You can't say feckin on Coronation Street

Every couple of months it gets too much and I have to stop watching Corrie. This last Corriecation has been triggered by the appalling rape story line that has dragged like cat sick on the floor  that  even Phil Collinson speaking at the St Mary's Sexual Assault Referral Centre's annual conference, could not clean up. Standing behind the story  despite admitting procedural errors in the trail and the post trial depiction that allowed the victim and the acquitted rapist to be alone with each other. Initially rape reports increased when it appeared that something was going to be done. What happened was exactly less than nothing. Frank the rapist was found not guilty and the Chinese whispers leading up to the trial were enough to cause a crash in rape reports. The further use of the current relationship between Carla Connors and Peter Barlow as an excuse to dismiss evidence was further proof that Collinson was more interested in ott drama than realism or thinking of the repercussions of the story. If a woman is raped, it doesn't matter who she is sleeping with today, even if and I stress this strongly, if she is having an affair. The only question that should have been discussed was if a rape occurred, if it did, GUILTY.  It's hard enough for sex abuse victims to come forward, but to have arguably the most popular show on telly scare off genuine victims of actual real rapes, is a crime. So what if the actress involved publicly let producers off the hook, so what if the Sexual assault centre let the show off the hook, the end result was butt clenchingly uncomfortable maddening telly that told people only one thing. If you're going to rape, make sure you rape a woman who is troubled, having an affair, and what ever you do, don't have any witnesses, that way it's your word against hers. I'm all for justice, I'm all for fairness, but this story line wasn't about a man unfairly accused, it wasn't about some slag throwing herself at some man and regretting it later, it was about a violent attack that a rapist got away with.

If you're watching this week, the aforementioned dastardly Frank is at it again, he gasp, threatens Carla again, very likely also the gormless Sally Webster and is, we're promised, going to be found in a pool of his own blood. If it gets rid of him, fine and good, but I'm thoroughly sick and tired of the over the top drama. A few months ago when Phil ( I used to do Doctor Who) Collinson did the great Tram Crash, I asked myself if it would get back to a more normal Corrie, would they have the more realistic stories that are just as compelling as well as returning the humour to the street. The short answer is no. Corrie has only gotten sillier, opting for the far vistas of American soap where small children are witches, couples on the rocks prefer to torture each other in increasingly bizarre displays of  ratings grab theatrics and the last time anybody did anything remotely nice to another person, they were punished for it. Corrie hasn't just missed it big style on rape, but teen pregnancy as well. In a story ripped straight out of the hysterical Daily Scum Mail, Corrie are banging on about the epidemic of teen births and hopelessly unfit young mothers with no help. The only problem with the plot is that the teen birth rate is at it's lowest in years, and the young girls who have been unwise enough to sprog at such a young age do have and know about a wide range of services they can access. The Daily Mail OMG look at that freshly imagined horror agenda is only part of the problem. There is a Tory tone in the air since at least the last two years. On a street in a town devastated by Her Meanness Margaret ( phtoo) Thatcher, characters old enough to remember what it was like are heard to say things that hint at how the country was better when her nastiness ran the place. My wife having read the omnibus book of Corrie from the start to about 2000 assures me that Audrey Roberts, during the worst of the Thatcher years, had not a kind word about her. If this was properly written , she'd be heard wondering where the death party was going to happen. Sadly, Corrie has taken the opposite view of great writers and is allowing crazy ratings grabbing stories to guide character development. For every realistic story such as Roy's mother being a nasty stick in the mud and all that means for Croppers, we are accosted by fires, murders, rapes, utterly unrealistic Steve and the even more reprehensible Tracy Barlow (herself out of jail on some invented special deal) finding new ways to make us want the segment to end faster than an Adele song.

So why do I watch?  Why does anybody watch?  Well the truth is, if you take the the viewing numbers of BBC 4's Road to Coronation Street, and subtract the proportion of casual curiosity, you are still left with a whopping 15 to 20 million viewers who have abandoned the show.  Phil Collinson admits "We are not broadcasting to people who are very educated and knowledgeable about this subject. We are broadcasting to young people, and it's very important that we draw attention to these things." So it's young people who aren't that bright and otherwise watching X factor? I am part of the vast army of those who have dropped Coronation Street from TV time. When there is so much better out there, why should I and others bother watching. I'd love to get back into it, but the trend is going the wrong way, too many stupid stories, repellent characters and Tory arse licking.

I am however still madly in love with my alternative Manchester based soap, Shameless. Yes they swear. Yes you see ugly naked people doing things we might not want to see all the time, but they are, unlike the folk over in Weatherfield, real. The violence is real, the relationships are real, the jeopardy people are placed in is real. And yet the humour that courses through the entire narrative is so strong that there is not a single plot in the last few years I would have used to sort my pants or clean the cat litter. Frank Gallagher while no longer the centre of attention, still is the one fixed point on the Chatswoth estate that brings plot twists even as late as two week ago. Shameless does in spades, what Coronation Street used to do till about 8 years ago. Paul Abbot's vision continues to fuel top quality telly at C4 while Phil Collinson is driving the original Northern drama into insignificance. While Corrie takes liberties in the name of drama, Shameless looks at unvarnished life in the Estate and translates it into entertaining television without cheapening the experience or soft selling the issues people involved are embroiled in. I won't lie, it hurts to see Corrie go down the shitter like, but I won't miss it if dies from this. Intelligent continuing drama need not jump the shark to stay relevant, they need only to stick to basics, likeable characters, stories that don't make an episode of Doctor Who seem realistic, and most importantly, remember your cast and characters know where they've been. If you take a life long sport hater into a sudden football fanatic for the purpose of a haphazard story, or you make somebody irrationally turn gay or perhaps make a man stab his best mate in the back so the show can have a controversial affair that wrecks a long standing street family, they will let you know. Actors are not programmable drones that will say and do anything that pops into your head. Fans are not going to stick around if you pretend they don't exist, worse yet, established fans won't be happy when you tell them they aren't important. If you ask ans actress who's been playing a role for years to do something her character would never do, you're not just insulting the viewers, but the actress as well. On Shameless when a character runs it's course, he or she leaves, they sometimes come back if the chance exists to get a few eps out of them, but as a rule, the useful life of an actor or actress are measured by the persona dramatis' to sustain themselves in the role. When the stories ran out for the Gallagher children, even if we liked them, they were sent away. Neighbours have come and gone, power brokers and circumstances have changed the estate but never once has anybody been forced to be anything other than what they are. The other way to look at Shameless is to look at it as art. In one scene the Lilian the madame and Kelly the prostitute have a perfectly rational near mother daughter talk about business, all the while this Feliniesque circus of freaks and oddly dressed people parade past busily doing what could only be described as performance art. In another scene, Frank descends into his own mind and channels Pinter or Shakespeare while he jousts with himself.

