Ramblings of a wandering Toon

River Cottage:Veg

2011-10-24T18:21:00.000+01:00

You know there had to be a book

Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall's latest foray into food crusading was launched this week amid much advertising and apparent high expectation. Sadly the promised veg recipes and the idea of vegetarian food in this first programme, are a bland all or nothing affair.

Ah but to begin at the beginning. Hugh has decided to become a vegetarian for a few months, ostensibly to save the environment and perhaps to shut up his ultra vegan mates. He has however missed a brilliant opportunity to take up the call of those who reasonably ask us to eat vegetarian once a week at least. The scientists and activist are not demanding we stop eating meat, just that we cut down the amount we eat. Ironically, he and me and we, those of us who don't order out every night or seem to be at Macdonald's every other day, are not the people these environmentalist are asking to curtail their meat intake. We as a rule eat smaller amounts of better quality meat that is where possible and usually is, .locally raised and fed and not factory meat. One might make an exception perhaps for the Brazilians who revel in all meat orgies that would kill an elephant, but I doubt this programme will run in Brazil. For the most part, we , reasonable people who eat our fruit and veg, partake of fish and poultry without deep frying it and serving it with chips, are not the problem.

Assuming Hugh is in fact targeting the processed meat deep fried hamburger KFC brigade, he's fighting a loosing battle with his adopted strategy. The best way to show this lot that veg is not vile, tasteless and bland, is to NOT prepare vile, tasteless, and bland food. His first recipe is a so called, veg soup, consisting of a few things he's pulled out the garden and boiled to death. There is no seasoning as such, no onion, no parsley, no garlic, no nothing... In the bad old days when we mostly lived on the farm, but we couldn't afford to eat too many of our own eggs and had to sell off our best meat to live, this meal was called a Green man soup and would have been in point of fact , a lot more filling than the miserly unpleasant gruel that Hugh produced and moaned over like it was the greatest thing ever. A recipe that originally included ginger, some kind of rice or noodle or pulse, if it was about, was turned into something my father would would have turned his nose up at when he was a guest of Comerade Stalin in Siberia.

The next recipe he trotted out to satisfy the savage hunger was something his go to vegan mate in London claimed he personally invented, called Stuffed lettuce. Having been married to a Chinese woman for over 15 years, I can tell you it's nothing new and if you'd have served that to a Chinese family, they would tell you to start again. Not only was it a nearly invisible ( forget pale) imitation of a brilliant Chinese delicacy served during feasts, it is part of a full meal that includes, fish, seafood, beef, pork and poultry in small bite size pieces, all mixed a huge amount of a variety of well seasoned veg. And just when I thought I'd seen the last of the red menace that is the pomegranate seed, there they were being sprinkled in to the so called stuffed lettuce. In Israel pomegranate is cheap as chips, and yet not a seed in sight, what they do do , is press the stuff into a lovely tasty juice. This bland parody that was pretending to be wholly original could hardly be the super weapon that will prove to veg shy people they should maybe forget their mam's boiled everything with no flavour.

River Cottage Veg is nothing but a rehash of all the old pretentious hippy types who discovered organic food but never did come around to actual flavour and viewed food from other places as something one did as a dare. And by the way, if you're going to give up meat to save the planet, why bother racking up the carbon footprint by flyng in pomegranates from far flung shores???? Better off eating some lovely local pork or beef or poultry which grew up within a 100 miles of you and had a happy healthy life. Honestly, the premise of this series is so flawed as to be insulting and condescending. The people we see on screen, are clearly over privileged suburban tree huggers who haven't known hunger since they ate pot noodle that one time they stopped over at a mates at uni. Real poor people are not clamouring to eat 1960's hippie food, they want nutritions meals that taste good and would in fact love to afford a nice piece of meat every couple of days. As it is, there are entire sections of our society that don't see meat for weeks on end. Even from my own middle class Polish up bringing, we used meat as an accent on our plate and in our soups, maybe once a week it would be the star of the show. From starter to pudding to the tea to wash it all down at the end ,our meals were ( and still are) sufficiently interesting day in day out that we didn't need take away every other day to satisfy both taste buds and body. I suspect if you ask the child of any immigrant, you'll find the same is true. Traditional British cookery is equally varied and interesting but seems to have fallen victim to fast food and flash freezing.

If this show means to teach us about the full variety of fresh delicious veg we can add to our meals and sometimes even eat exclusively in one meal, it is an epic fail. Only Rabid vegans will feel pleased and even then, if any of them are like some of my veggie mates, they will be bored by the uninspired, bland food on offer. The rest will recognize the less than subtle, evangelical, we are right and you are a murderer tone that runs through the entire narrative and most definitively is the main supporting plank in the experiment Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall is running. If he is in fact taking the piss, it's hard to tell,.but if he is, that's too bad. Veg needs to be better explained and served to an entire generation that only know the stuff from a tin or a frozen bag. At the very time that family produce patches are becoming common and many are now keeping chickens, pigs and other eating animals in the urban and suburban world, this series turns the clock back 20 or 30 years when the only people eating veg were environmentalists and recently arrived immigrants.

Suffice to say that if you are a vegetarian, you will not learn anything new, if you are looking for great new or old recipes to add to your table and get your children eating veg, don't bother. The old stand bys like Jamie Oliver and Gordon Ramsay will be a better place to look. Both the BBC and C4 have extensive and varied recipe sections that will guide you through a world of food. If you really want to try proper vegetarian food and you like a curry, try southern Indian food, if you like to see what a plate looks like without a steak or a burger taking up a quarter of your plate, try Chinese or or Indonesian food. Veg need not be a punishment, so do yourself a favour, pass on this year's River Cottage.

May you live in intersting times or How the world regularly goes to Hell and back

2011-10-10T07:33:00.000+01:00

Ceauşescu retires as President

There is a quaint notion running through the west that manifests itself in the philosophies of The Red Cross, Amnesty International and press outlets like The Guardian or Times. It' a simple idea... All proper democratic right thinking governments and revolutionaries shall never ever , ever, harm people or be mean to it's enemies in the delusional belief that the enemies in question will play by the same rules. The problem with this, is that the bad guys rarely if ever play by the rules and count on the good guys to be trapped in the ethical net, thus stopping them from acting more effectively and in so doing, keeping the bad guys in power a few years more or until the people get so mad they just burn the place down and shoot the bastards between the eyes, not always in that order. Do they honestly believe that on the strength of the Hague's track record , people will trust them to bring countless rulers, officials and other miscreants to justice?

I start from this premise to expose the biggest problem in World diplomacy today. When it comes time to live up to the idealistic values of the United nations , the occasional time when when idealism and self interest coincide, the big powers still come up against the wall of the veto from the tinpot dictatorships ,and nations East, West and South, that would rather cut off their nose than disagree with a powerful ally or regional tail that wags the dog . Compound this with a collection of barely sane world leaders like Ahmajinedad or Hugo Chavez, and you get some truly strange bed fellows.

Two peas in a pod

Lets start with Hugo Chavez, a man who feels sympathy and solidarity with the people running Syria and those who used to run Libya.. Best mate with South African president Jacob Zuma, who famously moved at glacier like speed to return legitimate assets to the NTC, which they wouldn't recognize as the government until shamed into it.Men like Chavez represent the delusional leaders who when they are finally faced with an exit from power will not go easely or without fighting back dirty or without taking down as many as the can before they die. And yet these are the people who populate the councils of organizations like The African Union and the UN. The Venezualan leader is so enamoured of his own publicity he can justify the entire destruction of his economy, the free press and democracy so long as he is successful in his people's revolution. Of course he'd love to export his ideas to other places that are deprived of his special kind of love. Like Mussolini and Hitler before him, he has his good points, but I'm not prepared to endure the other stuff just to make my trains run on time. It's such demagogues on a single brain cell that embarrass the socialist in me. He is what happens when dogma and insanity meet. Dogma of any kind is wrong as it does not allow for dissent, evolution or compromise.

Zuma is a different kettle of fish. This man works on the principle that South African interests and the interests of his fellow AU leaders will always be more important than those of the actual people of Africa. His ilk seem to think they can prop up blood thirsty savages like Robert Mugabe and Africans won't mind because somehow, freedoms and responsibilities , such as we know them in the West are alien to them. Think again , South Africans didn't throw off Apartheid to go on and support the same in Israel or to justify and aid other countries to oppress their citizens as long it suits the suits in Pretoria. For the last two years the AU have had one item in the tool chest whenever some President for life has found himself on the wrong end of a ballot box or gun....Why don't you power share? Stability and continuity are always more important than the eradication of a corrupt regime that has killed and robbed it's own populace. The AU is upset that the NTC and Europe have refused to consider the same tired old proposal in Libya. In case you'd forgotten, they wanted the NTC to share power with Ghadaffi, and work on a slow transition or accommodation that would diffuse the situation. The only problem is that exactly like in Zimbabwe, it would have led to a government where the opposition would have had to withdraw and the old regime would have stayed in power with no change at all. Isn't it about time that the World's various powers and power structures recognized that the source of legitimacy, like it or not, is a mandate from the people? This paternalistic, some are more ready than others to choose their own fate bollocks belongs to another century. The AU ( U for useless) has been exposed for the private club of dictators who act out of personal self interest if they choose to act at all that it is.

Bromance isn't dead

China and Russia are a blast from the past when diplomacy was more honest, though no less brutal than today. Tsar Putin and his mate the Emperor of China ask first what is good for us and what will insure our continued prosperity and power. I hear you saying what about the USA? That's for the next paragraph. These two great and ancient countries sit uncomfortably, especially for the Russians, on the fence between reform and old paranoias that cause them to freeze in horror at the very idea off extra national intervention, even if it's a good idea. The Syrian people are the latest victims, how many have died for no good reason while the world gnashes it's teeth and wrings it's collective hands? Short of a freak meteor accident or particularly virulent case of gastro, Bashar al-Assad will be assured of growing old in his job just like daddy did. And yet if we are honest, what is different in Libya or the Yemen or Tunisia? Nothing except that the people aren't as well organized or the Government is much better prepared to deal with dissent. Oh and the fact that the very same tools used at the UN to sanction the Nato mission in Libya worked mostly despite the rule book and because at least this once Russia and China didn't want to look like they were going to allow a bloodbath in Benghazi.

Besides certain Arab and African leaders, there is at least one other Government that desperately doesn't want to see the Arab Spring, Summer and now Fall, succeed. Israel wants nothing better than to continue beating the drums of security and national protection to justify it's illegal theft of land in Jerusalem and the West Bank. With each passing day , and with each act of out of proportion retaliation or settlement construction, they believe they are insuring the survival of their vision of a xenophobic, paranoid Jewish state that would make the original Zionists cringe in shame. Reading the new laws that come out every few weeks is like a roll call of shame that harkens back to Nazi Germany. The only difference is the group of people being persecuted. And yet the Peace quartet is daily rocked with accusations that they are not honest brokers and are working for the interests of one party only. The US political and industrial establishment have made it clear which side they are supporting, right or wrong. It's hardly baffling, The Israeli coalition currently in power are there due to illegal contributions from the US, and the favour is returned with a disproportionate power of the American Jewish fund-raising machine in helping candidates of all parties who will continue this blind unquestioning support for Israeli policy. And don't just take my word for it, but there is a ( pardon the pun) Greek chorus of Jews the world over, intellectuals, journalists, artists, business people, regular folk and powerful religious leaders who have had the courage to stand against the hypocrisy that closes debate in the US among American Jews and in Congress. It's no surprise that the voter participation in the last few elections in Israel has been so poor. Most voters have given up on the incredibly failed system that elects a Knesset filled with right wing religious parties and now a Jewish National Socialist party that to the eternal shame of all true democrats, holocaust survivors and their families, has several seats in cabinet. If you're wondering where the real gems like loyalty oaths or you loose your citizenship are coming from , it's them, but sometimes the scary stuff is from the so called centre of the cabinet. Yet again I am embarrassed by the representatives of the people who just a short time ago where the international poster child for a downtrodden nation just looking for some peace and quiet. Oh how things have changed. At this rate if nothing changes, in 20 years there won't be an Israel. Already the smart money is on going back to Europe where Jewish populations that left in 1946 are being encouraged to return by individual European governments.

No longer the Big bad or the honest broker

The United States of America, no longer the big bad in the world, has lost so much credibility it is too stretched to maintain a presence in more than one country at a time. Held hostage by it's own refusal to tell it's own people they are are no longer honest brokers, if they ever were, and that as a country the opinion of the USA in world councils in regards the middle east and current ongoing banking crisis is worse than not taken seriously, it's rejected out of hand. The recent vote on Palestinian statehood at the UN had only Canada and one other country on board with the US position that despite 20 years of futile talks, the PLO must return to the table for more abuse. The US is part of the problem now, as opposed to the ones helping sort things at the end of WW2 with the Marshal Plan. What is worse, is they continue to claim they act in the middle east on the basis of long standing democratic principles. The same principles that justified the deposing of South American Presidents and the destabilisation of Sweden's left of centre government in the 1980's. President Obama a populist, who if he is a socialist makes me a raving loony Trotskyite Marxist Leninist Mao quoting orthodox ultra communist, is barely a Democrat . Obama said as little as possible and sometimes nothing at all to win, being all things to all people. The only reason the Tea party isn't poised to take the White house is that ( We hope) most Americans aren't yet prepared to elect a foaming at the mouth religious loony who thinks the world is 6000 years old and that God carries a gun, and so should all of us. As for the rest of the Republican party, they would have us believe that the free market is the only force able to save the world. So sorry, but without healthy educated workers, driving on safe highways and streets having eaten safe healthy food, you would have no factory and no profits. My brother in law, were he living in any other western country would be in a group home for the mentally ill and not forced to compete with fully able unemplyed people who are having a hard enough time finding work. Along with Russia, China and India, the Americans are doing all they can to stall international agreements on the environment, money speaks louder than the health of the planet it seems.

Which leads me to my closing thoughts on the home of the free. The occupy Wall Street event is misunderstood by the rest of the World. We think it's a protest against poverty and greed, well yes it is, but not the poverty and greed we know in Canada, the UK , Europe or Japan. We expect comprehensive national health care, a decent education, a minimum wage worthy of the name and should one not be able to cope or work or be somehow disabled, the state takes it's responsibilities and even in the most conservative of countries, steps up. Oh we may complain, but in the USA, the protesters are up against a system that believes in tiny government and a Tea Party that thinks that even that's too much. No comprehensive free national health care, class rooms the size of a respectable theatre attendance, schools that are closed to questioning and the telling of information that doesn't match the accepted dogma, most Universities have long ago given up on debate and the outside world, and corporate wage packets for CEO's are 475 to 1 to the value of a worker's pay, compared to the average in the rest of the world closer to 11 to 1 . I doubt we'll see this embarrassing spectacle, but maybe it's time the UN saw a resolution calling for sanctions on the USA to force it to align with the norm in at least the rest of the West, maybe then our leaders won't be so afraid to sort out the Greeks who make non payment of tax a national sport or to finally put a cap on the corrupt international banking system that makes life much harder for those of us living closer to the ground.

So how do you get an even break these days? Here's the list.

1- Don't have anything China or Russia want so badly they'll prop up a dictator.
2- Don't have anything the USA wants so badly it's willing to prop up a dictator
3- Don't make a move unless you can "Get'er done in a week or two tops"
4- Make sure the goody two shoes NGOs aren't around when you hand out local justice to people who were never going to be that bothered by the rules themeselves when they were in power.
5- Make sure you're polite enough not to mention just how cosy your friends from the outside helping you, were with the old fat bastard in charge.
6- Make sure you ignore the PC brigade in the media, the Non Allingned crowd, the West and the old Communist block. Just do what's right and be sure you're goal and methods aren't nearly as bad the lot you're replacing.
7- Make sure you have even odds to succeed and just maybe despite all the diplomatic masturbation and constipation you will win out.

So where does this leave the Palestinians, the Kurds, Syrians and at least a few Countries too numerous to mention in Africa and Central Asia? Good luck, maybe in a few years you'll be flavour of the week and the dice will roll your way. Till then, never stop fighting, never stop trying, never stop. Maybe you''l be get a break and enough interests will grow a pair and come to your rescue. It's not all bad, Egypt has, even under the interim military regime, re opened the Gaza Strip to land crossing and business. Saudi Arabia is being dragged into the 21st century by it's own Royal Family, and Hugo Chavez, despite his most fervent desire to do so , still hasn't crossed the line to out and out typical South American despot ( for now at least).

Till then, to those of us lucky enough to live in relative freedom , have a government that at least tries to take care of us and occasionally grows a conscience, keep your leaders honest and support them when they are doing the right thing, even if it isn't perfect and lily white. More importantly, don't be super critical or expect perfection and Ghandi like serenity from angry people who have had enough waiting around for the rest us to get off our backsides and help them. Lets see how serene YOU are when your abuser of 40 years slips up enough for you to get the upper hand? Here's hoping they get it right and we don't embarrass ourselves too much in the process.

The God Complex or Mrs Williams figures it out

2011-09-18T05:16:00.002+01:00

Keep your hats on people. It isn't as bad as it looks. I have it on good word straight from the convention floor, that Karen Gillan isn't leaving Doctor Who any time soon. If anything, she and Arthur Darvill are going to be in the 50th anniversary programme and probably at least till the conclusion of the Amy/River/Doctor story. That said, tonight's ep wasn't about how many eps are left for the Williams family, it was about Amy waking up once and for all to the stark truth that her life is with Rory and always has been. Poor man, he truly is the boy who waited. Maybe finally he'll get a bit of respect from his wife?

The God Complex opens in the prototypical endless corridor set with danger behind every door, a breathless young woman who wears the same clothes Amy did when first we met the adult Amy, is trying to survive what is clearly going to get her. Enter the Tardis three and the running and the screaming begins. Except that it's not all just a bit of jogging before dying a grisly death in some Godforsaken hell that's easy and cheap to film in, (though in this case, I'm sure it is and so saves the BBC a lot of money). The story settles down pretty quickly and we find out we're in a place with no way out ( hums Hotel California to himself), and that other guests have first , been made to face their worst fear, then having been sufficiently scared senseless, they fall prey to the thing that wants them to "Praise Him". As stories go, Moffat has yet again gone back to the roots of Doctor Who, The Doctor is an ancient time traveller and yet again he's knee deep in space and time kaka. No one wants to take over the world or the Universe, it's a nice closed door mystery where with luck, enough of the cast will survive to the end credits to find out what fiend is trying to kill them.

The use of doors to hide a multitude of other peoples fears is a fun excuse to trot out the usual suspects that keep us from falling asleep or getting things done. Mum always preferred the other child, you could never be good enough for your father, you're a geek and can't pull and sexy girls mock you, then you add the clowns, the monsters and the call back villains from past eps and Doctors, and you have a real fun park of pant soiling nasties designed put a smile on your face, long as it's not your own personal fear that is. I would of liked some slightly more adult fears like telesales people flogging The Jerusalem Post to members of the EDL, erectile dysfunction, Graham Norton being told he's got Katie Price, Jedward, Chloe Mafia, and the entire cast of The Only Way is Essex , the horror of being Linda Lusardi post op, a WI lady seeing her sponge fall during a competition or an Al Queda having some nutter in the US claim 9/11 was all a government plot and NOT his work. Room 11, which appears to be the Doctor's room, seemed to have the worst of the lot. What could possibly scare the Doctor,. a being so old he's been to the Big Bang Burger Bar at least 5 times and knows the floor show personally? Room 11 we find out contains what Matt Smith reacts to with " Of course, who else". What horror is supposed to fill him with dread? Jedward? Catherine Tate? the TARDIS check engine light, or maybe all those years he spent looking like Colin Baker. We'll never know, but it will be fun prying that nugget from Steven Moffat. My personal theory, borne out of later dialogue and previous times when he's had to struggle, is the deep guilt The Doctor feels for the ruined lives, death and dislocation he has caused over the millennia. As they say in Rocky Horror, time is fleeting, madness takes control. Sometimes with dire consequences. Playing God can be prety harrowing , but clearly not as harrowing as the thing would like, because The Doctor is never troubled enough to succumb. Why should he, he's nearly eternal and knows that in the end. there are few perfect choices, just bad and worse ones . No need to beat himself up too much about it.

Good Bye Amy?

But he does come to a startling conclusion later, startling only if you haven't been paying attention for the last few months. Amy, since she was a wee lass has been admiring and building up the Doctor as an infallible thing that will never let her down, she's even constructed a fantasy where she has the Doctor all to herself in every way possible. Meanwhile, and since she was Amelia, poor Rory has been straggling along in her wake like a sad puppy. Thing is, since about just before Pandorica, Rory has come into himself a lot more and asserted himself many times, most recently In Let's kill Hitler. Sadly Amy has till now failed to notice that she was always first in his book. I think the penny really started to fall in The Girl who waited. Amy, young Amy and older Amy pin their hopes on the Doctor, but it's Rory who really saves her, chooses her. not the Doctor. Tonight in breaking the faith of Amy in him, he sets her free, finally allowing Amy to see the invisible man whose always been there for her. His last act of the play is most telling, never in the history of Who has a companion ever come back long term to the TARDIS after going home like that. On Corrie it's a cab or bus off the cobbles , on Who it's the TARDIS to your house on Earth. Except this time, the Doctor has even thrown in a flash car for Rory, a Chelsea house for Amy and the adventure Amy fears to make, the one where she stays at home and has a life with Rory. You have to wonder if even this mallet over the head will stick, we'll have to see. Amy is stubborn, but even a mule eventually sees sense and moves in the direction it's asked to. I certainly hope so, much as one loves Amy and Rory, their time will have to come an end one way or another.

Supporting cast in God Complex were strong as well. David Walliams was brilliant as the cowardly Gibbis and I enjoyed the asian girl who seemed most on top of the game, Amara Karan playing Rita, would have been a most competent and acceptable companion for the Doctor except for the tiny complication of her death. Rita at one point even seemed a bit too much in control and had me wondering if maybe after all, the Minotaur wasn't the principle villain but her . As it is, she proved to be the bridge to the solution. Faith, any faith, faith in a Diety, in one's skills, one's class, one's mentor, all of them were bad, in fact edible. I think I'll risk holding onto my faiths despite the risk of meeting up with a relative of the Nimon. Faith keeps us going when all else fails, it make us do incredible things against all odds and it keeps us sane when evidence would normally indicate we should just give up trying what ever it is we're on about. In my case I'll continue to have faith in Newcastle United, the belief my cat will listen to me, and that the BBC will pay me to write for them.before I get fitted for a free bus pass. It's faith in my friends, the success of other previously hard working but unknown writers who are now overnight sensations, and the knowledge that there is no accounting for the choices of programmes that get commissioned these days that keep us sane and focused. Where was I? Ah yes supporting cast. They filled out the story nicely and were essential to the ticking along of the story, unlike the frankly silly curse of the Black Spot with it's arghing and pointless posturing. Nothing was wasted in this outing not even the dummies in the dining room. Great throw away lines likes resistance is exhausting, reminded one that you need to laugh at the universe or it will get you. Walliams in particular did well not to draw on any of the Little Britain stuff and showed he can stretch himself past his admittedly large catalogue characters. I hope he's back for more. The monster, a relative of the Nimon was equally good, not your one dimensional beast that roars and destroys, it's a complex being that to has it's needs and wants to be released from it's eternal cycle of trapping and killing.

And it's here that we meet the Doctor of old, RTD would have skirted the issue, but not Moffat, The Doctor , not for the first time or the last in the ep, kills something for it's own good. And presto, there was the big surprise. From the opening scene you're screaming , Castrovalava, The Matrix, it can't be real, well you're right. It's a holodeck right off of Star Trek. Gene Rodenberry would of been proud of the story. The poor beast related to the Nimon is now free and the Universe a little safer for a while.

So why ruin it all and mention James Corden? I suppose armed with a script not improvised by him , he's ok, but I still needed a second to adjust. Maybe they'll have him die a horrible death at the hands of the Cybermen? Perhaps the Doctor will, in a scene that will be cheered in many homes, strand him on a planet where they eat unfunny motivational speakers in trakies. We can always dream.

Have you noticed what the new lead in is now? Celebrity Masterchef, yes a load of bad cooks who were famous for a few minutes for sometimes the most incredibly red tab reasons in the book. The first four have proved mostly useless in the kitchen, except maybe for the man off Holyoaks, he's ok. The rest would be hard pressed to make an impression at a cheap surf and turf restaurant. Which of course they were sent to. Jaunty Road and Greg Wallace could never have been allowed near a proper eatery with this crowd.. One filleted herself, another made the most appalling combinations of flavours and yet another had the pallet of 6 year old who'd never eaten anything outside of KFC and his mam's cooking. Next batch up aren't much better if we're to judge by the low light reel they use to promote next week. And in case you were wondering where it was during the week? Not in it's normal evening slot, but buried deep in afternoon telly land. I suppose it's where it belongs, Linda Lusardi who's had so much work on her, she needs to live on the shopping channel to pay for it all is a celebrity because of the her "body" of work. I googled her old picks, very nice, but seeing her now is like stabbing yourself repeatedly while looking at fit naked women. It just doesn't work. The Blonde woman who sells lingerie, another person who's famous more in the way Ann Summers is than say Lilly Allen, is another hapless murderer of food. I'm not sure who the other alleged celebs are, but I do hope we get a better class of famous people soon or the show is doomed. Some proper actors , a few singers, a politician who's not been retired 20 years or maybe even the food critic at the Gruniad would be nice, but I somehow doubt it.

If you're looking for a good dose of fun, well written telly, check out on ITV1 the new Doc Martin , just as fresh as ever and no let up in the quality of the stories and scripts. Martin (Martin Clunes) and Louisa (Caroline Catz) are back in Portwenn for another akward slice of life in Cornwall. . It's good , watch it !

Laters all , please don't forget to try Beat Surrender, follow the links on the right.

Night Terrors, a refreshing diversion from the norm.

2011-09-10T07:24:00.001+01:00

Well It's Friday night Saturday morning and the next Doctor Who will be on in a few short hours. Much as I am excited and anxious to be sat in the armchair an hour before the devil knows I've tuned into BBC1, I am just now coming to terms with last weeks ep. Night Terrors, a story of a little boy and all that scares him.

Those of us old enough to remember the 60's, even found George's room familiar. From the toys to the wallpaper to the pyjamas. I won't say Terrors was a light hearted trip down memory lane. Nobody wants to recall a time when everything scared the living daylights out of you. Every creak, groan and shadow magnified a thousand times into witches, demons and many armed creatures with flashing teeth that lived under one's bed or in the closet, and then there were the clowns and the creepy dolls, mad Alices they were. As a boy all of those and much more lost many a night's sleep, I was even partial to the compulsive switch clicking in a certain rhythm, specific number of times, 6 in my case. Thank you for asking , but I turned out ok after all, the only thing left over is a deep and unrelenting mistrust of clowns. As an aside The Sylvester McCoy story "The Greatest Show in the Galaxy", for obvious reasons is one of the most disturbing I've ever seen. What's that you say? Thee are no clowns but the one slumped on the floor in Night Terrors? Yes, was just saying, since it came up in the story, I don't like clowns. Cirque du Soleil besides being deeply pretentious and boring, can at time induce the heebee jeebies in me if one of the overly artsy clowns shows up, they are like massive stalking spiders, ready to strike and eat you. I also am not fond of arachnids, but as long as they don't bother me I won't bother them.

Where was I? Oh yeah, Night Terrors, a story that did something that a Who story hasn't done in a long time...that is NOT serve as a platform or filler to move the River/Amy arc along to it's final conclusion, which of course is the death of the Doctor in Utah. What a refreshing thing to see, a script that just told a story. So what it wasn't all original concepts, so what most of my Who mates can point out half a dozen older storied from which it liberally draws on. Truth be told, there hasn't been an original story since Homer took pen to scroll. Here was a 45 minute story that from beginning to end, kept us on the edge of our seats even when we though t we knew what was happening. Much of the credit belongs to Mark Gatiss who, bless his creepy little stories, knows how to press the buttons that will get even the bravest person under a blanket and peeking out in fright. It's a pity Hammer studios isn't what it used to be, Gatiss would have been a star there. The best part of the tale is that it was River free and very nearly, Amy free. I've grown tired of the long drawn out multi part striptease of the River Song saga that seems to have started the same day we met wee Amelia Pond. Even Key to Time had a clear conclusion, this thing seems to have more false stops than the last Lord of the Rings film did. Not complaining per se, just saying that I miss the off world, on world evil nasties that stand on their own and in which the companions are NOT the centre of the Universe.I look forward to the eventual return to normal service where we can depend on the Time Lords, The Tardis, and the Doctor to get into trouble without the help of some central nexus fixed point bollocks . Please The Lord Thy God Steve Moffat, can we have some good old fashioned stories with plastic monsters and doppelgänger principal players who much in the way Brian Blessed put his mark on the role of the future Mr Perri Brown. just made us wonder " what happens next" without having to check our watches on the 12 th ep since a certain story arc has started.

Ahh Gingerism

There, got that off my chest, and for the record, I still love Moffat's Doctor, he's giving us the Time Lords back in the fullness of time, never a bad thing, expanded the inside of the Tardis and given Rory some respect. Best Rory bit this time was when he said "We're dead ...Again" the doctor's probably in some time slippy thing in EastEnders land . At least he (Moffat), hasn't lost his sense of humour. I particularly liked the amusing call back to stories past when he reminisced about great fairy tales like " Snow White and the 7 keys to Doomsday". The opening of the ep is at it's heart a recognition of the power of whatever it is that makes the universe tick. A small boy prays "Please save me from the Monsters." and lo there was a text message. Never forget that the Black and White Guardians never went away, they just faded to the backs of our minds where they always were. Call them God, call them higher beings, at least the PC brigade hasn't swept Sci fi clear of the transcendental. Without it, much of the suspension of disbelief, the fortuitous and the outright incredible would simply be impossible to include in an adventure serial type story like Doctor Who. Besides, I like the idea that there is a being who occasionally pays attention to what you want, especially when you're a scared little boy.

Aside from all else, Night Terrors dealt with the very real problems parents have in what could only be described as Thatcher Redux. A father out of work, a mam who is never there, how does George's dad cope? Very poorly is how, and George feels he's alone with barely a father and no mother. In fact without giving the game away for those few who haven't watched it, it is the crux of the matter. George feels unloved and unwanted, and the fact that his mam walks in to the story at the end with it all sorted , none the wiser of the trouble that passed in the last few hours, is telling. Gatiss is not alone among writers and other creative people at the Beeb to take on this feminist Holy Grail by the horns. A recent ep of Outnumbered had the daughter outright say she wished her mother was less worried about her career and more concerned with her.. I'd say that was brave, but the only people who seem to be afraid to say things like this are the politicians who still sing from the Hymn book last updated in the 80's.. Even Shameless has been tearing the indifferent self obsessed full time working mum , the single teen mum, and the mythical super mum who loves with money and short sharp jabs of gifts, a new one. What with all these people miles from home most of the day ( male or female) children are growing up alone ( I would have, had it not been for my Gran). This added to the me myself and I attitude of people in general through the 70's 80's and 90's, has produced two or three generations each less able to deal with anybody older than themselves, people in general, or show respect for anything and anyone, a sort of angry, timid, socially inept, person who doesn't trust others and has a hard time bonding with others. At the end of the day, hell all day long, a child needs guidance and protection, assuming that George will cope somehow is to abdicate ones role in order to achieve some kind of idealism formed in the haze of the 60's and 70's. Like free love, the absent mother and the father who never says no, have proved not to work. .

