Watching too much telly

Hip Priest

The marking is almost over. A couple more days and I can surface again. Because of this I haven't watched a great deal of telly, but here's a very quick summary:

Fool Around With Fran - wholly depressing, voyeuristic, slag sniping. Made me feel dirty for watching it (ironically, of course).

American Pop Idol - even more sniping, this time against wholly untalented egomaniacs (and that's just Simon Cowell winding-up Paula Abdul). A couple of really whacked-out auditions in these early stages but the appeal is starting to wane and it's rapidly becoming bicycle crash TV, which must piss of 19 Productions no end.

Shameless - still great.

Desperate Housewives - surprisingly great.

Point Pleasant - bollocks.

TV Moments of the Year 2004 - don't get me started! EastEnders wins best soap moment??? Huh? Green Wing misses out to Little Britain? WTF? No Garth Merenghi? Insane!

The best thing I did manage to catch on TV was a fascinating BBC4 documentary about Mark E. Smith and The Fall. It's rekindled my love for this cheeky trail blazer and I promptly blew some cash a selection of their CDs. The funniest thing is if Smith auditioned for Pop Idol he'd certainly be the highlight of the bad singers compilation, even though he's probably got more talent in his little finger than all the judges combined. Who else could write a song about Ethel from EastEnders with a wah-wah guitar and get away with it?

One thing that did shock me this week was a spoiler for the new Dr Who series. Turns out that Mark Benton's character in episode one is a Dr Who "fan" who runs a website about him. The surprise came because one of my Big Finish proposals from 18 months ago was called Gareth and it dealt with exactly the same idea. If anyone is remotely interested I'll even post it here. Oh well, great minds think alike...

One last thing: if you missed The Green Wing or you just can't wait until the DVDs come out, E4 are repeating them all on Friday nights at midnight. Still eight glorious episodes left to catch!

Dragons' Den

Has anyone else been watching/gawping at Dragons' Den (BBC2, Tuesdays)? This is the show where a bunch of hopeful and staggeringly naive entrepreneurs try to tempt high-powered millionaires into investing in their fledgling companies via an excruciatingly painful pitch process.

In executive producer speak: it's The Money Programme crossed with Pop Idol.

However, these 'Dragons' have the dubious honour of making Simon Cowell appear obsequious. And when they aren't hurling abuse at the beggars - sorry, entrepreneurs - they are having a go at each other. And who can blame them? These Dragons are uniformly hateful.

We've got Rachel Elnaugh (pouty and condescending), Duncan Bannatyne (bewildered and Scottish), Doug Richard (stern and American), and Simon Woodroffe (facial hair from a different century, clothes from a different planet). Eagle-eyed viewers might recognise Simon from Crisis Command. He was the idiot who allowed the terrorists to crash a plane into the Houses of Parliament. So that's his Sushi company screwed, then.

Last, but by all means least, we've got Peter Jones, an up-his-own-arse git who first went into business at the age of 16. And no, he wasn't selling porno mags to his classmates during the dinner break; he was running a bloody tennis academy!! He's worth 310 million quid but he won't give some poor sap 10 grand so they can mass produce bits of plastic to stop tables from wobbling. He manages to make Scrooge look like Bob Geldof.

The Dragons even sit in front of these huge piles of cash, which they finger sadistically as the entrepreneurs stumble through their pitches. It's the equivalent of a sugar bowl of Coke, a membership card for China Whites and a rolled fifty pound note sitting on a table during the X-Factor heats.

For those of you who haven't seen the show, allow me to provide you with a typical exchange between the Dragons and some poor, deluded dreamer:

Entrepreneur (breathless, having traipsed up a flight of stairs for no readily apparent reason): I've come here today to ask for 25,000 to invest in Alchemy Inc. We have developed and patented a method for transforming lead into gold and -

Rachel (pouting): I don't like your face.

Entrepreneur: I - I....

Duncan: You've lost me, pal. What the hell is this 'gold' thing anyway? It just sounds like a crazy idea to me. Suffering sasanach.

Simon: This is a really cool and sexy idea. I'll give you 24,000 for 80% of the company, a foot massage and the chance to flounce around your office patronising you for a year.

Entrepreneur: Er, thanks -

Duncan: I'm out, This lead to gold malarkey will never catch on.