So while you can't say feckin on Corrie and Jamie Maguire will never suddenly become police inspector, I know which show is the one that's an insult to my intelligence and values. I also know which show will accurately reflect, warts and all the Condemn Nation and the effects of it on poorest of the poor.

Staying on the subject of drama and jumping the shark, Upstairs Downstairs is back and save a bit of lezzing up that was so tame last night I could honestly admit to have done more to my cat,  has stayed the course with well written sub plots that play well into the main theme of the phony war and the decline of the big houses. I must admit to having bizarre fantasies regarding Alex Kingston. I fully expect her to draw a gun or pick up her blue Tardis shaped diary. Tho only one hour long once a week  for only a few weeks, the quality of the cast, the sets and the scripts means I will glued to seat for the foreseeable couple of Sunday nights.Upstairs Downstairs does one thing well that Downton Abbey fails to do, it respects costumes, morals, ideology, facts, chronology, and still manages to be entertaining. Hair and clothing, especially for the women, is based on the fashions of the time and actresses that will not wear the full kit soon learn they can't do costume drama at the BBC unless they are prepared to wear the clothes too. Chronology is also pretty basic and obvious, but clearly not a important enough for Downtown to pay it any heed. Lastly, to give you an idea of how the two shows rate, when my father who lived in those houses down to the silverware in the 1930's, watched both, he muttered constantly about how the Downtown help and family would never have behaved like that, even reaching crescendos of indignation for wasting his time,  but during Upstairs, he quietly does a running commentary confirming the best and the worst of all the behaviour and taste on display be it the family or the servants. It's just a play you say, but when doing these things, especially in the literary classics, you have to be reminded that these films will be going into schools. People will be learning from them. Why, if you can, do you not then make the effort to be as precise as is possible? It's not like it's a stripped down Hamlet with one light, one chair, one skull and a hand puppet. These dramas cost vast sums of money and getting it right is as important as having a fun script.

Another treat you cannot afford miss is the brilliant Inspector Montalbano on BBC4. This adult drama in Italian, is rich in humour and reflects an albeit stylised representation of life in Silvio Berlusconi's Italy.  Salvo Montalbano is a 40 something man married to his work but trying hard to satisfy his  matrimonially itchy girlfriend of 8 years. The relationship plays out in the background as the team led by Salvo tries to get to core of matters all the while not upsetting too many apple carts. Comic relief is provided by the inept desk officer who has a hard time remembering important messages and cannot pronounce names to save his life. As detective fiction, it works best if the viewer understands that by 60 minutes, you likely know all you need to solve the crime of the evening.  If you missed any, BBC iPlayer will be holding onto the films for two months after broadcast AND there will be 10 in total with more to come we hope. Fingers crossed, the axe poised to drop on the jewel that is BBC 4 will not stop the buying of wonderful foreign language productions like Montalbano, The Killing, Spirale or Borgen. Watch it while you can, you know before the powers that be dumb it all down to about the level of BBC 3 or ITV 2.  


If you have a moment, please send a strongly worded message to the BBC that they should leave BBC 4 alone. I mean, if a bunch of people who didn't listen to a load of pretentious twadle on radio 6 saved it, why not the actual lorry loads of actual people who watch the actually well rated science, history and drama on BBC 4.

Happy 50th Coronation Street: Tram Week or the Longest day!

I know it's been a while since I watched, but when we saw the new hair do's and the changed attitudes of several characters, it's obvious more happened in 4 months  than  the continued shite storm of ludicrous story lines and barely tolerable scripts. When Phil Collinson first took over, it looked like the new broom was sweeping big style, but after a bit, it seems too much of the old regime was well entrenched enough to be unmoveable. Turns out however that the steam has come out of the more insane and inane stories.  All that's left for me is to see the back of the less than convincing lesbians, and I'll be happy.

So what has changed in all that time? Well, a few things stick out really pleasantly, starting with the Websters. Rosie is going out with a proper man, Jason Grimshaw, rather than running after millionaires or teenagers, her mam Sally has new hair and a new far nicer way of dealing with people. And here I thought I was going to look forward to her exit via fire and death. Kevin has changed his tune, far more like the old Kevin who was a bit rough but mostly a decent human being. Overall, the street has seen the women drop the charv clothes and hair they were till very recently wearing along with the orange fake tan that had become a rash by the time Phil had come to the controls. It's nice to see the retro hair  that was bubbling  up from the non X factor music scene. One hopes the look that has lurked just under the pop culture radar, now storms full fledged onto the public conciousness. Along with the hair, we saw a number of characters grow from ill kept teens into older more mature adults.  To be honest, just how much longer could David Platt been an impetuous teen skyving off school?  Whil I'm the subject of the streets most likely to go to prison candidate, he's got himself a nice enough girlfriend who seems like the sort of influence you'd want for a person like David, not that it helped him when the now all grown up and lovely , de tangoed Tina was dating him. Another character that's grown from strength to strength, is Graham Proctor. He has dropped the shiny cheap clothes of  the dispossessed and bored urban youth for the kit of a responsible young man with a potential wife. As for the rest of the cast over the age of 20, there seems to have been a migration away from the over the top clothes and frankly silly behaviour that had me fleeing for so long. Maybe it was the fact that 4 people were about to leave the street or that so many of the sillier stories were wrapping up, but it seemed to bring back the older better writting that had so much humour in the past.

Tram week, aka The Longest Day, started off well enough with a lot of the usual histrionics and red herrings as to who we would most expect to die. Collinson, didn't miss a trick, every device ever used in a WW2 film was dragged out. The I love ya baby scene, the bit where two people ague and toss a coin to see who stays inthe boring safe place and who goes into the jaws of death, only to do the old switcheroo.  Molly tells Tyrone she's gannin and taking baby Jack with her and there's nothing he can do about it. Welllllll  how wrong was she about that? It think it brave and artistically important that the Corrie bosses make a real effort to inject some sense of  danger and impending loss to even the most beloved and oldest of characters. If there is to be a tragic accident like this, there should be some jeopardy by the bucket load.  I had hoped a few of the older cast could have been seen reacting as the accident occurred and later on as the rubble and the fire made them flash back to the blitz, but alas that was a trick missed by one of the best people in telly. As it is most the best suited for the lines were dead or too busy propping up the bar or serving drinks.

And ooo what a glorious accident and just prior to that, explosion in the Joinery. As cataclysmic episodes of mayhem and destruction, I couldn't have expected less of the Doctor Who pyrotechnics teams brought in special for the job.  As my mate Keith Topping said  in  the relative comfort of our geek cave at Gallibase, the tram driver put a bit of mustard on it, but then it was likely to be his most famous work for a while, so why not. As for the much vaunted Corrie realism, it was thee in spades complete with enough rubble and fire and creaking to make Tony Robinson giddy with joy at the prospect of excavating the mess.  The dramatic tension and anticipation on display was enough to make you want to squirm off wherever you were sat, but we resisted the temptation and just concentrated on the bits were there was likely to be the most carnage, while my wife and myself took turns commenting on just who was going to get hurt, who was safe and why wasn't Molly among eh dead sooner. Harsh I know, but her character had run it's course soo long ago I wanted a beam to split her open on contact.  More on Molly later.    The other part that really ramped the drama up was the trio of men trapped in the Joinery office, would they get out , would they stay trapped, well of course but not without some extreme bravery , sacrifice and last minute career ending cave in of debris. The effects in side were terribly compressed and the camera work was dizzying to a degree but did show how disorienting the change of scenery had been. 