The other hallmark of the ep is of course the creepy aspect of the story. Throughout, Gatiss fills the screen with every scary psyche scarring plot device he can find without laying on the mustard too much. The shrunken doll house inhabited by mad Alice dolls, a lift that eats people, the carpet right out of Freddie Kruger eating the land lord. Being turned into a Mad Alice doll, shadows, wind , the mutterings of slightly smelly slightly sad old woman who isn't even aware she's making our inner child quake in fear. Even taking the rubbish out in a high rise estate becomes an exercise in survival worthy of Paradise Towers. I'm sorry, did I say Paradise Towers? And here you'd made such an effort to forget you ever saw it, my apologies again.

So what do we learn from Night Terrors? Hug the person you love once in a while, you may think they know you want them around, but they need telling and there's never anything on telly even if you get the super duper Sky box with all the channels.

While I got you, I also watched BBC's Digging for Britain. It's no Time Team and they kept making sweeping statements that academic work, archaeology and recent finds in the last ten years have put pay to. Rome invaded Britain? Not really, they were invited in and were culturally present for at least 50 years beforehand through trade and culture. The Romans then left in 410 AD. Well yes and no, first of all as stated in the programme, many stayed, but many had no where else to go as they were natives and had just been Romanized. The post Roman Dark age? What dark age? Trade flourished, the basic pillars of the classic education were established in a English University long before the 9th century, the Church continued for centuries and didn't need to be re-established by later day missionaries. The interregnum between the end of the Roman Empire in the UK and the return of Rome through the Church saw in fact a continuous mixed Romano Christian Celtic culture that traded with the rest of the known world. Hardly the mud pit of ignorant toothless peasants scratching a life from dead rocky soil. If you enjoy digs and need a hit between new Time Team eps, Digging for Britain is just enough to catch up on the goings on in the world of metal detecting, and official digs in the UK. Watch by all means, but ignore anything coming out of the mouth of presenter Dr Alice Roberts who seems content to spout out of date history dogma that was set down as recently as 1920. You want an archaeologist that knows what she's talking about, there's always Dr. Helen Geake off Time Team.

That's all for now, see you all after the next Doctor Who, more angry robots and creepy dolls mixed with imminent jeopardy for Rory and Amy. Can't wait.

Just one more cup of tea, then I'll start

2011-09-06T08:28:00.000+01:00

Sometimes it's just really hard to get going, so far I've made several cups of tea, had a bath, watched the news, eaten two bowls of corn flakes and googled online eps of The Nanny. In fairness I am recovering from the month of August during which both my wife and I hardly had a break from making home made noodles for local Muslims during Ramadan. It takes a lot of time and energy to make 4 or 5 kilos overnight, leaving you knackered and craving your bed till at least noon or 2 in the afternoon. Multiply this 15 to 20 times over 30 days and you begin to realize just how drained the batteries are.

The last time I felt sufficiently moved to rise out of the noodle induced stupor, I wrote a scathing indictment of all that is wrong with Miracle Day, the latest and possibly worst, longest and most pointless Torchwood offering. Since then I've come close to commenting on Libyan affairs twice, reviewing Doctor Who, wondering aloud if Sci Fi as we knew it even 10 years ago has changed beyond all recognition. I even had considered writing about the current series of The Great British Bake off.

But I never got any closer than several pots of tea, cleaning my desk twice, preparing several epic meals, going for walks and throwing dirty laundry into baskets. At one point I had even tidied the rubbish bins and reorganized the pantry. So why the block I wondered, what was keeping me from writing again. Well I could discount the tired to some extent, as in fact I had at least since the last week of August, gone back to watching quality and sometimes less edifying telly. We had a Shameless marathon that took us from the first time Frank Gallagher graced our screens to the rise of the Maguires as the defenders of Chatsworth. Estate. As I said before, I even watched Miracle Day for a bit till it made me want to poke my eyes out of boredom and frustration. In between all of that, were great films on BBC and C4, Outnumbered came back and of course The Rob Brydon Show till just this week brought a gleam of hope to the usually dreary world of chat shows. And if that wasn't enough, we haven't missed a Doctor Who, Top Gear or the footie, such as it was.

"8-2 Brute?" Julius Caesar

I say such as it was, but Man U spanking Arsenal comprehensively 8-2 is the sort of match you don't soon forget, regardless who you support. To quote a mate of mine ( Keith Telly Topping ok). He'd rather see Northern scum beat Southern scum if it comes down to choosing. but I still had to feel just a bit sorry for the Gunners. The worst result in 116 years, having the rot so plainly show, I suspect even Alex Ferguson thought that there had to be a point where honour was satisfied and the ref could have blown the whistle. I reckon somewhere 10 minutes after the restart would have been the point when the coup de grace would have been appreciated by the North London daycare side that Wenger fielded. Even now I'm looking forward to the England Wales qualifier later today, having missed the disgusting behaviour during the Bulgaria match. In case you're wondering how I could have passed up such an interesting fixture? I could tell you it sounded boring and that I had better things to do, but the truth is I fell asleep on the setee and missed the entire day.

So I hear some of you wondering out loud how it is I wasn't able to rise even once since my Torchie review despite being thrown a bone when forced to watch 5 minutes of the latest candidate for worst UK game show ever ( Thanks again Mr Topping) ... EPIC WIN. This exercise in annoying made Don't scare the hare, ....ermmm look less shit than it actually is. I watched a butcher identify meat with his feet. Seems all games and game shows at the BBC now need to rhyme. Surely this would of been just the thing that the doctor ordered to break the writing duck, but no, I wasn't moved, not even after seeing the host call on the pop up co-compare in a white suit make insipid jokes and be so embarrassing that small children would think they were at a particularly bad panto.

I can only assume that my biggest stumbling block was the fear that once started, I'd have to dive back in to another season of Srictly reviews and pretend to care what happens to talentless charvs and hapless chef wana be's who's big talent is stacking chips in the shape of a log cabin. Is that really all there is??? I sincerely hope not. While I can always turn to Dave, Yesterday or even ( GASP) ITV 4 for old Sweeneys, I despair of the state of British telly when the best on offer is Top Gear, Doctor Who, Sherlock and a few decent crime dramas and maybe the occasional comedy. This Summer was supposed to be full of great filler to while away the long hot mystery months when there is no football. Instead we got a few half hearted efforts from BBC4 that placated the more intellectual among us, but below the medulla oblongatta, where Ideal, The IT crowd or Big Brother for Posh people ( Apprentice), live, there was a gaping hole of repeats and uninspired "hilarious" programmes from the same minds that gave us the truly awful Big Top.

I will freely admit to being addicted to the Libyan revolution and the news stations that one has to watch to be up to date with it. Big winner here is Al Jazeera English. A brilliant station that has kept me abreast of important things like cricket, football and English looters while also and importantly, providing me with obsessively detailed reports on battles, diplomatic moves and now the reconstruction of the new Libya. I'm sure the BBC has had much the same thing, but Al Jazeera was all too often too hard to turn off long enough to find out. Kudos to Sky News for having the first live pictures out of the newly liberated Tripoli and Martyr Square. It takes a special kind of crazy to get that kind of job done.

Sign the petition NOW if you haven't yet

Or it could have been the sudden appearance on Face Book of the petition to stop the powers that be from dumbing down BBC 4 in a move explained as an "economy" motivated policy. Why would anybody want to dumb down BBC4? Since when is it a criticism to say a programme or a station is TOO smart? What prize idiot at the BBC or the Government considered for even a second the possibility of cutting funding to the flagship station in the BBC crown? As bread winner, BBC 4 does more work on a quarter of the budget that the brain dead BBC 3 gets. BBC4 provides 80 % of all English language programming to educational stations across the globe. Then even more translate the shows and spend even more at the BBC. And if that wasn't enough , these servants of Jeremy *unt want to stop broadcasting quality foreign language material like The Killing, Wallander and Spirale. .

What ever happened to Leon Trotsky?

Is it any wonder I hadn't had the spirit, the energy or the desire to dive back in? A few extra quid in the account from writing would help, but this too will come one day, till then, one must endeavour to continue to endeavour. OK, this it it, I'll write those reviews right after I've read the news paper, had another cup of tea and fed the cat.

As per usual, this and all other entries written under the influence of the most excellent Beat Surrender, still channelling The Stranglers, The Pistols The Pogues and Ian Drury on BBC Radio Newcastle. Catch Nick Roberts online by clicking on BBC Radio Newcastle Saturday listen again section, look for Beat Surrender.

R.I.P. Torchwood 2006-11 or Miracle Day mess

2011-08-19T00:20:00.004+01:00

At long last, it has happened. Russell T. Davies has allowed his creation to be killed off by a combination of American money, being full of himself and the absolute crime of trying to sell tuna as filet mignon.

Back on 22 October 2006, a small band of odd warriors of all things not important enough for the Doctor to sort, broke on the scene and launched a love affair that lasted to about a week after "Children of the Earth", when certain obsessive fans girls wanted a mildly needy poof resurrected. By all accounts, that should have been the end, the final curtain for a franchise that did what it said on the tin. Sci fi for adults on a personal scale where explosions were mental and devastating consequences were of the type you could feel all too easily. Individual relationships between characters and the rest of the world as well as with each other were compact and told a story in in the way old fashion Sci Fi used to. Torchwood treated us as adults with enough imagination and smarts to understand what was happening without having to include healthy doses of automatic weapons fire and macho posturing . It kept the connection with the Whoverse from whence it came and most importantly, it assumed a certain connection with the reality of the rest of the World and how government works in practise. In so doing, the stories, including Children of the Earth managed to be as disturbing and as riveting as they were.

Give me a room full of ministers condemning an entire subclass of people with the stroke of a pen over any helicopter spewing metal death at a harmless Welsh cottage on the orders of the CIA. The moment I knew American money was pouring in and the setting and cast were being sent across the pond, I had a terrible horrible feeling. From the first frame of "Miracle Day", it became obvious that Torchwood had become utterly detached from any sense of reality such as was till then understood by RTD or the BBC. It failed on a number of levels which I shall now outline.

1- Miracle Day became an action shoot em up thriller with more bullets than story in a matter of minutes. It's combination of X files and 24 with a dash of right wing jingoism, was immediately evident to even the most untrained eye. There is an assumption of a level of power of the United States that never existed, not even in the most fevered imaginings of a Tea Party nutcase. The be all and end all attitude of America right or wrong that includes the resurrection of the Russians as adversaries, in current circumstances speaks to writers who still haven't figured out that the US hasn't been a world power for at least 10 years now and more to point has it's begging bowl out hopping not to have ten shades of shit kicked out of it by the Chinese. That the story became that unhinged so quickly immediately put me off the rest of episode 1, a condition I never recovered from thereafter.

2- The writing was moved from Cardiff to an office in the USA ( I don't care what the official line is), and the clear lack of understanding of anything outside of the USA and the Cardiff team's lack of any comprehension of what Americans think or know or how they live, combined to make an already bad story into a shambolic script that would have sapped the spirit of even the best actor in the world. Which of course it did with immediate and tragic effect to John Barrowman and Eve Myles. The American cast wasn't as affected as it was used to this level of shlock one must assume.

3- The abandoning of the connection with the Whoverse for the flimsy bizzaro notions that only seem to work in exploitation action horror genre shlock. Forget that the so called drug would have to get past so many trials and filters to be used on a world scale and would thus be stopped in it's tracks, forget that it's too preposterous for words, How does this in any way fit into the continuum that is the world of Doctor Who from where it sprang or The Rift which fuels all the basic stories?

4- Perhaps most damning.... the loss of the need to tell the story ( however silly or strange) in a reasonable fashion or length of time. Miracle Day makes some filler episodes of Lost seem like action packed super vitamins of intellectual horse pills.

5- Lastly, the people in the US who watch ScyFy and other such stations have been watching Doctor Who and the real Torchwood, among other offerings, for years on telly and online. They are smarter, better educated and have a low tolerance for bullshit. To produce a puff piece aimed at what I can only assume is the lowest common denominator, insults the original viewers who expected better and misses the mark of what the adolescent non geek American viewer is looking for. To be blunt, the average person who watches ScyFy would watch BBC 4 if they could. To dumb down Torchwood to such an extent puts RTD in the company of Guy Ritchie and his entirely awful Sherlock Holmes.

A few highlights or lowlights as you please, of strange logic in the story thus far. Captain Jack is affected by a clearly chemical created drug that causes him to become mortal while the rest of the World apparently becomes immortal. What horse shit! Whatever made him immortal was far more powerful than any drug Bayer could ever make. Another gem is the anti hero peado killer who didn't die. How in any world could he become some kind of religious leader?????? And why would churches empty after no one dies? Should be the exact opposite.

Miracle Day is about as much about the real Torchwood as a cheap knock off a Dolce and Gabana hand bag could ever be taken for the real thing. It reminds me of the nasty plastic toys in the shops masquerading as Star Wars Toys.... Galaxy Wars, which in no way resembled the original power sabres et all and broke the first time you played with them. Miracle day is what happens when a perfectly good UK programme crosses over and is "adapted" for American audiences. It's a dog's breakfast of gristle, fat and a few original features floating in a soup of sparkle and flash that the original went miles out of it's way to avoid. Now if that was it, a bad adaptation that would be an improvement on what has happened here. A recent friend of mine on Facebook summed up Miracle Day in the following words.

Erik Engman You can probably watch episode 1 then all the "Previously on Torchwood"s then the last episode.

It's all filler with a few minutes of content at the end. In fact according to Erik, episode 5 or 6 was written by the same criminal who wrote the killer cat episode of X-Files. Surely in all of the USA there had to be 12 writers better than this person??? But it would seem few people with a reputation wanted to touch this turkey.

Are there any redeeming features to Miracle day? I'm told Eve Myles aka the delectable Gwen Cooper has some funny lines and looks pretty good on a motorbyke. Hardly a reason to watch an entire ep let alone anything after episode 2. As a plot device, the problem of that many undead people on earth using up the planet's resources had to come to the logical gruesome conclusion of concentration camps and ovens. that they waited till ep 5 , is testimony of how long they plan to stretch this simple 4 parter into an epic fit only for marketing shampoo and life insurance to bored people on cable. And on the ovens, let's talk for a minute. I'm not offended by them, not in the least, but by what power have Congress or the White House to impose this on the World? Through some sort of invisible long lost super power tool, by means of a mega corp on the rerst of the World? Then ignoring the current geopolitics by making the Chinese the good guys but the EU evil, is so ludicrous as to stretch credulity past the point of suspension of disbelief.

Another casualty of this debacle is the now seriously overexposed John Barrowman. His truly awful variety show Tonight's the Night, comes as a nail in the coffin of a once interesting actor who straddled bisexual, gay and straight sci fi. I now have to ask myself how much of early Barrowman brilliance is down to good writing and how much is him. I sincerely hope he bounces back from this, but If I'm honest, and when haven't I been brutally honest? This confluence of shite upon utter shite cannot be good for his career.

The problem now is that even if from episode 6 through the end, it gets better, I am already beyond caring. And if I am beyond caring, how many people who are the alleged target audience, are also past giving a monkey's how it ends? The fact is that noise from the US backers indicates that there will not be a series 2 of Torchwood USA. Critical reaction and poor ratings are not making the kind of buzz the producers were expecting, and that spells doom for the new format. Will the great celestial Auntie in London green light the commission of more old style Torchwood now? I seriously doubt it.

So here I sit angry and grieving the destruction of one of my favourite programmes by it's creator in the name of the all mighty American dollar and US ratings. There is no way back from this now. Torchwood as we knew it ended when the credits rolled on Children of Earth and were dead and buried the moment Gwen Cooper turned into Mr and Mrs Smith. What was left barely breathing was then pummelled to dust by the misguided and poor writing of people who seemed to think the CIA was more powerful than the British House of Commons and the Cabinet. And where the Doctor finds new and innovative ways to explain the TARDIS to new travelers, the concept of Torchwood was so poorly explained in episode 5 that one wonders if they weren't maybe just a wee bit too embarrassed by Miracle Day to even go there. The scripts and acting are ham fisted and not much better than the stuff you see in bad University short films. I almost wish they hadn't bothered or that some evil troll at the BBC would have had it "put on hiatus" like they did to Doctor Who. Perhaps then I'd still have the memory of the wonderful programme I used to enjoy.

I will always have my memories of Ianto, Owen , Toshiko and Gwen as well as the Bat cave under Cardiff. Torchwood then was like the unfashionable back end of the Whoverse where all manner of scum, scoundrels and hangers on would congregate around "The Rift". Captain Jack Harkness and his collection of off the radar police, would explore the grey area of intergalactic, timey whimey morality that is the seamy underbelly of the rosy universe The Doctor skims over most of the time. I miss the weird cursed gadget of the week or the well intentioned never clearly good or bad visitor who only reveals their intent when you least expect it and most of the time catches you off guard. The interpersonal relations of people who no loneger exist in the real world were equally interesting. They vaguely resembled the effect of spending too much time playing Halo or being permanently wired to your work for so long you lost the ability to communicate with normal people. Living in the bubble of the lair reduced them to space travellers light years from the rest of space ship Wales, UK, Earth. And yet there was a logic to the whole thing, Torchwood London, The Doctor, 10 Downing, U.N..I..T. ( albeit evil), had a continuity that made it all feel familiar and worth investing time in.

This imposter on telly at the minute is not the Torchwood I know and clearly not what RTD at his most misguided probably wanted. Can I blame him for this? OH YES, but he's not alone in shouldering blame. Pity that regardless how it ends it's probably the end of what could have been a long run of realy fun Sci Fi. You know it puts me in the mind of when Blake's 7 got so seriously wrong. Seems history is doomed to repeat itself after all. I've decided to take the advice of Erik, Come the last ep, I'll watch to see how it ends....maybe. Or perhaps I'll just ask somebody who watched. Frankly I'm not that bothered one way or the other.

EDIT: Sept 10th, the finale has played inthe USA, I have in the end asked somebody who watched, how it ended. Seems I was right, episode 9 was sort of the end, then 10 was a steaming pile of filler that whimpered it's way to the credits in a haze of bullets and WTF illogic in no way connected to the Whoverse. I'm glad I passed on it

Bring on Doctor Who PLEASE!!!!!

The Doctor's wife or The love of a man for his car

2011-05-18T00:37:00.005+01:00

Well I have been banging on for such a long time that we needed more Tardis, and now we get so much more than we could have hoped for. Neil Gaiman the prototypical Who geek turned successful writer went where most of us wanted to, INSIDE THE TARDIS. About bloody time I say, but The Doctor's wife is more than just a nostalgic trip to Tom Baker and his mates running around an old Victorian hospital, We've been getting wee dollops of candy from the Lord Thy God Steven Moffat, but this is more like it. Can't have been fun for him getting all those e mails and other missives screaming for more Tardis, much like Isaac Asimov when begged for more Daneel Olivaw stories, he tossed off a 5 page thing for a pulp mag and our reaction was, nice start, but we assumed you were going to write a book. What followed was a string of great books that are asking even more questions long past the cheeky death ( how dare he) of the Sci Fi legend. Like Asimov, Moffat now is prepping us for the big box of Belgian chocolate truffles coming our way.

The Doctor's Wife is a full tilt stand alone story that takes us right past the rooms and reveals the soul of the machine itself. There are some who would accuse Moffat of romanticising the essentially male notion of vehicle love by making the soul of the Tardis a woman. He certainly isn't the first to do this, in Andromeda the former Hercules flirted with and almost got romantic with the ship's human simile communication's protocol. To be fair , she was fit as .... But this never stopped any man including Kirk or Scotty or the Doctor from resorting to unique and sometimes violent means to get the result he wanted. I'm not sure I'm comfortable with the whole Idris personality, but she does work on a lot of levels and is an alternative explanation why the Doctor has always ended up "Where he needed to be". Used to be it was the Time lords letting him off the hook for nicking an old type 40 in exchange for putting out some fires and sometimes saving the bacon of Gallifrey itself. So can we buy a sort of sentient being half tech half energy falling for the Doctor so long ago? The romantic in me would love to, but I have never wanted to make love to my bike car or stereo, I may call them "her" but I'm no way romantically involved despite appearances to the contrary. Idris is more the manifestation of the romance novel side of fandom. I'm guilty as charged, I too was well hooked by Rose and would have loved to see them settle down in a quiet corner of Gallifrey and have lots of little Time Lords and Ladies, but such is the world of Doctor Who that even the Daleks were soon rolling their eyes over all of it. Idris as a one off is a brilliant character I loved from the first words she uttered and loved even more as It dawned on me ( about 2 minutes in) , that she was the heart of the Tardis. Her uncanny ability to be as confused and new to emotion as any newly liberated bit of software worked really well, she even took the opportunity few others have the right to, to bollocks him over never reading the instructions. BUT again I keep wondering what that would have been like if Idris was a bloke, a regular guy , a mechanic nerd, techy type who would have also argued furiously with the Doctor about building the Franken Tardis.

As a story the ep stands out as one of the best stand alone stories you can watch out of order any time in any era and appreciate. It's the kind of territory the nutter crowd ( myself included) love to delve into. How does the Tardis work? Why does it shudder along so and where ARE the rest of the Time Lords? The planet made of half digested Tardi along with Aunty , Uncle Nephew and Idris was a master stroke of setting. Somewhere in E space there is a malevolent entity that feeds on Time Lords and their machines. I half expected the junkbots to sing Dare to be Stupid for a second , but the feeling passed and the place felt like a proper fearsome place where things go to die. For the first time this series, a monster is in fact well scary, it even looks like House ( Michael Sheen) could have got away with it and gone on to create havoc in N space. I would have loved to see it go off and threaten the Time Lords in the Slo Time envelope around Krikkit. In fact I won't be in the least bit surprised if eventually Gallifrey makes a massive come back when just that sort of malevolent entity causes the Tardis and co to save the High Council from the shinies. In fact I'll be deeply disappointed if it doesn't happen in this series. But as I pointed out to Keith Telly Topping this last week, TLTG Moffat rarely disappoints.

Ah and yes about the interiors, more hints as to where things are, The Ponds get a new bedroom and the old control room gets jettisoned. But what a spectacular tease. White corridors with the usual circle panels. Next time doors too please, but still worth the film to see Rory , yet again , be killed. This time even though you knew it was probably a massive mind game, you let yourself be drawn in. It's classic Doctor Who where a monster or evil thing mentally abuse the audience for a bit. The Master was an erm... master of this sort of thing. The safest place in the universe suddenly and not for the first time becomes the last place you want to be. Kept us on the seat of our pants till the end. Neil Gaiman really delivered in terms of dialogue and concepts. Some say there are no new ideas just the way you combine the old ones, and it's true, but what Gaiman did was a loving carefully crafted old fashion psycho thriller when the sets were made of foam and the words had to carry much farther than most writers allow for now.

Special mention has to go to the well fit actress that plays Idris. Suranne Jones, Karen MacDonald for a few years on Corrie who annoyed me no end, but here she was brilliant, sexy and classy. A performance that oozed with the reflection of crazy the Doctor had patted, caressed and beaten into her/it for years. If you're going to play a one off and that one off is the human personification of the Tardis, you better do it well. Steve MacDonald's ex wife did that, I just hope they don't make the mistake of bringing Idris back, that would be wrong for so many reasons, not least of which would be that it would cheapen the character.

The follow up bit of fun of the best ever Doctor Who Confidential on BBC 3 was a proper treat. A trip into the history of the Tardis complete with old clips and set pieces designed to bring you to the point of tears it was so moving. Seeing all those clips with several incarnations of the Doctor cursing . loving and otherwise talking to the Tardis over the years made me feel like we'd lost something along the way recently, and that made me very sad, but I suspect it's also a message from the powers that be that the Doctor we wanted is back and no one is apologising for it.Having Neil Gaiman narrate bits of script walking through the set had it's moments as well, less so for me as performance but proof I wasn't wrong for my own script writing style and methods, shows what a load of isolated old farts know. Any road... I liked it and so will you if you missed it.

Moldova, my pick to win

All in all, not a bad day that started with football and ended with Eurovision and a not so last place nul points performance by Blue. Was tarnished slightly by the fact that super eedjits Jedward pipped Blue for a slightly higher placing, but then again Eurovision, the song contest good taste forgot, is not known for appealing to people who listen to the Undertones. I suppose it's an improvement that a song that is a direct rip off of Snow Patrol won. Could have been worse, could have been Belgium and the acapella tone deafs. Thank you Doug Morris for this factoid, The Damned offered and were refused as representatives for this great nation. Would have made Lordi look silly. If there was any justice, Moldova would have won. And if you love great music, I urge you not for the last time, to listen to Beat Surrender every Saturday night on BBC Radio Newcastle, hosted by the most excellent Nick Roberts and Doug Morris when when Nick is off filming a wedding for the big Radio One big weekend foofera, don't ask , I don't know why either. Jamie Wilkinson pops in to sub as well but not as often as he used to. And of course listen again, just look for Beat Surrender.

Need to get a few things off my chest too. First up is the BBC history literature thing, The Viking Sagas, was supposed to be the telling of how the sagas were written and even offered up the hope of significant segments being read in some logical manner that would lead one to want more. Instead Janina Ramirez, wet behind the ears romance novelist and bad interviewer reacted in patently prepared sequences to information she already knew, then repeated with great surprise as if the previous speaker had been talking in old Norse.I had to turn it off after 20 minute it was that painful. I thought you needed more than just being a former Goth Chic to get commissioned for a real BBC 4 programme? Shame on the BBC, such a great chance to tell an exciting story wasted on this not ready for telly grad student Dan Snow wanna be.

Next is the returned Two Pints of Lager and a Packet of crisps. BBC 3's flagship youth comedy from 10 years ago, still has the feel of the original , but seems a bit tired and is running out of ideas. Stripped of it's most manic residents, Runcorn feels more like the party after the party. You keep expecting something good to happen and it almost does, and then falls short of the template set in the first few series. Tim Claypole is cheaply outed as " a gay" for no apparent reason but cloying drama worthy of Corrie. It would have been much funnier if we'd have met Helena first and found out she was a post op ex trany, but no they just let him blurt it out. His nymphomaniac sister is a poor replacement for Crazy Louise and while not without some merit, just barely earns her spot in the cast. Having watched the other series I feel the need to watch this and even enjoyed it enough to sit through the full 30 minutes, but it's not nearly as good as it used to be. If you are a fan, watch; if not, pass on it. I'd hate for you to think this was the best it ever got.

Next week promises a lot of new beginnings and the start of football free land in those mystery months they stuck in between May and the end of August. I'm told by the currently builder infested Keith Telly Topping to not despair as there are all kinds of things on the way and we still have lots of Doctor Who to come. So relax and enjoy the break by taking in the sun should it deem to come out.

The Curse of the Black Spot: Homicidal mermaid on the loose

2011-05-08T00:37:00.003+01:00

And for those of you who endured the last few minutes with a mechanical hare, the Italian cheese is Asiago and Gulliver's travels was the oldest in the list. Just how dim do you have to be to need to think and debate on questions like these? Good thing they go the question about theme parks or the poor bunny would have had to wait till next week. Honestly , this thing still hasn't been put out of it's misery?

Small price to pay for the best sci fi show in the world yes? Maybe not, but the credits did roll and Doctor Who opened up with a shot of the good ship Errol Flynn. If they missed a pirate cliché in the first 5 minutes, I must have blinked. Then Amy did her best impression of every girl's fantasy from Pirates of the Caribbean. As it turns out, the only reason she even remotely scared the weather beaten veterans of years at sea, was their fear of getting hurt even just a wee bit. Any other time they would have laughed and muttered something along the lines of "Now there lass, you could hurt yerself with that". But the aforementioned homicidal mermaid was culling crew with cuts of any kind and letting them know their number was up with a black spot, and that had put rather a damper on basic sword play so fancy footwork was the order of the day. Now maybe I've gotten a tad cynical in my dotage, but I'm prepared to forgive a lot if the result is a ripping good yarn.

There I did it, I used a piraty word. Argh, I did it again. Avast ye land lubbers! That's all I got, I'm empty now, rest of the review will be in English or that close approximation to English I use most of the time. I mention this because I'm happy to see the script , while not avoiding the cliché pile up, did steer clear of the awful dialogue that normally crops up in such outings. There were a few moments you could almost believe it was a darker episode of Master and Commander, complete with miniaturized ship and cabins, then there plopped in the middle of the floor was a pile of gems gold and coins bringing us right back into Errol Flynn land. I suppose it was fun to watch but mostly harmless. The watery tart gave us a few scares, Captain Avery had a few tender words with his son the stowaway. Yes he was hiding in a barrel. Then the crew or what was left of it was washed away or zapped by the murderous mermaid with half the ep still to go. Oh whatever will they do? Doc, Cpt. Henry Avery and Amy get taken as well. Did I mention, they killed Rory again, poor poor man. So where was I? Oh yes, if ye can't beat em, don't think they're all dead and join em.

In fairness the previously lethal Siren now is the, albeit misguided, but good Emergency Medical Hologram. A bit less brutal than the empty child but still unused to human physiology. Turns out no one was dead, just in suspended animation. Nice one that. Just when we were forgetting about the whole space angle, along comes a space ship from another dimension. Frankly I was wondering when the rest of the universe in all it's splendour and diversity was going to stick it's nose into the series. Matt Smith even started to talk like just maybe the people he's meeting aren't all up to speed on the lingo and tech. Now all we need is a bit more sarcasm and the comparisons with Tom Baker can start. A good start tonight and the multiverse traffic jams in space and time are a touch of proper sci fi . Loved the bit where the Pirate captain was looking for the things he knows all ships should have; a compass, a sail and a rudder.

As stories go, it did touch on all the places it needed to, the heart strings of father and son, hero worship , expectations and disappointment. Amy and Rory are couple of the year what with the continuing saga of how much they mean to each other. The elements of classic Greek literature and seafaring stories worked well and the exposition for those who missed it wasn't at all heavy handed. Where the Curse of the Black Spot worked best was the dynamic between the the two captains when comparing ships and especially when it turned out our Doctor's Tardis was rubbish after all. Professional envy carries well over alleged tech advances and it was nice to see.

Line of the show had to be:

I'm confused.

Well it's a big club. We should get t-shirts.

Could be the theme for the entire series for all we know , but cracking line. I'll have one please. So not the best ep but hardly the worst. I was glad to watch it, it was fun to and I was entertained despite the never in doubt "will Rory die, mouth to mouth scene". If you read last week's review , you know that I'm finding it hard to buy into any real danger being all that serious, after last week and the fact it's only the 3rd ep in the series. Which does bring us to the Easter eggs dropped in rather cutely in two spots. Fist we have the panel in space and time that slides open to reveal a ginger eye patched lass ( yarr) who tells Amy to be calm,, get it becalm... as in a ship not moving .. Anyroad, this woman could only be some kind of person in a Time Lord vehicle in the past, future present of the Doctor who feels she can do that sort of thing to Amy and cares enough to. .Add to that the apparent line by Matt Smith in the Next week teaser, " There's a living Time Lord out there!", things can only get more exciting than they already are. Personally, I'm wondering why it took so long to even get around to the rest of the Time Lords. It's not really Doctor Who without them. Speaking of regular service, it's nice to know where the kitchen is, that there are at least three toilets on board the Tardis and that Rory and Amy have a room as well. Maybe even one day we'll see them too! Nearly forgot, the Positive negative reading is proof to me that the Doctor's fate is not written in stone, it can change just like Amy being pregnant or not will be one of the signals to us as to how this whole arc ends up.

