Things That Have Happened Recently But Are Unimportant

Let’s run down some of the titular events, shall we?

First up, Terry Wogan’s announced his retirement from commentating on Eurovision. Now, I know some of my (former?) readers are not so keen on old Tel, but I for one will miss him very much, his blend of sardonic wit and genuine affection for the competition a big part of why I’ve enjoyed watching it so much. He clearly doesn’t think it’s much of a contest any more – at least not the kind he’s been used to – and that’s a pretty fair criticism. The Eurovision organisers did reveal a few months ago, though, that juries were coming back to help make the result fairer, although they haven’t yet said what weight their vote will carry in relation to the public’s choice. I sincerely hope that goes a way to levelling the playing field (although as long as the public are involved there will always be some bias – obviously the juries aren’t going to be squeaky clean either, they weren’t last time they were in use). And so Graham Norton is going to take the job  – well, I can certainly think of far worse people to do it, though wouldn’t it have been brilliant if they could have persuaded Simon Amstell to do it? He’s a riot on Never Mind the Buzzcocks, BBC2’s consistently hilarious music quiz, although that particular show is missing Bill Bailey more than it wants to admit.

Another thing that happened recently but is unimportant is that Pushing Daisies is now pushing daisies. I have mixed feelings on this – while I mostly enjoyed the first season (season two hasn’t made it to the UK yet), I have serious doubts about its potential longevity and actually two seasons seems an about fair shelf life to me. I will miss Anna Friel and Chi McBride – I won’t miss the shoveling of honey down my throat and Jim Dale insisting on calling Lee Pace’s character ‘the pie-maker’.

And of course who could forget that this is the time of year for that annual triumvirate of reality TV behemoths – Strictly Come Dancing, The X-Factor, and I’m A Celebrity…Get Me Out Of Here? Sadly, I didn’t forget, despite no longer really having the excuse of ‘well, my family were all watching it’ to hide behind, and I’ve tried my best to keep up with them all. Unfortunately, the most entertaining of all of them, I’m A Celebrity Etcetera, was the one I was able to watch the least of, as its every-day-at-9pm format was clashed spectacularly most days with my student lifestyle, so I missed out on such great TV moments as eventual winner Joe Swash having his bottom felt up by Mr. Sulu, Robert Kilroy-Silk threatening Timmy Mallett for laughing at him (good on you, Timmy), and Boobs (pen name: Nicola McLean) being voted out of the jungle. It’s the only show in its genre that successfully pulls off the not-taking-itself-seriously vibe, and as such is vastly more fun than any talent contest.

Meanwhile, over a far longer and therefore more boring time period, the reliable Strictly overblew itself completely on the John Sergeant “controversy” (for Pete’s sake…) and has now gotten to the stage where the audience was tonight booing judges who scored anything lower than a 10. The feeling that anyone would probably be a deserving winner at this point has sucked a lot of the interest out of the competition – I don’t have a favourite like I usually do, they’re all very nice people and they all dance very well. At least with Sergeant there was an excitement over who would win – the judges or the public? Now there’s nothing.

And, finally, the X-Factor. Oh, God, the X-Factor. Never have I been more mystified to find myself watching a programme as I am watching the X-Factor these days. It’s weird – unlike Strictly I do have favourites (specifically, anyone who isn’t that godawful talentless loofah-haired brat Eoghan Quigg) yet I do not care one iota.  This is probably because of the ITV effect – Harry Hill showed up the all-hype no-actual-excitement approach on his brilliant TV Burp by showing how hardworking, sad-to-see-him-on-a-show-this-annoying host Dermot O’Leary not once, not twice, but eight times announcing to the audience that BRITNEY SPEARS IS HERE IN THE STUDIO OH MY GOD IT’S BRITNEY PINCH YOURSELVES THIS IS THE MOST AMAZING THING SINCE TAKE THAT CHRIST WERE THEY ONLY HERE LAST WEEK IT SEEMS LIKE ALREADY THEIR APPEARANCE ON THIS SHOW HAS PASSED DOWN INTO BRITISH FOLKLORE BY THE WAY BRITNEY IS HERE WOW! and each time the audience exploded in cheers like the hideous, mindless robots they are. Typical. And don’t even get me started on the ever-more-transparent “tension” between the judges…

Yet I still watch. It’s because of the auditions – they’re funny TV, and I somehow get into an unbreakable routine because I too am a hideous, mindless robot – but don’t get sucked into them like I did. Only suicidally-bad television that way lies. It’s too late to save me, but you can still escape!