The two bits of overacting I most "enjoyed" taking the piss out of was Fizz giving birth and Molly dying.  Fizz first. I don't think I ever heard as much screaming during a birth on telly ever. Not for me to say how convincing it was, but she certainly put on a great show.  As for Molly Dobbs.... He weeeze,   pause  Chose you....pause  pause , you're  whezze gasp cough .... beautiful ,  It goes on like this for rather a long time, till she's confessed to Sally that she had an affair with Kevin, Jack is Kevin's baby, she was sorry about it all but not about baby Jack,  how great it was that Kevin had chosen Sally,  not to forget to give generously to charity and to return her library books. That's the great thing about mortis dramatis.... you can bang on for hours before the Grim Reaper collects you. In Molly's case, she certainly milked it.  Peter Barlow's wedding was the other tragicomic display of pathos, misery and deep sorrow. The Long NOOOOOOOOOOO when he appeared to die was the sort of thing most brides on telly want to do, at least on soaps. We of course wish them wedded bliss  till death them do part or the next producer notices they're too happy.

As far we know for sure, there are only two dead from the cast, Molly and  Ashley, two more to come, though rumour has it we could see Peter survive only to have his rival for Lee Ann kill himself.. Victim number three?  Rita Sullivan,  baby Jack, Charlotte after all?  We'll have to wait for Monday. but I know that we'll be losing the horrid Mrs. Peacock finally and maybe even the Websters, I'd like that you know. Both families of late have inflicted enough misery over the years on me that it's time they were sent packing. especially Claire. I bet she would have preferred an un-castrated, living Ashley, but she killed him long before the bricks fell on him. Hero Jason Grimshaw delivers the best reaction of the night, "I want to get drunk, like this never happened" or words to that effect, then heads over to the Rovers for a liquid meal. I'm sure a few complaint will be made to Ofcom.

"She's still got a bit of a pulse"

Best comedy line of the week hands down.... John Stape has just dragged the apparently deceased by hammer blow, Charlotte Hoyle and dropped her in some rubble to be discovered, only to have the paramedics examine her and say......"She's still got a bit of a pulse". The laughter that broke out at ours when we heard that was uncontrollable, then the face on Stape when he looked like he was thinking " How rubbish am I , that I can't even kill somebody with a hammer?". I thought I was going to loose it right there and then. Hats off to the comic geniuses at Corrie who manage to pull the rabbit out of the hat like this when you least expect it.  Silliest people award goes to the 6 people who rang the Manchester Transit Authority to find out if the the Tram service had been disrupted due to the accident on Coronation Street. I know it looks pretty real, but it's not like you didn't know about it from the TV Guide. Daftest rumour goes to the alleged newspaper that published the story that "Corrie lay on extra security and cavity searches because of terrorist threat to Coronation Street live show" . The truth is Granada had their own security, and asked for a few extra police to help make sure nobody got hurt and that the shoot went well/ Granada paid for the extra manpower and the only terrorist near the place were the Pigeon Liberation Front of Manchester, whose crude device mayor may not have been the cause of the Joinery explosion. 

Al this begs the question, is our Corriecation over? Probably until the body count is confirmed and regular service resumes. IF it's still good  then,  I can't see myself stopping until the next batch of stories too stupid to endure. Not like we haven't been there before, every few years the writers or the producer get too cocky and forget what works or it's the December drift stories. If pressed, I'd have to say the splash of money and new writing was worth the effort and most likely recaptured any lost viewers who had wandered off during the last 4 to 5 months.  Now if only Phil Collinson  can rebuild the street and steer a course more reminiscent of the times when Jack Duckworth was the norm and psycho killers only seemed interested in Gail Platt.

Read my review of the excellent BBC Road to Coronation Street

Rest in Peace Jack Duckworth and Where's Lucas North?

I just watched Jack Duckworth aka Bill Tarmey walk off into the next world with Vera. I used to watch Corrie as religiously as I still do Newcastle United. Bill Tarmey was one of the many reasons I stayed tuned to the programme. Over the years, he and Vera have had some brilliant set toos and equally touching moments. As we loose more and more of the old dears on Corrie, the programme gets less less Corrie like. I found myself impatient for the non Jack bits to end so I could bid a fond farewell to  an old friend.

When it did come, it was a mixture of realism showing how tired and worn out Jack was feeling, blending effortlessly into a dream sequence that as it went on was clearly Vera coming to take him to the next place. It reminded me of the way I could feel the spirit of my own grandfather hanging around my grandmothers house for so many years before he finally moved on. Even now I still know that feeling as until only recently, the spirit of my father's deceased 2nd wife was a constant presence in the house, and this after 10 years. She seems to be happy he's being well taken care of , so she isn't as obvious now, but every so often , you can feel her there from the corner of your eye, observing. And so Vera was there when Jack passed on and joined her for one last dance before they had to go.  I don't know if Coronation Street will ever quite recapture the magic of the days when Fred Elliot, The Duckworths and the rest of them were Weatherfield royalty, but Phil Collison gave Jack Duckworth a send off worthy of the character and the actor who played him. Compared to actress Liz Dawn who's alter ego Vera, passed away quietly in the same chair, Jack's passing was also the passing of an older tradition of less a less conniving, unpleasant Corrie, deeply rooted in stories about the ordinary people and their lives. As the creator had strived so many years before, it was about the boring bits in between. Over the years I saw many passages in my life reflected in the lives of Weatherfield folk, but today, it's mostly high finance, bizarre love triangles and a most improbable lesbian affair. I'm all for inclusion and good story telling, but at least get it right. There is no way Sian is a lesbian and to have play it that way is an insult to our good sense and the reality of what ti means to be a lesbian. I've asked a few and like me, they don't buy it either. In a simpler time, even the gays on Corrie were mostly concerned with getting paid, getting the drinks in and the latest craik at the Rovers. Now days, if somebody isn't going bankrupt  because of highly improbable situations, then somebody else is being manoeuvred into killing against his will. I lived on an old established working and middle class street for over 20 years, NO ONE for three street either way EVER went insane and killed anybody, no one killed in cold blood and no one ever set fire to the commercial buildings on our high street. If you believed the goings on on Corrie, the only place more dangerous would be Midsommer. I despair of ever watching Corrie any time soon again. A pity as it was the only thing recently outside of football that kept me tuning in.