Doctor Who chugs along happily pissing off the nay sayers and entertaining the rest of us. I like the return to the slightly camp,oblivious, mildly mad Cambridge professor otherwise known as Tom Baker. Matt Smith doesn't and shouldn't play him as aloof as Baker ( though the "take the silly guns away" talk came close) because despite being the amalgam of all the Doctors who came before, he is still his own incarnation. At the end of the 45 minutes I was smiling and wondering and looking forward to next week. That my friends are sure signs of a job well done.

As for the future, the mounting evidence indicates we're in for a fun ride that I suspect will still not entirely answer the questions swirling around River and Amy by series end. We will I suspect have at least one or two stops on Gallifrey proper and Rassilon will put in an appearance before being sectioned for a few more millennia. If you read and take seriously the drippings in the gutter press, we will even see The Master come back for a story. Would be a waste no to have him back, he was one of the reasons I loved watching the first go around. Master stories are deeply personal and give the Doctor the hardest time, so bring on DCI Sam Tyler. Steven Moffat may have bit off more than he can chew with Sherlock AND Who, but I think in the end he'll get it right. If you missed anything , watch the ep here or go to the homepage of Doctor Who because you can.

My beloved Toon won a hard match 2-1 , Doctor Who was a pleasant way to spend 45 minute in front of the telly. Saturdays don't get any better than this. Laters all, time to make a bit of food, and watch MOTD.

Day of the Moon (part 2): Still confused but I'm ok with that.

2011-05-04T18:31:00.004+01:00

I'm still wondering about a few things...it's beyond ratings, it's an event, a cathartic break with the tension building since first we met River Song. All together now... I'm confused and I'm ok with that. Last Saturday's Doctor Who was less an exercise in telling a one off story and more pushing the envelope of the River Doctor arc along. If anything the whole The Silence thing was more of a damp squib. From it we got some great lines about Tricky Dickie and some brilliant banter between the Doctor and River. What we didn't get was a memorable alien story like we might have got in Arc in Space or Kroll in the Key to Time arc. I would even venture to say that The Silence were about as scary as the Zarbi ( giant ants) in The Web Planet, if anything , they were boring wallpaper to the real star of the story, that being the three big clues dropped in our laps by Moffat.

Least scary monsters since the Silurians?

The Silence fail on several levels, not least of which, convincing scary monsters. Why I ask you if we can see them and then promptly forget them, do they even need to zap us? Compared to other aliens resident to Earth, such as the Silurians, The Silence seem to be some benign growth with us "Since the wheel and fire". So what precisely have they done to us???? Such horrible things as make us advance our science at a steady pace, presumably things we would have done eventually with or without them. Made us fight terrible wars? Surely also something we don't need help with. So frankly as threats to the Human race, hardly up there with the octopi from space that use our children as some kind of narcotic. Then there's the costume, Men in Black with Greys faces??? We don't remember them, why even dress? And if they wear clothes, why not the original space suits from when we discovered fire? Lastly the way our Doctor dispatched the things was so predictable I sussed it a few minutes in, well actually when Amy took the snap on her mobile. All he needed was to get the injured Grey to say that stuff about how we should shoot them all on sight. Again WHY??? To be honest, if the worst they are guilty of is Hitler, George Bush ( either one), Margaret Thatcher and big oil, then I'll take that as the price for getting the tech we needed to get to the Moon, penicillin, and telly. To quote the People's Front for the Liberation of Judea, " What have the Romans ever done for us besides..." The Silence were rubbish and window dressing. An epic fail to use the parlance of some people much younger than me.

So what was so great about Day of the Moon? Clearly it wasn't about saving the Earth from two dimensional paper cut out monsters hardly capable of scaring a 3 year old. And if we're honest the sense of jeopardy you got from seeing Gandalf "die" in the film was present from part one through to part two, even the body bags didn't bother me half as much as they should have. I never once for a second believed the Doctor was in any real danger or dead. I am assuming The Moff will find a way to pull the fat out of the fire, as I suspect were most of us watching. In a bit of a ham fisted way, he's asked to us to wonder about a few things, set us some tasks to solve between now and end of term. Professor Moffat was so busy laying the ground work for the series finale he forgot to write a story that puts in danger and makes us climb behind the setee. Why was there a lot " Three months later" stuff? It seemed a little half baked and poorly thought out. For example, where was the scene when they figured out Amy had a picture, they could see them but would forget them when they turned away? Somebody please get the deleted scenes file. Where it worked was where we needed to sort future present and past Amys, Doctors and Rivers. If we string the clues dropped along the way in the order they actually happened ( in relation to linear time), we will know who the Time Lady regenerating at the end was, who was in the space suit when future Doctor was killed in a potential and still avoidable string of events and of course who the hell River Song is and why she's travelling in the opposite direction the Doctor is.

Neanderdoc

Which begs the questions.Where is River's Tardis? Is it the future version of the current Tardis?Can a Time Lord or Lady be in fact travelling on an opposite time line from another Gallifrean? Wouldn't it be more a case of bumping into each other in a disjointed series of times in the past and future? Besides you can only regenerate in a string from first to last regeneration. Any way you slice it, even time travel has rules and we can't ignore them. So the answer is obviously staring us in the face if we could only clear the excess growth in the way. This at very least screams a Gallifrey ep or three. OOOO Time Lords again ! About bloody time. Quick question folks, Matt Smith in full beard. Neanderthal much? Personally I'm glad he shaved.

Another high point, however tiny detail it is to some, was the use, if only in our imaginations, of the store room and the Tardis swimming pool to save River ( see Gandalf remark earlier). Finally Moffat is reopening the set design budget and preparing us to see the long neglected interior of the ship that is bigger on the inside than it is on the outside. I know, I know, endless corridors at BBC centre, disused buildings and the occasional potted plant, while a Sontaran chases our heroes for what seems like 20 minutes but is in fact at least two 30 minute segments. It wasn't all bad if you recall; we had Peri's bedroom, Peri in bed, Peri wet in her room, in fact everybody else's rooms... the zero room, other control rooms, clothes closets, the heart of the Tardis where the bells toll, so many places, so many dangers, so many laughs. Being stuck in the front room was getting boring and it looks like all that is about to change.We hope.

Who is she?

I won't bother even trying to sort out the threads in my head or prove my theories right now, I will just sit back and enjoy the show as it does the striptease that will finally answer the questions that grow ever more strident in their asking. "It's all right, it's quite all right, I'm Dying, but I can fix that ". I do however wish for one thing, if we are going to treat the weekly ep as less important than the overall arc of the series, I would hope the monsters and dangers are a bit more compelling than The Silence or having River chuck herself off the top floor of a building to her "death". Moffat can have done better and I expect more of an effort from here on in. Here's hoping the pirates aren't little more than "Carry on sailing". Still confused but expecting to enjoy the ride if the stories avoid the predictable radio serial cliffhangers you know the hero will get out of no matter how ridiculous. Holy Fake shark on your leg Batman! How ever will we get out if this pickle?

Join us next week same Doc channel at the same Doc time! This time Pirates. Can't wait? See the new trailer for The Curse of the Black Spot on the official BBC site.

The Impossible Astronaut: Part one

2011-04-24T10:27:00.002+01:00

WARNING SPOILERS: If you've not yet seen this, then please look no further. Finally after much gnashing of teeth and beating of breasts, fandom on both sides of the pond can come together albeit a bit delayed , and on the same day discuss our brilliant and universally admired Doctor.

In order to stretch a bit and make sure I'm not ruining anything for anybody... I'm going to spend a little time talking about something safe. Sad, but safe. Earlier this week our beloved Sarah Jane Smith aka Lis Sladen passed away suddenly at the incredibly young age of 63 from cancer. She was in my estimation THE companion. Part best mate, part first mate and part Doctor's conscience. Sarah Jane first showed up during John Pertwee's incarnation while working at U.N.I.T. From that time onwards and till she left us first in her Andy Panda outfit, she became the companion we all loved. Oh we lusted after some, wanted to hug others, and yet others moved us to tears ( Adric), but Sarah Jane was the one we loved, the one we always measured the other companions too. Even in her return, years later with the 10th Doctor, it was hard not to feel the old stirrings in your heart when she first saw the Doctor and when she finally said goodbye to him. If anything, Sarah Jane had not gotten old, she'd gotten better. I must admit I was not a huge fan of The Sarah Jane Adventures, but even as a young adult programme it took much of it's character and force from the actress Lis Sladen, who I'm sure loved every second of it and would have gone on another 10 years if she hadn't died. Sarah Jane Smith asked us not to to forget her, how could we? Are our hearts made of stone? I'm not one to cry much or all that often, but last night during the tribute on CBBC, My Sarah Jane, it was all I could do not to cry, nearly made it too, but then they hit us with that final montage and music. We will never forget you Lis Sladen, RIP and keep the Brigadier company. For an in-depth review of Lis Sladen's life I recommend my mate Keith Telly Topping's article.

Best comment on the night was yer Keith Telly Topping's response to my cryptic status right after Doctor Who finished.....Me: Wellll that was a sizzler wasn't it. Him: It was. Dramatic. Funny. Thought provoking. Mind you, I kept on expecting the hare to break down about every five minutes ... . Basil Brush would be proud.

Enough stalling already, The Impossible Astronaut: Part one was precisely what it was supposed to be, a part one. If you were expecting to the Lord thy G-d Steven Moffat to neatly wrap up all the tiny details for you at the end of 45 minutes, you are clearly new to this Doctor Who thing. I will go further, while some say it was mehhh and a bit iffy, I was glued from beginning to end. It lasted 45 minutes but it felt like 20. When the credits rolled I went gahh and wanted the week to go by as quickly as possible so it could be Saturday again. This is not mehh telly, this is not iffy storytelling, it is however a master setting up a finish and adding extra layers to that story we've been wondering about for a long time, who is River Song?

The ep opens with the throw away and yet amusing scene of the young marrieds in their sitting room watching clips of the Doctor waving at them from various points in history. A less practised hand would have been rumbled for padding, but not Moffat, this bit of theatre paved the way to making the Tardis blue card being less important than it actually was. After a bit of sussing, the numbered bit otherwise anonymous envelope yields instructions that only be from the Doctor. Fade to a dessert on planet USA and we have kicked off. Amy Rorry, Song and the 1103 year old Doctor don't have long to wait for something to happen. And 10 minutes in shots, the Doctor is regenerating, more shots and he's dead. Welllll I for one didn't buy it. Yes he was dead, he got a lovely Viking send off, but like Gandalf the Grey, he was only hiding till later. And Presto, out the bogs comes a 909 year old Doctor. Are you keeping up people?

Our merry band of very possible related persons now have to save the future doctor from the grisly fate of future Doctor, but can't tell him owt for fear of tearing yet another rip in the space time continuum, and wasn't that a pain the behind the last time? Moffat does well to separate the command and control structure where he usually tells them to jump and they ask why and River Song just ignores him. What with the trio plotting behind his back, Matt Smith resorts to the childish , "what's the point in having you all" if you're not going to look at how amazing I'm being. At last a spark of the alien egomaniac we all know lurks in every regeneration since William Hartnell got cross over being less than all powerful.

Roll on to the Oval Office and President Nixon seems pretty cool for a cold war era politician raised on fear and paranoia. I'm surprised the lot of them weren't hoyed off to Area 51 on the spot. ANY ways, we're soon off to Florida and the source of the trouble. The Grey Amy's been seeing but forgetting since nearly the first frame, is now clearly part of a swarm or colony several centuries old. Now the last time such creatures blanked out minds we struggled to remember, this time the mobile phone is recruited in the battle to save Earth yet again. For a murderous race, the Greys are not what you would call scary in the same way Daleks, Cybermen or the Borg are. It's not like I've gotten jaded or used to uglies from outer space nesting in the bowels of the planet plotting dominion over the Human race, some of them still strike instant fear in me and turn me into a quivering bowl of 9 year old boy. This lot however still don't scare me. Like the somewhat ineffectual Sea Devils of old, these may take some time to get a bit of respect.

And then the credits roll and we have to wait! Well Not quite, there's a lot more that happened , but that as I said before, goes more to the story of River Song and the Doctor. Amy is pregnant, River fears something worse than her own death. What could be worse than your own death? Watching Don't scare the Hare? Another series of Candy Cabs? ( yes and yes) BBC One Comptroller Mr Cohen has a lot to answer for. In terms of Doctor who, there can only be one thing worse than River's own death and that has to be the death of the Doctor Himself. " Of course it's you, I understand" takes on a whole new meaning, but then again it could be somebody else entirely. So is River Amy, but older? Is River Amy's as yet unborn child? Will Amy's child marry the Doctor and give birth to River? As we know in Gallifreyan biology and family trees, the Hapsburgs would feel right at home and we cannot ignore any of these possibilities. My money is on Amy being River in the future, though that doesn't square with the statement of River's that they are moving in opposite directions. If I follow this line of inquiry much further, my brain will hurt and that is not something I need right now.

Outstanding performances all around but Rory rises to the top of the pile with some strong moments, I particularly enjoyed Rory as TARDIS orientation officer and funeral director, in both cases he show he could yet be a big player if he doesn't get eaten, dissolved, vaporized or other wise sent off to the old companion's home.One thing that did surprise me was that while scenes were shot on location in the USA, the British nature of the programme was never in any danger. It's reassuring that despite being the world's greatest power, the Americans still need Brits and an alien to solve their problems. Some things never change eh? Fandom gets an echo with the spoilers banter and Amy fans will be pleased to see how she has become quite the domestic Goddess. I myself am more into the full figured River Song with her curves and barely concealed sexuality. Like the Doctor said, he likes the bad girls, and they don't get any badder than River Song.

Something my wife said struck a chord with me tonight as well. RTD and to some extent even THe Lord Thy G-d SM have forgotten the Doctor is an Alien. He's been humanised far too much, he's been allowed to become simply eccentric without the acerbic arrogance of a superior being that finds it hard to deal with talking ants or chimps with calculators. In the old days... (here he goes again), Doctors used to get regularly frustrated at the lack of basic education and skill that humans, even from advanced eras, suffered from. Now he seems to have gone so native it's more like he's the 2000 year old man and can only tell tales of what it was like before the invention of the wheel. And when are we finally going to get stories that explore the vast space that is the TARDIS? It's like they've parked in the reference section of the British museum and refused to move an inch further. Perhaps If I say it often enough... from my to G-d's ears. G-d works in Cardiff, so it's not long distance like it used to be. Lastly, these Earth bound stories, are all fine and good, but we need more alien planets, more future times and creepy things in bad suits who are never pleased to see the Doctor. I'm not complaining, just wondering when we will reach for the stars again, just asking.

In short, I loved the series opener, and look forward to many more stories. Keep em coming Mr. Moffat. I trust in your ability to make these things make sense without robbing us of all that suspense and fodder for discussion. Like Deep Thought, you have guided us from crisis to crisis, but please, no long drawn out Seldon plan, don't wait too long to free Gallifrey and return the Universe to normal service. I thank you in advance.

Don't scare the Hare... it may kill you.

2011-04-23T22:10:00.005+01:00

When the BBC gets it wrong, they get it horribly wrong. In order to not miss a second of my precious Doctor Who return tonight, I tuned into BBC One a bit early. I did so with a great deal of trepidation. Don't scare the hare.....Game show in which two teams are invited into the underground forest of a 4ft robotic hare, voiced by Sue Perkins, where they face a series of physical and mental challenges. The contestants must avoid scaring the animal as they make their way through several rounds of games in a bid to win £15,000. Hosted by The Gadget Show's Jason Bradbury. .... the lead in show sounded bad, but not nearly as bad as the finished product. The only redeeming features of this turkey was that it had an end and that mercifully Sue Perkins wasn't voicing the hare, merely being Graham Norton like when at Eurovision.

Gazza Hare

The low point was when we were told the contestants had to get past the "alarm frogs" to give Gazza the Hare his bait, which he'd forgotten. I was picturing killer frogs on duty holding pointy rifles or some such. As it happens, like all the other lame consequences of scaring the hare, it consisted of card board cut outs of frogs on lit raised pods going awooga really loud. It only got worse as the hapless victims had to hover in a sort of cherry picker balloon type thing over a garden of carrots to steal the hare's crop protected by laser beams. Sounds chilling, but was laughably bad. Blue Peter set up better challenges for young people than this nightmare scenario dreamed up by drug addled children's telly producers. How were the questions you ask? Easy enough if you've grown up in the Harry Potter era and paid the slightest bit of attention in school, but not this lot. Contestants quite possibly stupider than the programme itself.

Not sure what they were they were thinking running this just before Doctor Who, but I reckon it was to immediately apologize to license payers for the worst ever game show by assuaging us with the Doctor. One poor bastard who commented on the TV Guide site had this to say ...


	Your lucky You only had to watch it for 35 minutes. We sat in the studio for 5 hours while it was made. CB

My mate Dave Groggs watched after I posted about just how bad it was in Facebook. I'd like to say I'm sorry Dave, but I did warn you. This made Hole in the Wall look like pure genius. Prime time Saturday night, you'd have thought the brain boxes in scheduling would have had something better to show, like maybe cheese ripening live or watching a 20 something suburbanite looking for the ON switch to the first edition Dickens he's just got from Gran for being such a frightfully good boy. In their the defence, the Beeb was looking to give this tripe it's best ratings ever by having it lead in to Who. But we all know that next week, should it even see next week, it couldn't have topped 100 people. So why even make it? Who knows, the way some things get commissioned you have to wonder. The pitch must have sounded awesome.... We have a robot hare you see, you have to steal it's carrots, (yawn) by answering questions and doing silly things (right) .... and if you get an answer wrong it goes barmy, lots of lights go off and the eyes glow a scary red. "Does it shoot things when it's scared?" asks the jaded BBC type, "no, but it does run around a lot on the spot ... not being the least bit scary or funny". That should of been the end of it, but no, clearly some dirt was covered up, we'll never know who at the BBC was once a rent boy and Don't scare the Hare was made. You've been warned, it's diabolically bad, trust me, you'll feel used and angry if you watch next week. And Sue Perkins, if you're reading this, I hope you really needed the money very badly, it's the only reason you could of done it, or maybe they had a gun to your head.

The Beeb not content to torture us with dreck like Don't scare the Hare, wasted a bit more money. I know this because I was recently the victim of a mugging on the iPlayer. Looking for something new to watch, I checked out something that had been billed as a comedy, there like a shiny new toy was Candy Cabs. An all female cab company, based ever so loosely on the Carry on film with which it shares a plot. There the comparison ends. The women are repellent, unsympathetic and about as funny as a case of the trots. The near universal low brow ill educated accent and lack of class on display made the far superior Benidorm ( which I love) look like Royal Shakespeare. There is nothing good about this programme, the casting is awful, the premise is dull and predictable and the writing can't make up it's mind whether we're supposed to like the women or their victims. Oh wait we're supposed to hate them all. It's more footballers wives on scrumpy than a comedy. The idea is that a group of fat charvy women with a bit of money try and save their unique business while being nasty to everybody around them. Hardly the sort of thing you want to go through let alone watch.

Feeling it was duty to at least try it for a bit, I got through the first 10 minutes of the first ep , then sampled bits of the second. I had hoped to find a glimmer of talent and or good writing, but all it was, was an unrelenting moan fest of bitchy women past their prime who had scared off even their closest friends. As for the language, I find it hard to imagine an entire community that hasn't a single person who speaks proper English or hasn't the manners of a drunken Essex girl. I'm more angry over this to be honest than the Hare tripe, Candy Cabs could have been a bit of good old fashioned Oh Matron with some Packet of crisps, but instead is a bowl of sick, seasoned with a bit of glitter. If you want to see angry people being nasty to each other, watch Jeremy Kyle, at least he doesn't bill himself as a comedy. Can it be that the sitcom division of the BBC is well and truly broken? I have yet to evidence of fresh new comedy from them that isn't derivative, poorly paced and dull since the brief flare of Mongrels and Rev. More misses than hits and sadly most of them are run out for ducks they are so bad. Somebody set up an enquiry please. If Mrs Brown's Boys is the best they can do, then you have to wonder what the rest of them are doing with their time.

Thank God for Doctor Who and Spiral, or even great dramas like The Crimson Petal and the White. I know in my heart of hearts that the BBC can't be perfect all the time, but this has to be a pretty bad run at comedy central by any stretch. Not sure when the lunatics running the asylum will be rounded up, but it can't be soon enough.

I laughed, I cried, I vomited: New sexy history

2011-04-16T10:23:00.001+01:00

History was never tougher than this. I can hear India Fisher reaching for the " Hey that's my line" special number, but the first thing went through my mind when I watched Dan Snow present the Medieval London part of BBC's Fithy Cities, was who did he cross to get this grotty, shitty, manky, mingning gig? My overwhelming feeling during most of the episode was nausea and a strange compulsion to make gagging noises and squirm in my chair. Having watched other dirty cities programmes, I had something to compare this to, as it happens the others played the filth as archaeology card and tried not to go for the gag reflex, Proff Snow on the other hand wants you to watch this with a sick bag inches from your face. What is he telling us that we didn't already know? Well plenty, we knew our ancestors were vile disgusting things with little or no idea of hygiene, but we knew that long ago intellectually, in Filthy Cities Snow illustrates with copious clips of urine, runny poo and puss infested wounds, just how unpleasant life in medieval London was. In case you were thinking good thing you couldn't smell it Mietek, he's got on offer scratch and sniff cards for your enjoyment, honest, I couldn't make this up.

This commando history that seeks to gross you out, does have an agenda and it is still despite the smelly nature of the material, worth the watch. I suspect it's all part of a cunning plan by the boffins at the BBC to get boys watching more historical programming as well as being part of the social history movement that wants to literally stick your nose in it so you can understand the "real" history, of in this case, London. Seems we wallowed in streets so filled with waste (human and animal) that we needed special sandals fitted with lifts to rise above the mess. Several expressions that we take for granted come from this era, "Not taking shit from you" and variations on it, was literally a cry from neighbours who did not wish to have somebody else's poo diverted into their homes by less than kind spirits who seemed happy to find ever more creative ways to move the stuff along and away from their homes. The rolls are filled with interesting and stomach churning stories of people building pipes, extending homes out as far as possible over the street and clogging water drains with shit.

When it became obvious that people were not going to be moved by fines, the city Fathers found new ways to deal with the rising piles of excrement and the odours that went with it by inventing jobs that exist to this day. You may not recognize Muck raker, Surveyor of the pavements and the Gong farmers (who cleaned cess pools and privies) but today they are the street sweepers, bin men and hardy souls who clean the sewers. Proff Snow doesn't miss the opportunity to dunk a poor actor into chocolate syrup and mud, when he recreates the death of an early Gong farmer who passed away when he drowned in his own waste having fallen in during a bowel movement. Next stop Revolutionary Paris, If the London ep is anything to go by, Paris the smelliest city in Europe will be a laugh riot of humiliation for Dan Snow and for the more delicate of us, yet another hour during which we will ask ourselves, can the sight of poo, pee, rotting fish other food waste, maggots and animal entrails ever become "nothing special". Not for the feint of heart, but if you are not afraid of a lot of disgusting things each more repellent than the last, then Fithy Cities is for you. As for Dan Snow, I hope he's a good boy from now on, that way Antie Beeb won't have to punish him for a good long while.

Moving onto a different kind of manky history, the BBC4 was kind enough to repeat the 2008 production of Fanny Hill starring the delectable Rebecca Night. Along with a collection of other talent well used to donning period costumes, this version made Diary of a Call Girl seem like a pale copy of the original. Full of lush period sets, clothes and sense of fantasy that populated the novels of Georgian England, this Fanny worked on a number of levels, not least of which the sexual level. The timing of this project coincides with looser rules when it comes to the portrayal of sexuality and the limits beyond which Mary Whitehouse would simply have never dreamed of. Secret Diary of a call girl starring Billie Piper goes out of it's way to shock, surprise and titillate while Fanny did the same without hardly trying... even if you were a 14 year old boy up past your bed time. But for an adult, even a most shy one who's "slept with a lady", Fanny was straightforward without being crude or insensitive, and yet the amount of exposed flesh and eroticism on display was enough to stir even the most somnabulant libido. The sanitized sometimes fantasy story of a simple country girl who moves to that London to make her way in the world, becomes an 18th century appeal to those who would otherwise condemn women to the poorhouse or the far worse fate of back alley street walker. It is as much attempt to sell a bit of salcious filth to Georgians as it is a crusading tome that wants to break down rigid morality that pretends there was nothing wrong with the set up of the day. Besides, Fanny Hill as a book was far more representative of the genuine feeling of people of the time, at least when the pastor wasn't looking, than any of the saccharine upper middle class books by girls about Mr Darcies.

If you prefer your history safe and without nudity or vomiting, Neil Oliver's History of Celtic Britain is the thing for you. So far We've visited the Bronze and Iron ages complete with spectacular artefacts and interesting speculation that I frankly wouldn't be too surprised to find out was true eventually. His assertion that Celtic people don't have a common linguistic heritage is utterly wrong as any anthropologist who's studied the cultures, architectures, traditions and words of the Slavic and early Irish and Scots peoples would tell you. A paper published in Poland in the 1970's demonstrated a clear link between the Gaelic and old Slavic tongues in groups of root words they would have shared when the Celts dominated from Moscow to Dublin. As well, I question his loyalty to the whole Roman invasion of Britain that has been successfully challenged by both recent archaeology and a revisiting of certain texts. I bring this up as the next ep is precisely about that period of time. It's clear that like almost everywhere else in the Empire, the Romans were invited in by a client state and got involved in local affairs on the side of the people who go them to come in the first place. So much is known about those events now that to persist with the invasion story is ignoring the historical and archaeological record. It would of course be madness on my part to question the assertion that the effects of romanization on ancient Celtic Britain was anything less than rapid, lasting and dramatic, in as much as romanization had been taking place for at least 50 years before that. It remains to be seen just how Oliver handles the material and I refuse to criticise him any further before I see the programme. I have no doubt the rest of the series will as interesting as the first two eps and the style so far of mixing on site visits to locations normally closed to the public mixed with clips designed to show just how hard our Neil has worked, will continue to entertain and inform. In the Bronze age film we saw him enter a series of tunnels each narower than the last in a mine that was almost assuredly dug out by small children in places. Much of the material on display will be familiar to you if you've watched other such programmes, but it's the way the material presented and explained that shed new light on the very objects for you. Already a few accepted ideas present in the naming of the objects or the people excavated as far back as a century ago are being overturned through fresh eyes and the conclusions are painting a picture of a far less isolated or ignorant ancient Britain. Keep an open mind about some of the assertions, but do please watch this excellent series, it is helping lay the ground work for a deeper understanding of an age that till now was quite literally held hostage by a few "trusted sources" that had not been challenged in a very long time.

If you've somehow missed Tony Robinson's crew since their return, Time Team and the Time Team Specials are back with even more digs and special secrets. Remaining regular Time teams from the current series cover moats, mills and cannons, while the Specials are no less interesting with a visit to find a key War of the Roses battlefield, a super sized flame thrower from WW1 and a lost Roman Circus in Colchester. This year in addition to the usual suspects, we have a new member, Asian Raksha Dave who brings the same kind of enthusiasm and faith that sends Tony off wondering why he's the only one who seems to think the mud filled hole is just a mud filled hole and not an Iron age mill. 18 years and Time Team still has the same power to draw us in as ever.

We cannot forget our mates at Masterchef. Jaunty Roads and Gregg Wallace have despite getting a new set, not compromised too much on the premise that has made the show a hit for so many years. This year's crop of hopefuls that are by now reduced to four, but include a vegetarian that seems to cut herself every few minutes, is as interesting as it could be, considering they aren't being as exacting with ingredients and tests as they used to be. Having said that, famous caterers and chefs including both Michel Roux Jr and his father have made memorable appearances. If I was to pick a winner with only a few left standing , it would be the Italian Sara, but if I'm honest, I haven't been jazzed about regular Masterchef since Dhruv won the last time. That particular series was by far the best and was only eclipsed by Masterchef Pro. This crop is far from deserving of any of the accolades and prizes offered to others in past years, even the less than hapless celebs from last year seemed better equipped to deal with the situations at hand. So to summarize, we have an accident prone nervous vegetarian who rarely if ever is challenged on her lack of meat in most of her dishes, an American who experiments and thinks that peanut butter and jelly are a gourmet dish, a competent but dull Englishman who fires hot and cold and an Italian nurse who has the passion and the knowledge but not the skill to be let loose in a professional kitchen on a regular basis let alone write a cookbook. Hardly the stuff of legend, but it gets me through the week.

Another culinary treat is the second series of Raymond Blanc's Kitchen secrets. Like the last time, each recipe is a new set of skills and a series of recipes you cannot fail at if you follow the directions. What is particularly wonderful this time around is the array of treats I remember from my childhood. Much of what he does is traditional French but hardly exclusively French. Many of the pastries and puddings are familiar to Polish tastes and with the death of my Grandmother, lost to me till now. Do yourself a favour, if you are to watch but one cookery programme right now, make it this one. Your stomach will thank you and your guests will never again turn down an invitation.

Lastly there was the fabulous and must watch Great British food revival. Sadly it's no longer on the iPlayer, but the brilliant recipes for breads, puddings, gnoci, pork, beef, mutton, apples and other things can be found here. The BBC chefs share their recipes in the hopes you too will pick up these sometimes long forgotten or neglected foods.

In case you been living under a rock, Doctor Who is coming back, make sure you are ready for Saturday 23rd of April at 6 pm!!!! on BBC One. For all the craic, not just Amy pond's, log onto the Doctor Who page for trailers and other clips to keep busy till the big day.

Happy telly and see you soon

I'm prolly on a no fly list now or How I learned to love Al Jazeera

2011-03-11T02:48:00.000Z

Someone asked me the other day how the writing is going...Despite having promised to not get sucked into yet another North African revolution, Libya was too much to resist. It resembles the struggle and conflict that occurred in Europe in times when cruel Kings and Emperors ruled and people wanted to get rid of them. Then of course there's the comparisons with the last days of Hitler and the brutal repression of Hungary in 1956. As most of you know, I'm a massive fan of the BBC and the news division ( the jewel in the crown) and I regularly depend on the Beeb for my news. This time however after having seen the umpteenth loop of "our man on the ground in Benghazi", I decided I wanted to know more. As a direct consequence, not only is Al Jazeera English in my favourites, we've subscribed to the service on our telly. I'll be honest, the moment we added the station to our service, I had an odd feeling my details were on their way to the CIA or Homeland Security even. At the very least I must be on a no fly list right now, only thing that would make it worse is if they found out I'm a big left leaning lapsed Catholic who wouldn't vote Tory even in my worse nightmare. When I failed to hear the odd clicking on the phone line, utterly didn't have the tell tale slow or disappearing e-mails and no one in a trench coat followed me around the shops for a week, I realized there was nothing in the least bit subversive in watching Al Jazeera. As far as I know, it's MI5 and MI6's favourite alternative to old auntie Beeb.

Now keep in mind that while I'd been aware of Al Jazeera English for a while, it was always in that sort of "mouthpiece of Osama Bin Laden" way. What a surprise to see it was nothing like that. My first surprise was to see just how well they used the resources of the net to supplement traditional feet on the ground reporters. The second thing that struck me seconds later was the realization that if I was a dictator, especially an Arab one, I'd hate Al Jazeera. This station is radio free Arab World in an age where it's never been more important. It doesn't stop there, the fact that it's Arab centric doesn't stop them from reporting the news from other parts of the world or doing a cracking sports coverage. Just like the BBC, it's taken the important decision to let you know in the scrawl below the truly important things like.. the football results, who was humiliated in the cricket and all the other sport stories a well travelled person who's not American would want to know. Unlike the BBC's weather which is designed to showcase new presenters and get them over the jitters of going on air, Al Jazeera weather tells you stuff you really want to know and has a canny graphic that shows wind and snow and other weather things.