How The West Wing Ruined My Life, and other stories

So much for that, then. I’ve given up on actually keeping a schedule with this, but I’m gonna write things occasionally when I feel like it. And guess what? I feel like it.

Anyway – I’m now a university student (Translation, Media and Spanish at the University of East Anglia, since you didn’t ask) and this means that I don’t have to have a bedtime if I don’t want to. This is a bad thing.

You see, this sudden freedom comes with my late discovery of the superlative political drama series, The West Wing, that finished in 2006. I’m currently about halfway through its third season and so far it’s done a thoroughly good job of trying to kill me. It’s so good, I hardly noticed myself giving up sleep.

If you don’t know, The West Wing is set inside the White House, following the administration of fictional President Jed Bartlet. It covers all kinds of territory from election campaigns to international military crises, but despite the fact that it’s been lauded for being as close to the reality of life in the White House as could be possible on screen, the real focus is on the characters, which for me is always what lifts the truly great drama series above the rest. The entire cast is exceptional, but particular standouts are Martin Sheen as the inspirational but curmudgeonly President and Allison Janney as C.J. Cregg, his sassy, put-upon press secretary. It makes me wonder how I managed to avoid both the series and its cast for such a long time.

I’m not going to bang on about it – I certainly don’t want to tell you just how late it’s kept me up at night, as there’s an outside chance my parents are reading this and I’m hoping to get them to feed me for a month over the upcoming holiday period – but suffice to say that my one and only mention of Christmas this year will be to strongly recommend that you seek out the complete box set as a present to yourself or somebody who lives in the same house as you (trust me, that’s as far away from you as you’ll be willing to leave it). I’ve seen some great deals on it in various well-known retailers, so you have no excuse. Even if you already own it, frankly.

Before I shut up and watch some more, I feel that even though it was supposed to be for two months ago, I did promise last time around that my next post would answer some questions. And so here are the answers to those questions:

1) Yes, it’s decent, but apart from the opening two tracks, nothing is great. (But those first two are. Very.)

2) My god, it actually did! And the best man won. Optimism lives to fight another day (though I hope to be part of the crushing wave of cynicism that eventually finishes it off, if only to be popular).

3) No.

That’s all for now. Who the heck knows when I’ll be back?

A Saturday night in

Okay, so by one day I meant over a week. These things happen. Now, I was planning to do a blog reviewing the first episode of the fourth season of Doctor Who a week ago, but circumstances conspired against me – however, I don’t think that’s been such a big problem. I feel a lot better being able to write about the first two episodes than the one on its own, and that’s because, like last season, the season opened with a slightly more comedic first episode before getting down to a serious drama in the second.

I came into the first episode, Partners in Crime, trying to shed my mind as much as I could of the preconceptions I had of Catherine Bloody Tate (as you can see, I was not entirely successful). I was really disappointed upon learning that she was returning after her less-than-stellar Christmas special in 2006, and Partners in Crime didn’t really do anything to change my perception. She’s still shouty and annoying, especially as there is a constant fear while watching her that she may say “am I bovvered?” as a little writers’ joke, although she was good for the minute or so where she didn’t have to speak – her through-a-window conversation with the Doctor was great. Other than that, I wasn’t so keen on the episode as a whole, mainly because as Who is primarily a kids’ show, the humour is a little underdeveloped for my tastes, so I much prefer the hard drama and action episodes that make up the bulk of the 21st-century series. The whole thing was made worth watching, mind you, purely on the basis of that 5-second surprise cameo for Rose Tyler. Hooray! Billie’s back! I realised in those five seconds just how much I’ve missed her.