Spooks, In another conclusion of sorts, Lucas North aka Richard Armitage seemed destined to leave Spooks for good by the end of the hour. What happened instead was a bird of a different colour. All series long Ruth and Harry have been playing the game of "why didn't you save the boy" and " would you let me die". All along it seemed clear Harry was always going to choose country over personal attachment, but in the end he allowed Ruth's endangerment to cloud his judgement. Harry ends up paying the highest price possible short of death for the freedom of his beloved Ruth. By allowing state secrets out of safety and ultimately in the hands of a foreign power , he breaks the the most sacred trust he was given by MI5.  Surely his days are numbered at MI5.

And what of Lucas himself? Throughout the finale he displays a near cold fanatical desire to hurt somebody or something by selling  the Albany file to the Chinese. His motivation is never properly explained and we can only hope we find out in the next series. We do know he wants out of the spy game and new life with the lovely Maya. Something I never though for a minute he'd be allowed, but I never expected Maya to be the one gasping like a guppy out of water for breathe as she lay dying. Just when you think the rules are set in stone, Spooks show runners turn the tables on us and let a load of people live, even the now cruelly twisted and evil John Bateman/Lucas North. I held off writing this till today so most of you could watch the ep, because I can now say that Lucas comes out of this as a broken man who is beyond redemption or understanding. Despite every hand reaching out to help, Lucas only becomes crueller and more determined to  jeopardize his former colleagues, and the World, by giving away a secret  that could cause the death of millions of people. Even if he emerges from self imposed exile next year, we won't be inclined to trust him, believe him or like him. The only way he can redeem himself is a spectacular death.

This leaves Thames House in an uproar, Harry Pierce is about to loose his job, there is no section chief and worse of all, with the vultures circling for Harry, what will they do to MI5 itself? The use of Alec White former internal affairs specialist would seem to mitigate most of the damage to the agents involved in last night's action, and would also leave the road clear for Ruth to succeed Harry. Perhaps after all, the only scalp that will be taken is that of Harry Pierce. In the world of Spooks, it takes up the opportunity to craft a next series predicated on a lot more unauthorized skulduggery among rogue or freelance people. We'll see next year.

Best bits had to be the location of Albany, St- Edward's, which  begs the question , what else are they hiding there, and the huge relief I felt when Maya died and they did not let Lucas do the silent scream thing. The entire cast from the Home secretary down to the most humble extra, seemed to really take the story even more seriously than usual. This series from episode one to eight, was superiorly written, acted conceived.  Less of the fake countries and more grit about real issues using the names of real places. The box set for this series is a must have.

A good thing the BBC1 has the excellent Garrow's Law starting on the 22nd of November to keep us busy.

The Road to Coronation Street a BBC film

Squee..... Yes it was that good . As a massive Corrie fan and writer who one day hopes to have his work acted out on screen, Daran Little's play was a symphony of story telling that covered multiple layers of human aspiration and the beginnings of one of the greatest television programmes ever made.

Review of 50th Anniversary week here

The cast was brilliant, I could not have picked them better. It was nice to see John Thomson back on Corrie after having been so badly wasted by Kim Crowther. Must have felt like  poetic justice. The casting of William Roaches son was pure genius. While I may not have seen the first ep as wasn't yet born for another three months, the photo montage credits at the end was spooky in it's similarity to the people we had just seen on screen. As a bit of fun, see if you can spot bubbles off Ab Fab. Elsie Tanner and Ena Sharples were stand out performances from a vast cast that individually and collectively contributed to a great story.

As a story of a ground breaking programme being conceived pitched, written, and sold to the network bosses, it was an object lesson in my other motto...."Never Surrender", it goes along with my golden rule that it doesn't hurt to have friends in high places that believe in you. The Tony Warren I saw on screen was the ambitious, conflicted, driven man who believed in what he was selling so much , he could not help but infect those around him. That he was right only served to make his quest that much more an un-stoppable juggernaut. And yet it could have all stopped dead in it's track if his boss hadn't also had a vision of bringing quality innovative telly to the people of Northern England....Granada land. Harry Elton, we are told pulled out all the stops to sway the hard as nails money driven Bernsteins and even pushed for regional actors.  The scenes played out so well I felt I was the fly on the wall getting all excited about being part of the next great thing  on telly.

The reality of  how a programme was brought to us in stark detail when we went through the casting, costume and set design stage. And before that we even had the notion of an audio version to just hear the script to prove you could speak the lines and have them make sense and be entertaining. I cannot tell you the thrill my wife and I had as we witnessed every step and misstep taken by Tony Warren in his fight to make Coronation Street real. Entire meeting and script writing sessions flashed through our heads, we became Tony Warren. Even the first run through for the pilot was so real we couldn't help but feel the excitement and tension of the room.

Tony Warren and Harry Elton did what PT Barnum espoused, entertainment should be great and memorable. Not even the Bernstiens could guess that the boring bits in between would be great telly if they were acted well in Manc. The foundations of Coronation Street were reality, both in setting and situations, the addition of speaking Northern was nothing short of revolutionary. England was not just Royal Shakespeare or the BBC News. For the first time on television, regional accents and dialects were heard as well as reflecting back the real lives of those watching. As a Corrie fan It can see how until about two years ago that ethos was well and truly drilled into the production of Coronation Street. That even now as I praise this teleplay about it's creation, I cannot watch the current run , shows how far Corrie has strayed from it's roots. Corrie is not about spectacular explosions or homicidal maniacs, it's not about spending EVERY waking moment shouting at your neighbours and coming to blows. There is supposed to be a sense of humour about the place, a feeling of community that keeps it all from going out of control that is now sadly lacking. It wouldn't hurt the current production team of Phil Collison et all to watch a few old eps and this film to remember the spirit that created Coronation Street.

The Road to Coronation Street serves as a double jointed creature.On the one hand it is a present to the fans from the people who so carefully nurtured the project from simple spark in a pitch meeting to a full blown real 50 year old institution. That line about finally seeing the place that had until then only existed in his head, was incredibly powerful. I  had the shivers when they showed us the finished Number 3.  There was real love in that film tonight and it was for a programme and legendary group of humans who came together  to make our tea times inseparable from Coronation Street. Even now, entire families still make time to watch together. Oh we drift away from time to time, but never for long. If you are the average person who just watches telly, you need to have this on DVD.  It's a keeper you'll want to watch more than once.

Now if you are like me, a writer and aspiring television producer, this story is so much more. It is every one who ever dreamt of putting on a show and just how hard and unbelievable the process is. You watch this and learn a few simple rules.

1- Never give up
2- Make sure you have at least one friend upstairs
3- Don't be afraid to make a fool of yourself
4- Take chances
5- Never loose sight of the prize
5- Don't be petty, you never know who you'll meet on the way down.