What about the babe factor I hear you asking? BBC news world service has taken on ITV and SKY with well dressed fit Asian women who are not only beautiful, but incredibly smart, Al Jazeera is not above siddling up to the pretty woman strategy, and like the BBC makes sure all the presenters are more than just news readers. During the current coverage of the Libyan situation, every presenter has had to do interviews on the spot and from little or no apparent preperation sometimes. It's this ability to jump into a story nearly effortlessly without missing out on the small local details that raise the information to significant detail, that impresses the most. Considering that there are at any given point these days, 4 or 5 places going up in smoke at the same time and they all seem to have equal levels of merit and jeopardy, it's nice to see how they manage to juggle the lot without ignoring the developments in any one place . Which brings me to the biggest reason I love Al Jazeera, you know how some stations will spend all night on the same loop of film and three bits of fact? Al Jazeera know a lot, at least as much as The BBC or Radio France, but unlike them they run with the information if it seems to come from a reliable source, if however the information seems significant but unsubstantiated, they leave it to us to decide by adding a "not verified " tag in the commentary. In a situation as fluid as Lybia is, it's the only way to get information out in a timely and significant manner. Often times the trusted unsubstantiated sources are the ONLY sources to be had and have proven to be on the whole, reliable.

Al Jazeera has the kind of access in North Africa and the Arab world that most other news organizations only dream of, meaning the first person on the ground is often an Al Jazeera reporter and that he or she is breaking news long before another network gets near the story. As well, the wide range of topics covered in films is so diverse and original you'd think you were watching BBC4 on a Sunday. One film the other day that caught my eye was the story they did on Arabic speaking Jews in Israel who used to play Arab music at the Cafe Noah in Tel Aviv. The story shows a deft touch by their film-makers and reporters when dealing with people and trying to tell the truth. I'm not sure if every film they do goes down particularly well with all local authorities, but they certainly have an air of truth and sincerity that you miss when some other networks cover the same material. The depth of understanding you get when you watch such a story is important if you want to get up close to a place and it's people. If you are like me, addicted to the BBC, make time for this fine news network's line up of special reports. Another fine report is the moving Across the shouting Valley, a film about separated families in the Golan Heights.

All this comes at a time when the Secretary of State Hillary Clinton made the claim this last week that "We are losing the global information war". CNN. The BBC, Al Jazeera apparently the Chinese and the Russians all have international English language news networks. I'm not familiar with the last two but can attest that Canada's CBC Newsworld and a few others had until maybe two years ago been considered world leaders in English language news. Since the election of Tories in Canada and most recently in the UK both the CBC and the BBC have been under pressure to streamline and cater to a shrinking news agenda. At least the BBC still has it's reputation intact, but the CBC in Canada is regularly days off the story and sometimes misses or completely buggers up a story to a point you wonder if they were watching the same event. In the USA, CNN and FOX news fought it out for years to see who could lean furthest to the right before falling completely into invention and paranoia. While Fox won that race, CNN hasn't covered itself in glory for quite some time now. It has been isolationist, blatantly anti immigrant, anti Arab and anti left. If you wanted to know what was going on in the world, CNN which used to be the first stop some 10 years ago, is now the last place you look. It's a laughing stock and not because it fails to sell the American message and view, but because it prefers to to do that over telling us the news. One particularly laughable interview had a panel on green house gasses that included as many academics as there were loonies who were paid to over the years deny that cigarettes cause cancer and that oil pollutes. The last honest journalist died when they were smothered by the Patriot act. News is not about the point of view, it's about facts, it's about exposing the lies and the killers and the thieves who regularly outdo each other to see who can get the most from their people while not getting caught by Panorama in a sting. Where the BBC and Al Jazeera triumph is that they give us the news and they uphold the values of freedom and democracy in doing so. CNN and other mouth piece networks tow the line of the regime and constituency that pays the bills and determines just who can speak and what they can say on the sole qualifier that it's patriotic or not. Truth be damned, basic freedoms be damned, it more important to look good than to tell the truth. As for Networks like the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation and presumably others, it's a question of not getting the money from the state to mount a serious news gathering operation. Where many national news broadcasters had correspondents on every continent and major capital, it now needs to be choosy where they send their three grizzled and sun baked masochists, as regular Moscow and Paris correspondents have been deemed surplus to requirement. Africa may as well not exist, same with Central Europe and parts of the Pacific. The other night on CNN, some feminist was on about how nobody was talking about the 6 Ivorian women killed by soldiers during a protest. Well if she'd switched over to the BBC or Al Jazeera she'd be shocked to see it's just CNN making room for NFL scores while real networks had them in the regular news loop for several days. How many times have you watched a BBC report, then tuned into a local news programme on Planet Earth in English and find it overdubbed and cut into pieces? That's called repackaged news. It's late it's stale and it's an insult to the original journalist. Small budgets and narrow focus news casts are the reason so called national broadcasters, public and private, are failing in even the most basic of tasks when putting together the news. If you don't have the money to cover an event, don't pretend it hasn't happened, be honest and simulcast somebody else's stream. At least the news gets out.

As a news junkie, I always liked knowing as much as I could about something, but now that we live in the age of Twitter and Skype, news, real news that matters can be so profoundly reported with a combination of field reporters, research, short films and great panels, that the network that cannot do this will be reduced to the role of small regional news organization that pays to have somebody else's news fill the time they used to produce content for. If International news outlets recognize that they are no longer just in the business of echoing the views of the Foreign Office or the US corporate sector, they will continue to grow viewership on telly and on-line. Those however who continue to pander to increasingly parochial and commercial interests will suffer with plummeting numbers and an ever increasing ignorance among it's viewers as to the true state of the World. If however it's just a case of diminishing budgets with diminishing returns, just give up now and admit your news comes from the BBC and at least then use your money more wisely on local issues.

If more people had access to the BBC or Al Jazeera, the big powers of the world would not get away with incredibly bizarre explanations as to why a no fly zone would not work or straw men like the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas, the BNP and EDL lies would be challenged even by some of the smarter Daily Mail readers, Chinese citizens and Russians would understand quickly just what their governments are prepared to do to keep them in check, and the people of Western Libya would for example know their leader is a murderous nutcase who is being propped up by an small but powerful elite guard, tolerated by outside powers who prefer him killing his people than trusting the population to choose a peaceful government that would treat the said outside interests fairly and of course that he's hanging on by his fingernails and would fall if just a few more people in the right places stopped obeying him. The role of international reliable honest news outlets in a wired world that is connected by the net, is now more important than in any other time in the history of humanity. Mrs. Clinton is right , the US has lost that war, but the real winners are the people who have had the example of others and then chosen to rid themselves of chains they have endured in some cases for for over 50 years.

This same media has the obligation and need to educate viewers across the world about the pitfalls of democracy and the rush to paradise as well. The example of how Tunisia and Egypt and even Yemen are dealing with protesters is key in setting the levels of expectation that are realistic for whatever happens in a post dictator North Africa and Middle East. A free and fair international media is important when we are demanding free and fair democracies around the World. The new democracies cannot function without the population knowing what they need to know and in the older democracies the media needs to insure they do not forget there is a wider world out there. Those new societies will flourish with or without the recognition of them by the established West, but will be so much more stronger if they are part of the news cycle on stations like CNN or the BBC. The fact is that if we hear about places, our governments and the companies in our countries won't be able to exploit those places quite as easily as when we are isolated and unaware. Sometimes ignorance is not bliss.

A slightly sadder, slightly better place

2011-02-24T07:10:00.007Z

Last post I told you how very deeply unhappy I was at the new offerings even from my beloved BBC. A few days on and some cleansing of the palette with a few old Doctor Whos and the World seems a better, albeit sadder place. A long time ago when I was a boy, I first watched Doctor Who on one of those stations that play entire stories in one go. What a brilliant way to find out about this treasure trove of brilliant stories, so so monsters, sexy companions and stonking great secondary characters. My favourite such character aside from the appropriately loud and overacting Brian Blessed, was The Brigadier. I first met him when in "Robot", the freshly regenerated Doctor is aided by the best army that never existed....U.N.I.T. commanded by the terribly British, always loyal and best mate you could ever have, Brigadier Alistair Lethbridge Stewart. Eary on the morning of the 23rd of February, the actor who played the role over 170 times, died at his home in London. Nicholas Courtney crafted a character that has become every Who fan's favourite character bar none, unless of course they haven't watched the original run so cruelly interrupted in 1989. The Brigadier was a combination great big teddybear and father figure to every Doctor, companion and as I have found out from so many posts in Galli Base, fandom. Nick Courtney never shrank away from the role or pretended it hadn't happened like some actors might have. Countless stories I've read where he joined people at their table during conventions and never tired of telling Doctor Who anecdotes to anybody he thought wanted to hear about it. You'd have to ask somebody else where Nicholas Courtney left off and the Brigadier started, but I suspect there are huge doses of Courtney in The Brigadier and that is why we love him so. He leaves a huge hole in the heart of every Doctor Who fan, and those of us who never met him in person are sadder still. We will always have the show, the tapes and the stories to keep us going, but he will be missed immensely by fans who have had to see yet another great contributor to the Who legend pass on. Rest in peace Brigadier, your job here is done. I strongly recommend you read Tom Baker's farewell too.

Not satisfied with taking away a great actor from amongst us, life further distracted us with the slow and bloody dissolve of Libya. I know I promised I wouldn't get hooked on this too, but what with my father having been to Tobruk and El Alamein with Monty, it was something we were going to have a hard time ignoring. The stories of bravery and battle against insurmountable odds and the cost in lives so far means this revolution must succeed, as the price of failure is not something we would want to even consider. I've resorted to working around Libya coverage and the Cricket World Cup. Sadly missed the hugely impressive show by Pakistan today, but highlights show they are a team to watch. One hopes England don't take any more sides for granted, it could get almost as embarrassing as Australia's poor performance against Zimbabwe. I hear you asking what this has anything to do with the new programmes on BBC this week? Well nothing except that in between the news and the cricket, I had the good fortune to listen to the Cultdown collective podcast live from Gallicon 2011. Apart from loads of excellent reports about panels and goings on in the lobby and the amazing Tiki Dalek, our hosts informed us at the end, that a new costume drama would be starting Sunday night.

South Riding, a BBC drama in three parts, tells the story of rural Yorkshire in the deep dark days of the depression in the 1930's, as opposed to the one going on right now. Because they only have three hours to tell the whole story there's a whole lot action going on. The Lord's granddaughter and her da who's at least as messed up as her mam, the head mistress who is alone and hates all representations of the tory warmongers but is actually pinning for her husband who's life was wasted in the trenches of WW1. Then there's the town council composed of visionaries, a randy old preacher and the developer with a heart of gold. Can Sarah Burton clean up the school, can the walking basket case Midge Carne rise above the unwanted insanity from her genetics, will Lydia Holly climb her way out "the shacks" to become the next great poet of the working classes? Never having read the novel I haven't a clue, but I can tell you this, I'm hooked. Part gothic novel part reformist propaganda serial, South Riding puts a human face on the unjust and unequal life of ordinary folk just prior to the end of the depression. With just enough drama, blackmail and social injustice to keep your inner historian and your dramatic serial craving in check. As in a previous review, yet again I choose to praise a young actress who is asked to play the deranged and deeply disturbed Midge, Katherine McGolpin manages to play a convincing disturbed girl where she could have overplayed it and been an overly dramatic Shakespearean caricature. While the Midge character is not the centre of the story, she is sufficiently interesting to compete with the far more normal Lydia whose only real ambition is to get out of the grinding poverty her family lives in. If any one group of people seems to be invisible, it's the farmer's daughters who compose most of the student population despite being the mainstream, they are played more as window dressing, albeit really good window dressing. Not complaining by any stretch of the imagination, Kiplington High is the driving force for the whole narrative and ties the various people in it up in the ultimate fate of the school and the community and needs to stand out as more than bricks and mortar. If that means making light of the student body, so be it.

Besides I can't blame the writer Andrew Davies for being so torn when he had to choose which parts of the story to highlight. Between the all star cast of character actors and actresses and the established names like Peter Firth, Penelope Wilton and John Henshaw, it's little wonder the classroom full of girls was treated as more of an amorphous blob than a cast with potential. If the next two instalments are as action packed and move along as quickly without loosing too much of the sense of the story, South Riding will be a joy to watch and surely far less empty and confusing than ITV's Wethuring Heights was. If you're looking for fun costume drama with lots of ooohs and ahhs, South Riding is what you need to fill the void left over after Lark Rise to Candlford ended it's run after four series. My only question to BBC drama is, why only three eps?

Raymond Blanc returned on Monday night for a second series of his "Kitchen secrets". In a half hour of what could only be defined as cookery crack cocaine, Chef Blanc shows us 3 minutes moules marinières to die for. The rest of the shellfish dishes are all as intoxicating, and if you have basic cooking skills, not anywhere near as daunting as you would think. Unlike a certain cookery programme that started last week, inspired by Raymond Blanc, I am checking the state of the treasury and planning a seafood extravaganza for as soon as I can clear an evening for the time it'll take to eat and wallow in this delectable bounty of the sea. Kitchen secrets series two is a gift in 8 parts, the next one being Cakes and Pastries. Take the time to record these master classes in fine cooking so you too can impress. You may not dress a plate like a Michelin chef, but if you follow the instructions, there is no reason you can't be eating like one.

On the subject of "that other cookery show", Master Chef plebs version , ran episode three in which we were told "Today's culling is going to be ferocious!". And Greg Wallace was right, what he didn't reckon on was the culling was in his stomach should he eat all that was on offer. We had raw spuds, cling film in poached egg, flat Yorkshire pudding and seriously underdone fish. Vegetarian Jackie impressed me with her Thai dish that included shrimps, I certainly hope she continues like this if she hopes to win Masterchef. The new kitchen stadium wasn't at all as bad as I thought it would be and the notion of frying up an omelette was quickly dismissed. John, Gregg, have you been reading my notes???? Yes the secret ingredient was in fact egg, but they had to use the egg in innovative and original ways. In other words.... cook normally. You had the usual pastas, batters and mayo as well as a lovely pudding of custard and meringue made from egg whites and egg yolks. Clearly not the dumbed down US version some of us had feared. And yet it wasn't entirely removed from the x factor histrionics. We found out one contestant wanted to do this for her father by cooking his favourite....roast beef. One hopes it wasn't the roast beef that killed him or else John and Gregg are in deep trouble. (Search for my standard apology if you think I have just been insensitive and cruel).

WI snoot Amy Willcock

The normal standards of Masterchef seem to have survived, They selected 5 hopefuls to cook Sunday dinner roast and judged them with the help of WI snoot Amy Willcock. At least we know the indigestion and poisonings will have been limited to the first three eps. However it must be noted that WI Amy displayed a more than slightly condescending tone when cute young oriental cook Elizabeth subbed out spuds for taro. Amy came as close to being apoplectic with discomfort as I'd ever seen her and in the process caused me to question her integrity and palette. Apart from that, the tears and the emotion over some pretty basic cooking was sometimes so overwrought you had no choice but to laugh. How some of the school boy errors could be blamed on nerves is beyond me, but if I must get my jollies from dropped pans and unfortunate combinations of bland food, why not have fun with it. It's not like I'm going to learn anything from THIS lot. The final 12 seem on the surface to have at least some cooking instincts that should produce a few laughs and won't kill our hosts. I do however have one complaint, the promised culling did not include Daleks, guillotines or firing squads, nor was there any attempt to get at least three of them to promise they would never ever again cook. So it's not Raymond Blanc, but it's not as bad I thought it would be. Tomorrow the 12 cook for ALL the Masterchef winners ever. Here's hoping the guests won't regret coming out to eat.

And on that bombshell I leave you to your cricket and Nicholas Courtney memorial reading.

What's that smell coming off my telly. Outcasts, Secret Diaries & Master Chef

2011-02-20T02:46:00.001Z

Sometimes you just wish you didn't bother. This week was one of those times. After at least a fortnight, that's two weeks for those of you in the colonies, I was finally cured of Egyptitis. However chuffed to bits I am for the people of Egypt and Tunisia and feel deeply the pain of the others still protesting, my reality came calling when I realized I had missed the well flogged and highly anticipated Outcasts on the BBC, Secret Diary of a Call girl on ITV with wor Billie Piper and Masterchef was finally returning with more foodie heaven. What a brilliant way to get back from all that life affirming people's revolution and watershed moments in your life stuff. So there I was all set with my chocies and cookies and big bowl of other assorted edibles to keep my hands busy.

At first we eased our way into the iPlayer treasure trove of wonderfulness with a little nature programming. BBC's Natural World which as best as I can figure, is designed to make you cry as early as possible before they tell you the dread situation the ( monkeys, tigers, Iraqi marshes etc...) are in, could be reversible if only we as a civilizations aren't complete gormless twats or greedy self indulgent yuppies. All that's missing is the web site where you can donate cash or volunteer help. A tiger called broken tail, started the gut wrenching journey with the story of a dead tiger who's demise is expected to lead to more sanctuaries and the linking of said sanctuaries to the famous tiger highway. We then moved on to The chimps of the lost gorge, in which we find out that chimps are increasingly cut off from other chimps what with the shrinking jungles of Uganda, rounding the evening off the true story of Elsa the Lioness and the Miracle of the Iraqi marshes which were less tear inducing. Good thing too, as the tissue box was by now empty. These films are beautiful hour long compendia of misery and doom highlighting the knife's edge on which most of the "canary in a coal mine" animals and habitats are existing on. There are only so many tears one can cry and for my wife's sake if not my own, we switched to something more cheerful like budget cuts in review.

Now just because we watched the news channel near obsessively for what seemed like a month but was in fact 18 days,... that IS a long time isn't' it? Does not mean we stopped watching the must see programmes like Top Gear, Qi XL and the one awards show where sweaty young boys and tone deaf 12 year old girls are not responsible for guiding billions of pounds in advertising and production money into cultural content. I'm talking of course about the film Baftas, having passed on the Brits as they haven't been relevant to me since the last year Bjork was given an award as incentive to show up and be weird for a few minutes. Having James Corden present and Justin Bieber win best new comer, so I'm told, is enough to prove there is no intelligent life left in popular music. The Film Baftas were an oasis of sanity and culture that helped me set my check list of films I hadn't yet seen, but must try to make time for. What a novel idea, letting the industry types vote for what they consider the best of their craft. As for Top Gear, you can always play gaffe of the week, but sadly I'm immune to the sensitivity required to be a charter member of the Ofcom complaint writers guild. See I was born in an age when people still had a sense of humour,which of course is not to say I didn't enjoy the pin pushing done by presenters and guests alike in the last two weeks. These tempests in the tea pot aside, Top Gear is still as funny and as informative as it ever was. The fact that you cannot buy three identical classic cars ( that's auto mobiles not penises for all you Albanians) convertible BMW 325s to be precise, was a revelations. The sort of things people will do to and in a car over the years is to say the least, eye opening if not inducing hazmat suit wearing. I sincerely hope the humour free stick in the muds who seem to take special joy in finding fault with Clarkson and co give it a rest. We can't all be so relentlessly dreary like they are. If we were, Cromwell might still be in power instead of being lumped in with other visionaries like Hitler and the Spanish Inquisition.

It's at this point I though maybe I should get around to watching all that quality I had missed in the last two or three weeks. Up first was the long awaited Outcasts. Word of advice, never get so pre sold on a programme that you'll be disappointed if they don't have fireworks shooting out their arses. Maybe if I had not been so starved of decent adult science fiction, I might have appreciated the more subtle characterisations of Outcasts, but as it is, I was too distracted by the one dimensional loonies and psycho killers who are dropped into the more delicate narrative like anvils onto a soufflé. First sledge hammer was the highly unhinged and unsympathetic Mitchell who decided not to murder all the ACs. Was it absolutely necessary to make a potentially interesting character who could challenge President Tate, into a barking mad killer who lives in place with a population of one? Having got rid of the only natural opponent to the established leader of New Australia, the writers introduce the vacant eyed even more stark raving mad Julius Berger. Besides casting an actor who's such a "Hitler's wet dream" as a Jew, the forced nature of his rise in prominence and the fake religion he espouses is both unsettling and regrettable to me. His so called faith is forced and reminiscent of the sort of cult worship you only see in the truly lost, yet it is portrayed as mainstream. Berger is made to evolve far too quickly and his inclusion in the colony's power structure is so unrealistic that you feel like the production team added Berger in the last minute and had to alter entire sections of story to make him fit in. The other thing that truly and deeply annoys and bores me to tears about Outcasts is for the zillionth time we destroy the Earth in a Nuclear and ecological disaster. Maybe it's the fact that I'm just off a month of watching all of North Africa rise as one to dump it's dictators and tell the West to stop treating them like some kind of dispensable pawns who would otherwise impact on the greater self interest of the industrialists bankers and other greedy bastards that have led us to the brink of disaster in the name of profit and ideology, but I'm frankly tired of the End of the World is nigh stuff. How many more times must we use the same tired old premise of eradicating life on Earth to make so called adult science fiction. This was old hat when Space 1999, a far superior programme in my opinion, hit the airwaves in 1975. I fondly recall the lovely shape shifter Maya who gave a young man in the 70's some hope that not all aliens were ugly or evil. Several recent attempts in America and the UK have tread on this well beaten path with about as much success as Peter Andre at a Lesbian convention, and yet they persist in trying this route. At least when the Daleks took over the Earth you had the compelling and truly scary picture of Nazi Germany loosely disguised as emotion free killer pepper pots. In Outcasts, the people are boring, the town looks like Gazza city but without the spark of life even an under pressure population has. And precisely how will they maintain a series let alone a few if no new people will ever again show up? To quote a mate, "Oh here come some more people we didn't tell you about last week". Even the ACs (clones) are a bit hard to swallow. We're led to believe they were exiled in the barren tech free hinterland for the last 5 years or more. So how is that Ruddy has such well groomed hair and perfectly maintained 5 o'clock shadow? It would be easy to buy into if I was told they were slightly less shambling zombies who don't age or rot, but they are humans of some kind. Even Ruddy's jeans are in better nick than mine after one year of wearing, clearly he's shopping at Harrod's or Maison Zombie by Gucci. So other than the sudden and unexplained re emergence of Earth, the sudden unexplained appearance of total strangers like on old Battlestar Galactica, sexy shape shifters (Space 1999) or actual indigenous inhabitants who have been on Carpathia for millennia, there is no way you can sustain this longer than a single series.

And if all that wasn't enough , the stories are a bit contrived. In the first ep it's painfully obvious from the first time that the arrivals will only land on Carpathian if they enjoy being plunging fireballs travelling at a few hundred miles an hour. At least the whale in Hitch Hikers Galaxy was funny. You never once were given the sense that they might after all, make it. So why bother at all? In the last one I watched, Lilly the daughter of the security chief acts up in a way so petty and unreal that you wonder if the writers are themselves barely out of puberty. Surely there are more ways to annoy your mother than steal state secrets and give them to the only media outlet in the place. The DJ/drug dealer loosely based I guess on the radio man in Northern Exposure and Shane MacGowan if he'd still had his teeth and wasn't ugly, is hard to read and hard to care for. On the one hand he treats The Sex Pistols albums like the royal jewels then in a scene of self pity breaks a record, then is made to cooperate when one of the ultra precious records is threatened with destruction.The other massive inconsistency is that somehow they have after 10 years on Carpathia managed not to adopt a single old fashioned way of doing things like in other subsistence communities. Not a candle or windmill to be seen, every home is so well equipped, you'd think you were in a modern suburb in Tokyo or Berlin. Everybody has the internet and perfect clear telly. Even at the main buildings, the lekky never once flickers or wavers like in real places just hanging on by their fingernails. It's not all bad news. If you like to watch in fits and starts, you'll like the Cass ( Satan in Ashes to Ashes) and Fleur (somebody must be Harry Potter fan) characters. These two are really interesting and the only reason I bothered sticking with the show at all. I cannot find words that show the depth of disappointment I feel after having looked forward to this rubbish for so long. A brilliant, expensive cast is wasted on this badly written premise that seems to have been surgically altered by committee long before the filming started. Perhaps science fiction in the UK is doomed to be nothing more than a string of sitcoms in space and Doctor Who spin-offs.

Oh well, maybe Secret Diary of a Call Girl will satisfy my desire for semi entertaining telly, even if it is on ITV. Here it comes.... credits rolling....... Shit, feck, damn.... Belle is going to run the agency for Stephanie, her ex madam is in jail and her ex madam's daughter Polly who knows not a thing of her mother's business is stopping at Belle's for a while. Much hilarity ensues. What for every series till now was a string of semi comic semi serious moments connected with our Billie taking her kit off for some soft core sex, has become a mixed up mess sitcom blended with looming tragedy from the clearly unhinged detective who is now stalking Belle. We're now so busy worrying about the psycho killer ( where have I seen this before?) that we don't have time to really see her and Ben work out if she'll stop being on the game and become a regular ubber wealthy Londoner or continue selling herself in private, as opposed to say becoming a trashy Katie Price whore with no decency or decorum. I'm sure Belle is shaved down there too but she won't talk about it with her children in the audience, But I digress... We were promised "funnier" sex and a decent wrap up of the Belle story, but I never expected it to turn into Luther with the occasional stand in baps. It's bad when you take Billie Piper naked, sexy clothes, thrown in some great locations and the occasional bit of humour and still you find yourself wondering just how quickly the show will come to an end. The young actress playing the innocent daughter of the locked up Madam, is sexy, dresses sexy and is clearly ready for some interesting stories involving actual men, but so far nothing. She's just eye candy that walks through scenes doing nothing to move the story along. Are you being served was more titillating in it's time and still managed to hold together as a programme at it's height. Clearly this last series of Diary is one series too far. ITV was hoping for one last kick at the can of the cash cow that is Billie Piper, but sadly it just doesn't work. The sex for a start is contrived, I've seen better porn when the pizza man arrives or the secretary suddenly feels the need to work semi naked at her desk. As for the alleged comic interference of the various working girls, including the very S&M oriental woman, it's poorly placed and more often than not, formulaic. The Ben- Belle - Poppy (Lily James) triangle is left to lay there on the floor being trampled on by all the trollops, the bent psychotic DCI (Paul Nichols) and frankly pointless filler moments that serve only to pad out the already all too brief 22 minutes of actual programme. If Polly is supposed to be 14 or 15, I'm a Sunderland supporter. Much as I am pleased for the actress playing her, she's far too old and too sexy to be an innocent young thing that Ben can ignore. Sargent Psycho is so completely out of place that he jumps right past occasional danger to Hitchcock bad guy that is never comfortable in an alleged comedy. Sex on British television has moved on past the 70's Oh Matron! Profumo style of teasing and the more casual full on short of penetration scenes, seen on other programmes, do sex far better than Secret Diary is doing in this last series. They should have gone for the real thing or stayed at the line they established last series. I'd like to say I'm going to watch the rest, but honestly it's not worth the time. Life is short and if you feel you need to fill it with this kind of televised mess over say going for a walk or reading a book or even oooo having sex with a real live lady, you are indeed a sad and lonely person. If however you are 14 and looking for cheap thrills, I recommend you look in your father's hard drive under tax files 2002, the equally dull WIP15a33 or perhaps your older brother's smart phone for his ex girlfriend naked, much better pickings there.

Still no happiness in goggle box land, there's always Master Chef! Thousands of people have auditioned to be on MC and we'll be be bringing that down to the 20 we need for the series starting tonight. Oh Dear.... Then a stream of vaguely interesting "regular" folk and their families in the studio, are made to watch each other cook for 45 minutes until they meet John Torode and Gregg Wallace in the judges room. At least we're spared the full details of every auditionee's cooking, but still we get the full spectacle of nans, mams and bairns banging on about how it would mean the world if "insert name of desperate hapless amateur" got an apron. The then less than appetizing array of dishes served up for Jaunty Roads and Pudding boy to struggle with seems to go on for ever, punctuated by the occasional manufactured conflict over a perfectly fine plate of food. They then look for "interesting" see loonies and nutters, to included to round out things, meaning that the more traditional cooks who aren't 100%, get dropped and the experimental ones are passed through. The vegan woman who makes faces will be fun when she has to cook something that doesn't have roots attached to it. Having seen this stage of the American Master Chef last year, I can honestly say that as uninspiring as the food was at times, even the cat sick de-constructed trifle was still better than the endless mac and cheeses, mock Mexican , appalling deep fried southern food and not bouillabaisse on offer in the US version. What the UK version only hinted at but was in full flower in the US one, was the begging, crying, jumping and posturing we were spared. And yet it was still too much. We could have had more cooking and less maudlin reaction shots more at home on X factor than Master Chef. If I am to even choose one of these people to cheer for, I am hard pressed to find more than two who seem anywhere close to being good enough for Master Chef. Just when did cooking become the new way out of the ghetto? Aside from a few laughs I had the expense of some truly awful cooks, I can't say this was the Master Chef I was expecting. I wanted skill on display, I wanted invention tests that took the cook out of his or her comfort zone from the start, I wanted some exceptional candidates. Instead we got 25 year mum from Reading who cries, Gastro pub Pete who serves raw fish, Scary Cockney James, who was on the verge of talking about a "field of ponies" and selling himself that much, Miss Swansea Alice, Nutter Mark with his tofu fish and chips and some guy named Dan who may be the only one who knows how to cook. The number of recipes nicked from celeb chef cookbooks and last years Master Chef Pro was awe inspiring. One of the plates looked like it had been copied badly hundreds of times since they saw it first last year ( boules de Berlin in case you were wondering).

Next week we get the competition well and truly under way when the 20 persons they mostly scraped off the back of a spatula, enter the big kitchen stadium. What are they going to do, hide a sniper in the rafter or maybe operate trap doors whenever some chef wanabe nicks yet another recipe from Jamie Oliver or Gordon Ramsay? Oh look she's wrapping everything in bacon! Shoot her quick before it catches on. There's another doing bloody fish and chips AGAIN!!! Oh No Chirizo sausage, cos there is no other kind, BANG. Gregg I don't do puddings ZZZAPPPPPP. Burned to a crisp meat.... EXTERMINATE!!! I'll be doing a new twist on roast beef and butter chicken....Death's too good for them! Even the level of skill on display in Celebrity Master Chef with Dick Strawbridge and horrid Tory hostess was better than this lot. I've set my expectations to yeah sure for next week, but will not be surprised if the level of quality just doesn't get any tougher than this. Gregg and John will be hard pressed to find a top 5 anywhere near good enough keep us interested well into the finals. The new format has sacrificed all the elements that kept us foodies glued to our screens from the first candidate to the last plate of food. It may have worked in Australia and the American version was geared at the great unwashed who as always, wanted to see equal doses of pathos and the great culinary traditions (such as they are) of the deep South yet again prevail over anything that passes for food in New York. The new series of the revamped Master Chef UK is off to a bad start and looks to be on a collision course with foodies who will vote with their off switches just like when we stopped watching the fatally flawed The Restaurant. If it doesn't get better fast, I will be finding even more time to watch something else on BBC4 or maybe from my vast collection of unwatched recordings for "when I have time". Master Chef was the last refuge where the skilled went to become more skilled and provide viewers with enough thrills and information to insure their own food rose a notch or two. This new version owes more to Ready Steady Twat than it does Master Chef. I just hope Gregg and John are getting hazard pay for the food they are about to eat, I like them and want them to be around for the next proper Master Chef, you know the one after this mess.