Peter: I'm rich and you're not. I'm out. Now fuck off.

Rachel: Nope, I still don't like you. Sorry. (pouts).

Doug: It's a swell idea. I like your figures. Tell me: what is your experience of managing a business?

Entrepreneur: I haven't got any experience, that's why I came to you...

Doug: Oh, just fuck off then, will you. Stop wasting our precious time.

Entrepreneur: But it guarantees a return on your investment...

Rachel (pouting): Maybe if you'd worn better shoes...

Peter: I'm out.

Entrepreneur: You already said that.

Peter: I know. I just like saying it. Now fuck off.

Simon: Sorry, son. It's a great idea but without the extra 1,000 you're fucked. Sorry.

The Entrepreneur slopes off down the stairs, their dreams flapping in tatters behind them.

And if that hasn't tempted you into tuning in next week then I don't know what the hell will.

Good Gods

As I'm sure you've already worked out, last night's Battlestar Galactica finale didn't disappoint. Definitely the best cliffhanger I've ever seen on a TV show, and so left-field (but obvious in retrospect) that it made me feel dizzy. The review over on the BBC Cult site says it best: an ending so shocking you'll believe that you just witnessed a murder taking place in the street.

Everything about this series has been first class. The script, acting, direction, editing, the sound - all honed to perfection. I can't think of a single solitary gripe. Sorry.

If you haven't seen the show, well, I feel sorry for you. Fly to America; they're only two episodes in over there. I won't give anything else away - this really is a show you need to experience first hand. For me, it was the first time in ten years that I've followed a show where I didn't read a single spoiler - and I thank the Gods for that.

And now, from the sublime to the utterly ridiculous. From the apex of contemporary TV to the complete nadir: Fool Around With... Fran Cosgrave.

Where to begin? If you aren't familiar with the celebrity-lite version of this show, this is the basic gist: four women yada yada, one is single yada yada, three ain't. They all move in with a single bloke, flirt with him and boyfriends watch on, yada yada. Got to pick the single one to win, yada yada yada. Yada.

OK, so puerile, so good. But this time the bloke in question is faux-celebrity Fran 'I told you I'd be a celebrity when I got out of there' Cosgrave.

"Don't worry," says one of the boyfriends as his girlfriend flirts outrageously with Fran. "He's famous so he can't do anything bad."

Skip to the end where we watch Fran shagging said girlfriend senseless. I don't know what was worse, the actual rutting itself, or the bit where they cuddled up together afterwards and she said "That was lovely, thanks."

Tune in tonight when the poor boyfriend will get to watch this dirty deed unfurl before his eyes. For ten thousand pounds??? How cheap is that?

Not so much car-crash TV as a full-scale terrorist attack.

It's Grim Up North

According to some University boffin, today is officially the most depressing day of the year. He has some fancy mathematical formula to prove this generally dodgy supposition ( 1/8W+(D-d) 3/8xTQ MxNA) but the fool left out one important factor: BG.

Yep, it's the last episode of Battlestar Galactica tonight.

When I woke up this morning the first thing that went through my mind wasn't "Shit, it's Monday", or "I can't face marking assignments today" or "Christ, it's cold". No, it was this: Battlestar is on tonight.

Hurrah, a sci-fi show that makes me feel like I'm ten years old again.

One of the factors that does feature in this formula is this: the sudden realisation that you've broken your New Years resolutions.

"Not me, matey!" I cry, rubbing my nicorete patch with glee (incidentally, these patches give you the most incredible dreams. Forget opium, if Coleridge was around today he'd be plastering himself with these instead). But then I realise that I did break a resolution: to blog at least once every two days. This is the third day, I realise, as I weep gently onto my keyboard.

Thank God, Battlestar Galactica is on tonight.

In my defence, I've been busy. It's that time of the year again. The marking season. A huge great pile sitting in the corner of the caravan mocking me. I haven't watched a thing on the telly. I didn't even see Bez (Bez!!???) win CBB. Sky Plus only has 5% of hard drive left and there's no end in sight.

Yep, the most depressing day of the year, without a doubt.

Better Late Than Never

For those of you who have been following the soap opera that is my life, today was a good day.