Every incredibly hard step you take from first idea to pitching, creating the characters, creating the setting, putting words in their mouths, pilot,  casting, getting a commission to getting the thing done, keeping it on the air, is a struggle and a rush of adrenalin that keeps you going to the next step. Never get complacent or forget why it works in the first place. I would be lying if I said I watched this with the detached interest of a curious by standard viewing a historical special on the steam engine (also invented by a Northerner and a bit of a nutter). This story is as close to non sugar coated warts and all telling of the inside of the television game. I know from experience that some things have not changed a bit in all those years, but it also says that despite it all great television still gets made and if you have a brilliant idea, you shouldn't give up at the first hurdle. While most of you who watch this will just see a creation story, I will always see an inspired example of how and why we should continue to aspire to great art and great story telling.

The Road to Coronation Street is worth re watching, recording and owning when it comes out on DVD. Why the BBC did it and not ITV is a mystery to me, but I'm chuffed it got done by the right people judging from the results. For the full cast list and to watch on the iPlayer click here. Read Daran Little's piece in the Telegraph.

Ann Widdicombe, Merlin and Football. Normal service has resumed

You can tell summer is over, the last blush of delusion from that Toon 6-0 win against Villa is gone, and Mock the Week is back. While I'm pleased to have MTW back, the aura of invincibility could have lasted a little bit longer. I'd much rather have seen Newcastle in 4th, instead of Blackpool  sitting high in the table and us12th.

This last week, that is as off Thursday when life resumed to about as normal as it gets at ours, we sat down to the first new Mock the week since the last new MTW aired. How long has it been? Let me tell you. While the panel may have had time to mock the England team and vuvuzelas, they missed out on a lot of other cracking stuff. Like what you ask? Barry Moat, Gazza and his fried chicken, the Labour leadership contest annnd  and  ermmmm nowt much else if were honest. Seems even the freaks and chronic attention seekers take the summer off. Which is not to say there wasn't plenty to talk about on the first show back. Wayne Rooney, prostitutes, threesomes and Tony Blair's new book among other things. Best answer of the ep was "Ballistic Missiles Improve Sunderland" . I'd like to say I miss a certain panellist, but so far so good. Ironic comic in a bad Hawaiian shirt, Milton Jones stopped Dara in his tracks with a joke that is worth re-watching for. The rest of the cast, guests and regulars regardless, carried on in usual fine style. Between Mock the Week and Qi soon, there will be no excuse for UK comedians to starve on our watch. 

Merlin was next up on the Saturday and to be honest I was looking forward to it about as much as a goose looks forward to Christmas. It's my wife that really wanted to watch, but if I wanted to have some leverage later on for something less to her liking, I was going to watch and that's it. She says it has something that reminds her of Xena about it, just camp and silly enough to forgive most sins. But even she can't get past the Gwen character who will eventually have to reveal some kind of noble blood, explain the less than fair complexion  and stop being a washer woman before Arthur can marry her. I understand why it was done, but it doesn't make it right.  And on this one point we at least agree. I however found the wholesale ripping off of Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter a bit hard to swallow in the first ep back. The CGI monsters made a lot of racket and had me expecting the Knights who say NI a lot, only to turn out to be very un-scary spiders and scorpions that even Ron Weasley would have had no trouble wishing away. Next week we get Ray Harryhausen skeletons that aren't much better than the last time they fought Jason and the Argonauts in the early 60's. It seems even the matting of scenes that purport to be ancient Camelot, ruined abbeys or dark scary crossings into haunted woods are more obvious than usual. All of these faults can be laid at the door of the producers and writers, but the  principal crime against acting in the series opener is the actress playing Morgana. Katie McGrath leers and winks her way through the story like nobody sees her acting so suspiciously that a blind man would know she's up to no good. Seriously, did no one notice how she wasn't the least surprised when the King fell ill or that she didn't seem to be concerned? If it weren't for the dragon at the end, I'd have been livid, instead, I was laughing my arse off. Proof if we needed it, that last years money is gone and they had to resort to 70's animated lizard stock. Merlin had better be on it's last series if this sort of mess is the best we can expect.

Oh and right after that Strictly Come Dancing returned complete with Brucie. It's nice to see you, nice to see you nice Brucie . It's not Strictly without him. Along with the returning Judges, yes even Alisha Dixon is back from her extended tour of the USA. Seems she wasn't as big as Katie Price or Lady Sov, so she came home, we have a few new dancers. As I don't follow the World Cup of Ballroom, I have no idea who these new people are, but they are supposed to be good. And if the display of styles they put on was any indication, we're in for a decent couple of months of dance. And the the celebrities this year? I didn't believe it either. They've gone out of their way to add a few dancers older than Brucie and one of them is Ann Widdicombe. And guess who got paired off with her???? That's right, last series tosser of the year, Anton DuBeck. Serves him right. During the group dance it looked like he was dancing with his gran, very badly. As well, the great tradition of paring off well fit single people with equally fit professional dancers continues. There are at least two couples if not three in the making and I predict Corrie babe Tina O'Brien will be the least concerned about being linked to her young American partner.

The second favourite sport during strictly season after who's shagging who, is of course who will be voted off and who will stay no matter how rubbish they are. Evil Australian judge has warned he won't be tolerating any dead men dancing like last year. What about dead grans embarrassing themselves? I doubt we have to worry. Ann Widdicombe is a bad dancer, she's poorly paired, she's Ann Widdicombe and she's a Tory, that should be enough to have her sent packing in 4 or 5 weeks when the show comes back. I have  greater concern over the towering figure of Peter Shilton. As a footballing hero and potentially far better dancer than a certain boxer last year, he could be a dark horse who could be a vote getter that hoys off more talented but less loved people. Another one who could have staying power, if people my age vote and she can dance, is Felicity Kendall. I first fell in love with her when she appeared in The Good Life. To this day I still think allotments are sexy and wellies on a woman need not be a bad thing. I think despite Len Goodman saying the same thing every year, this may be the best Strictly ever. Other than the vicious uncalled for on air murdering of Ballroom Blitz, the series seems off to a good start. Michelle Williams, former Destiny Child is looking to make a permanent move to the UK and the rest of the stars lined up, all seem to have no real desperation about them. It's a proper list of mostly respectable names we can relate to. Last thing about this year's Strictly, it's cut the number of celebs and is paying them on a " As you dance" basis. So if somebody crashes out early they won't be getting a huge pay out. Good thing too, Merlin needs all the money it can get to improve the look of it's monsters.

Sunday night was the icing on the cake. "Newcastle night" BBC4 billed it, and it was good . First up Coast , then Today I'm with you followed by Newcastle on Film capped off by the excellent A Journey Back to Newcastle: Michael Smith's Deep North.  An emotional trip any way you sliced it. Do yourself a favour and watch on the iPlayer if you missed any of these. Regardless of if you live in the Toon, are away or just love Newcastle, any one of these programs will leave you wiser and all the more seduced and attached to the City on the Tyne.