To paraphrase Prince Charles, "The things I do for my readers". I don't want you, dear reader leaving this space totally down hearted, I can continue to recommend The Danish crime thriller The Killing on BBC4 and for the more historically minded, C4's Rome wasn't built in a day. In this fly on the wall documentary we follow a group of builders who use traditional Roman methods and materials to build a Roman villa for English Heritage. Much more interesting than you'd think and the final result is something you'll want to get in your car and visit.

The genie is out of the bottle: Tunisia, Egypt, Yemen, Iran & Israel.

2011-02-14T22:36:00.005Z

Having been forced to watch from afar in the relative safety of my home, I saw from 1980 the birth of Solidarity in Poland, the imposition of martial law and the advent of Peristroika from Moscow as of 1985, through to the semi free and fair Polish elections in June 1989 that led to the round table talks and the first non communist government in September 1989. And before you go reaching for Google, The Berlin Wall fell on the 9th of November, well after the rest of Central and Eastern Europe shook off the dictatorships. So please in future years when the historian's tomes on the new North African era have got dusty and we revert to trite throw away clichés, please remember that in Europe, Poland came first and in North Africa and the Arab world, Tunisia came first, possibly even the green revolution protesters of Iran in 2009.

I of course bring up Poland, because the similarities to Egypt at the minute are similar and not by coincidence. In both cases the authorities in place have been there for about the same time, apx 40 years and in Egypt, 50 years. During that time an increasingly well educated and young citizenry saw it's hopes and dreams crushed and dampened to a point of nearly giving up. But being stubborn and determined, given the chance to push back, they did. In Poland they even prevailed after 9 long years of struggle. But the problem with declaring symbolic victory is that you choose an iconic moment and it becomes tradition while the reality is that the old regime is not entirely swept away. In fact that would have been a bad thing, stability is the sort of thing that saves the furniture. The lessons Egypt and other such countries, post revolution, need to take from Poland are many and important. Not least of which is the lesson that it takes time to build a new politi in a population that hasn't had a history of real democratic parties since September 1st 1939. In the case of Egypt it can be argued that party politics is even more alien to the culture than it was in 1990's Central and Eastern Europe. It's one thing to want to "Throw the bums out", but when the dust settles, you have an entire population that hasnt experienced real political debate of the boring day to day nature we have come to take for granted in the west. Once the novelty of voting for the party of revolution wears off, the reality of running a country has to be accepted and the possibility that even the most popular party won't always get it right. Solidarity splintered into at least 10 separate ideological and regional interest parties. What emerged was the normal spectrum of left to right with a sprinkle of religion and commercial interests. The reason Poles today accept and albeit grudgingly praise the current set up , is that it does produce the reflective compact that was struck in the early 90's Poland mixture of urban, agricultural, intellectual and industrial civil society that emerged.

Tunisians and Egyptians will have to take the time to find out just exactly what it is they stand for and what they are prepared to accept in their politicians ideologically and practically. The one real asset in the North of Africa today is the high proportion of young well educated future workers and middle class citizens they are ready to become. Their hopes and aspirations haven't been stomped into the earth like those of their parents and grand parents. They are in a position to establish new parameters based loosely on what they see and have experienced in their closest neighbours in Europe. Beyond that, I cannot tell you what the future shape of the North African Arab states will be, but I can tell you it will be as secular as Ireland or Italy in 2000 and sometimes as radically anti G-d as France or Britain seems to have become today. It would be fool hardy to expect perfect parties and perfect government from any elections that take place in September 2011. It will be years before the new republics emerge as stable recognizable systems. Poland took a decade to come to a point where you cannot tell the difference from them and say the German Reichstag. As History started moving again in Europe in 1989, so it will in North Africa. But like anything frozen in the ice of dictatorship and regional interests for over 50 years, it will not happen overnight.

The next problem, if you choose to see it that way, is the fact that the government apparatus that collects the rubbish, sets curricula in schools, funds museums & culture and also regulates the economy , is used to a certain way of doing things. It's been doing it for 50 years after all. To be clear, sometimes the old ways aren't all bad ways and some others just need a tweak. These bureaucrats will be there till they are replaced in the fullness of time by a new generations of equally convinced technocrats educated in the current methods en vogue in the capitals of Europe and the region. The Army, especially one as big as the conscript Egyptian army will eventually develop an officer corps that will not interfere in the nation's affairs, but this too will take time. Because however, the army will now be cut off from the old boys club that has till now run the country, it will have no choice but to reform.Where immediate steps need to be taken is perhaps a wholesale replacement of the police by serving Army personnel who are less inclined to shoot first and ask questions later.

The all powerful elites in the country will also retain a lot of influence before they are well and truly flushed. In Poland in the 10 years since the peaceful fall of the Communist government, the number of old technocrats who have become industrialists and businessmen on the back of the soft landing given them in the early years, remains high. Former state enterprises have continued in many cases to stay in the hands of the same sterile old minds who over the years moved from an imperative to keep people working despite non existent markets for the goods, to making as much money as possible with as few workers as possible. It took several years for the Central and Eastern European governments to get out from under the IMF monetarist orthodoxy and regulate in a more normal way these situations. In the new North Africa, there will surely be a similar readjustment in the economy that will take many years and will not go anywhere near as smoothly as anybody with a magic wand called democracy would like it to go. It will however be easier if you have a stable hand on the reform process. Iran showed how you don't change a country, Russia trusted it's citizens and politicians who had no choice but to come from the old system to make it a better place. 10 years on it's not perfect, but still better than it was or would have been if they had just changed the system 100% in the space of a week.

Freedom of the press and culture will also undergo a strange and sometimes clunky process. At some point, even quickly, the press and the news will readjust, it will do things it hasn't done in the lifetimes of most people in North Africa, it will tell the truth. There will however remain the question of how much liberalisation will be tolerated by the population in various parts of the country. You cannot expect the same open society in Egypt as say in France or Holland or even Lebanon or Turkey. These limits and value judgements will ultimately be done by the people. A word of warning to the old theocratic and moralistic leaders inside and out of the dictatorships, the power you had before will be limited entirely by the willingness of the population to accept what you say as the absolute unchallengeable truth. In a multi party, socially diverse culture, the power of one set of value givers and enforcers will be tempered by the right of people to NOT have to share the same opinion on everything, just as that right will be tempered by the responsibility of the citizen to not trample on the next person's set of rights. For example, some might say that certain Irish twins of recent fame should have been locked up for bad taste, but they have the right in a free society to be complete divs. They aren't actually harming us are they? We can as active citizens, use the levers of commercial power and our voices in regulatory bodies to limit these sorts of things. We can only do this because we trust our leaders and regulators to a great extent to get it right, to understand the difference between what's good for us and what's just imposing one set of standards and values on the rest of the country. Over time, democracy will pollute the telly of Egypt with the same brain dead content some on ITV2 seem to like, but because of democracy, you'll also get the truth of what happened, you'll get protest in the form of drama and satire and you'll get thought provoking programmes that engage the population in the process of reform, sometimes even against the wishes and desires of some who prefer you weren't asked. For example, you can no more force an omnivore to stop eating meat than that omnivore can force meat into a vegan. It's free will , tolerance and compromise. The moment you believe you have a monopoly on the truth, you become part of the problem and should you have the power, no better than the dictators. Most recently a vegan football club owner banned meat in his club's park. His right to do so I suppose, but highly insulting and presumptuous to assume he can force his individual beliefs on his staff, the players and the entire season ticket holding supporter base. Besides probably breaking several commercial laws and agreements designed to keep all of us from coming to blows, he has taken on the mantle of preacher with a bit of power... never a good thing. In a free press and free culture this will be discussed and the pressures of real debate and the weight of law will resolve this, precisely because we accept the rules of the society we live in.

Protests and strikes are here to stay people, it's a curse and a gift. I love how even the most timid of Egyptians on the news, are protesting bad housing, the cost of petrol and low pay. It's their right so long as they do it peacefully. Authorities need to respond not by arresting these people, but sorting out their legitimate demands and reasonable concessions requested, if the authorities expect people to go home. Once let out of the bottle, the genie of dissent in a reasonable society must be tolerated if free speech is to flourish and keep the lines of communication open between the governed and those who govern them. Mob rule, which of course is the extreme end of protest, is what happens when you deny the vast majority the possibility to make their concerns and wishes heard and acted upon. Peaceful articulate and sometimes loud protest and strikes are a natural vent for the frustrations that will regularly come to a boil, to close dissent down too much is asking for trouble.

The ability of the big powers to dictate to other nations what is good for the big powers has by and large ceased to be relevant in the new democratic Europe. Many of the agendas finding voice in New Europe are now derived from the environmental movement, trade unions and local economic imperatives. Clearly the effect of 10 years of pan continental stability is a model North Africa and the Middle East can look forward to as well. Suddenly powers like Israel and Iran won't be able to hide behind ideoligical or regional interests real or imagined to protect their particular and peculiar versions of the Garden of Eden . In Iran protesters demand the democracy won in Tunisia and Egypt, that was denied them under the Shah as well as the Ayatollahs and are accused of being spies and trouble makers in the pay of the Americans. When Iran is the last theocracy standing, they won't be able to sing that song any more. Israel on the other hand has a fluctuating voter turn out that has plumbed as low as 42% and as high as 63.2% in the past few years. Hardly a ringing endorsement of the pure rep by pop system that produces ever more conservative and radical governments that reflect the vast majority of Israelis ( Jewish, Muslim and Christian) about as well as having the KKK the Nazis and the ultra orthodox religious establishment set government policy. Is it really ok to stall while entire neighbourhoods of Palestinians are cleared for radical Jewish settlers? Actual Israeli born Jews living in Tel Aviv and Jaffa have become irrelevant in the process and see the wishes of the radical immigrants from outside (mostly the USA and Canada) as well as US self interest reflected in the domestic policy of the nation. Powerless to act, the apx 70% of native Jews who are agnostic, going to Shule three times a year, or are only culturally Jewish, stay at home or more and more emigrate to Europe where the old powers are wanting their Jews back. As the rest of the region opens up and democratises, the increasingly sterile and cut off regimes, including Israel, Syria and Iran will find themselves having to give in or face the kind of bloodshed they are trying so hard to avoid. When you strip away the bogey men of Hamas or the CIA or the g-dless west, you are left with people like you and me who only want to get on with their lives and get back to the sort of world where we used to just argue over the price of olive oil and who invented Humus. As and when the only real difference between Europe and North Africa and the Mid East are the holydays and the bank holidays, then the radicals blowing themselves up for Islam, killing school girls for G-d and the nutcase Jewish settlers shouting shite about how it G-d's gift to them and they mean to take it any way they can no matter what, will be made to look like the ignorant unrepresentative dangerous subsection of humanity they are.

You might task me if it's better to have a Bathist regime that sends people to school regardless of sex and treats people appallingly based on ethnicity and disagreement, over a religious state that keeps people ignorant and poor, and I would say yes, as long as it's eventually swept aside. At least the secular state produces an educated middle class that is ready to take up the modern pressures of the world and still retain the reasonable peaceful message of Islam, should one choose to practice. Given the chance, the people of the region will find a happy medium where the extremists of any side will find little apatite for their message. With a great deal of patience and encouragement the situation will come to pass that even the hold over resentment and mistrust towards authority and the outside press will evaporate like the old regimes that created them in the first place. As the closest neighbour and biggest trading partner to the region of North Africa and the Middle East, Europe must help when asked, prod as gently as possible when it can and be patient. Not only is the prospect of avoiding the big war in the Middle East as real now as the eradication of the multiple regional tensions that used to send Europe into war on a regular basis, the creation of a single region of equally concerned governments willing to act in the name of environmental issues that are bigger than any ideology or religion is a very real probability. When you create a place where the people feel they are part of the process you can actually get things done.

I cannot predict which leader and which systems will fall next, but we have to trust these people to do it themselves, just like Central and Eastern Europe did starting in 1980, it will take time but the result will be a better place. It may not look like our personal vision of perfection, but it'll be close enough to make it work.

The Emperor has no clothes: peoples revolutions v special interests

2011-01-31T14:38:00.007Z

Since 1989 and probably at selected times since 1840's Europe, the world's people have more and more taken the initiative in causing regime change in "sphere of influence" states of the great western and eastern powers. With the rise of educated comfortable middle and working classes that dare to aspire and the added advent of the internet, entire nations want to be like the countries that decide how others live.

First in Europe and now in North Africa, people want to be in a country where they have the right to decide their own course of action, the right to decide which orientation they will take in internal politics and what is good for them, without having to go through the filter of the best interest of the great Imperial powers like Russia, Britain, France, Germany, China and the USA, or their clients like Israel. Sadly, South Africa still dictates terms that are beneficial to itself over the interests of the ordinary Zimbabwean or Ivoreans, much the same way Great Britain and others used to protect their special interests. White men doing the same thing was wrong, and now black men doing this is still wrong, however you wrap it in rhetoric. While some individual strongmen will continue to get away with murder literally, the age of plantation politics is coming to an end with the arrival in Africa of the flu that has kept Europe sporadically free for the last 200 years.

Cote D'ivoire was, until the meddling of some, getting rid of it's disgraced former leader, Robert Mugabe still effectively runs the country he has owned since nearly independence, despite people power. His regime and the regimes of countless other tin pot little African dictators, depend on a tolerance of other leaders equally afraid of the consequences of losing power. In the UK, Canada, Germany, leaders retire and write memoires, in Africa they are arrested or flee with the money. It's not a natural state of affairs that once a leader gets a grip on power that he or she must fear being rumbled for robbing the treasury and murdering the populace. Since the end of Communist rule in Central and Eastern Europe, most regimes have had free and fair multi party elections with changes in government following on peacefully and without incident. Is it the considered opinion of some African leaders and other western ones that Africans are not ready or capable of such a peaceful transition? South Sudan is an example of the extraordinary peaceful revolution and creation of a nation , some have waited for since 1955. Had the special interests of the world held sway, the result announced yesterday of 99.5% yes, could never have happened. The fact the result was so emphatic is proof of the desire of the people to move towards an independent state so long denied them by a string of Governments in Cairo, Washington and London as well as regionally in Africa.

In my lifetime I have seen the imposition of right wing dictatorships on nations by the USA and Communist ones by China and Russia in the name of the great struggle for liberation of the global interests of those empires. What the locals wanted or thought, was of little importance, what happened to the locals , especially in places where mineral or other desired wealth was important to outside interests, mattered even less. A case in point was Kuwait, where oil and more oil were the deciding factor that drove the allies to come to the defence of the poor down trodden Kuwaiti people.but where similar fates were meted out to Kurds, Rwandans, Palestinians and Hungarians or non Serbian Yugoslavs, it took ages if ever to react to the plight of these people.

In the last 40 years Soviets invaded Hungary, Czechoslovakia, caused a puppet regime to bring deadly martial law into Poland, created excuses to steal land from Georgia and other nations. And yet when the same people throw off the yoke of one kind of slavery or another, the west trips over itself to claim the moral high ground and credit for regime change. Since 1989 through to today, the influence of the US State department and other such players in the affairs of the world's liberated peoples has been nil to near tragicomic farce. There is a reason they are so ineffectual and gormless when it comes to these situations. Having discouraged dissent and diversity in the first place, they are unaware of and not trusted by even the most well meaning of opposition movements. First fearing social-democratic secularism then the Islamists, the west and now even Russia play the game of preferring the devil you know over the one you don't.

The people of Egypt, given the chance to elect a new Parliament with multiple parties and ideologies will likely not elect a government that Mr Obama, Mr Putin or Mr Cameron will like, but it will be the government they want and that is representative of their desires and values. Hamas in the Gaza strip is an example of a radical party that if given the chance to rule, was going to do a perfectly adequate job, but like it's far more moderate predecessor, was attacked and destroyed from above and below by Israel and other international special interests. How are Palestinians, or any other people expected to grow into multi party democracy if they are not trusted by the paternalistic great powers to have their say? It is the height of hypocrisy to watch Washington, London and other capitals sit back and do nothing , then prop up the dictator, then call for his removal. What we are seeing is an attempt to impose a solution on Egypt that will pacify the people but preserve the status quo for several countries more interested in their own security than the freedom and democracy of Egyptians. ( or Algerians, or Yemenis, or Sudanese, or Saudis etc...). The citizens of those countries must be allowed to set the pace of reforms and the types of reforms they want in their own lands. As they are exposed to other ideas, the creation of hybrid political ideas and systems come into existence that represent the desires of those people. Sometimes simply taking a model that works in the UK or America is just not going to work. Afghanistan and several regions in West Africa have centuries old systems that had worked well, but were swept aside overnight and consequently could not be expected to succeed.

Democracy is in and of itself not a solution to all things. In Uganda gays are repressed by the state and local churches, in West Africa federalism has failed to stop resource based, religiously tinged conflicts from breaking out. In the Unites States, free universal national health care is still decades removed from what is accepted as normal in most European conservative circles, let alone the left. In Europe there is a rise of the extreme right in parliamentary elections. These examples point to the need of politicians to come to terms with the problems in a way that most can accept, or the cycle of stagnation, violence and mistrust will continue. In Europe and the rest of the West, people, that is citizens, are trusted to sort out the mess, often of their own creation, but in other places we seem to think a paternalistic heavy hand is required should the result not quite suite our needs or personal political philosophies.

As a Pole living in the West, I appreciate the liberty I have had to influence my local, regional and national Government. I have treasured the ability to work and speak freely and I have wanted the same for others, even when it meant that maybe the Foreign Office or the American State Department or the Kremlin might not be best pleased. In parts of the world where the west has had to negotiate on level terms with new powers like India, Brazil and Indonesia, we have seen the spectacular failure on the part of the industrialized powers to take into account the desire of those countries peoples to climb up to at least as good a standard of living as ours BEFORE they start to sacrifice their monetary, ecological and agricultural policies for us. While it's important to bring to the table our level of concern and conviction regarding these issues, we cannot expect these new counterparts to respond in kind until such time as they themselves are not asked to make greater sacrifices than ourselves. This policy of having others suffer for our crimes is nothing new and should be replaced with the same basic philosophy as the Marshal plan had. Mainly to rebuild those parts of the world to their functioning selves before we can expect those parts of the world to play by the same rules as us.

China is inevitably lurching towards some kind of mixed economy socialist democracy and market system most Europeans would recognize, India, will likely be more chaotic, producing a string of reformist governments that will drag most of India kicking and screaming into the 20th century, while Mumbia gets on with inventing the 21st. Canadian PM Pierre Elliot Trudeau years ago worked for a North South dialogue that aimed at building the bridges between the emerging economies and the old established ones, while reforms were made along with the necessary linking of those emerging economies to the solutions of very real problems like global warming, food shortages, debt, and educational/health standards. Since his departure from public life, the peace dividend has come and gone, western economic self interest continues and the powers that were on the outside looking in are still there but even stronger now.

How long will it take to embrace China as a full partner on monetary policy? How will it take for the Asia Pacific rim and South American countries to finally crash the party so long reserved for the exclusive club that most European nations don't even belong to yet? Poland is right, Europe has to sit as a member at the G20, China and India need to be let in. But how can we expect this to happen if even today we see the fish out of water inept indecision of western powers trying to work a solution in Egypt that will at the end of the day have little to do with the protests of ordinary Egyptians except that they were the ones who forced the unwilling hands of Washington, their clients and other countries with interests in how Egypt is run for their protection. It is clear to anybody with eyes that the Army is waiting to crown an acceptable compromise that will please the middle classes, the middle east peace process, western interests and Israeli security. I doubt seriously this solution will come anywhere near satisfying the root problems of the Egyptian unrest and will only delay the inevitable final crumbling of the current regime.

Abject poverty and deprivation breeds despair and fanaticism, as do prolonged dictatorships. If Egypt or "The Mother of the World" is as important to the region as the analysts and the regional leaders and peoples say it is, let the revolution come, let the free and fair reforms and elections happen NOW. If we wait, there is no knowing what the well educated youth bubble of middle class aspiring Arab men and women will do next. Letting the mainstream elements of Egypt take over now, will usher in a new age similar to the optimism and good will that followed the decade of dominoes falling in Central and Eastern Europe. As we speak, Khartoum, home of possibly the worst of the rogue nations in Africa is under pressure, Yemen, Algeria and Jordan as well. What happens in the next few days in Cairo will determine the course of African and Middle Eastern politics for decades to come. If the west wants to be able to say they did something, they should create the pressure, clearly and without reservation, that leads to genuine people approved reform. Then and only then will the west and America in particular not be so mistrusted and hated. This is the time to cut the fanatics off from the new recruits by showing they are wrong when they say it's just another Congress of Vienna, Paris accord or Yalta stitch up.

The people of Belarus, Iran and Zimbabwe watch with eager anticipation to see if they can dream of unfettered revolution or if they are doomed to spill even more blood before they are as free as the average Pole or Brit. I can't help but feel the weight of history and share the excitement of Egypt as I watch the fall of a hated regime. Much like our struggle, it will hinge on small events and the intervention or lack of intervention of outsiders. It took us 10 years and in the end it was a vote of non confidence on the Sejm(parliament) that drove the last nail in the coffin. Egyptians might be able to keep it down to a week. Good luck, the world is watching and we are cheering you on. A word the Egyptian Army, make up your mind, move on the Government or your continued neutrality will be taken as cowardice in the face of indecision.The Army must embrace the Lotus revolution before they become as mistrusted as the regime and the police.

Since I wrote the above, the Army has released a statement stating it would not fire on the people and that they considered the demands of the protesters "legitimate". One looks forward to the next 24 hours and the million man march planned for Cairo.

The Emperor has no clothes, the sooner the special interests realize this, the sooner the world will be a better place to live in.

New Stig grows up, Sky lost some weight, and I learned some Danish

2011-01-26T23:30:00.009Z

And on the 38th day new Stig instructed his first star in a reasonably priced car. New Stig was finally allowed out of his cage after having eaten the raw meat Jezza had left for him. Amazing how quickly they grow up. As Clarkson remarked, he'll soon be old enough to present Countryfile. Top Gear got stuck in with it's latest run of school boy humour and thinly disguised genuine consumer information. I for example know that my future all terrain vehicle should be a Skoda Yeti. I will however probably still go for a classic Land Rover or even a gentrified Toyota Hilux if I can. Not missing a beat, Top Gear presenters searched for new ways of poking humourless twats with a pointed stick. Funny Scouse man accused of stealing tyres, Stig elevated to the status of Jesus replacement, Cap'n Slow made to look a div, wait that's not a crime, just a stated goal. Ironically, this is the same man who can tell you the most about the cars should you care to ask. Richard "Hamster" Hammond tries to prove the Porsche 911 is in fact the best car in the world and more than the sum of the parts of a Beetle from whence it came. I for one was convinced by his arguments, having been in several proper poor people bugs in my life for extended lengths of time. I think dropping a cheap car from a crane was hardly a fair test of speed was it? Besides maybe the Autobahn and dying, the only good thing Hitler ever did, the Volkswagen Beetle is hardly the model of reliability or comfort or technical advancement. The Porsche 911 on the other hand is still the only car I'd consider having that satisfies my inner douche bag and thrill seeker. While the Jag is in fact a car for somebody who can drive over small pets and garden beds, the Porsche will do it and not even try to apologize. Why should it? It is a mechanical marvel that moves like a wild cat on the hunt. The noises it makes sound like what I thought a car should sound like when I was 8 years old. As a boy I aspired to a Porsche, as a man I now aspire to a Jag or maybe an Astin Martin, unlike some people, |I don't want to others to think I'm the kind of person who would drive a Porsche. Now if I could borrow the Stig's skin...

About that new Stig. He's still white, drives even better than sacked Stig, seems to be more content and doesn't bite like the old one. I think perhaps this one's a keeper, he may even last longer that the last two put together. Just to be clear, whoever the new Stig is, he's now part of one of the oldest , most entertaining car magazines on telly ever. He will meet stars and drive fast cars and get paid for it presumably really well for as long as he wants to. If this one also does a diva, it may be time to bury the Stig once and for all. Seems some people are more interested in sudden piles of money over sustained respectable pay and loads of perks you won't get for being an ex-Stig.

New to our screens from BBC 2, Charlie Brooker's How TV ruined your life, a weekly look at how TV took a perfectly nice life and this week, has scared the hell out of us for 60 years. The point of the show was to demonstrate just how mad the paranoia and fear had gotten from public service spots that pointed out every danger lurking out there past your door and in your living room, to crime programmes that purported to show just how bad the the criminals were. If the news is to be believed , we are always on the brink of the final dissolution of humanity as we know it. His pens catching fire parody was brilliant stopping just short of being repetitive and pointless. Breaking news used to mean something had happened, but with 24 hour news, we were treated to Gaza shouting "Moaty Moaty Moaty" and explaining why he had brought fried chicken, lager and a fishing pole for his "old mate". If I want to stay relaxed and fear free I try to watch BBC news only a few times a day and avoid the soul sucking misery of unending failure in the world. I know news is news, but it's not all bad news is it? South Sudan voted last week. We saw one day of nice peaceful story, then nothing for a week, then twice in as many days , some Northern nomads killed 30 people and the BBC war machine was in full gear. Thankfully for South Sudan it's remained for the most part a dull uneventful story. Uneventful that is except for all those people getting on with their lives and building a new country without recourse to death and dismemberment. Perhaps if more watched less sensationalist filler, some of them would be less inclined to report Jeremy Clarkson to ofcom for crimes against alleged human decency. Some of you may recall that on the back of one complaint, decades after the song came out, you can't play Money for nothing in Canada, because of the "dirty little faggot" reference. If you've ever heard the song, you are my age, if you are worshipping Ellie Goulding's murder of Elton's "Your song", you're probably wondering why anybody would ever say an offensive thing ever to anybody , even jest. Watch the video, you'll see it's not even homophobic, just a good song. So when did one person's opinion mean we should all suffer? Where was I? Charlie Brooker, yeah, good show, watch it.

Speaking of offensive words on telly..... no I don't mean Kay Burley saying anything on any subject, Andy Gray (sacked) and Richard Keys (apologized and resigned), both now late of Sky Sports, landed in a cauldron of trouble over sexist remarks about lineswoman, Sian Massey 25, (see also remarks about Theo Walcott) before the match even kicked off. It all got a bit sordid as a series of further of air remarks were found and broadcast to the delight of the people who disliked the the duo. Sky sports reacted well enough at first, but hardly seem to take this seriously at first , then went entirely the other way and sacked Andy Gray. Seems you're fine till you get caught out. A few simple truths in broadcasting. All mikes and cameras are to be treated as live at all times. Saves you a great deal of embarrassment. Never put down in writing just how big a twat you are. And lastly, you're only as good as your last good deed or rating and scandal of any kind will wipe the slate clean in entirely the wrong way. All lessons at least one of these men has not learned. While I do not applaud the creation of super cautious PC man, the death of Neanderthal footie man is long overdue. My wife loves football, it's a huge part of why we get along. She gets it, she understands the offside rule, well the one before the new one which confuses even the players and the officials now. You would be shocked to hear what she used to say about Arsenal and Chelsea supporters, would have made a Millwall fan seem,... no too strong, ... a Leeds fan, seem realistic. That said, the powers that be at Sky sport need to understand that women have been following football in droves for at least a decade now, gone are the times that every vagina in the room left at the sound of the pre game show. I suspect the fancy fan who supported a side ONLY because [name of footballer] is fit, is long dead or blended in with the male version more concerned with the run of play and the general direction and placement of ones team in the table. The hypocrisy of Sky speaks volumes however, when you compare the numerous times people like myself have called for the incredibly justifiable sacking of Kay Burley, and been ignored. This woman who claims to be a journalist has done enough to be sacked 10 times were she a man or even a gay Asian uni-legged agnostic hermaphroditic creature working at a real news channel. Where is the justice when caveman sports twit gets the sack but Versace sledge hammer stays?

On the subject of genteel, better times when even the nut-cases were held to a certain standard of decorum and behaviour, Lark Rise to Candleford on Sunday was a treat. Dorcas has finally got some action going and Postman Thomas has his absolute shield of faith and somewhat too sure certainty punctured, revealing a very scared little man who seems to have finally had to deal with his own personal demons. The scene where he looses his religion was so sincere I had no idea where it was going from there. The use of the snake in paradise wasn't wasted or over the top in the least bit. Yet again, Larkrise shows that good writing is the key to wringing out truthful performances from these well trained actors and actresses. Stand out performance of the night had to be Curtis Brown (Thomas) in the faith story line with an equally strong performance from character actor Burn Gorman and former Torchwood regular, playing the trouble reverend. Oh and still no sign of Dawn French.

Yet again BBC4 wins a big fat nothing, yes you're watching the National Television Awards , the award show for text voting pond scum who haven't quite learned to spell yet. How else do you explain Qi v I'm a Celebrity? Oh well, every year I sit down an d think , maybe this year Stephen Fry will win something for his current work, but no. Benidorm and In Betweeners won which is ok as it's not about pretty people or unscripted, thank you both for making us laugh. And....big drum roll....... Top Gear has the love of geeks, intellects and the great unwashed, all rolled into to one. Despite being fact free for for 7 years now, Top Gear has entertained all levels of viewer and in so doing showing living proof you can be smart funny, un hip and still be a winner. Three middle age men falling over indeed , Congratulations, at least one or two of my shows made the grade! Sherlock, Ashes to Ashes, Doctor Who, Touch of Frost ?!! all in one category ! David Jason wins for Touch of Frost, and well deserving he is. At least this one they couldn't get wrong. Lastly, Mr Show-business himself, Bruce Forsyth got the lifetime achievement award from last year's winner Stephen Fry. Brucie is an institution and anybody who thinks he's past his sell by date needs to have a quick look at what this man can do even now. Sad but true, Louis Spence is no replacement for an all rounder comic, singer dancer actor go to guy who can handle any live situation. Since I was little, Brucie has entertained out family in a bewildering array of programmes over the years. I hope he never stops, I suspect he'd be unsure what to do with a pipe and slippers, so Bruce, It's always nice to see you , to see you Nice! And Doctor Who fans.... we got zip this year, nothing nada, nil, nowt, but the opening sequence with Matt Smith and the Tardis was great.

Last word goes to Danish crime drama The killings on BBC4 is brilliant and completely engrossing , even if you don't speak Danish. Much like UK crime drama, yet a little less intense , it still arrives at the same destination that any crime drama wants, you care and you want to solve it before the DCI does. Good chance to learn yerself another language and have a decent rummage through your brain for solutions. My wife wept several times and it takes convincing acting and story to get her going like that. Something for the big softy and the amateur sleuth.

BBC's Episodes and Michel Roux's Service hit our screens this week

2011-01-13T20:30:00.002Z

This week the BBC unleashed two programmes guaranteed to please or appal depending on who you are. Let's start with the one that pleased and appalled in equal measure.