The second episode, The Fires of Pompeii, which aired yesterday, started an evening of TV which I am on the whole pleased to have watched, although the jury is still out on some of it (more on that later). I certainly preferred this episode to Partners in Crime – even Donna was slightly more watchable this week, Tate did a decent job with her reaction to the Doctor’s refusal to warn the people of Pompeii. I’m pretty sure neither Rose nor Martha would have made such a fuss about it (I shudder to think what Captain Jack would have tried if he’d told everyone they only had 24 hours to live) so that was a nice change. Some points of interest; that’s two for two so far in terms of episodes in which they’ve mentioned the Shadow Proclamation – to do with this season’s story arc maybe?; the excellent CGI throughout the episode, really impressive work on the fiery alien rock monsters in particular; and the warning that Donna “has something on her back”. I know there are rumours of her character’s story arc taking a turn for the sinister this season (it’s a comfort to think that Catherine Tate is the villain of the piece), and I’m looking forward to seeing how it’ll pan out.

Now, on to the rest of my Saturday night in. Unfortunately, my family, particularly the women in the house, are prone to falling into watching all of the inane talent shows like the X-Factor and (god help us) I’d Do Anything, or whatever Andrew Lloyd Webber’s latest PR scam is, but occasionally this works in my favour. Having been around while they watched the week-long festival that was last year’s Britain’s Got Talent, I have to say that it was a good laugh, if only because it deviated from the singers-only format that weighs down the entire genre. Obviously, it was won by a singer, but Paul Potts was at least not singing in English, and he was awesome. So this year I decided I’d put my dignity to the side and indulge myself again, starting yesterday with the first bunch of auditions. And while so far I’ve yet so see anything both really different and really good (such as my favourites from last year, the drink-juggling Bar Wizards), it was worth the time I put into watching it, and the 13-year-old at the end of the programme is surely Paul Potts’ test-tube baby. It’s totally uncanny their resemblence, and I’m quite sure he’ll be there in the final live show. As usual, there was a lot of cringe-worthy rubbish on the show, but that’s quite enough talk about Piers Morgan.

My evening concluded with the show that followed Britain’s Got Talent on ITV, the award-winning American import Pushing Daisies. My interest in the show was only slight, and I only really thought about watching it when I realised that it was about to come on next. I’d heard of it in various SF and TV magazines and knew it was winning awards for being slightly quirky, but I really was unprepared for quite how quirky it is.

If you’re unfamiliar with the show, and I wouldn’t blame you, the premise is as follows: pie-maker Ned (Lee Pace) has the ability to bring dead things back to life with a touch, as he discovers at the age of 9 when his mother bursts a blood vessel in her brain and he resurrects her. Unfortunately, as evidenced when she kisses him goodnight that evening, if he touches those things again they die for good. What’s more, if he keeps that thing alive for more than a minute, something else will die instead to keep the balance – in this case, his neighbour, whose daughter “Chuck” (Anna Friel) he is in love with, drops dead instead. In the present day, a private investigator called Emerson (the excellent Chi McBride, last seen being excellent on House) finds out about Ned’s power when a man he’s chasing falls from a roof to his death only to touch Ned on the bounce and return to life. They start a business claiming rewards from murder cases by talking to the deceased and solving the crime. Eventually they cover the case of a woman who was murdered on a cruise ship – it turns out to be long-time-no-see soulmate Chuck who’s kicked it this time, and as he speaks to her in her coffin, Ned can’t bring himself to kill her for good, so some fat funeral director takes the bullet instead (metaphorically). Much romantic awkwardness ensues as the pair can not touch each other lest she keel over like the cadaver she really should be.

The thing about Pushing Daisies is that it’s the brightest thing on television. Immediately you are assaulted by full-power yellows and blues in corn fields that I’m pretty sure can not physically be that colourful, and from then on the tone stays exactly the same. Everything is sweet and sugary and happy, including a faintly nauseating narration by former Carry On regular Jim Dale, who if he keeps referring to Ned as “the pie-maker” may cause me to break my TV in frustration by episode three. It may well be that as the season goes on the continuous sweetness may eventually stop me watching but I was intrigued enough to decide to watch the next episode in a week’s time. Much of this is down to the overwhelmingly-cute Anna Friel (yes, that Anna Friel, who will, to her great frustration, probably always be known as the 16-year-old on Brookside who participated in the first-ever-in-Britain screen lesbian kiss), who is just totally compelling as the born-again village girl who muscles her way into Ned and Emerson’s enterprise. It’s great to see another English import do well overseas.

The big worry for me with Pushing Daisies is whether it can continue being interesting over more than one season (Friel is contracted for six-and-a-half years!) as the central premise loses its novelty. But I think I’m looking forward to finding out.