My one special recommendation from a brilliant list of programmes off the BBC's Planet North schedule is Corrie: The Road to Coronation Street.Thursday at 9 pm, the BBC ( not ITV) will tell the story of the oldest running soap in the land. In an interesting casting touch, James Roache will play his father William Roache playing Ken Barlow. David Dawson, most recently from Secret Diary of a Call Girl and Thick of it, plays Corrie creator Tony Warren. Full cast list and lots more here . A pity the current Corrie has so soured me I may not be able to watch till I know the great train accident is upon  us.

Battle of Britain season should be excellent as well. so look out for that.

In Torchwood news too strange for some of us, Ianto Jones apparently will be back from the dead in the next  series. How they will explain this one is beyond me, but given enough time and money, I'm sure they'll come up with something plausible. In the mean time we can all play silly theory. How one dies of an alien virus and lives again, is beyond me. Maybe he only had a cold and was covered by the solid lead table nearby we hadn't noticed before. Perhaps it was all in fact a dream and he'll walk out of the shower any minute now... Come on RTD, You better make this a good one, or we'll write terrible things about you in Galli Base (like that hasn't happened before).

Paul the Octopus to join MOTD and other shocking news

Wellllllllllll who knew I could be bested by a mollusc?  I mean what do years of watching football , instinct and knowledge  mean  when you just let an escaped English octopus pick teams at random from his home in Germany and he gets it right every time????!!!!!!  Just sack them all , In fact, why even play the matches, Paul will tell us who the cup belongs to. Imagine the impact on Ladbrookes and other betting shops when  odds mean nothing  because this watery genius will just tell us. It was funny when Garry Linaker finally acknowledged the blither's existence and suggested he's be joining the MOTD panel. One mate cheekily said Garth Crooks looked worried.  I suspect one day very soon, Paul will get it wrong and we can all go back to being smug humans who think we need a few years of schooling in the arts of football before we can predict an outcome. In this situation I pity the guy who put £50 on Germany to win the cup 100/1 odds despite Octo Paul's clear warning that Germany would loose to Spain. Being wrong is one thing, but being wrong to a cephalopod who is mostly concerned with eating  must sting  just a bit. I take some blame for it as I bigged up Germany on the facts and current form, who knew they would bottle it like that? I honestly never saw it coming. But then again, Spain play a very dull defensive game that had Germany locked down for most of the match. If you can't get near the goal mouth you can't score.  I have bravely decided against all odds and logic to back Holland in the final regardless of what Paul says. Let the players decide who wins this one. And PS Paul, you are a legitimate phenomenon having now received two death threats in the mail, no word if an assassination squid has been sent . ( ta much Keith Topping for that)

EDIT:  Paul as of the latest news, has predicted that Spain will win the World Cup and Germany will win the consolation match. The significant thing is that he is now telling us these things via a Spokesman. Seems Paul is too good to talk to us directly. Furthermore, he is now getting love letters from Spanish girls. Having seen some shocking anime, I'd have thought it was Japanese girls, but what do I know.  Paul has gone Hollywood, next thing you know Katie Price will be rumoured to be seeing him as he's got more press than she does. Let me enjoy the moment ...a mollusc is getting more ink than Katie Price !!!!!

And I wasn't kidding about shock news, it just gets better all the time . I saw this from the BBC today ....
Goal-line technology in football has moved a step closer after Fifa General Secretary Jerome Valcke revealed the 2010 World Cup is set to be the last tournament under the existing refereeing system. In an interview with the BBC, Valcke admitted the moment when television replays showed Frank Lampard had scored a goal in England's second round defeat by Germany was a "bad day" for organisers.

But following the fallout from that and other controversial refereeing mistakes in South Africa, Valcke hinted that major changes would be made before the next World Cup in Brazil in 2014.
Valcke said: "We are talking about a single goal not seen by the referee which is why we are talking about new technology. But, again let's see if this system will help or whether giving the referee an additional four eyes will give him the comfort and make duty easier to perform, then why not? "I would say that it is the final World Cup with the current refereeing system."

Although Valcke's comments will be interpreted as a change of policy by Fifa following the International Football Association Board's (Ifab) decision to reject goal-line technology and other aids for referees in March, the Fifa general secretary said the speed at which the modern game was played meant the whole approach to refereeing had to be reformed. "The teams and the players are so strong and so fast. The game is different and the referees are older than all the players," said Valcke. "The game is so fast, the ball is flying so quickly, we have to help them and we have to do something and that's why I say it is the last World Cup under the current system."
Fifa president Sepp Blatter has repeatedly rejected calls for the introduction of goal-line technology or TV replays, insisting an element of human error has always been a part of the game.
Opponents have also pointed to concerns over universality - that all levels of the game should be subjected to the same rules and methods of refereeing.

But following the Lampard "goal" and Carlos Tevez's offside strike for Argentina against Mexico, also in the second round, Blatter performed a U-turn, saying that it would be a "nonsense" not to reopen the file on technology. Ifab - the game's rule making body which consists of representatives of the English, Scottish, Northern Irish and Welsh FAs as well as four representatives from Fifa - is due to hold a meeting on 21 July where the issue is expected to be discussed. But Valcke added that it was unlikely to hold serious discussions until a further meeting scheduled for October. In March, Ifab heard presentations from two companies pitching to introduce systems which they say provide definitive proof when the ball has crossed the line for a goal. But both Cairos Goal-line technology, which uses a microchip inside a football and magnetic fields around the goal line, and Hawk-Eye, which uses six television cameras positioned around the goal, were rejected. The Cairos system was tested by Fifa in the World Club Championships in Japan in 2007, but despite their claims that the test was a success, Ifab again rejected the proposal in March 2008.

It was debated again in 2009 but again turned down. Both Hawk-Eye and Cairos insist cost is not an issue as they offered to pay for the installation of the system in return for a share of sponsorship rights. The introduction of two extra referees positioned on the goal-line, a move initiated by Uefa president Michel Platini, was trialled last season in the Europa League and is set to be used in the Champions League this coming season. But again, Ifab turned down the chance to introduce it in time for the World Cup in South Africa. 
 

So there you have it, the turtle known as FIFA has finally started the less than glacial pace required to reform the game and join the rest of the 21st century. We need not harm the game by doing this, Rugby , Tennis and Hockey have all done this with no harm to the game or the professionalism of the officials involved. The number of blatant officiating errors and easily re-viewable bad red cards is too high. Cheating or playing the rules is outside the spirit of the game and should be stopped when ever possible. At least two players deserved to be named and shamed and barred from play for at least a month's worth of matches. They caused two quality players from competing. Even if FIFA were to rescind the cards in the next 24 hours it's already too late for the matches that were affected by these bad calls. Suarez boasted he saved his team by blocking a sure goal, clearly an instant where even a penalty is not needed, just award the goal, it was going in full stop, and Suarez cheated knowing he was taking a chance on missing the pen. It makes Maradonas hand of God look like an accident. Teams have been relegated or missed out on tournaments on avoidable human error. Goals that were goals were not goals because one man out of millions in some cases, did not see the ball go in or cross the line.  It's 2010, time we got with the program. I suspect the real reform will take place in time for Euro 2012, with a test drive in the 2010-11 Champions League season. We can only hope this crack in the fundamentalist wall of football ayatollahs is only going to get bigger and we can clean  up our game in short order. Somehow I don't think the later will happen as quickly, but if it sees Sepp Blatter leave, it will be a step in the right direction.