Episodes, BBC2's comedy about a pair of happy award winning writers who find themselves in the nightmare scenario at least some of us aspire to. The Americans like our show and would like a version of it for themselves. On the one hand there is the money and the holiday away from all the rain, on the other hand there are the Americans who will kill your baby with kindness and leave you wondering what the hell just happened and why the thing on the screen in no way resembles what you got awards for. Episodes is not the first programme to explore this theme, nor will it be the last. But the first episode which opens on presumably the tail end of the 7th or 8th ep, certainly smells like a blow by blow account of the slow rape and subsequent destruction of a good idea, as seen from the perspective of the writer. If you are not a writer , then you will or should find this funny, because it is. It's incredibly funny even, Steve Mangan most recently of Dirk Gently, and Tamsin Greig who plays his wife, face the barrage of the plastic dream factory that is LA. You have to see to believe the sequence when the actor playing the lead role in the UK version has to audition for the first time in years, for his own part, let alone any part. And before you say they'd never do that, David ( you know Doctor Who) Tenant had to audition in the US recently, as if there was any question he'd be somehow wrong for a part. My wife and I watched with a mixture of dread, horror and amusement, as every story we had ever been told in private unfurled on screen. As writers we knew this sort of thing happens, but to see it pretty much raw and uncensored, was educating, amusing and yet set off nervous ticks that caused one of us to throw something in the general direction of the telly at least once. If you ever wondered how The Office, Coupling, Life on Mars, Man about the House or now Shameless translate poorly or well in the USA, watch the inside story as it unfolds in Episodes.

Stand out performances by John Pankow as the horrid Merc who wants to "Have sex with your show", in an understated sort of way starts the slide into hell at the audition. Brilliantly taking the shine off Richard Griffiths's hilarious portrayal of a head master, by saying ..... but is he too British? Even the the highly annoying Myra Light got under my skin so much I hated her before she uttered a word. These characters are real, I've some of them and I've had to listen over to phone to yet others as I was told what we were doing was too foreign and too insensitive to potential offence that might be caused to small fury creatures from Alpha Centauri. In addition to this, there is a long laundry list of what characters cannot do any more on American telly, smoking and drinking high on the list if you are making a cartoon aimed at people who might have children in the next room. For sheer comic deadpan... Lou Hirsch, long ago of My Hero, plays the "by the book" gate keeper destined to be the star of many one liners best of lists.

Episodes has the ring of truth that Yes Minister and Thick of it have, and still has the capacity to make me laugh when I'm not cringing at the sight of certain people.

Speaking of cringing.... Michel Roux fronts Service on BBC Two, where he hopes to take up the do gooder torch of Jamie Oliver and offer a group of 8 unfortunate youths the chance to get a real job and move up in the world. Much like the crowd at 15 so many years ago, these young people in some cases barely speak English, haven't had wine out of a bottle, don't recognize food that hasn't been microwaved and have the manners of baboons in some cases. I kept expecting Col. Pickering to show up any minute to see how things were going. While I may have watched Master Chef Pro to learn the techniques and recipes and even to drink in some of the atmosphere you get from real food and the professionals who prepare it, this thing has all the appeal of Ladettes to Ladies. If this is the best they could find from thousands of applicants for the programme, it's little wonder that Britain has a marked deficit in home grown front of house staff. This lot seem to be allergic to work and logical thinking. Team work may come eventually , but would you let them loose in your restaurant for even a half hour?

By week 8 Michel Roux hopes to inflict these yobs on his dinners as some sort of final exam. From what we saw in episode one, this car crash belongs on BBC3 not BBC2 before Edwardian Farm. The only contestants with any appeal were the Gay black guy, two of the lads and..... and... ermmm.. no not him , not her or her ... Put succinctly, I'm tired of ill educated charvs being paraded on the screen like some victims of an African famine in need of our help. Most of them have the appeal of piles and sound like a bunch of drills screeching when they talk. Surely there must have been more deserving job seekers or waiters/waitresses who have just started out, that could have competed in this. As it is, Ifelt no sympathy for any of them and by the half hour wanted to shoot the lot of them.

Lines worth remembering and that highlight just how unsuited these losers are for the job.. "Would you like a glass of prosciutto" ,may as well ask if the client wanted a bottle of kielbasa or chorizo. Yet another low point was when a girl was offered some anchovies, she screeched about how hairy they were and wouldn't try them. At least one of them bravely tried foie gras , but wasn't able to swallow any as he was grossed out by the texture... What a group of whinging wastes of space. Not one of these people had ever eaten anything on the menu or seemed able to pronounce most of the words. The one saving grace was that they seemed too poor to afford fake tan. If Gordon Ramsay had been running this service boot camp, he'd have had to tuck into his reserve of swear words early.

I won't be giving this abomination another chance, the only reason to watch this is if you miss Big Brother. Steer well clear of this train wreck

So what can I watch instead of that I hear you ask???? I won't leave you without an alternative. Tuesdays on BBC4 is brain night, The Brain : A secret history, Michael Mosley takes us on a disturbing voyage through the brain and the atrocities committed in the name of science. There will be other associated programmes to fill out an evening of deep thinky stuff, but Mosley is the star of the night. In fact stick with BBC4 and watch secret life of the Motorway, or even Human Planet which is on now even as I type. There is no reason you need to punish yourself watching dreck when there are so many wonderful choices out there. Alternatively ITV has the three part Kidnap and Ransom that I'll be reviewing soon as I get back in from a nice walk outside .

Laters all. remember , if you can't watch good telly, then don't watch any at all. Personally, there is a Sushi place near the house I haven't visited in a while and intend to correct that.

Zen and the return of Larkrise

2011-01-11T20:39:00.005Z

Let me tell you what's annoying about BBC One's Zen before I tell you how terrific it is. To explain Zen you need to know it's a detective drama about Italians, the two lead actresses who respectively play Zen's mam and his seriously sexy girlfriend Tania, are Italian or speak with a credible Italian accent, which highlights the absurdity of the fact that all the actors are English, they speak with an English accent, some of them even look English. This wouldn't be a problem if the action took place in Manchester, London or that British hotbed of Italian people ...Cardiff (which often passes for London). However, the fact the sets suspiciously resemble the real Rome and surrounding countryside , complete with signs and Italian extras arguing in Italian, makes these actors, however good they are, stick out like sore thumbs. I suppose it's better than having a load of Londoners putting on embarrassingly bad Italian accents, but it still begs the question of why they couldn't at least get some people who spoke with an Italian accent.

That aside, you really do get sucked in to the story and hope Aurelio Zen and the lovely Tania eventually get to rip each other's clothes off and shag like sailors on shore leave. Given when it plays, we may even get to see some proper skin. Potential sex scenes for youtube aside, the story centers on the relationship of Aurelio Zen (Rufus Sewel) honest to a fault but practical cop and Amedeo Colonna (Ben Collins) corrupt meddling cabinet minister who issues him orders that contradict Zen's sense of propriety. The fact he manages to get the result that both pleases himself and the minister every time is hardly a surprise, as the films would be over pretty quickly if you got Zen demoted to traffic warden in episode one. Each time Zen succeeds he demands a price from the authorities who are appropriately grateful. Prety handy if you want to use that kind of power to woo and keep a new lady as tasty looking as Caterina Murino. But just how long can he keep his sense of honour and morality intact before he has to choose between staying alive and happy or doing the right thing? I suspect the next instalment being the last for now, will tease and entertain us as much as the previous two have.

As detective fiction it's pretty transparent stuff if you pay attention. In the first story the means of entry and egress were fairly clear and enticing as plot devices go. And the use of conveniently handy anonymous scapegoats has served the writers well. In the 2nd story the scapegoat neatly allows all parties to preserve pride and personal security without letting the other side knowing too much of anything harmful. I doubt tho, that this will last long as the building tension and layering of ever increasingly strange conspiracy theory plot lines, must inevitably lead to the clash of wills and principle we've so far avoided. In a system as allegedly corrupt as the one under the microscope here, it's never a good thing to be noticed by the people who really run the show, and eventually all the games will lead to the demise of Aurelio Zen's career and his love life.

The acting by this cast of mostly familiar faces from previous crime drama on the BBC, is as good as it always is, and keeps you glued to the telly despite the fairly large elephant in the room. Add to that the exquisite clothing, incidental music and the style reminiscent of the great Italian films of the late 1960's and early '70s and you have a winning combination. Another way of seeing just how good the acting (most of the time) seems to be, is the way the characters rise above the lush surroundings and pretty furniture all around them. Even the bits that could have descended into caricature, seemed to retain their intended sense of jeopardy.

If all you heard was that there was a casting call and no Italians showed up, don't let that keep you from watching. See the first two on the iPlayer and read about the series here

The far less glamorous or sexy but equally engaging Larkrise to Candleford returned this week. The entire cast short of Laura's father are all back and just as intoxicating. In fact I think it's the actresses who drive this entire programme. Except for Thomas Brown postie and community spiritual guide, the men see to mostly react to what ever it is the women get up to. To be honest, it is about as representative of reality as any other aspect of the programme is. You may have been told that women of the era were powerless weak retiring creatures, but notwithstanding their status in law, they were by and large a fairly proactive bunch. This new series 4 promises to be just as exciting as the last three with the return of Dawn French from debtor's prison. Young Master Alf Arliss will have plenty on his hands what with his presumed wedding to the gormless but hard grafting Minnie. Laura and Daniel continue their road to wedded bliss while Dorcas cannot help but meddle even as she resolves to stop.

Ep 1 of series 4 was a bit weak if you consider that the story of the new blacksmith is somewhat over the top even for Larkrise. Gabriel Cochrane is a troubled soul who seems a bit too unstable even for the period and hardly worthy of sympathy from even the most ardent do gooder. You'll see what I mean when you watch it if you've yet to see it. As for the rest of the plot is more of the familiar stuff that speak to the little life lessons that happened to people then and even now. Young Edmund Timmins falls prey to the temptation of sudden windfall with all the doubt and confusion that occasions. At it's heart , the episode was about how the community will always hold together and give a man the benefit of the doubt and extend all the help they can to those who appear to be most in need.

Will Dorcas find love at long last? Will Alf Arliss be thrown into a current too strong for him and Minnie when his mam comes home? Like any good soap, Larkrise to Candleford will get there eventually. One of the best bits in any episode are the long practised sports of jumping to conclusions, imagining the worst, avoidance of dishonour and the always enjoyable reduction to tears/shock/extreme discomfort of at least one character, with luck , several times an ep. This time it's the turn of Ruby Pratt, yes Ruby is back, but I won't tell you why. As always, a most enjoyable hour spent far from the clutches of murderers ,thieves and baby swappers in modern soap land. Watch and read more here

2011 has been a bit slow to start, but so far the output on ITV has been good enough to not give up all hope for the year being somewhat better than what was dished out over at ITV last year. Downton Abbey was a step in the right direction and a welcome breath of fresh air from the network that made Katie Price. Having said this, the hair styles were a mess, having do's from the late thirties and early 20's in 1913. Seems the hight priced actresses at ITV still haven't taken to historical accuracy for the sake of their art. The Downton Abbey women were largely seen without a single corset in sight, despite the corset not getting the heave ho till about 1923 and the older women will persist for some time longer. Then the small but important plot devices to move the story, are clumsily dropped in on top of a noble house structure that seems rough and crude. But if you enjoy the costumes and the tour of the rooms and furniture, it was a delight to behold. I sincerely hope when it comes back , the string of anachronisms is a thing of the past, as the cast is brilliant and the set so much living canvas, you want more. Next to Upstairs Downstairs, it suffers by comparison, but at least ITV is trying, and it may yet get it right.The numbers prove there is an audience for costume drama and class concious stories. One hopes both networks take note.

Time for me to make supper, see you next time as the frequency of posts gets back to something approaching normal again .

Southern Sudan at long last is one step closer to reality

2011-01-09T13:46:00.004Z

The world as we know it is about to end, in a vote that the Egyptians and the Northern Sudanese and by extension the The United States probably won't like, the sovereign , natural and long deserved country of Southern Sudan will in effect be born in about 7 days. US foreign policy has long held that anything this is bad for Egypt is bad for the USA, consequently the long oppressed and marginalized South had to watch for 25 years plus as Khartoum bombed them and IGGAD, ostensibly a water sharing inter government organisation, talked peace. All the while the United States and Kahrtoum did everything to encourage the continued captor-hostage relationship of the current Sudanese state. Not for the first time or the last time, has a peaceful essentially harmless population in Africa or some other part of the world, been held in thrall by the self interest of the United States or some or other large power.

For those of you reading this wondering why the justification of yet another country, even one as large as France or Germany. It can be resumed in a simple paragraph.... In 1956 two parts of Sudan separated for over 150 years by a border, with no commercial, political or cultural links were thrown together and told to get along. In the short term, the relationship with Khartoum was clarified and hadn't changed much until recently. The North proceeded to insure the sesame crops, sisal and other natural resources did not compete with more expensive Northern goods, and of course the war to arabize, empty and destabilize the region did even more damage. Lets not forget the active slave trade that some say was ongoing until even very recently, in which children were taken North and sold as slaves and sometimes ransomed back to their villages. The discovery of oil a few years ago did not help the situation either, insuring even more political and military interference in the region. This one oil field, the one that will feed the treasury of the new state, continues to be a bone of contention that could yet trigger a war in which the rump State of Sudan will try to grab once and for all the land they have coveted from the day oil was found.

What you may ask is the big deal if the South goes it alone? According to Cairo, the South will claim the waters of the Lower Nile as their own and cut off the Egyptians. It was patently ridiculous when I worked for RASS/SSIM and it is so today. The fact it took so long for this referendum to ever see the light of day is testament to the great weight of pressure brought to bear by successive Republican and Democratic administrations in Washington. When the final IGGAD and Abuja peace proposals were adopted , the intolerably long 6 year cooling off period was forced on the people in the hopes they might be persuaded to relinquish the dream of independence. Looks like after even 6 years, the most one sided referendum in the history of Africa is about to confirm what I knew in 1992. Jenubin will vote in proportions so high the BBC has stated flatly the result cannot be stolen. All freedom loving people will welcome this newest state in the world as a child that should have been born on January 1st 1956. Better late than never I suppose, but it still means I had to attend countless house meetings with the Jenubine diaspora telling them of news from home, almost always about how many died this time, this week , this day.

At one point in Canada, where I worked for RASS ( Relief Association for Southern Sudan), we had apx 4000 Southern Sudanese for several thousand more Northeners who were staying in the country. Those were hard years trying to kept refugees abreast of news from home, organize pro independence , self determination meetings and try to create small relief projects. We were so few,strung out over such a vast territory. It was not helped that we had near monthly visits from the latest RCMP officer charged with the Sudan refugee desk who was without a clue. Our own people, ,Nuer or Equutorian and even the Nuba, were spied on while the spies from the dictatorial rogue regime roamed free to harass and threaten people outside of Sudan. What truly was the most disheartening part of the job was surely the brick wall of officialdom we faced. Not just RASS but the relief wing of the SPLA/SPLM. Repeatedly we were told Canada could do nothing directly, it had to distrubute aid with the knowledge of the North and was working with third parties like Oxfam but could not work with us on the ground, even in areas where the SSIM or SPLA were in control. It was ok for big NGOs to hire freedom fighters in Loki to guide them in , but the likes of Oxfam could never admit that indigenous organizations could get the job done or that we knew what had to be done.

CIDA or the Canadian International Development Agency , always said we can only act bilaterally, and as long as there was no Government of the South for the South to talk to, they had to go through official Northern channels. This of course led to travesties like the Oxfam Canada project to test a Canadian vitamin supplement on Dinka cattle but not feed the herdsmen and their families. We told them that if every cow died in Bhar El Ghazal it would be tragic, but that cows can be replaced, whereas if every Dinka died, it would be the end of that people and culture. They of course proceeded with the cow vitamins which led to the bizzarest of situations, hungry herdsmen with healthy cows, under attack from poachers and Northern soldiers alike..Meanwhile in areas where a shot had not been fired in anger in 10 years, we could not get them to spend a thin dime on fishing equipment. And of course there was the corralling of thousands of people in easy to bomb places so that hard tack biscuits that cost too much could be dropped, but emptied entire villages and regions. Much to the satisfaction of the Northern Government, places where people had been self sufficient and stubbornly holding on, were conveniently cleansed of people. This is a microcosm of the South Sudan problem , where for years the people and the region was treated as little more than an excuse and training ground for religious and international NGOs to cover themselves in glory while people died. In a private meeting we were told point blank at one point by a Oxfam Quebec director.."NGOs die..." . An organisation that spoke for the people, made up of it's people was considered an inconvenience to the big box charities. Mayhap that the new government will be as well. While we worked week in week out to keep the community connected and informed, Amnesty International sent us weekly bags of nasty letters accusing us of being war criminals. It's this kind of blind hypocrasy that saw us strugle for years against the odds.

But now in about a week, all those people who believed in Self Determination, all the Jenubine and their supporters who went to countless , meetings , parties and church services will be able to turn the tables on these people who used the South for their own narrow political and organizational needs. Even John Garang the great believer in federalism, fought a rear guard action within the SPLA/SPLM against Independence, but failed most emphatically. The fact that despite his best efforts, the final round of talks had to include an interim Southern State and a definitive date for a referendum is proof of just how strong the idea and the need for it is. My then boss, Chairman and Commander in Chief Dr. Riek Machar worked hard, never giving up on Self Determination for a second. Our fortnightly or monthly phone meeting with HQ were always refreshing and however difficult the news, we knew that all those of Chairman Riek Machar in Nairobi and inside, were doing what they could with what they had. We were of course not alone in this work, there were those of the Dinka organizations in Ontario and in North Dakota who also beat the drums for the cause. One year when several of the leadership came to Washington for direct talks with the Americans, the Southern Sudanese delegation under severe financial hardship , still managed to make a few points with the big American NGOs. Our London, Frankfurt and Nairobi Offices often talked and faxed in the days before the internet and cheap long distance. It's hard to imagine for those who have skype, msn and e-mail what it was like trying to operate a movement on a shoestring in those days.

I'd like to do a short list of those whom I had the honour of working with, and apologies to those I will omit, as I cannot recall all of your names. When we stayed with you, you were perfect hosts, you made us feel at home and as if we were in the safe hands of family. In my own life I have never before or since felt as accepted as one of the family as when I travelled the length and breadth of Eastern Canada in the cause of the Dinka, Nuer, Equatorian and Nuba of Southern Sudan. First I must mention my immediate superior Paul Odiong, who as a boy, was forced to watch as his own father executed by Northern soldiers, his commitment and hard graft cannot be questioned and his service should not be forgotten. All those of Francis Apollo, Jenaro Lwal Ater, Dr Dominic Funda who stayed with me, Peter Pal Jola and so many others. Then there is the entire leadership of SSIM with whom I had the honour of working and of the course the late lamented Emma who we lost to a car crash in 1993. The Catholic priests from Torit and Loki, The people who we worked with on the dossier of the stranded Southern Sudanese students in Cuba and all the groups of young men living in crowded flats in Ottawa, Toronto, Kitchener and other points, who made us welcome despite their own poverty and overcame their own divisions to become more than people of a single tribe and embraced the Southern Sudanese identity. They rose above petty provincial differences and laid the ground work for the new Government that will stand for all Jenubine. So many have died , gone into exile or suffered cruelly for the cause, but their work should not be forgotten or wasted.

I would be remiss if I did not thank all the wonderful people who know who they are, Marc Lalonde surely by now ex of CIDA, Gerry Barr of the Steelworkers fund, All those of HAPG ( Horn of Africa Policy Group) and the Ed Broadbent Centre. Without whom we could not have done half the work we did. Again there are many more I could have mentioned, but I simply cannot recall al those names after this much time and my records are scattered in many boxes. As Southern Sudan moves into it's newest and hopefully best period, it is important that the new Government remember who it's friends were and who gave them a hard time. Now is not the time to roll over and settle for every offer of assistance proffered by the NGO's and movie stars who's only aim is to justify their existence and popularity. I was particularly offended to see George Clooney on the BBC claiming to be ther to monitor the vote. We don't need pampered actors to monitor things thank you very much, but to every anonymous career aid worker, diplomat and political person who is there to insure a proper and democratic result, a very large thank you.

I wish I could be there myself In Juba , Abwei , Wau , Torit, Kapoeta, Rumbek, Malakal, Yei, Gogrial, all the places I could only ever hope to visit, but never did because .... until now it had been too dangerous and unlike the big Hollywood stars who drop in for a day or a week, I cannot afford to just pick up and go. But I am there, everywhere at least in spirit and wish you all a very peaceful, safe vote that leads to the mother of all birthday parties. If it's like the the evenings we had back in the day, I know the dancing will go on long into the week after the official result is announced.

I like most reasonable people am happy there is a referendum, am confident it will go well and that the political developments in the South are good augers for a healthy polity that will insure long. fair and democratic rule. But I am not blind to the danger signs that even now threaten the security and the stability of the new nation. But if the solid wall of proud Southern Sudanese who are as varied as they are familiar with each other continues in the near unanimity they currently maintain, the future cannot help but be a good one.

Last word for now is a simple call to all people who are friends of Southern Sudan. Please set aside who did what to whom during the dark years of war, If the the parties who will constitute the new State's ruling structures and civil service can get on, so can you. If you wish to donate, give, give generously , but give to the organizations on the ground run by Southern Sudanese, give to the regional and federal governments in Southern Sudan. Let Oxfam and the others who have used Southern Sudan to test experimental vitamins or dictate to locals against their own best interest, find new poster children for poverty elsewhere. The days where patriarchal outsiders determine what's best for locals should be a thing of the past. Always question how the money will be spent and how many locals have been asked how best the job should be done. Assume that any initiative that includes local authorities is not immediately doomed to failure. Southern Sudan will rebuild and find the prosperity and peace it so richly deserved in 1956 but never got. I sincerely hope it becomes a beacon of hope for African governments looking for an example of how it's done.

A useful link to an FAQ on all you could ever want to know about the referendum. A link to the GoSS

Good Luck in the vote, and if any of my now scattered old friends wish to get in touch, just e-mail the blog. Again my sincerest congratulations on a great campaign and an imminent result some of us have been waiting for, for quite some time. It has been in some cases far to long since I spoke to some of you. Take care and we shall surely speak soon.

Boys will be boys or the BBC in winter

2011-01-05T16:48:00.003Z

If there is one theme running through the programming I've watched this Christmas and New Years season, it's Boys will be Boys. Never more than during the long doldrums of December and early January has the telly and particularly the BBC shown that while they still want us to learn something, they have chosen to do so by give us a few lads on the lash, sometimes literally. I don't object to this for a second, as a man I love the idea that I can have fun doing something uplifting, if you're a woman watching this stuff you wonder how come Clare Balding has to be so damn serious all the time. Even when she's serene and happy it's a self satisfied sigh rather than the sheer joy of being alive you get from the lads outings. Even the most introspective of the road trips and lads shows, THE TRIP, was a series of late suppers where two grown men mugged and japed their way through impressions and every conversation I've ever had since I was 12. Frankly I have loved every second of it. I can't wait till I'm famous enough to get paid to take a week off with some mates and "discover" the sights sounds and flavours of wherever.

What made TheTrip so compelling was that it was clear from the outset that both men were using the occasion to have all those talks they normally don't get to have, what with their big schedules. Every massive question in their lives got touched on. Why are we friends, are you really happy in your work, what would you do in your absolutely no holds bar programme, and of course solve the age old dispute, how to do a proper Michael Caine impression. It took my wife a few eps to get into it, but once she understood it was a long conversation between two artists, comedians and actors, it clicked to her that it wasn't just two in between commissions personalities wasting time. Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon are allegedly reviewing restaurants and on the surface are, but what really is happening is the all time best bigger dick contest you'll ever see on telly. If you have the pull and the contacts, try hosting 2 or more comedians, writers, musicians, and sit back and watch. The show you see is the kind of thing that hardly ever gets seen on stage, on screen or on air. A pity really as it's the bare bones of why these people got into show business in the first place. If you ever wondered how something gets written and where some of the best ideas come from, watch this as and when it's repeated.

The next entry in this category of testosterone fuelled one upmanship and three amigosness is Top Gear. Captain Slow, The Hamster and Jezza take a road trip through the Eastern United States then a few days later travel through the Holy Land. The magic of the Top Gear road trips is simple, three best mates have something to prove to each other and the producers. Along the way we get to see a few incredibly childish men bicker over who is in fact the biggest baby, and yet it's far from that simple. These are three genuinely close friends who trust each others enough to let down any pretence or defensive barriers they would hold up to any body else. I could tell you all the cool stuff I learnt about the cars, and I did learn plenty, I could prattle on about the merits of one car over the other , but I won't. But I will tell you that these three truly are, reliable deeply committed friends and don't take to being betrayed at all. Former Stig Ben Collins, probably had no idea what kind of hornets nest of anger he's unleashed with his book. He could have gone on for years collecting a tidy pay, being famous, in a manner of speaking, and collaborating with three of the best friends he could have had ever. Instead, he's jumped ship to FIVE's Fifth Gear, where frankly no one will watch. There will be a new STIG and |Ben Collins won't be allowed near another A list star in this lifetime. Oh but I am rambling on a bit. The highlight of the high jinx during the US road trip show was the burning, shooting , decapitation, peeing on and generally abusing of the former Stig by Clarkson, May and Hammond. Not to worry dear reader, I'm sure there is a new Stig in the works, we even saw the baby Stig in Jerusalem, a purer more loyal one for sure.

That Middle East Special was typical Top Gear, but somehow lacked the punch and danger of the Bolivia or North Pole specials. Still a great bit of fun showing the truth behind the myths of several insecure places and the peaceful nature of whole areas we just assumed were " like the rest of the place". Besides the usual and highly entertaining modifications and course changes, the Middle East special also took careful aim at the more insane "realities" of travelling into Israel from other countries. Not withstanding the actual people of Israel, it would seem the regulations bar you if you've been to "enemy" countries, so they had to avoid the fans they surprisingly ( or not so surprisingly ) have in Syria. If you know how to decode Top Gear road trip films, they will focus on things if they are sufficiently worthy of pointing out. In the case of the great wall of peace Israel is building, Top Gear made damn sure we had time to look at it and wonder why it's ok to do that but not ok in Berlin. Top Gear is not political , but always takes pains to make sure we are aware that when they travel trough an area, they don't just happily pass through and ignore the reality on the ground, especially if that reality is not always the most complimentary to the host country. Unlike some programmes, Top Gear does not wish us to stick our fingers in our ears and sing ting a ling a loo.

David Suchet on the Orient Express, was a trip of a different sort . His voyage from London to Prague was only possible with the reopening of the old European travel corridors closed for decades by war and dictatorship. The trip of a lifetime for Suchet included the chance to drive the train and visit part of the cars you'd normally never get to see. I think he was spared the need to participate in some horrid murder mystery dinner theatre silliness with tourists, but sign autographs for fans was a small price to pay to ride what can only be described as the celebrity a plus plus first class voyage. One day I too will be able to ride this train, but I doubt I'll be able to get the sort of treatment Hercule Poirot received.

While David Suchet was more small boy in awe Oz and Hugh Raise the Bar is more two grown men trying to catch each other out in a quest to get the best drinks for their side of the bar. The sense of cricket fair play in a series of sometimes frankly silly challenges makes this two man pub crawl both informative and mouth watering. The most awe inspire prize had to be the honour of not having to empty the chemical toilet. Despite these games or perhaps because of them, I suspect the small breweries and speciality stops will have a much appreciated bump in sales and appreciation they had hither too only dreamed off. It's nice to see Oz when he looses so gracefully and reacts more annoyed than gutted reminds of a big brother who feels he has to at least try to seem like he's lost something fairly important to the buzzing fly that is Hugh. Best bit is the seemingly endless stream of strange recipes designed to cure hangovers or prove you are a man. I personally would love to have the special brew mead and the Northernmost wine in England seem like lovely easy to resupply tipple. If you've been watching both this and Three men go to Scotland, you'll know there may have been a race to visit the most isolated pub in Britain. I suspect the note from the three men is funnier than the fact I told you who got there first. The consolation however is that Hugh and Oz go to the smallest pub in the world at least, run by a slightly barmy priest if I recall correctly, it was worth the visit.

Three men go to Scotland starring best mates Griff Rhys-Jones (master sailor), Rory McGrath ( whiskey expert) and Dara O Briain really smart man with a freakishly large head. During their trek to do a backwards Johnson, visit of the Hebrides, and spend a lot of time doing feats of strength and trying not to be too much trouble to sea captains. Highlights include the humiliation of a young Scotsman in a row boat race, Rory getting quiet adept at popping open whiskey kegs and Dara staying well clear of trouble. Drink, sailing , caber tossing and outdoor survival with three funny best mates proved yet again an irresistible combination. This formula works because unlike most of us who only now ever just walk up the street with our mates, these lads ( grown men) set of on an adventure and do the sorts of things we always wanted to do but couldn't as our children, wives, sedentary mates are too soft, to easily scared or just more interested in staying in and watching more telly or playing a video game. I don't know what sorts of adventures women dream of, but I'm sure if a series were put together where three ladies with time on their hands was made, it would be equally good to people with purses.

Not forgetting the always versatile Dara, he next turns up in three nights of astronomy. Stargazing live, which continues tonight. Let me say right from the top that a framed photo of Sir Patrick Moore somehow does not seem enough when you assemble the best minds in Astronomy currently working in the field. That said, "sexy" Proff. Cox ( that's my wife talking there) and the hitherto unknown, smart Dara O Briain, are a brilliant hosting combo from the first night. What struck me as funny was realizing that after 60 years of science on the BBC, we are full circle and have returned to paper mache models on stick and Dara's freakishly large head standing in for Earth. And you knew it was LIVE didn't you? Several brilliant moments of stumbling on words followed by cloudy skies and last night the poor sod stood outside missing a meteorite falling when he had his back turned. Not sure if If share the faith the strange man had for noises from the Sun. Like all things and movements, there are reactions, and disturbances in the matter around the moving matter, but to say that there is a noise in space is bollocks. Jonathan Woss stands in for all the divs out there who are too thick or too easily distracted. During his segments Wossy helps fill a few minutes while real science is tested and checked before they go live on air. Liz Bonnin, the only girl on the show as far as I can tell, reminds me of our weather lass on Look North Newcastle, always up for a trek onto a cold mountain or the lip of a volcano she'll even brave mixing with a bunch of geeks with hand assembled telescopes. That I knew about the apparently rare and seldom mentioned double quasar must mean I'm more of a geek than I thought, but that's a good thing I think. Proff Brian Cox had a few made for youtube moments, when he was given the chance to flog his own upcoming specials , he had the good taste to seem mildly embarrassed, how very English of him. Then he sits down to explain the rotation of planets and gravity.... by resorting to the highly scientific mancentric salt shakers and sugar bowls approach of explaining the off side rule, when it was still possible to explain the off side rule. THe segment on sci fi films and the later bit where we discussed using the gravitational pull pull of planets had me among thosands thinking...Captain Kirk did that in...Hope the Gallifreyans make the broadcast tonight. I am LOVING IT. Stargazing live is the sort of geek fest in primetime the BBC should be applauded for. More please, don't stop now.

A break now to list the canny bits of telly we should all have watched.... Qi Xl where HarryPotter is decapitated, Hercule Poirot in the dark but well made Murder on the Orient Express, Countryfile winter special, John Sargeant's Railway journeys, Upstairs Downstairs, Down town Abbey, Doctor Who Crimbo special, and.....

Eric and Ernie and all things Morcambe and Wise, was a tasty treat for any comedy fan over the age of 30. I grew up on these two and other comedians of their ilk, nice to know they had the force of nature called Saide "Ernest Wiseman's Mum" working for them. Yet another Jew who made the world laugh and in so doing, made the world a better place to be. The big lesson of course was twofold, Northern humour is just fine, and trust your material if it got you as far as it had that they wanted you on telly. Watching back some of the things like the 1977 Christmas special was a bit of a time capsule, and the jokes while of the distinctly old fashioned variety, were still funny. It's the light hearted sarcasm and fatalism my family has engaged in since I was sperm and perfectly normal to me. The even better, less filtered stuff that made Morcambe and Wise so Northern is the very soul of ethnic, Polish, Jewish, Irish etc... humour. It let's you know that no one, no matter how high born or skilled or handicapped, is free of the scrutiny only friends and family can give you.