TV: America knows best

Truth be told, I’m not the world’s biggest fan of the United States of America. Invasions of Middle-Eastern countries aside, they butchered the English language and maintain a general lack of awareness of the world they (mostly) control. (Incidentally, I don’t wish to stereotype all Americans in this bracket, there are a good deal of very aware and intelligent people over there – that’s the law of averages for you.) I tend to resent somewhat its influence.

However, it’s difficult not to develop a grudging respect for the total superiority of American television over that of the British. I think I would have a very hard time dealing with the (rather wide) shadow of the stars and stripes that encompasses the globe if it were not for the saving graces of (to name but a few) Lost, 24, House, Battlestar Galactica and so on and so on.

There just seems to be something about the American mentality that lends itself to making amazing TV. There may be a link between the fact that Americans tend to be more outgoing and less guarded than the stereotypical Englishman and the far more edgy nature of American TV. People take risks with ideas and hence we see shows like 24, which created an entirely new format for how a TV show could exist – the real-time hour-per-episode length that we take for granted with the show now that it’s had six seasons. I can’t see anyone in Britain having ever made a programme like that.

Of course, after things become great successes in the US, then the British market start making bad copies of it – witness Spooks, which can try all it want but it’s always going to be an inferior 24 without the time gimmick. On the other end of the genre scale, the frankly pathetic Mistresses that recently failed to set BBC One viewers alight is a painfully crap rehash of the superb Desperate Housewives. (Yes, I’m male, I watch Desperate Housewives. You try it, then try and laugh.)

Occasionally, American TV gets so good that it passes its own viewers by. Joss Whedon’s magnificent space western Firefly suffered this fate – it was critically acclaimed, rightly so, as one of the very best television series of recent years, but just couldn’t get the viewers to survive. As I mentioned not long ago, Jericho found itself in a similar situation (though I’m not about to claim that Jericho is anywhere near as awesome as Firefly).

The only thing that Britain has to pride itself upon is Doctor Who, which continues to fly the flag for family entertainment. The fourth season starts up again on Saturday 5th April and despite the thoroughly disappointing return of Catherine Tate as the new companion, it’s going to be a cracker. Torchwood’s second season has done much to make up for the horrendous first effort, but it needs to be this good consistently to earn its place next to its parent show as genuinely great British TV. Life on Mars was the only other really excellent production we’ve had recently, and even that is having its reputation eroded away somewhat by the lacklustre Ashes to Ashes spin-off.

This is a great time of year for the British viewer, but it’s barely anything to do with our own TV. Running alongside Doctor Who (and, frankly, probably outshining it) will be the fourth seasons of Lost, House, Battlestar Galactica and Desperate Housewives. Fantastically, all of the above are on different days of the week, so almost every day there is going to be some compelling telly to watch. And it’s all thanks to our friends across the Atlantic. God Bless America!

Five Days of Disappointment

My hearty apologies for not having posted for a few days. An end-of-term work rush has meant that the Desk has had to take a back seat, but now that I have a two-week break for Easter, it’s time to catch up on some of the things that have been going on while this blog wasn’t.

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Since my last post it’s been pretty much disappointing news after disappointing news.  Arthur C. Clarke’s death on Wednesday was particularly affecting – a true visionary, whose books I enjoyed thoroughly (although, to be fair, 2001: A Space Odyssey was far too slow) and way of thinking I always respected. Obviously, by the time I’d become familiar with his stories and, more importantly, his ideas on what might be possible in the technological future, a number of them had already come to pass, but it’s hard not to be impressed with the way he foresaw global communications satellites (nay, designed them) and NASA’s Spaceguard Survey that detects incoming asteroids. He’ll be missed.

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In slightly less life-or-death matters, I was also saddened to see that American TV network CBS has canceled Jericho, the sci-fi-ish drama about an isolated Kansas town being cut off from the rest of America after a nuclear attack. I didn’t watch Jericho when it the first season arrived on ITV4, but my mother did, and eventually I ended up catching the last five or six episodes, and thoroughly enjoyed it. Its plausibility was scary, and the writing and acting of a pretty good standard throughout. I knew the show had been canceled once already at the end of that season, but, in reference to a line of dialogue from an episode I sadly didn’t see, fans sent the network approximately 18,000 kilograms of peanuts until they relented and picked it up for a new season. So Jericho came back for season two, and now after 7 episodes it’s being pulled. Frankly, it’s a complete injustice, especially when you consider that the third (THIRD!) season of Grey’s Anatomy started on five two days ago. Ugh.