And the shocks keep coming.... News from the cobbles .... straight from MSN news. Before you read what follows, I'm not a big fan of spoilers, I will as a rule avoid them like the plague but this is hardly a spoiler, it's more of a warning to viewers and a shot across the bow to cast members who think they may be irreplaceable.

Much-loved characters are to be killed off in a massive disaster which causes carnage in Coronation Street, show bosses have revealed.  The viaduct, which has long been a Weatherfield landmark, is to collapse, sending a tram careering off the bridge and on to the cobbles. The gripping storyline marks the show's 50th anniversary in December and will leave some favourites from the show injured. Producer Phil Collinson said: "We'll be losing some well-known, well-loved characters." Show bosses said it will be the biggest stunt in the soap's half-century history. Collinson told ITV1's This Morning: "If you're listening in Weatherfield it's not good news. One fateful night at the beginning of December the viaduct's going to collapse, down by the corner shop and the Kabin, and a tram is going to crash into Coronation Street. "People are going to be injured, people are going to be killed. It's a big, big story for us and one fateful night will play out across a whole week. Picking up the pieces of that into next year is going to be huge."Show bosses will issue alternative scripts and keep security extra tight to keep the outcome a secret.Even cast and crew are in the dark about which Weatherfield residents will be killed in the disaster, which soap chiefs promise will be the biggest stunt the programme has ever staged. Collinson has drafted in special effects experts from The Mill, who have worked on Doctor Who and Gladiator, and producers have worked with GMPTE, which runs Metrolink trams in Manchester. The producer added: "We'll be using all the wonders of modern television production to bring you a disaster that will rock the lives of everyone in Weatherfield."

OOOO arrrrr This has to come as incredibly bad news to some cast members who have been hanging on by their fake nails for ages now. No amount of can tan or boob jobs will stop this new broom sweeping the street clean. Some people have asked for a spectacular way off the programme, Jack Duckworth comes to mind, and yet other newer cast members like Maria and Michelle may be given the chop as well. Long established couple and annoying wife saddled Ashley Peacock may  finally move to a new neighbourhood to pick up the pieces while  the Websters could finally be sent packing after years of infuriating us with snobbery and a daughter that could have been so much more , but has turned into a yet another Crowther tart. Then of course we have the Windass clan, hands up anybody who will miss the ginger menaces. Ex Doctor Who show runner  Phil Collison has with this one announcement  made it clear he wishes to bring some order to the mess that was Corrie in the dying months of Kim Crowther. In the last few weeks we've begun to see the return of the Corrie we loved for so long , but had been stripped away to base drama and conflict  by the previous regime. Humour , the corner stone of Corrie as well as the mundane family based dilemmas are back.  David and Graham are not quite bessie mates again, but David hasn't tried to shoot him with a sniper rifle or plotted to drop him in a pit of vipers either, if anything, the situation has been diffused in the normal amount of time for regular humans such as ourselves. Will he kill everybody off? Not likely. Will he sack dead wood and rescue characters from a slide into  irrelevance they had suffered from? Jason Grimshaw and his mam Eileen, have both behaved badly off screen and that can't be good for those characters. I don't envy the the cast right now, months of uncertainty, reading scripts wondering if that's it. Even if  they hand you a new love interest, it doesn't mean you won't be killed by a Dalek at Christmas. Phil Collison is the breathe of fresh air that Corrie needed for the longest time. ITV hasn't got too many things right of late, but this was an inspired decision. I have gone from dreading to watch to wondering what's going to happen next. Well done Phil and well done ITV.

Help an hour of my life's been stolen: ITV's Drama season kicks off

ITV are class if nothing else. The network that brought us Sherlock Holmes , Midsommer Murders and the great voyeuristic drama Diary of a call girl, kicked off it's drama season tonight. All during the bits of the World Cup  Adrian Chiles bored us with , we got to see the princess and the PURRvurse veg in her bedding, we also got to see the dramatic best bits of IDENTITY, the new ITV cop drama meant to get us all excited about identity theft. Well just to make sure we didn't forget it was on, we got several trails on Corrie and in a presumably unrelated story line, Sean and Michelle create a fake facebook account using Liz MacDonald's identity to see if Violet has posted any pics of her baby son .....Sean's kid,  keep up people ......I'm sure it will all end in tears.

Now in real life an identity thief gets your credit card and books a flight to Warsaw , buys a flat screen telly and tries to empty your bank account. Once he's done or you've reported your cards compromised, the party ends. To build a programme on such a thin premise requires a lot of suspension of disbelief and some cracking good writing.

So did that happen?

 Identity finally starts with an OTT  dramatic  situation  in which the police try to keep a man from committing suicide over a man named Smith .....  He' hasn't done nuffink  Guv  honest  it was all Smith.....He hates me, he wants me ruined..... Ok so we get it , whackjob out for revenge of some kind.  It gets better, seems our victim was in Afghanistan and saved some  soldiers life, he's well hard, that's why he tried to kill himself with a sniper rifle yeah.... And the aptly cast Keeley Hawes plays a DCI based almost entirely on Alex Drake formerly of 1983 (Identity theft). She has worked hard to create an Identity division  and by gum  it had better work warns her boss.... she even has a broken detective she's brought in from the cold who spent 10 years under cover working with the Bulgarian mafia or something. Whatever you do,  warns the gaffer, don't try and fix him , he's past his sell by date, yeah we get it , don't get close, don't sleep with him , don't be surprised when he screws up.

The look, pacing and acting of this drama are a near perfect copy of the style of Spooks ( MI5 for you Americans), oh my  Identity theft again! They even have the gadget guy and the woman who goes through bank statements and web sites, thrilling I know.  The only problem is, however you light, act, and film this, the script is some of the worst writing to hit our screens since some first year drama student wrote a Harry Potter fanfic . Over the top speeches, wholly unbelievable dialogue delivered in bad pantomime style reminiscent of mob films about London in the 80's, written by people who live in the country and eat nothing but veg. It gets worse, the so called plot , if you believe it, is that the bad guy has done this before, he steals a person's identity to torture them as they spend the rest of their natural lives in prison or commit suicide. His latest victim spends the ep looking like a deer in head lights  gibbering about how this person knows everything and he's a waste of space and deserves to be dead. Well yes , I don't disagree, but I though you're supposed to sympathize with the victim?  Half way through the hour I lost any interest I may have had in any of the characters or the denouement of the story.  I think they arrested the son of the geezer the veteran rescued in Afghanistan. Seeing as most identity thieves are anonymous, almost never caught and not psychotic vengeance mad mental patients, I don't see how this expensive, well cast , badly written badly acted  ITV detritus will survive the next few weeks. Bottom line is that I didn't give a toss about any of the characters at the beginning and cared even less when I tuned out.  With luck it will be quietly moved to a later time slot and sold off to a market where this sort of thing looks good compared to repeats of Columbo. On the Vogon Poetry scale of bad . 10 being where you gnaw your own leg off after 10 seconds, this was at least a 7 bordering on 8.5. Had I not tried to last as long as possible ( 30 minutes adverts included in my case) I would have turned it off after the opening 5 minutes.