Would have had this up sooner but had to stop to watch the Ashes live. To those of you who think it's dull and watching paint dry is more fun, I'll never convince you, for the rest of you, Collingwood has lost his touch, Alistair Cook and Bell excelled and Prior is hopefully going the same way. Shameful the way they tried to cheat Cook early in his batting, as for Bell's not out, I'll stick to the final call being correct. Some of the sporting spirit seems a bit in short supply on the Oz team but the fans of both sides embraced the pink theme for a good cause. A few more nights of little or no sleep and barring a disaster, we will have won the series.

Did I miss anything else????? Hogmanay was mostly watching films off the iPlayer and taking chances on things I'd missed first time around.... In fact in Crooked House, the BBC's deserved flavour of the year Mark Gatiss, fronts this scary trio of stories that made my wife want to crawl under her duvet and may have reduced her to a shivering ball of jello, I am by marital obligation and being honourable, barred from revealing more. If you like a good scary story, catch this one before it goes boo off the iPlayer.

Things back to normal service now, I'm feeling much better and the The TV Guide even has decent offering from ITV, so take care what you watch , but there is plenty out there. Laters all, time to put some more funny stuff on while I help my wife bake. ( we are down to our last crust of bread )

Is it over yet? Ah Good Morning or Hello or whatever it's 2011

2011-01-01T17:19:00.004Z

Yes more Whiskey please.... Drink, Feck, Arse!

Time for some resolutions, this year I will not say Glake, mong or eedjit..... unless of course I'm provoked.

I will avoid temptation and not watch anything with Katie Price, James Corden or Amanda Holden.... As I already do that and it's good common sense it's hardly a resolution....

I will drop a few pounds ... by buying some shit I don't need on the internet...

Lastly and most importantly... I will not allow myself to be broken hearted by a football team this year. We'll see how long that one lasts.

I include this bit, as the response is worthy of reprinting elsewhere. To explain if you've just stumbled on this. In my year end review I and apparently several other reviews, ripped Gilles and Sue take the Piss a new arsehole, Yer Kieth Telly Topping pointed out that maybe we were being too sensitive. What follows is my response.

On a less flippant note... the conceit of the good life may in fact be a huge conceit on the part of some. In fact I can point the fickle finger of falseness at many I personally know, but the reason I may be somewhat sensitive to this is that We as a family have taken a concious decision some 5 years ago to stop the waste and cut out as much of the so called necessities people seem to have got addicted to. Our kitchen is prety much gadget free, only a few plug in, and as and when we get a garden space even a quarter as small as on the Good Life, we're planting our own veg at least part of the time. As I mention in my last thing, cutting oneself off from the world like some Amish ( I can insult the Amish as they can't see this and won't send a letter to ofcom) is stupid, Cromagnan man survived by trade while Neanderthals died out cold and alone in caves near Gib. Adapt and change I agree , but the need to recognize that we have gone too far in some regards needs to be respected. Far too many people I know think the automatic dish washer is a right and that all veg comes flash frozen & precut in a zapable bag. These people don't even cook. We don't need four wheel drive tanks to go from home to the mall and back, our larders are empty of great foods we used to eat just a 40 or 50 years ago. That's why I got excited. Plus Sue seemed to just give up a lot far too early so she can dig in her bag of jokes. Oh My I've become a Presbyterian do gooder Well maybe not a bad thing all the time. Ian Hislop proved that these people were a good counter weight to the absolute excess and abandon of the people on the opposite side of the house.

Speaking of compost and veg and horrid people.... Did anybody watch the Nigel Slater bio pic Toast? I never thought Helena Bonham Carter could be that ....common. Thank G-d my gran never cooked by boiling tins in a pot is all I'll say. If she had, I might have grown up gay and resentful. Here EAT the Lemon meringue pie you Bitch! MY ROAST SUCKLING PIG is better than yours! And the Harlequin romance moment when he kissed the guy in the apple orchard was too much. As my wife said, the actual event must have been far too painfully embarrassing to recount. PRESS HERE FOR APOLOGY if it really happened that way. (To all and sundry in general, generally speaking, I generally apologise for my less than stellar behaviour. There have been reasons, but then again everyone has them...generally. My light and general drivel should in no way be interpreted as a lack of remorse on my part. Sorry - truly I am. )

My head head hurts and I'm tired ......

Apparently my spell check thinks arsehole isn't a word, so I asked it to tell me how I SHOULD spell it. Seems it's spelled Arsenal.

I suppose now is as good a time and excuse to have another cookery related post. I hear you saying Mietek just what do I need for a complete pantry ? How can I get past the salt and pepper and bacon simili? A good question and one that deserves an honest answer.

The short version is that you need as many spices and liquids as you can lay hands on to make Thai, Chinese, Asian, general Northern European fare and Italian. Here's a nice simple list, if you have what it takes to make a Garam Masala at home, you have a pretty good spice rack. Everything else should be dictated by your own cultural peculiarities. Being Polish, we have a thing for honey, vanilla, saffron, allspice and nutmeg. You'll need several cooking and drinking wines, spirits, vinegars and things like fish sauce or sesame oil. Also dried things like wild mushrooms and the lovely Chinese ones. Other stuff you need to get cooking are replacements for butter when doing kosher or halal . Chief among them are Ghee and of course Crisco. When baking or doing puddings, don't be afraid of the fruits and nuts and earthy spices. Get honey, almonds, walnuts and assorted raisins, prunes and figs.

Ask yourself where your family comes from, and if the answer is not reflected in the food you eat today, get busy rediscovering your culinary roots. Do you live in Cornwall or Northumbria? Try some regional dishes, there's a reason they became popular where you live, I can assure you they are all wonderful and at least as interesting as whatever deeply foreign food you have been eating because its cool. The tragedy that local foods have disappeared almost entirely in some places is down to people being afraid of eating something gross or boring. Try something fresh from the market instead of the big box frozen place, you'll be surprised at just good it's supposed to taste.

And listen up you modern vegetarians who have taken up the cause but aren't Buddhist or something, try some fresh locally sourced meat that was properly butchered. It's lovely, it tastes great, it's rich in flavours and will blow you away. The rest of you, try mutton, veal, goat or rabbit. All meats that used to have huge favour in the population. They haven't stopped being good, you just don't know how to cook it anymore. Ask your Nan, read a recipe book, ask the butcher at the farmer's market. Too good to eat offal? try some tripe, it won't kill you.

Then there's seafood we don't touch because we're too good for that sort of thing. The UK is full of shellfish, regular fish and other sea sourced edibles that are routinely send en masse shipped to Spain and France.The limited palette of the average person compared to the bad old days of boiled everything and all, makes the provincial ancestor look like a connoisseur of fine foods. Stop codling yourself and your children and try something gross and icky for a change, like maybe strong or runny cheeses, St Aubin, Charles the 7th, Limberger. Real Cheddar, the strong stuff , not the cheese product wrapped in plastic.Take the £20 you were going to waste on crisps chocies and other assorted things and just this once go to the cheese shop, walk past the bouzouki player and ask the man proudly for some Wensleydale, Red Leicester or Caboc, he may even be able to suggest some other things that go with it.

Then of course you have your drinks section, beer is canny to cook with and even bake with, try a variety, buy some scrumpy, and do try the fruit syrups in water, it's tens times better than any cheap soda you'll find in market. All of these things can be found in ethnic shops and proper markets.

Did I mention baking? Make your own bread, biscuits and cakes, it's not all easy , but it's hardly as difficult as you think it is. I suspect every library worthy of the name, has a baking section with any number of recipes that will start you off on a long life of filling your home with the smell of hot fresh bread. Too busy you say? Not too busy to take 5 or ten minutes at a time spread over two hours to make a loaf or three. You still have time for facebook, telly, a walk. Enough with the excuses, just try it, you'll see how you can suddenly live without the video games or zoning out on rubbish telly designed for the lowest common denominator.

If you only do one thing this year, open your kitchen and your mouth to the world of flavours you may have been missing out on. Your taste buds will thank you and your children will stop being fussy. 90 % of all allergies and food conditions are bollocks, they are just an excuse and crutch used by lazy people to avoid eating anything they find odd, a modern form of hypochondria. For example a lactose intolerant Chinese person is normal, as milk and cheeses in particular are foreign to their diet, a Southern Hindu who hasn't eaten meat of any kind in several centuries understandably has a hard time with beef, but a European who claims peanut, milk and gluten allergies when we have eaten these foods since before Roman times, is complete insanity. Stop making excuses and start eating already, you'll wonder why you didn't do it sooner.

And on that note, I'm off to finish the the cheese and meatballs we didn't eat last night. Slange , bonne apetit, na zdrowie, enjoy the day off and maybe tomorrow you cook, yes?

2010 nearly done 2011 nearly here

2010-12-30T22:41:00.002Z

Allow me a moment of sentimentality and introspection. It's been very nearly a year since I first took my long private posts and made them into a public blog. To be honest I wonder what kept me from going public far earlier, could have been the dodgy comp or perhaps the fact I was all over the place with other commitments... but it has been nice knowing that since the blog launched in May, it has got itself a respectable following and that it does indeed seem to wrap itself around the world. Special thanks to the lads and occasional lasses at Galibase, that really big fan in Edinburgh who seems to visit at least once or twice a day, all the people who come direct but whom I know not the names. Thank you all for reading, and I think I should be flattered that at least some you think it's worth coming on here to nick my pics for yourselves.When you do, just remember to occasionally tell people where you found them, that would suit me down to my toes. Apologies to those who googled widdicomb london is it really haunted or Masterchef USA final among the less bizarre search terms I've seen. If you've landed here by mistake, feel free to read, and if you're looking for Ivica Slavikova, yes I have THAT picture. I hope you enjoyed your stay here, but we don't comment on US telly much and the only Widdicombe we know about was a high pitched noise in our collective ears till the great unwashed saw sense and booted her off Strictly.

Speaking of annoying noises in 2010, my number one annoying sound this year or even this decade past, had to be the mind numbingly annoying Vuvuzela. At one point some child had got hold of one and was blowing into it in the car park of the blocks of flats across the street. Should have seen him run when we came out and one of us almost caught him. Haven't heard it since then. The other annoying noise from around that time I'll not soon forget was the sound of England collapsing on the football pitch yet again. I've reconciled myself to never seeing us win the World Cup in my lifetime. It's a good strategy as it worked when I gave up on a free Poland and the fall of communism in Central Europe. Maybe if I pretend I don't care about an England win till after Sepp Blater falls down a sewer, it may just happen. Oh, I could even pretend Mike Ashley is a cucumber and that Joey Barton is a finishing school graduate, and pigs fly and that this time that e-mail from Nigeria will be for real. Having the simple optimism and faith of a house cat does work, as occasionally the desired tin of fish or new toy does come around and you might even get a pleasant surprise when you least expect it.

It's not all doom and gloom. Newcastle United bounced back and have settled firmly into the mid table trap, several teams are much worse than we are and the TOON are playing that kind of heart attack footie where they beat Arsenal one week then go down in flames to Stoke the next. Joey Barton still gets yellow cards and we all still hate the owner and the board. Nowt new cept for the manager of the month. Enjoy the ride Mr Pardew, I give you till next May tops, then it's time for the next mate of Lambias to have a go at running the Mags. The government is a coalition that seems to be dissolving with every secret recording and leak. Senior Lib Dems are suddenly looking for the get out of town clause and the previously bleak prospects for Labour and the Miliband I didn't support, are sooo much ( pardon the pun) rosier. We could if we're lucky, see the end of Son of Thatcherstein before they get too stuck in and uproot all the stuff they missed first go round. Fingers crossed people. If the smell of tear gas and the sound of breaking glass was getting too familiar again, if the dulcet tones of the odious Jeremy Hunt who suckled at the teet of the White Witch of Narnia do not fill you with confidence, peace may be just around the corner. Then again Labour austerity may not be much better, but one hopes it will at least be harder on the bankers and the tax cheats who started the mess in the first place. Another bit of good news saw the collapse of the BNP and the identifying of the EDL as a source of trouble that needs sorting before it all gets out of hand. I'd much sooner spend the money on security for a Royal Wedding than see it all go to stopping hateful yobs intent on causing trouble in the name of the fictional pure Briton. This Briton was last seen when Boudica died or maybe when the Normans finally got settled in. Since then it's been a buffet of people from every corner of the world who have contributed equally to the good and the great (and sometimes the bad) to come from Great Britain. Jews, Catholics, Muslims, Poles, Irish, Romans, Normans, Arabs, Italians, Blacks, Asians, Vikings, and Germans etc... have come, stayed and brought ideas giving the world the steam engine, trains, social reform, industry, the NHS, football and fruit cake.

The greatest gift created in 1922, is however the BBC. This year we saw the 47th birthday of the brilliant Doctor Who, the continued success of Qi, Mock the week, BBC4 and it's arsenal of arts, science and history programmes that populate 80 % of the English speaking world's speciality channels, and several foreign language stations that have translated the prodigious output for the edification of their viewers. The iPlayer has come into it's own. I find myself using the VCR/DVR wotsit much less and appreciate the comfort of just watching what I want, when I want. So what gems have the BBC given us this past year? A few deserve special mention.

Mongrels brought back the sense that comedy had been missing for some time. Till then the best we could hope for was a few admittedly great panel shows and the seemingly endless stand up comedians and comediennes. The Sketch programmes have apparently gotten stuck in a rut where you could draw a direct line from the Armstrong and Miller two Types speaking "disreputable youth" to it's origins in the Python "Banter sketches". While I have no criticism of hommages and evolution, it sometimes was more a case of unfunny copying that was getting tired. What Mongrels did was wrap jokes in several layers and bring back the song and dance routine. It still can't do middle class or Upper class, but it least it wasn't afraid to step outside of the PC boundaries many comics had let themselves fall into.

Armstrong and Miller, have given us new and fresh characters the two best pairing being the posh old vampires and the not Hairy Bikers. Having got the fresh material in it's once again pushing boundaries and tackling more than the charv youth perspective.

The Bubble. What I thought was going to be complete and utter faeces, turned out to be one of the best things on telly for it's short run. A panel show predicated on the idea that three people would be isolated for a week, then fed fake headlines by a man who seems to have missed out on girls, sport and pop music,... you know, David Mitchell. In other words the average Sky news viewer , Sun reader, ipod addicted glake.

In cookery, Masterchef and the utterly brilliant Raymond Blanc and the understated but God like Nigel Slater made us drool all the way into our kitchens and aspire far more than the ludicrous Miss Dahl or Nigella ever did. We need to eat to live, we may as well eat well too. These chefs take us by the scruff of the neck and force us to look at old tried and tested methods and regional recipes and ingredients we have apparently fallen out of love with. I for one never did, but some of you haven't eaten tripe in years or beets or even mutton. Check out the recipes section, it has a few canny links guaranteed to keep you in calories for the next 100 years.

Which moves us nicely to the sometimes flawed but well intentioned Turn Back time , the high street. Gregg Wallace and his chamber of commerce guided a likely group of merchants through the eras when the High Street still meant something. I hope the show was the kind of kick start some needed to go back to the butcher and the baker. The upshot of the whole thing was that given the choice, most people will always choose cheaper over quality, but enough people do care to seek the previous norm and know where their food comes from. It's these people who are raising children who won't be vegans because they don't want to hurt bloody Bambi. It's these people who will raise a generation of healthy children who know where their food comes from and how they are connected to it. And of course there is no reason why we can't buy British and pay less than the dreck from China costs us. If you can't shop locally shop European, if you cant shop European shop sustainable and safe. As for the straw men of Peta and the World Wildlife Federation, seals aren't all cute, they eat fish and kill the livelihood of fishermen be they Inuit or European stock living in Atlantic Canada. If you really care, stop the Spanish and Portuguese and the Icelandic fleets from stripping the resources bare. I've about had it with the bleeding hearts at Peta and all, We cannot afford to pretend we are somehow immune from the laws of nature and can divorce ourselves from the food chain entirely. What's the harm you ask? Seals and foxes and squirrels and rabbits run amok. Squeezing the natural balance that used to exists to the breaking point. Man and nature have had a hard relationship. Sometimes we've taken it for granted stripping the planet till the resource was gone, then swinging the other way where we go all saintly and ascetic forgoing all fleshly needs. Where man and beast have worked together we have got on well and the balance has been preserved. Left to the devices of the veggies who think we can all just stop and it's great we will come to as much harm as when we follow the lead of those who think we can continue being wasteful and acquisitive as we are now.

And who better than the BBC to tell us how it used to be and why old isn't always bad or outmoded. Edwardian Farm has been entertaining and instructive in a way a dry proff telling us the theory of life on a farm isn't . Ruth Goodman and her merry band of enthusiasts have regaled us with this sort of thing going back to Victorian Farm and other programmes of the sort. What comes out of these programmes and the previously mentioned High Street, is that much of the old ways were only let go of in the 1950's and could be easily re-learnt. The ultra comfort plugged in easy peasy world of the flying car and the super suburb has come and gone and we have growing trends showing we are abandoning the most wasteful of these gifts from the post war, world dreamers. Not content to show us recent history, the BBC gave us a bumper crop in Norman week, Blitz week and the entire Georgian-Victorian reform histories from the navy to the civil service through to the do gooders with Ian Hislop.

What was the all time best ever thing this year on the BBC, nay on telly anywhere??? Luther? The Chilean Miners on BBC news? Doctor Who? Top Gear Bolivia Special? All great but you'd be nowhere near the best ever programme. Give up? The final series of Ashes to Ashes. The all time best ever pay off for a television series and as it's sci fi fantasy, the best ever ending of a cult classic I've yet to see. The respect shown for the viewers and the cast was immense, the drama and logic that kept you on the knife's edge right till the end was spectacular. They then went and made you cry ! The bastards!!!! Not sure what hurt more, the murder of an innocent Quatro or the continued sad job our Gene Hunt had to go back to? Where Lost went wrong, Ashes was a master class in telly writing. Second place has to be a highly respectful standing ovation to the makers of Sherlock, who took a time honoured story and respectfully brought it into 2010 without ever once compromising on who our Sherlock Holmes is. Fall 2011 we're told it's back with three new films. Make sure you don't miss them.

And only because of the exalted level of excellentness of the previous two, the also rans are in any other years massive winners. In no particular order, we have Doctor Who that this year saw the full taking of control of the lord Thy God Mr Moffat and the wonderful Mr Smith and equally beloved or hated "Our Amy" or "the Time Tart" Karen Gillan and her husband. Under Moffat, DW has recovered the magic and humour that was lost in the dark and somewhat revisionist RTD days. The Time Lords are back, Smith is as manic as Throughton or Tom Baker and the old morality of the pre cancellation Whoverse is stronger than ever. The other winner of great achievement above and beyond the call of Top Gear has got to be Captain Slow. James May with his Toy Stories and Man Lab, scored huge points and separated himself from his three amigos with special limited runs that gave our inner little boys a day out and reminded us that while some real men eat quiche, we are all still men and we forget it our own peril. He gave us comedy, information and a feeling that it's ok to be the complete man or boy. Toy Stories was on another level an eye opener to young and older alike. We got to see what was cool when daddy was a boy and that maybe just maybe , the x box isn't the only toy anymore. Along with the series Games Britannia , we learned that games and toys are not just time wasters but teachers, companions and soothsayers. Interestingly, Meccano has moved it's production back to France from China, aside from the fear of lead, surely James May has to share in the responsibility of this happening. Danger concious parents and children now increasingly trying Meccano and other older toys systems are asking the basic questions, are you made near me, are you going to poison me. But most importantly , they are buying those toys again. Well done James May

Not to pretend the sainted BBC can do no wrong.... there were a few mistakes. For every established hit like Outnumbered. Top Gear, Luther or Larkrise to Candleford and the new Upstairs Downstairs. Yes , even the history people get it a bit wrong like with the Kibworth thing or verrrry wrong with At Home with the Georgians hosted by historian Amanda Vickery. This was an abomination worthy of the " If romance novel readers presented history" genre. This woman assumes that we know nothing before the 80's and that nothing worth knowing or doing was invented before 1985. This woman takes great care to find the writer of a journal to walk away in failure having found only a portrait of the man in advanced middle age. In the House of the family, rife with photos and portraits, surely a future or past young male of the house could have stood in for the now old man???? But no she not a proper historian or she would have thought of that yes??? Then there's the dropping in and out of the reverie she does that wanders a bit too much into the idealised fantasy world of Harlequin and books for good girls. It's so annoying you will not last long enough to get to get to the good bits where she reads the excerpts of contemporary journals, some even very salacious and revealing of the feelings both men and women had about romance, security and marriage. Another wasted effort where the professionalism was lacking and the assumption was that most viewers hadn't ever watched any history before and were too stupid to figure out we might, as a society, been house proud long before the 1980's or EVEN the 1950's. Enough to make you want to toss the antique '70's fake leopard print nylon pillow at the telly!

The sitcom division also seemed to lay one stinky rotten egg after another. I could mention them, but then I'd have to dredge up memories of The Pursuisonists, almost anything Amanda Holden , Miss Dahl and a few others touched. I cannot understand how the same network that gave us The Trip, Ideal, Just William and Miranda can get it so wrong so often. Please stop it, I'm sure there are plenty of great ideas out there that aren't being flogged by the same tired old writing teams.The other great disaster was/is Giles and Sue take the piss out of the Good life. If they were looking for two people to make a hash of what is by now a perfectly reasonable choice for millions of people, they got the right hosts. But what a disservice. Matt Baker and the Countryfile folk could have given us just as many smiles and been far more respectful. As it is those who watched learned nothing and continued to think it's hard and the ones who were looking for a clue had to go somewhere else. Such a colossal waste money and talent. But then what do you expect from this pair who think their shit doesn't smell sometimes. If they had added Jimmy Carr, they could have sorted the pretentious little twat and his smug atheism out of our view for at least few weeks.

Don't get me wrong, these same people in small doses on shows like 8 out of 10 cats and Qi can be plenty fun, but when they get a full on attack of full of themselvesness, it's all a bit much. ITV which seems to have forgotten about how to make money AND good programmes, seems to have with some small embarrassing errors regained some of the lost ground with Downton Abbey and Poirot on the Orient Express. Corrie celebrated 50 years, stopped being un watch-able for a few weeks then promptly brought back Tracy Barlow. Some people never learn. No bother, I have C4 and the small list of gems they have allowed to bubble along in the comedy, history , cookery and overseas content like Big Bang Theory. It crowd, The In betweeners, Peep Show and if you have the stomach for it...Frankie Boyles Tramadol Nights. Still haven't seen any real reason to tune in C5 but I might give it a shot soon, heard there was something, ok ... wait, that was K9. On second thought, I don't watch Sarah Jane interferes, so why should I watch this even cheaper pile of droppings.

Oh what a year 2010 was and thank you again to all those of you who read, made comments and let me know through facebook or Galibase what you thought. Remember support your national birthright and don't let the politicians ruin our BBC! And if you must watch that other network, make sure you're watching the good stuff.

Happy New Year and may all your scheduling problems be solvable!

Doctor Who A Christmas Carol or A story of Faith, Hope and Charity

2010-12-26T01:20:00.008Z

Warning, normally I don't give anything away integral to the plot, but this time I'm going to have to drop several huge spoilers to get through this. If you haven't watched this, don't read past this first paragraph .Well thank you very much Steven Moffat, for once The Doctor isn't stopping the utter destruction of London or the enslavement of all Earth by some evil race of slugs bent on forcing us to do the laundry for them. No running along in white BBC corridors screaming as death dealing Sontarans try to exterminate a group of tobacconists in South London for all their Rothman's special filter fags. No, for once we get a sweet story about Christmas for the entire family. Now before you rush off thinking it's a saccharine drizzled exercise in sentimentality, remember This is the Lord Thy God Steven Moffat. The choices are not easy and the Doctor is not infallible. The conclusions are not obvious and you will not be left unmoved by this episode. What you'll like is how the central premise and drama are wrapped in the familiar and comforting imagery of Dickens and the Victorian era. The story however moves quickly to a level that is as interesting as the three ghosts but different. Well acted by Laurence Belcher playing the young Scrooge central character and the always outstanding Micheal Gambon , most famous for having a part of the Top Gear Gear test track named after him and possibly for being Dumbledor, the story unfolds in a setting you will recognize without being too jaded. Dame Katherine Jenkins fills out the cast nicely as the central pivot on which all turns, and she sings an entirely new song written by Who music boffin Murray Gold. Speaking of the music, it was as traditional as you can get and comforting to boot, the entire episode is about Hope, Charity and the milk of Human kindness. A good way to spend an hour and the first Doctor Who Christmas Special worthy of the name in quite some time.

Listen to Murray Gold's song as sung by Dame Katherine Jenkins.

And now if you don't want to have the story ruined, I recommend you look away now till after you've watched this excellent hour of telly.

Still reading? Brilliant, so I bet you noticed the passing resemblance in the opening sequence of the ship crashing to the surface and certain death if Gambon ( Scrooge ) doesn't open the cloud cover screen, to the starship Enterprise command deck . While it was amusing to see Arthur and Karen dressed up in role playing gear for their honeymoon, I must confess to an almost complete inability to make out a word they said. Not only were they essentially relegated to the side lines for most of the ep, but their involvement was a bit forced and hardly raising the jeopardy any more than the 4000 other passengers singing traditional Christmas carols were already doing. Gambon's deliciously nasty Scrooge/Kazran Sardick was biting and cynical without appearing even a bit disingenuous or unreal. The fact he is the epitome of greed is not lost on the Doctor and appeals to his own fascination with the Dickens novella he confesses to being one of his favourite. Matt Smith manically runs around at the beginning rabbiting on about all sorts, at one point saying "Give me time and a crayon" while he tries to figure out what's happening and coming up with a game plan.

It's when the Doctor understands that whatever is bothering Scrooge is in his deep past, that the story really starts. The core question of the ep becomes do you think the Doctor is right in adding memories and experiences to the Scrooge character's life in the hope of changing him and his ways. In the Dickens story, Scrooge is hoyed around by three ghosts from his youth through to the possible future, but never is anything ever added to alter the man who must take the choice to be good on his own. But here our favourite Time Lord is not shy about deciding to give the junior Scrooge the benefit of a better more rounded and less sheltered existence. There are consequences even at the best of times, but clearly the Doctor doesn't try very hard to find out why Abigail has volunteered to be frozen for eternity. But it wouldn't be very Dickensian if the heroine of the piece wasn't deathly ill, choosing to live as long as possible then choosing to live well in the short time she has left. Or to quote The Doctor at the end, "Better a broken heart, than no heart at all".

The reason you watch this one is not to see if the Doctor convinces Karzan to help rescue the crashing ship, it's obvious he'll succeed, no , it's to see the end game of his plan. Will it make things worse, or is he only leading Gambon's character to the same place he was at the beginning of the ep, but by a different route, thus showing that even Time Lords are stifled by what could only be described as fate and destiny. In the end, the Doctor's actions are neither clear or morally justified. If anything, it's the power of love to overcome all and the healing touch of Abigail letting Karzan understand why he resisted Christmas and her for so long. His heart is finally softened not by his near violent encounter with himself, though it helps mightily, but by Abigail telling him it's OK to let her die, she enjoyed her time, happy it was always Christmas Eve with her beloved.

The pay off is seeing Gambon and Jenkins winging their way through the settlement skies pulled by the tame shark one last time. It's a testament to the quality of the story that I wasn't doubled over laughing at the thought of seeing Futurama's retribution inflicting Robot Santa burning small children and pummelling thieves and those who grassed them out in my mind. Ok I did anyway, but only for a second. So did you buy the flying fish? Doctor Who has never been strong on actual theoretical science, but for once it was based on postulated life forms one might find on other planets even within our own solar system. I did however have a hard time buying into the sudden transformation of Clyde from man eating shark to Rudolf the not so killer great white shark. At most, the bit of sonic screwdriver would given the beast a case of indigestion. As a device to add a bit of Crimbo fun it works if you don't think too hard about it, Doctor Who is still after all officially described as a children's programme. By that qualification and the fact it's a Christmas ep on at 6 pm , you can forgive a lot, after all , we accepted a sarcastic mechanical dog for years.

Some of the best scenes worked well because of the very idea of what was happening. When for example the Doctor goes back to a 12 year old Karzan, you know it's a recording, but because it never happened before, it's happening Now and in the past and the old Karzan is flooded by new "old" memories he knows can't be real, and yet they are. The other really touching bit of acting is when Abigail kisses Karzan to let him him know just how she feels and to say good bye when she knows there will likely be no more Christmas Eves ever again. Time travelling love has been done before and this was among some of the best.

Some other outstanding lines from the ep include ... "it's either this, or go to a room and design a new kind of screwdriver. Don't make my mistakes!" , "You know what boys say in the face of danger, don't you? Mummy!", and of course the opening narration by Michael Gambon is very nice when he explains how we are Halfway through the darkness and why we humans have always celebrated that as a way to pat ourselves on the back for having made it. Tell me honestly how you can be left unmoved by "On every world, wherever people are, in the deepest part of the winter, at the exact mid-point, everybody stops and turns and hugs. As if to say, well done. Well done everyone.We're halfway out of the dark." . BTW Did you know Santa's real name is Jeff? I wonder if he's related to the moustachioed Geoff over at Top Gear?

Props wise, other wise known as marketing, we saw plenty of Fezes and bow-ties, because as we all know, Fezes are cool and bow-ties are just as canny. At one point there was even a Tom Baker Scarf moment, so the travel montages were not just filler, but well researched and designed to press buttons in fandom. The other refreshing aspect of the story is the clear decision to carry on from the long standing support of and continued participation of Doctor Who in the BBC Proms series, with operatic music as the style of choice. Murray Gold in the Who Confidential immediately after the ep, reveals the track used in the final cut recorded by Dame Katherine Jenkins was a rough demo that made most finished polished works by current pop stars look like the weak efforts they are. Doctor Who is promoting quality and genuine singing over the screeching of Simon Cowell acolytes who are depending entirely on good looks and self correcting recording tools. Extra tidbit Who fans, Galli Base mate Patrick tells me that in "Doctor Who Decalog 3: Consequences"? Steven Moffat had a story included in that collection of short stories, called "Continuity Errors." Yes, the story had Silvester McCoy's Doctor, but the plot of "A Christmas Carol" was taken wholesale from that tale, and dressed up for Christmas. With sharks.

Will I watch this again? Honestly????? Yes . if only to have the closed captioning for the on ship dialogue and to finally wrap my head around the the idea of time meddling in the very creation of a person's life choices and attitudes. Going as far back as the Daleks, the Doctor has had a hard time wiping out entire species and people if he thinks they can be reformed. The inner do-gooder in this Galifreyan has time and again got in the way of a perfectly justifiable execution or extinction. Tonight's reaction was no different viewed in the context off his long history of seeing the best in even the most vile of creatures and races across space and time.

As one of many bits of telly on offer this Christmas season, the DW Crimbo special succeeded as both a seasonal traditional programme heavily steeped in the music and meaning of the Holiday and as a sci fi story asking the sorts of questions we have come to expect from Doctor Who.