After six and a half months, a road dispute, a telegraph pole, three recalcitrant farmers and the almost Zen-like incompetence of British Telecom, today we finally signed the contracts on the Barns.

Final completion should happen within the next 14 days. I would like you all to pray with me that nothing goes wrong between now and then. Between us, I know we can do it.

And finally, is it just me or is little Den Watts a Cylon?

Sack Davina

Celebrity Big Brother really pissed me off last night.

We'll start with the factual inaccuracies, shall we? Events kick off with Davina McCaw spilling the big surprise that there will be a surprise eviction. It's a surprise! Ohhhhhhh, aren't they EVIL!

The fact that the audience knew this two days ago appears to be neither her nor there. You can tell it's a surprise because Davina is doing her trademark speaking really fast and quietly routine, finishing it off with an 'eeekkk' that makes it look like she's just had a stroke.

The important thing is this: Davina tells us that the housemates don't have a clue. They aren't in the least bit suspicious, she cackles. Cos that makes it more of a surprise, you see.

WRONG!

We are even shown that this is a lie. The housemates managed to work it out 24 HOURS AGO!

She even repeats the same factual error AFTER we've been shown the footage of Kenzie's tiny brain working it all out in painstaking detail. Unbelievable!

But let's skip to the interview with Lisa. Davina kicks off with a cocky but sadly pathetic remark along the lines of "At least I'll get a decent interview out of you". Did she bollocks!

You see, a decent interview on Davina's planet is where the interviewees answer inane questions with simple one-syllable words, praise the production team to high heaven, and stay quiet, yet animated, during the VTs.

And Lisa did all of this and Davina STILL couldn't keep up. At one moment she simply stopped talking to Lisa! In fact, it was left to Lisa to interview herself. "I feel great!" she squealed as Davina stared into the middle distance like a comatose live-streaming addict.

Davina seemed to find Bez hiding under a duvet more riveting that anything Lisa had to say. Fair enough, but at least she could have pretended! She stared at that monitor (with her back to camera) for 90 seconds! An eternity in live TV.

And then, to round it all off, as the show limped to its conclusion, Davina suddenly remembered that she hadn't signed off, so we got a snappy "Goodbye" hurled at us as an afterthought instead.

How many more times, Endemol???

Bargain!

I was browsing Amazon last night, and being the sad old git that I am, I stumbled across a Tangerine Dream DVD. It's a visual record of their version of Dante's Inferno. But that's not the interesting part. The really whacky thing is the release date: January 2020. I've heard of pre-ordering but this is ridiculous!

The good news is that it only costs £12.74. The better news is that by the year 2020 this will be the same price you'd expect to pay for a pencil. Bargain.

Bloody Good

Last night's Battlestar Galactica was incredible! The best episode so far, it had the most stylish opening to any TV show I think I've ever seen. Nice to see that Philip Glass isn't afraid to tackle TV work, too. I can't wait to see the finale next week.

I only have one problem with this new series: the Gerry Anderson inspired 'Coming Up' clips montage that assault you after the opening titles. It's like going to the cinema and watching a trailer for the movie you are about to see.

I can almost understand it in Thunderbirds where the core audience are 8 year olds who might switch off if you don't promise them an exploding truck or somethiing, but BG just manages to ruin any and all suspense. I spend those 60 seconds with my eyes wired shut.

I also watched Sleeping in Light again last night, having shelled out on the "I know it's shit, but what can you do?" box-set of Babylon 5 season 5. Not so much sci-fi as sigh-fi.

I went straight to the last epsiode and I have to admit that it managed to bring a lump to my throat. The same can be said for episode 5 (Learning Curve) but that time the lump was vomit.

Before I go a couple of quick TV plugs for tonight:

If you missed part 1 of Farscape: The Peacekeeper Wars on Sky One on Sunday it's repeated tonight at 10pm. It's also on Sky Mix on Thursday.

And if you missed the BBC series The Power of Nightmares (my favourite doco of last year) then BBC2 are repeating it at 11:20pm tonight (set your videos).

My Battle With Parkour

I've been catching up with a couple of programmes I had stored on the Sky Plus hard-drive when I stumbled across Jump Britain.

For those of you not familiar with the unusual "sport" of free running (or Parkour) let me enlighten you. It's jumping. In the street. A lot.

