, it’s Chanelle Hayes’ pert bum cheeks, silky smooth, peeking out of the side of some tiny lace pants and pointing right at me.”
Rude in some cultures, but poking your arse in Vanessa’s face is just what she likes best.
Posing, pouting, thrusting her bottom towards the lens, Chanelle looks every bit the consummate professional. She’s cool, calm and in control.
Vanessa wonders:
Was she prepared for the public’s reaction when she quit the house early? “I thought I’d be so hated, I’d have to leave the country. I was thinking of fleeing to Spain. I was dreading facing the world.
“It’s a terrible feeling when you’re only 19 and you imagine you’re the most despised woman in the United Kingdom.”
Instead of hatred, she found a career.
THE SUN: “Chanelle’s breast BB babe”
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Posted: 31st, May 2008 | In: Tabloids, TV & Radio | Comments (5)
Big Brother 9: Jade Goody Burgled
JADE Goody ‘The Hoody’ has been burgled.
With Big Brother 9 looming like a street mugger on heat, this is the last headline-making thing poor Jade needed.
Jade hears a noise. Says Jade: “I went to investigate with Batman, but there was no one there.”
Batman is a dog.
“I dread to think what would have happened if the thieves had still been in the house,” she tells the Sun. “I’m just glad my two boys weren’t at home.”
The robbers got away with £56,000 worth of jewellery – including a diamond-encrusted bangle, 5 designer watches and a Tiffany necklace, all available from Asda’s range of gold effects.
Says a source: “Her bedroom was a mess and there were muddy footprints everywhere.”
So no harm done, then…
“Her bedroom was a mess and there were muddy footprints everywhere.”
Posted: 30th, May 2008 | In: Celebrities, TV & Radio | Comment (1)
I’d Do Anythign: Latest Odds
BONNETS off and smelling salts all round to the I’D Do Anything judges for listing to back-to-back renditions of Rachel and Samantha singing Memory from Cats.
Your writer, the Anorak, once functioned as a ticket ripper (official) at the Drury Lane Theatre, London, where Cats played for many, many, many, many years. The opening strains to Memory were my cue to take up a seat in the auditorium and direct people to the exit lest they feel woozy.
How many times Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber has heard this dirge we can only fear, but the effects of Memory exposure are surely manifest in his pointy gestures and the odd neck-elongating pout he has made his own.
Songs sung, and it was time for Webber to wave goodbye to Rachel. “I’m absolutely devastated that I didn’t make it into the final. After getting into the last 12 that was my aim,” she said.
Rachel was an early favourite to win. But now she’s gone. And Jodie at 2.14 is the hot front runner.
How this happened, we can only put down to geography (Jodie is the only survivor from the British mainland and so should pull in the votes) and the fact that the British like a plucky, average enthusiast who has a go.
Who needs talent when you look like you’re having fun?
Says Jodie on her reaction to news that she had made it to the final: “It felt like my heart had stopped. My feet wouldn’t work properly and I felt like I was going to be sick. I didn’t know whether to cry or not. You go through so many emotions.”
Once more the Anorak’s mind journeys back those dimly lit says in Drury Lane.
But what of the other two? There’s Jessie, who has been in the top three on the Betfair markets for the entire contest. Now at 2.92, Jessie has attracted a decent fan base, and would make a good stage performer.
And there’s Samantha, the outsider. At 4.2, Samantha offers the value bet, but she can only all upon a small vote in her Isle of Man locale, and is so much better and younger than Jodie that she unnerves the voting public and is thus unlikely to win…
Posted: 30th, May 2008 | In: TV & Radio | Comment (1)
Neil Gaiman And Dr Who
Neil Gaiman is writing a Dr Who episode.
Posted: 29th, May 2008 | In: TV & Radio | Comments (2)
Big Brother 9: That Anorak Audition
HI Big Brother, it’s me Old Mr Anorak.
I’m wild and f*cking mad me. I’m really touchy and mental and once had an argument with a fridge freezer…in Asda!…in Cardiff!!
Picture: Beau Bo D’Or Website
I like laughing. I’m into all the latest sh*t and some sh*t so latest it’s posi-fu*ka-tively Medieval, muvverf*cker.
I’ll have sex with just about anyone, gay, straight, straight-to-gay, gay-to–straight, the new rubberised sofa and light fittings, Davina, Davina’s microphone, Davina’s microphone lead…
I’m not looking for a career in the media, although I do have skin like Judith Chalmers and can paint a bedroom in under three days!!
For those hacks not off to Faliraki to spot drunk Britons having sex and getting knifed in the kebab shop, there’s Big Brother on the telly.
“BIG BRO SECRETS LAID BARE… says the Star’s front page – as it will for the next three months…
Posted: 29th, May 2008 | In: TV & Radio | Comments (2)
American Idol: On The Casting Couch With Jason Castro
AMERICAN Idol, American TV’s search for a Gareth Gates, has a new winner.
As the National Enquirer reports, his name is David Cook. He’s about as memorable as that last breath you took. And it would seem that America has its man.
While Simon Cowell hooks up Gates and Cook into a the ultimate reality show double act, the Enquirer’s Mike Walker watches the losers trundle into post-performance therapy.
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Posted: 29th, May 2008 | In: Celebrities, TV & Radio | Comment
Britain’s Got The Cheeky Monkeys
WHO needs war and street crime when you have Britain’s Got Talent?
Not the Mirror’s editorial staff, who watch the ITV talent show so their readers don’t have to.
And today’s front-page telly news is that the Mirror has met up with the Cheeky Monkeys, a preteen dance double act, consisting of embryonic Sue Pollard clone Krista Hayatt, aged 9, and Charlie Dixon, a nine-year-old boy with a taste for Touche Eclat.
The age is all. If the Cheeky Monkeys were any older, they’d be sectioned. But they are very young, and so a hit with sweaty palmed men in caravan parks, mums and dads and the Mirror.
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Posted: 29th, May 2008 | In: Tabloids, TV & Radio | Comment
Jeremy Clarkson Is 186Mph And Out
JEREMY Clarkson replies to Rosie Boycott’s question as to what is the fastest he has ever driven: “On the public roads…186.”
What car did you do it in, Jezza? Was it an unmarked police car, a Rover 75 or a tuned up milk float?
The Mail has stopped listening, at least it has stopped listening to Clarkson. Says the Mail: BBC urged to sack Jeremy Clarkson after he admits driving at 186mph on public road.
It turns out that the people suing the BBC to remove Clarkson’s wheels are someone from Brake, a group that doesn’t sound as if it champions speed, and Brigitte Chaudhry of Roadpeace (vroom!)
No other names of the outraged are given, but rest assured they are many…
Posted: 28th, May 2008 | In: Tabloids, TV & Radio | Comments (19)