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However, it’s not all been doom and gloom. It turns out that they’ve figured out a way to allow mobile phone calls on aeroplanes! Oh, wait, that’s not good news. Have these scientists ever been on a train or a bus since the advent of the conveniently sized mobile? The law of averages states that on every flight operated by Emirates, the airline who have started this policy, there will be at least ten people who will now spend the entirety of the hours-long flight yelling into their phone to their mother, boyfriend, hairdresser, dog, etc., etc…

I am never flying ever, ever again.

See you tomorrow.

Re: Hugh Laurie, and a confession

If you’re expecting another wall of text like yesterday’s blog, then today you’re sorely mistaken, as I am attempting to fit this entry around selected snippets of the BBC’s Sport Relief marathon and catching up with House – I have 13 episodes of season three to watch before season 4 starts broadcasting on five on Thursday. Speaking of House, I should mention that I did at last get my hands on the Radio Times featuring the Hugh Laurie interview that I wrote about a few days ago. What surprised me was how downbeat he seemed on the future of the show, but surely as a show that was popular enough to survive the writers’ strike, it can theoretically go on for quite a while longer. I hope so, anyway.

But speaking of Sport Relief, there’s something I have to get off my chest. The only part of the evening’s programming that I have indulged in so far was hosted by a man whom it appears cool to actively dislike. I’ve never once read a good review of him, anywhere. But I’m sorry. Maybe there’s something wrong with me, but dammit, I like Jimmy Carr!

I’m not going to write heaps about him – I mean, he’s funny, but he’s no Bill Bailey – but I just feel he gets a bit of a raw deal. So sue me, establishment.

Just to finish off (mainly to avoid making this post look tiny when compared to yesterday’s Eurovision marathon), here’s a joke I came across a week or so ago on the internet.

Luke Skywalker decides to take some time out from the stress of being a Jedi to take up a career in art education. He chooses to start by writing an informative pamphlet for kids about the many different shades of the colour purple. After writing the first draft, he feels it’s lacking something and goes to ask his friend Han Solo for feedback.

“Hey, Han,” says Luke, boarding the Millennium Falcon, “can you take a look at this pamphlet? I just feel it’s not quite right – any ideas?”

“I dunno, kid,” says Han, “have ya spelt ‘mauve’ right?”

“Yeah,” says Luke, “I spell-checked it twice.”

“Ah, probably right. I never was too great at spelling. Hey, maybe you should go ask Darth Vader.”

Luke agrees and pops over to the Death Star to talk to Vader.

“Hey dad,” he says, “I’ve been writing this pamphlet on the colour purple but I just feel it’s missing something. Can you help me?”

“Hurrr-haaaa, hurrr-haaaa,” breathes Vader, “Son, are you sure you have enough detail in your entry for ‘violet’?”

“Yes,” says Luke glumly, “I had an expert fill in that section, he seemed happy that it was detailed enough. Anything else?”

“No,” says Vader, “the force is strong in this pamphlet.”

Still not convinced, though, Luke flies to Dagobah to ask Yoda his opinion. The wise Jedi Master takes a look at the pamphlet and turns to Luke.

“Your problem, understand it I do.”

“You do?” asks Luke excitedly, “what is it then? What’s wrong with my instructional pamphlet on purple?”

Yoda points a finger at the offending section and says, “hard to see, the fuschia is.”

The wonders of the internet, eh?

Backseat blogging

A lack of “news” material today (I hope you weren’t expecting me to cover the fact that gold is trading at $1000 an ounce for the first time ever) means I’ve got to think of something myself without being prompted by such trivialities as breaking stories.

I guess I could do a token piece on the US Presidential “race” (I wish they’d stop calling it that, even a marathon takes less than a day), but quite frankly I’m getting so bored of the whole thing. Why they all can’t decide internally on their candidates, or have all the states vote on the same day, or just fix it for Bush again, is beyond me. JUST END IT NOW, AMERICA!