The general idea seems to be this: if you find yourself facing an obstacle when you're running down the street, don't go around it - jump over it! But only if said obstacle is really, really small. And if it makes you look a right prat, all the better.

Is it just me, or does it all look incredibly naff? While there's the occasional leap across a medium-sized abyss, the majority of the programme showcased GCSE drop-outs leaping from small inclines and hanging off railings like demented baboons dressed in hoodies.

Oh look, there's another acne-scarred teenager jumping down three steps. It's a symbol for freedom, apparently.

Granted, there are a couple of "hard-core" jumpers who wouldn't think twice about jumping off something vaguely dangerous, like a roof, especially if he's being filmed at the correct angle by a documentary crew who just happen to be passing by, but the majority of them are  hopeless. Most of time they resemble a flock of skateboarders who can't afford the actual skateboards.

But it wasn't the actual programme what bothered me so much it was The Making of Jump Britain that really pissed me off.

This was a behind the scenes look at just how ridiculous you only thought these losers were.

I jumped larger chasms when I used to go brook-jumping down the local park as a kid. And each and every jump was accompanied by the knowledge that if I mis-timed my jump and got mud on my Farrahs then my mum would give me a bloody good hiding with a copy of Look In. Now, that's danger.

It all came to a head in the final third of this self-congratulatory expose. A sombre voice-over informs us that it's the last day of filming and NO ONE HAS BEEN HURT YET.

Go on, have a guess.

The good news: it's the most severe injury the street jumpers have ever witnessed.

The bad news: it happened off-camera.

But don't worry, a few days later the poor sap who cracked his head on the pavement returns to the scene of the crime to re-enact exactly what happened. Turns out that his hands slipped from a branch and he fell backwards. Sounds impressive, doesn't it? Falling out of a tree. Turns out the branch was approx 7 feet off the ground. And this bloke was 6 feet tall. So he basically jumped a couple of inches, missed the branch and cracked his head open.

It's not exactly Ayrton Senna, is it?

It looked promising when blood was pouring out of his ear but it turned out he was just playing his iPod too loud.

I dunno. We give the world cricket and the French give us jumping off kerbs. Where's the justice in that?

My Battle With Reality TV

That's it. I give up. I mean, what's the fucking point? You - yes you, the general bloody public - have blown the bloody doors off again. You only went and evicted John McCririck, you muppets!

McCririck: the goriest car-wreck to whiplash rubberneckers since Jade Goody. A man who doesn't give a damn about anything and doesn't care who knows it. A man who is consistently wrong about absolutely everything, including the fact that the British public should be applauded for getting rid of him. A man so misshapen and cantankerous he could get a job as a gnome. A man who makes Arnold Schwarzenegger look like a feminist, for God's sake. He was a reality show gift!

And who do we keep in the house? Bez. Fucking Bez! A man who's sole contribution to popular music is that he once gave Shaun Ryder an E. He's a moody, self-absorbed Wanc and obviously addicted to absolutely everything except diction and dentists. If you thought John was bad without his Diet Coke you ain't seen nothing yet. If Bez hasn't had a whiff of alcohol - or better still a big fat joint - he's a walking nightmare. Give him a cameo in the next George A. Romero film - he won't need any makeup.

Bez's bizarre antics towards BB after he wimped out of the task (and while John was simultaneously opening his heart to the British public, you bastards) was a bit like watching an episode of The Prisoner on Valium. He's the only man I know who has a piercing vacant look permanently etched on his grim cadaverous face.

As for the rest of them, I really couldn't care less. Just wrap it up early and give it to Jeremy and do us all a favour. It will save us from having to endure any more Davina interviews. I use the term "interview" in its loosest possible sense. Sure, she introduces the guests in her trademark yell of impossible enthusiasm, and she's even been known to ask the odd question, like "how do you feel?" and "who do you think will win?" but she's lost complete control of the show twice in a row now.

How can you let a 90 year old lush with a tenuous grasp on reality run rings around you like that? How can you attempt to outwit Germaine Greer by hurling inane platitudes at her?

But the final straw has to be the John interview, which was so bad she couldn't even dig herself out of it by pressing down really hard on her ear.

Shameful.