To watch the ep on the iPlayer or to read more about Doctor who

Germany to re-arm, Russia reacts, Poland wishes it were somewhere else

2010-12-22T16:41:00.002Z

A few days ago the BBC announced that Germany was going to re-arm. As a person born to parents who lived through WW2 and Poles to boot, I had that feeling you get when a shadow crosses your path for no apparent reason. My father made a face and whispered "Not again" and my wife got very agitated. While the rest of you sit safe in your homes, in some cases thousands of kilometres away from Germany, those of us who's souls and in some cases current property still reside in Poland along with a lot of relatives, that combination of words makes us have an instinctive knee jerk reaction that says "You what?". Early on about two years ago now, Russia quietly started spending money on arms and rebuilding it's professional standing army. In such a world, it was only a few minutes after this German announcement we were laughing at a joke that goes "If a German Tank and a Russian Tank start moving at the same speed, which one will get to Warsaw first?". Some of you will recall the Top Gear ep where Jezza was road testing a Mecedes S class and the default destination setting on the satnav was Warsaw. This kind of gallows humour reminds us of our history and keeps us on our toes, but is it a fair reaction in December 2010?

And while I still think I shouldn't trust a Russian leader as far as I can spit, I have to suspend my own prejudices when it come to Germans and Germany. Lets review a few historic facts

1- France and Germany were enemies for several centuries and fought several devastating wars.
2- England and France were enemies for several centuries and fought several devastating wars.
3- Holland and Germany were enemies for several centuries and fought several devastating wars.
4- England and Spain were enemies for several centuries and fought several devastating wars.
5- Most recently.....Most Irish Catholics and most Irish Protestants were enemies for several centuries and fought several devastating wars.

And yet all of these nations now consider themselves good friends diplomatically, commercially and culturally. In fact if we were to draw up a list of most dangerous countries in our respective states, we would all lead with Russia, China and various terrorist organisations and rogue states whose sole aim is to destabilise the current peace. I recognize that the person born in 1960, as I was, but in Germany, and their children, are not the same people their predecessors were. These new citizens are on the whole, law abiding, freedom loving, eco aware, open minded, well educated, tolerant people who vote pretty much like most every other Western European living and breathing today. People with whom I would naturally have more affinity with than the modern day Russian who is just waiting for Czar Putin to crown himself and re-establish Greater Russia and wipe the bothersome dissidents out of the way, along with gays, artists, editorialists and satirists. Why should I fear a re militarized Germany? Isn't it time that Germany was fully re integrated into the great circle of Great Nations it used to belong to? It has since WW2 rebuilt itself and and it's economy and rapidly regained it's pre-eminent role in world markets and monetary policy, welcomed it's Jews back, It has made room for the largest group of Turks and other asylum seekers in Europe, it has become the World leader in the fight against green house gasses, it has led Europe in it's support of every Peace initiative going, and has led Europe in establishing norms that will stabilise the Euro and trading relations among member states and other trading partners. Germany was one of the first economies to come out of recession and not harm workers in the way that far right regimes around the world have. If anything, Germany has been a good and loyal member of Nato since 1955 often outstripping other member states in their contributions.

Why wouldn't I sleep well at night knowing that German soldiers were at the ready to defend me and my neighbours from outside aggression? The last time I was nasty to Germans, was about 4 years ago. To my shame, I reacted badly, along with it must be said , the rest of the pub, to a group of Austrians in Lederhosen. It was well into to the evening and most of us had been onto our 4th or 5th pint, being of sound mind and judgement, we started quietly at first making sieg heil noises and pretending we had tiny moustaches, building up to a low murmur they could not have helped hearing. These people just came in wanting a drink and some camaraderie and we were hostile. Otherwise rational men and some women of mixed English, Irish and other assorted Guinness appreciating peoples, allowed drink to cloud our minds and revert to instinctive tribal memory. In the end, they were served and most of us, myself included realized just how stupid we had been, some even went over to talk to them. And that is the point. These people are not the bogey men they used to be.They are more like us than not like us. Germans and Germany should be trusted to be allowed what all other mature allied nations have taken for granted for decades.

As a person of Polish descent, I cannot help but have a reactions long engrained in tribal memory, but as a modern European and open minded person, it is my duty to set aside these feelings when I recognize the irrationality of them. This is not to say that I won't ever give up my bullshit meter and built in alarm that warns me long before the rest of you ever see it, that something dangerous this way comes. That would be irresponsible. But it is in fact this same detection system within me that tells me despite my previous views, these people are my friends and I should trust them.

While I may have reservations about giving up whole sections of sovereignty to the greater European dream, I cannot fault the goal of the dream. It says we are what we are, but we are also Europeans and if we fight each other we will fall into conflict again, if we cooperate, we will rise above the petty squabbles and achieve the unfulfilled historical evolution we were headed towards before WW1 broke out. I would like to think that my children's children will live in a peaceful safe and prosperous Europe, precisely because we have taken the step to finally trust each other. Greece, Romania and other nations with dodgy banking practices have much to learn, but at least the tools to deal with the situation are not tanks and guns and bombs any more. It's only fair to allow Germany to achieve the same level of security Great Britain, France, Italy and others take for granted today.

I much prefer to recall the Germany of Frederick the Great over that of the Mad Adolf Hitler and his immediate predecessor Kaiser Wilhelm the II. Today's Germany is a Right of Centre coalition led by Angela Merkel, a Government that should it loose favour, is more likely to be replaced by left of centre elements than fascists. Her Government and most parties in the Bundestag are strongly opposed to the rise of the extreme right in some parts of it's territories and is aware that the problem of the far right is a greater threat in the old Slavic Central and Eastern Bloc of nations. Even in the Simon pure West, fascist parties are on the rise, surely something we should all fear and fight against. Germany has long ceased to be an implacable enemy or even a niggling problem, they are a full ally and friend we cannot allow to be held back by old prejudices. Great Britain, France and the rest of the European Union recognize that Germany is one of the pillars of a viable modern Europe and one of the few states that has the moral authority to dictate public policy without having to blush every few weeks at the latest antics of its politicians and merchant classes.

The Only place I want to beat up on Germany, is the Football pitch.

Strictly Come Dancing 2010: The Final ...Kara v Pamela V Matt

2010-12-19T10:17:00.004Z

Nice opening number Strictly, after all these years you would think they might have got used to the standard sweeping ballroom dancers we would have been equally happy to see. But instead we got a very slick theatrical set that would have been at home at the Oscars of old. And the boxing theme is of course apt as the last three represented a truly deserving final group of death. Very little separated these contenders and it would take more than a few slick moves to rise above the field.

The judging panel made it quite clear that in their estimation ,the result was going to be untainted by even the smallest hint of scandal, because the absolute best dancers of what could be qualified , the best crop of contestants in years minus Ann Widdicombe, had produced a final three that matched the public vote and consistently the judge's best 4 from day one of Strictly 2010. Part of the success of this series was the continued presence of Dave Archer and hiss BBC house orchestra, these chameleons of music at times had us thinking Michael Buble or Annie Lennox were in the building. The other reason it worked outside of the unfunny Pink Elephant and Anton , was that the 2010 hopefuls were on the whole, current celebrities with a gig to go back to should they be hoyed off in week 4. The previous stink of desperation from people who's careers had long since faded, was missing, even the old who's shagging whom focus seemed to have dissipated almost entirely, despite it being clear that at least two couples, possibly three were at it like bunnies, you know in between practices. If you want to know how Strictly can be fixed to be even better, read my thoughts on the matter, thoughts that by the way are based on having had a neb around the chat rooms and seeing just what full on dance fans think would make for a better and more representative dance competition, without harming the entertainment value or weighing down the format with alleged freezing out the great unwashed.

So what you ask will separate the Phantasmagorical from the merely bloody brilliant? As a certain Meercat would say, Simples, the winners need to charm us into a trance of skill, emotion and make the hardest of skills look like child's play, ART! I am on record as being on Team Kartem for several weeks now, but must admit that despite my own high confidence in Kara's abilities, she could still loose to Pamela Stephenson, how wrong was I?!

And so without further ado the first ratings....

Matt Baker: Samba. In a repeat of a routine attempted recently with far less favourable results, Matt stepped up the energy and concentration and produced a prodigious technical effort of incredible skills. The problem was he and Aliona were like prey and predator, there was no chemistry, no sense they were even having a go for each other as friends, it was all business. So in the end a fine technical display was reduced to a cold demonstration dance. Rating 9

Kara Tointon: Rhumba. reprising the dance that had the nation entranced when they did it the first time, was just as gorgeous and brilliant if not even even better. If anything the personal chemistry was even stronger, I will always reward skill over personality in a competition, but this combination of both was enough to make the sentimental old fool in me equally happy. Same predictable result from Craig, the only one not to give her a 10. What did Kara and Artem ever do to you Craig, we want to know. Rating 10

Pamela Stephenson: Viennese Waltz Redux . Clearly nailed down to the nth degree Pamela and her partner squeezed every last once of joy and artistry they could get from the complex routine, achieving in the end the same result as the last time, including the 40 points. pretty sure it was less flawed than the last time. As always a joy to watch. Rating 10

Show dance next. This is the one that will ultimately see which yeast will rise the best. Len tells us he's looking for the dance to 1-Feel good, 2- have interesting music 3- and be fun and entertaining. Given where this segment goes, a tall order.

Matt Baker: Athletic exercise routine with street dance elements mixed with classic dance bits the end result is a bit shaky and disconnected resulting in a distinct feeling of un-interconnectedness with the universe. A disappointing display that was less dance and more showing off. Rating 8

Kara Tointon: To Queen's Don't stop me now, Kara's routine was difficult with loads of elements, some of which misfired ever so slightly. This however mattered not as her and Artem managed to make the entire routine seem connected from first step to last. A spirited dance that from move to move was fun to watch most of the time. Rating 9

Pamela Stephenson: Dancing to Time of my life, in a routine distinctly different from the younger dancers, it was a compilation of of every dance done during the series. With no apparent missteps but less physically demanding as the other two couples. The dance was a pleasure to watch and that was perhaps the point. A lovely entertaining dance that took us on a ride through several styles and left us with a smile on our faces. Rating 9

Off for some food and to visit the internet for the latest craic.

Wellllllllllll it's and hour later like, and I'm ready to watch Kara and Pamela fight it out in a mud pit for the title of dance champ. What?????? Pamela's gone? Clearly people made their minds up long ago and wouldn't have been moved by that show dance unless Pamela had done it naked and sang I am the very model of a modern major general whilst juggling. So sorry to see her gone, she deserved to be the other last woman standing. Classy exit and she has nothing to be ashamed of.

And so we come to the ultimate dance off where both dancers tackle a style they hadn't had to yet.

Matt Baker: Paso Doble. Pretty damn good, but not brilliant. Precisely there were passages where he moved very little despite the actual need to, his Paso while of a high quality, was not the outstanding performance that would have changed my mind about Kara being the most deserving to win. In the end he was still a great performer who I'm sure has gone on to inspire countless thousands of men or least their wives and girlfriends to sign them up for dance lessons. We should all be half as good as he is. Rating 9

Kara Tointon: Waltz. A dance of love and intimacy. one of the most romantic things you'll ever do with another human. Kara and Artem despite missing a great deal of holds, made it look easy. My father the ex dance champ of 1956 for his Polish Hall, was banging on about the steps and the transitions and I knew she was not just dancing like a woman who is close to her dance partner. A joy to watch, Kartem gave us a master class in what a waltz should look like if you know what you're doing. Without the tricks and kicks that many other dances have, the waltz is about moving around gracefully and rhythmically to the music and looking like a ballet of fabric, arms and feet and heads and hearts. Rating 9

And while the voting continued apace, our challengers for top of the table now go on to their favourite dance from the entire series.

Matt Baker: Waltz. Nice effort, I want to dance like that. If people had been paying attention instead of voting, it might have made the result a tad different? I doubt it. But a wonderful display of skill , musicality and
rhythm. We did indeed have deserving people in the final. Thoroughly enjoyed the dance. Rating 9

Kara Tointon: American Smooth. Quick get a towel, I'm about to gush some more about just how good this woman is. Smooth, admittedly her favourite dance and a risky one at that, you'll remember she injured Artem during practice for this one, one would even say it was a brave choice, where a safer one would have served just as well. In the end this was in fact the best choice, one of her best dances during the series it was also one of the most difficult and fraught with danger to both of them. Either could have slipped, been hurt or tried to take it easy . Doing the American Smooth was designed to get any stray votes that could have been in the balance. The dance itself you ask? It was Kara gold and very possibly slightly better than the last time. Rating 10

What a final, honestly, not in years have I had such a feeling of deep satisfaction at the quality of the dance. This of course left us with about 15 or 20 minutes to kill till they could tally the votes for the last round. Paloma Faith , one of the best singers around and far better than Matt Cardle or One direction or any of the x factor wannabes, sang up a storm while the class of 2010 again minus Ann "Dalek in drag" Widdicombe, danced a brilliantly choreographed routine that blended contestant and amateur dancer so well it was hard to tell who was who at times. then for a few gut wrenching eye averting moments, Widdi was dragged around the floor like a bag of rubbish that showed just how wrong it was to have her "entertain us" for sooo very long. Several of her victims, including Bendy Felecity, out danced her with little effort. Strictly PLEASE listen to Ross Nobel who speaks for all of us who love dance.......NEVER AGAIN , JUST DON'T... If somebody is as patently useless and without a shred of talent, make sure they aren't even asked to make the series. It's not like you hadn't had a clue after 6 weeks of practice did you? You would have great ratings without her and even better ones if the superior levels of dance were allowed to speak for themselves. Those tuning in for the train wrecks would not have been missed and replaced by people who enjoyed a decent turn on the dance floor even it wasn't them doing it.

Congratulations to Kara and Artem who won in a landslide if the turf accountants are to be believed. The absolute best dancer won the Glitterball Trophy. You have to be blind not to know that these two also have a thing going on for some time now and we wish them well in the years to come. I have no doubt that wasn't her last dance ever with Artem and assume that whatever bumps in the road they may encounter in the future, they are genuinely and deeply about as at one with each other as any couple can be.

Till next year and hopefully a new improved format with a new set of equally well chosen dancers. I for one am chuffed to bits it ended as well as it did and only got wrong the sending off of Pamela in the first half of tonight's show. Loads of Crimbo programmes to watch and Doctor Who as well as Top Gear and the continuing quality on BBC4 history and science, use your BBC people or you will loose it.

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to all of you who followed Strictly 2010 with us through the blog.

To watch tonight's shows click here and to go to the Strictly homepage as always.

Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency

2010-12-16T23:10:00.003Z

If you tuned into BBC4 expecting to see an Electric Monk and St-Cedd's College, and perhaps even a horse in a Don's rooms, you would have been disappointed. The Fridge however and the secretary pretending to type are still in. Except for the fact that the entire chain of improbable events that make the hunt for Henry the cat in the book an un-closable read, you still have in essence, Dirk Gently a surrealistic being living in what appears to be a universe of his own making. He believes in the interconnectedness of all things and that by following the clues however improbable, he would find the truth.....Sherlock Holmes on acid. And yet.... this is the same Dirk Douglas Adams created in his 1987 book.

I appreciate the BBC could not possibly recreate the barren bizarre world of the Electric Monk any more than they could possibly spend 20 minutes or more wandering around Cambridge or Oxford, they simply didn't have the budget. Despite this, Steven Mangan who plays Dirk and Darren Boyd who plays Richard McDuff manage to convey the insanity that is Dirk Gently. If you've never read the books, and I strongly recommend you do, you won't have a clue as to why the fridge is funny or why Dirk and his land lady are in a state of protracted war over the fridge, but you will get the sense that despite all you see, Dirk is in fact the only one who's got it right. Then again if you don't get Schroedinger's cat, the entire concept may just go over your head.

What I liked about the hour is the way the story was strung together in the most logical and sequential way possible, without loosing any of the comedic timing and irony of the gags as they are dropped on you one after the other. Did I mention it's a comedy? BBC 4 seems to think it's a crime drama, where they got that idea I haven't a clue , but we'll let that pass. The other character that is omnipresent in this story is Dirk's car. The Doctor has his TARDIS, Gene Hunt has his Quatro and Gently, welll Gently has his Austin Leyland Brown Princess. A car as dodgy looking as he is and probably just as prone to functioning in the way we recognize the word function about as often as Dirk is to be rational.

This appears to be a one off, which is sad, as there could have been a lot more. I will have to re-read the books to enjoy the full insanity and timey wimey aspects of Douglas Adam's last work. I think I would have made a great Electric Monk, pity they didn't ask me. If however there will more stories in the future, I would love to see some of the more fantastic elements included this time. The Dodo bird and Valhalla would be nice see as well as the now lost opportunity to have had Gordon Way's ghost trying to make call on his mobile on the side of the M1. I suspect the biggest problem came when they asked themselves the big question; How do you describe the un describable? How do you trim down the effects budget without stripping out the core of Dirk Gently's world? This programme is the answer, not an entirely satisfactory one for the fan who was looking forward to some "Pretty amazing shit" as Zaphod Beeblebrox would have said. For a one hour, low budget, compressed retelling with only the one truly sci fi element in it , it still worked as a taste of what you will expect, if you read the books. If you won't be, which is a really a pity, you will have at least got the essence of the man and his methods. Holistic chaos and the interconnectedness of all things.

I hope there's more to come, but if not, well done as a bit of stand alone comedy.

For full cast details and to watch the programme

Entertain, Inform, Educate, Exterminate: 60 years of science on TV

2010-12-16T15:38:00.011Z

Robert Webb narrates Mad and Bad: 60 Years of Science on TV with a combination of reverence and pith that only a true fan looking on at a valued but odd member of his family can. It was 90 minutes of the kind of television you rarely see these days. A trip down memory lane that pressed so many buttons for me that It was all I could do to keep my trap shut lest I miss the absolutely delicious sarcasm drizzled liberally throughout the programme.

I would disagree violently with only one assertion, "Doctor Who ran out of steam ... so was cancelled". I Know there may be a few people at the corporation who still feel the need to defend the reprehensible stifling of our Doctor for 16 years, and I smell the not so subtle hand of the editor upstairs. But it seems they couldn't change the comment of one person who said it as it is, Doctor Who was taken away from us, and we never lost interest. There that feels better. Just out of curiosity, how many of you watching last night wanted to chuck something at the telly when you heard that?

As retrospectives go, this omnibus, as near as complete history, ran us through the early nerdtastic formats of early science as the saviour of humanity, past the scary death from outer space to the wow bang weird science of the World of Tomorrow and it's successor programmes. The list of of academics who impacted my life so deeply is too long to list here , but if you watch the film, you'll see most of them. Jacob Bronowski, James Burke, David Attenborough and of course the grand master Sir Patrick Moore. All these men shaped the curiosity, critical thinking and love of science that has never left me. No I did not become a physicist or an astronomer, I did not yearn to fly in space, but I never lost the deep and abiding interest in how things work. From childhood to adult I have been well served by the network that can boast, but does not, the fact that even today, well over 80 % of all English language, science, nature and other assorted deep thinky things on telly around the world are made by the BBC. Furthermore, these same programmes, including some that are over 40 years old, have been translated into more languages than you can shake a stick at. This of course assumes that you can shake a stick at a language and that the language itself is somehow moved by this gesture. Isn't communication fun?

Some of the best Whiz bang shows never once came close to predicting the future, let alone MY future. If anything the shiny tech based world they envisioned never came because the microchip changed the shape and the way things are done. We still use petrol based cars and no one wants to live in the city of the future, in fact the city of the future is the village we saw in The Good Life with bendy Felicity. Which is not to say that the science of BBC's Horizon did not foresee it. Interestingly enough, the people who did get it right the most were the Sci fi writers. Douglas Adams and his Hitch Hikers Guide to the Universe and it's friendly cover advising us DON'T PANIC, is the laptop with a sense of humour I curse, love. loathe and cannot live without now. I'm still waiting for the transporter beam and the sonic screwdriver, but pretty much they got it right. We don't really live any differently now than we did in 1960, except that we have more channels ( most of which are shite), we still eat the food of our parents and grand parents, we recycle, we have started going back to pre 1950's simpler low tech gadgets and we still deliver death and mercy in the same old fashioned non nuclear ways on the battle field. And yet even in this, we have science to thank for steering us clear of folly time and again.

What I love about British Science fiction is the very large tongue in the exaggerated cheek that co exists with the doom and gloom of Blake 7 ( I don't care if it was made on 50p and looked ticky tacky), Survivors or the apparently 3 different versions of Day of the Triffids. No other culture has given us Red Dwarf on the one hand and the multitudinous destructions of London by Daleks, viruses and the nuclear menace. That last one was a comedy starring the brilliant Spike Milligan ( The Bed Sitting Room ). As a Trekie and a Doctor Who fan, if forced to choose, if forced to pick only one of those epic cultural icons that have changed the very way I speak and think, I'd have no choice but to support the Mother of all modern Science Fiction drama adventure.....Doctor Who. Bot have had monsters so flimsy and un scary, as to laugh, both have been moralist at times, But only Doctor Who has a smart ass, oddly dressed, egghead nutter as the hero. Also not without merit is the simple fact that of the two programmes, Doctor Who has most of the time supplied me with a bevy of beautiful companions that has allowed me and my mates to make endless lists of which actress/companion is the fittest and which I would, given the chance ( which of course is slim to none) sleep with. The lovely thing about our Sci Fi is how it still works regardless of how silly the props are or primitive the effects. Unlike a certain continent to the west, Brit Sci Fi is less concerned with the minutia of engineering and real fake science and allows for the occasional touch of magic to prevail, witness Big Bang 2 in The Pandorica Opens, or the sheer insanity of Red Dwarf.

We can have a fractal on the wall

The world has the Labour Party and the BBC to thank for scientists looking like the mandolin player from Lindisfarne telling us about quantum physics on a black board aided by the occasional animation and cut out. They assumed some subjects would be hard to grasp the first time and that we would persevere. That same spirit continued in fascinating programmes like Connections that challenged our imaginations and minds to not only understand but reach past the information on offer. The modern crop of attractive, still ever so slightly barking mad scientists proudly displaying their inner 8 year old on the BBC are worthy successors to the long line of people who first tried teaching us how the world worked and why we need to be curious and question if we are ever to evolve as a species.

What could have become 90 minutes of tired filler, was a fun trip down memory lane that still, managed to entertain, inform and educate. Yet another reason to support the BBC any time that really nice guy Jeremy Hunt tries to get to close Auntie Beeb with with his slimy little fingers.

If you had been thinking of anything other than this after Top Gear tonight, I URGE YOU in the strongest possible terms to watch Dirk Gently ( Holistic detective) On BBC4 tonight. I'm holding out high expectations for Douglas Adams's last series of books to be translated to the screen as well and as respectfully as HHGTTG was first go around. Fingers crossed we won't be disappointed.

I see there's room for a bit of kvetching about my beloved Newcastle United. I should be pleased we beat Pool 3-1, I should be pleased our best player Andy Carroll is on the best form he's been on in ever. But I'm mostly ambivalent about the whole thing. The manager who got us out of fizzy pop and kept us mid table despite no budget in the summer and no prospect of any in the January window, was sacked on the flimsiest of excuses and replaced by a man who is best known for taking teams into relegation and is at best a tepid replacement. If you were going to get a new manager, I would have thought you would hire somebody of the calibre of the Special One, or perhaps an unhappy continental manager who's been sniffing around for a ticket to England. But no, we got Alan Pardew, on a 5 year contract no less. I don't for a second think it's worth the paper it's printed on and furthermore, at the first sign of trouble, Mr Relegation will be gone, 5 year contract or no. Of course it's going to cost more to be shot of him , but does the Fat Comptroller care? Mike Ashley lives these days it seems to piss off the supporters and nothing else. I live in fear that the news will bring a report confirming our worst nightmare ... Andy Carroll has been sold to some rich Southern side for a packet of money Pardew will never see.

That's enough for now, see you all tomorrow after Top Gear and Dirk Gently!

Strictly Come Dancing week 11: Semi Final Part 2

2010-12-11T20:42:00.008Z

Where last night we had a field of 5 that was near perfection, tonight we saw them claw thier way even closer to dance Mount Olympus, some got near the gate, one got in.

Series final reviewed here

What the judges had to do from here on in was use the same measuring stick, but I somehow sensed they are being less than honest in one regard, where Kara DID deserve 4 10's but got three and Pamela deserved 2 9's and 2 10's but got 4 10's , the judges showed there were two sets of criteria running out there. I'm not sure how you can say Pamela was better than Kara when she, as good as she was, has never approached the level of pro dancer that Kara has so often since breaking that wall about three weeks back. Am I biased? No I'm just being honest, the level of sentimentality when it comes to Pamela is nearly crushing and the cold icy professional criteria on Kara are frosty. Despite this I suspect most people can see the simple truth, that should Kara decide to go dance pro, she'd have no difficulty making the transition. I think I'm suited to my toes to say without reservation why she is good as I don't watch Eastenders and don't plan to start any time soon, which makes her nothing to me in regards star material and preconceptions. In fact I try and forget any previous opinion of the legitimate dancer I may have of them from previous exposure, as I want to give them as fair a chance as just dancers. Once they have reached past the point of "you're nearly as good as the pros," I fully expect them to be judged by the same yardstick with the same required elements. Something that is clearly not happening when the technically and artistically perfect Kara is punished for tiny missteps but Pamela who is wonderful , but far from perfect, gets 40's . At least Scott and Matt and even Gavin, bless him for trying finally, are being judged by the same criteria.

Aliona and Anton have throughout the competition and since they have been with partners, always grated on me. They both tend to drag down their partners and have no respect for the judges. Choreography for them is a chance to use illegal moves and to hide the flaws of their partners. I want to know that the pros who dance and teach are taking their students and showing them the proper steps, sticking to the brief of each dance and taking on board that choreography must help not hinder and dissimulate the faults of the dancers. For a celeb dancer to grow and learn, they must do the required routines, how else are they to become truly gifted if that is what they are capable of? To the credit of Matt Baker, he rises above the traps in Aliona's routines and shines despite her own mania of trying to outshine the partner. As well, according to a fellow poster on Galibase, "As the pros don't actually dance salsa they get outside choreographers to help out and the two they almost always get in are DREADFUL! They're a standing joke in the world of salsa dancing because they're not actually salsa dancers, despite being proclaimed on Strictly as World Salsa Champions. what they really are is the champions of the salsa division of the world ballroom championships, which bears as close a resemblance to proper salsa dancing as Ann Widicome's rhumba did to a proper Rhumba." . And now we can all go to sleep less stupid, thanks for that Lanark

The band as always is Fa bu lous ! I keep waiting for the BBC to come up with a dance and music review format for them but nothing. As for Take That, they are far better as men than as boys and rise into the sublime with Robbie Williams back in the line up. Not a shmaltz fan per se, preferring the likes of The Stones, Killers and Undertones, but they are truly great. Look forward to tomorrow and the next song.

And so without further ado, tonight's ratings.

Scott Maslen: Charleston: Again with the fake so called Charleston, Anachronism how do I hate thee, let me count the ways. First of all the moves were Early 50's Broadway take on the 1940's looking back on the 30's. The costumes were straight from the mouse musical number in Anchors Aweigh. Scott should have been dancing with a mouse or another sailor if they were going to be honest. As for the dance itself, from the opening moves to about half way, Scott is weak and unsure, even slow at times, then he starts up but misses the rhythm . Not his best work and in a week that needs to be your best at all times, a ticket home. Rating 7

Kara Tointon: Rhumba. To say Kara was good was to say your tea was fine or Manchester United played well enough to win. What she did transcended the mere GOOD. She came out and danced the sexiest and most romantic Rumba I have ever seen, then included elements only ever done by pros during demonstration dances. Between her technical merit and dramatic acting, she set fire to our retinas with the passion and conviction of a real performer. We saw Venus rise off the shell born into Olympian perfection and grace. As for the alleged foot off the ground or misstep Craig claims he saw, we are into the territory I as a football supporter have to endure week in week out. I saw no mistake, there was no foul, that was never a yellow card. She deserved 40 points and if there were more points to give, those as well. Rating 20 out of a possible 10

Matt Baker: Tango. On fire and technically perfect. As I said before, even despite the traps Aliona set that were there to make her look good and overly complicate the routine and stray from the required routines, Matt shone like the consummate dancer and actor he is. I cannot see how he can even be in the frame for dropping out. A bit of me is prouder than for the rest, as he's a North East lad genuinely done good. Rating 10

Gavin Henson: Viennese Waltz. On any other day, in any other week of the competition, that would have been amazing. But he had a few moments where he looked like he was a deer caught in head lights and his rhythm was out of step nearly all the way through. That said, he was more than competent. Better late than never and he deserves to graduate from dance school at least. One hopes he keeps it up after Strictly as he's a credit to painfully shy men. Rating 7

Pamela Stephenson: Quick Step. What a beautiful sight to behold, a combination of soft shoe, quick step and and tap, she showed off a quality assortment of steps near seamlessly flowing from bit to bit. Her Steppin out was lovely and a credit to a person of any age and level of talent she clearly has. Was she worth 40 points? I don't think so. Where Kara allegedly missed one step, Pamela missed several and was able to cover well, but if honest , the judges should have given her no more than 4 9's. It's as if they still think she needs wrapping in cotton wool. Ann is gone, no one is in needs of protection. Rating 9

So who will be in the top three? I still maintain that my previous assertion of Kara, Pamela and Matt stands. Scott has peaked and showed less originality and ability to grow than Matt has. Several times Scott has run out of gas and sputtered to a halt despite his clear ability to dance and act. The fatigue has taken it's toll and he may have gone as far as can have even if he does make the final. Gavin as I said in my earlier critique, can go home with his head high having broken the duck of shyness, he has done well to improve as much as he has and I'm sure all of his fans will be pleased with his marked improvement and having escaped being lumped in with the Dalek in drag and other past joke party representatives.

We'll find out officially tomorrow, and should the world unfold as it should, we will have the best ever final of Strictly EVER.

To watch this show go the iPlayer and as always the main Strictly home page.

Nice to see the predictions unfold just like I wanted them, Gavin deservedly was first to go followed by the comepletly knackered Scott. Leaving a brilliant final with Kara, Pamela and Matt. Next week the couples get to do 4 dances each, and a one them as I understand it is a "Show Dance" or anything goes dance, all the lifts tricks kicks and gymnastics you want to any music from any era. May the best dancer win next week. My money is still on Kara.

Loved the musical number by Bruce Forsythe and Lance Ellington. You can sing along if you like.

The Three Bears
Bobby Troup, Londontown Music/ASCAP
The original "hip" version of this song was written by Bobby Troup in 1946:

Once upon a time in a neat little cottage there lived three bears
One was a daddy bear and one was a mama bear and one was a wee bear
While they were out a-walking, through the deep woods a-stalking came a little girl with blonde hair
Her name was Goldilocks and upon the door she knocks but no one was there
So she walked right in and had herself a time coz she didn't care
Then she got sleepy, went upstairs to bed, when...
Home, home, home came the three bears!
Someone's been eating my porridge said the daddy bear,
Someone's been eating my porridge said the mama bear,
Hey Ba-ba Re-bear said the little wee bear someone has broken my chair!
Someone's been sitting in my chair said the daddy bear,
Someone's been sitting in my chair said the mama bear,
Hey Ba-ba Re-bear said the little wee bear someone has broken my chair!
Just then Goldilocks woke up, broke up the party and beat it out of there
Bye-bye! Bye! Bye! said the daddy bear
Goodbye, Bye said the mama bear
Hey Ba-ba Re-bear said the little wee bear
So ends the story of the three bears!

Watch the results show here