So I won’t talk about that then. I should mention in passing that after I sent a general pressure email to my friends two days ago when I launched this blog, in which I politely guilt-tripped them all into reading, I received a reply from one of them who clearly fancies himself as a bit of a backseat blogger. (Not to sound ungrateful, particular reader, I appreciate your contributions. Keep them coming.) Anyway, this guy gave me a little list of things he thought I should talk about, and with a lack of material I have indeed turned to this list. First on it was the US Democrat nomination, which I have covered above as much as I feel I can without losing my will to live, so I might as well finish off the list.

It reads, in full: “The US democrat nomination, look at your favourite webcomics, websites, whatever, or do something on Eurovision. Or movies.”

So,

1. See above.

2. I am a regular reader of Questionable Content by Jeph Jaques, Ctrl-Alt-Del by Tim Buckley, and PvP Online by Scott Kurtz.

3. My go-to website when I have nothing to do is the BBC Sport page. I don’t visit as many websites as perhaps I should, there are a lot of geeky ones that I’m missing out on. Suggestions in the form of comments are very welcome indeed. I’m also a recreational user of Facebook (studies show it’s wise to refer to such things in drugs terminology) and I am contractually obliged to regularly visit MyFootballClub.co.uk, as through it I am a shareholder in Ebbsfleet United FC. More on that when The CDB Pod launches.

4. In retrospect, “whatever” probably wasn’t a specific suggestion, but I’ve come too far to turn back now.

5. Eurovision. Is it just me, or is that a really strange thing to come to after discussing Presidential elections and the web? Eh, anyway. I have a mixed relationship with Eurovision, probably because I watch British television. From a British perspective, Eurovision is horrible. These people really have got to decide whether they are taking it seriously or not. On one hand, Terry Wogan makes lots of noises about “we need a winning entry this year” or whatever, which is fair enough, he clearly cares about the whole thing, but then the BBC force him to present a choose-Britain’s-entry show in which an entire third of the voting ballot is made up of people who have histories of not winning public-vote TV singing contests IN THEIR OWN COUNTRY, LET ALONE EUROPE? It’s really sad, because like any sensible Brit I like Terry Wogan immensely and I don’t think I can handle him getting hurt again.

I’m going to fall out of list format now because it’s become clear that I’m actually writing an entire article on Eurovision now, so that pesky reader has got his way. I hope you’re proud of yourself – this is what you’ve done to me.

Of course, I say that in a cynical, hurt sort of way, but the truth is I do actually really like Eurovision. I will always make sure I am free on the night of the contest so that I can watch it with my family, because it is a great television event, as long as you set yourself free of the despair and painfully inevitable doom that comes from believing the British are in with any chance at all. There is much entertainment to be had watching people who actually think the contest is important (i.e. any country east of Germany). Every year, you are guaranteed to find at least one song, usually a handful, that are either fantastic fun because they’re quirky or actually a really really good song. I still want to find a copy of the Serbia & Montenegro entry from 2002, I think it was, when Wogan was somehow surprised that everyone liked it. It was a great, mysterious traditional folk thing that crept up on you out of nowhere. They came third, and they deserved more, if not for that pesky Ukrainian girl wearing Xena-style leather and cracking a whip.

Back to my point on how Britain chooses its entry, one of the talent-show failures inevitably won, in this case pleasant-but-dull-as-dishwater X-Factor reject Andy Abraham, and I hope he enjoys his nul points. There’s no way in hell Europe will vote for him. I haven’t even heard the song – I couldn’t bear to watch the show – but I saw him a couple of times on X-Factor (my mother and sister were watching it. I couldn’t watch anything else, I swear) and he appears to have pigeonholed himself into the grandparents-approved superficial soul niche. Considering that in the last few years, whip-flailing Ukrainian “roleplayers”, Tim-Burton-meets-Slipknot death metal and a transsexual granny from, er, Ukraine again, have enjoyed huge success, I’m not sure instantly-forgettable soul is what Europe wants right now.

Which leads me on to this question – why do we ask the public, who, let’s not forget, constantly prove themselves to be morons, choose between a bunch of people we’ve either never heard of before or have previously decided via a similar process are not talented enough to make it? Granted, it isn’t the 70s anymore, but Cliff Bloody Richard (full name) entered the thing about a million times back in the day! Many countries do actually enter people who have actual careers in music, and they do pretty well in general. I remember a conversation I had with my mother a few years ago when, for some unfortunate reason, Emma Bunton (Baby Bloody Spice, also a full name) came on the telly with some godawful video for some godawful song. This was her comeback before last, I hasten to add – the song got into the top 10, not #67 which I believe was as far as her latest attempt got – when she was actually popular. And my mother asked me “why don’t we get Emma Bunton to do Eurovision?”, and I couldn’t find a suitable answer for it. That was the year we entered James Fox, to put it into context. (What? You don’t remember him? Surely not, he came fourth in Fame Academy!)

So next year, can we please ditch the public phone vote and have at most three people who are involved in the music business in some way, and let them enquire to some actual musicians as to whether they’d like a go at restoring British pride. Call me crazy, but this year Britain are going to get beaten by a puppeted turkey. We cannot let that happen again.

The emailer had other points in his list, but I’ve forgotten what they are.

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P.S. A quick plug for a fantastic Eurovision book, Nul Points by Tim Moore. This fellow took it upon himself to visit everyone who ever scored the famous zero points, and it makes for a great read. Do check it out.

What do Britney Spears and Jeremy Clarkson have in common?

…They both owned themselves today, to my great amusement.

Let’s start with that bastion of good decision-making, Britney Spears. Having previously appeared in critically-slaughtered movie Crossroads in 2002 and guested on Will and Grace in 2006 (insert your own “Oops, I did it again” joke here, I have better things to do with my time), she’s now gone and landed herself a guest role on another American sitcom, How I Met Your Mother (never seen it, sounds crap. I will accept that as fact for the purpose of this post). Now, surely the last thing Troubled Singer Britney Spears (apparently that’s her full name now) needs after much public embarrassment this last year or so is, uh…more public embarrassment. I’ve not seen Crossroads (sounds like I was one of the lucky ones), but I did catch a glimpse of her turn on Will and Grace, and I’m not saying her efforts had anything to do with that particular series promptly ending for good, but…

Speaking of voices I’m tired of hearing, occasional TV host and full-time prat Jeremy Clarkson, who for many people is the number one authority on cars (by “many people” I’m guessing he means his own family, and even they must be reluctant), decided recently that he’d just take a few minutes to make a call on his mobile while driving, and then drove too closely to somebody who both owned a cameraphone (84 million worldwide) and recognised his face (100% of the UK population, says the Ministry of Fabricated Statistics That Are Probably True Anyway) – what were the chances, eh, Jeremy? When asked about the photo that was taken of his law-breaking antics, Clarkson didn’t comment, probably because he couldn’t hear the question what with his head so far up his backside.

Much as I’d rather never to hear of either of these two ever again, it’s little things like this that help me get through the day. Looking forward to Clarkson’s next appearance as guest host of Have I Got News For You now (and I never thought I’d hear myself say that…)

Hugh Laurie: “snubbed by Britain”?

So apparently Hugh Laurie (yeah, that Hugh Laurie, i.e. the best actor on TV in House) feels he’s been “snubbed” by Britain since he became the super-mega-star in the US. This is from an interview in the new issue of the Radio Times, which was released in the UK today – unfortunately, as I live in the Netherlands at the moment, I won’t be able to read it in full until Friday, but that won’t stop me from making an uninformed judgement on the situation, oh no.

I read this story, therefore, on the BBC News website, and this is how they word the story:

The award-winning star told the Radio Times the hours on the show are “relentless” and he has not been offered any work in his home country.

“The door slammed behind me, and that’s it. There’s a notion that I’ve sold out,” said the performer.

Now, is it just me, or is the fact that Laurie has “relentless hours” working on House possibly the reason that he’s not getting any work in the UK? I mean, he’s doing this for 20-odd weeks a year, which, yes, leaves time during the off-season, but would surely be a possible, if not probable, stumbling block for many producers and directors trying to get a project off the ground.

That said, I am inclined to sympathise with Laurie, despite any misgivings, because he’s clearly a ridiculously intelligent and talented man – I’ve always loved his work, particularly on House, the third season of which I am working my way through on DVD at the moment – so much so that you’ve got to think that anyone who wants to work with him would surely try to plan production when House is in its hiatus.

With any luck this story (though big, big news it is definitely not) might kick some British employers into finding a job for Laurie, who’s clearly keen on such an idea. Frankly, they should be waiting hand and foot on him.