The good news is that you now know to plan around this. You could have watched the Well good show, but we already know that's a 10 on the Vogon scale, you could have watched a repeat of Cities of the world  or just taken a walk. Being a divorced Dad I could have watched the BBC thing A Century of Fatherhood, but I think I'll pass as I was having a mostly good day till now. Tomorrow the football returns and the hope of nations hang on the whims and talent of referees and footballers.  Sadly it's ITV's turn to make a hash of the coverage yet again, so I'll   just be tuning in for the kick off and forced to  migrate to five live for commentary. Come on you Oranje, we all want a Holland Germany final.

Before I forget, Digital spy reports that

Johnny Depp has been linked to a movie version of Doctor Who.According to website Tor, an article appeared on PubArticles which allegedly quoted former showrunner Russell T. Davies.Davies reportedly said that he was in the process of developing a Doctor Who movie and promised that the Daleks would be involved. However, the article was later removed.Tor has now claimed that sources in the film industry have confirmed that Depp will star in a Doctor Who. It is unclear how genuine the reports are as Davies has previously said that he has no plans to make a Doctor Who movie. film, which would be released in 2012.
 
This from the same site that couldn't get the weather right if they stuck their heads out the window. Digital Spy make The Sun look like the Times of London some days. All I can say is, better be as accurate as all the other equally imaginative Who rumours floated in the past.

"It's been an itsy bitsy start here with Liverpool" & other World Cup follies

Another day another obvious conclusion thrown out the window.  The news from French base camp and English base camp continues to be strange and it's harder and harder to take the actual football seriously. But it's not all  something you would only expect in an over the top footie film trying to keep you interested past the scene where Pele, Beckham and Dizzy Rascal face Germany in a tense battle of pens. Some of it is even stranger. One of the best bits today was a subtle error which showed the strain some of the commentary types are under. During the ITV portion of the day while Spain and Honduras were playing , an auto pilot set of instructions kicked in when you heard the following "It's been an itsy bitsy start here with Liverpool". They could be forgiven for the confusion as the place was awash in current and past Scouse players. What it does demonstrate is that despite the professionalism of some, you do eventually reach a point where you need to be taken off the mike and rested. In a less pleasant episode from the same broadcast, Adrian Chiles , noted football commentator and humanitarian, went out of his way to take the piss out of Honduran players and their  not so on key or well sung rendition of the Honduran national anthem. Perhaps they weren't the Welsh boys choir, but they sang with passion and true patriotism. Pity Adrain ,our own players aren't capable of the same. Maybe if they cared a bit more we'd not be in such trouble. If like me you think Mr. Chiles needs a bit of a reminder  to grow up and show a little respect, you can send a polite but strongly worded note to OFCOM. While I'm at it, it needs to be said, ITV has ignored, underestimated and treated poorly in commentary, countries not in the traditional seeding of so called "Big Clubs". ITV World Cup football is only ever on because we must. I avoid the run up tuning in only for the match itself. On a lighter note, I'd also like to complain that FIFA, the responsible ones for the camera work, are just not showing the lovely lasses like they used to. I'm aware that perhaps not as many of them came, but surely they can do better than the miserly collection of munters we've been treated to this far. BTW I must be imagine things. I'm nowhere near South Africa and yet I  hear a vuvuzela moaning like an injured  water buffalo somewhere near here. Note to self, must go on a search and destroy mission later. Wait it just cut off  suddenly like, there is a God after all.

In a tournament where the big boys from Europe are showing cracks and frankly playing like they would rather already be in training camp at their respective clubs, the South Americans are head and shoulders ahead of the rest of the pack. Even IF they have massive contracts to get to after the WC, they are in fact doing all they can to insure their team does well and the fans at home are proud of them. Brazil, Argentina,  Uruguay, and Paraguay have all come to play and win. I can only assume that the next World cup in Brazil will be the absolute best ever one regardless of anything else. A genuinely football mad continent in which the host nation is one of the top practitioners of the sport. That tournament, unlike the PR ones in the USA and the Far East  will be a celebration of the world's game, hosted by the most passionate supporters on Earth. A fair final this time around would in fact be an all South American affair as they are the most deserving of being in  it aside from Germany .

Ah the football... If you missed the ambulances collecting the body bags, Portugal destroyed North Korea   7-0 , 6 of those in the 2nd half . I don't know if that's a record for most goals in a single half , but it has to be close to one. Poor North Koreans, they did keep the wolves at bay for a time , but Tiago and friends were indulging in target practice and nobody was going to stop them. The most important thing about this result is that the others in Group G have to do a lot more than just win or draw to advance. As usual, goal difference plays a big a part in the fate of the other teams.  Too bad they forgot that in the early stages. All those missed shots and cautious draws will come back to haunt more than a few teams between tomorrow and the final reckoning for the 16 teams going into the knock out rounds. The  North Koreans, we can only hope, will not be badly treated on returning home, should be proud of their performance. If they had been  an English club side, they could have kicked around fizzy pop for several years. Before I forget, the other thing I took personally from this match and judging from the reactions of mates, is that we still with a passion, want to do terrible things to that grinning oily twat Christiano Ronaldo. It was fun for a while seeing him  increasingly frustrated at his inability to score, sadly he broke his duck in the end. Seems memories are long and we all still feel the sting of going out on pens to a bunch of diving cheats who were the principle perpetrators of crimes against football in that infamous Portugal Holland match of 2006.

Chile Switzerland was an entirely other kettle of fish. The 1-0 result flatters the winners and is one of the most poorly officiated matches of this tournaments. 9 yellows and 1 red. Mad ref K Al Ghamdi did all he could to destroy any tempo to the game with a continuous stream of mostly ridiculous yellow cards whose only effect was to stop the match in its tracks. At one point it was clear players were worried about even moving a bit for fear of attracting the attention of the card happy official. The biggest problem was the clear intention of the ref to curtail any kind of body contact that would be taken for granted anywhere else and for the first half of the match kept Chile from getting anywhere near goal. To the bankers credit, the Swiss defence did do an admirable job of stripping Chile of the ball several times and stymieing any penetration...in other words they parked the bus. In case you didn't know, Switzerland now hold the record for not conceding  a goal in 551 minutes, surpassing Italy as the stingiest defence in the World Cup  . Chile will in fact rue the missed chances and the missed penalty. Near the end they almost conceded a goal  that would have left the result 1-1, a disaster if you consider what it takes to get out of the group stage. In the end you should ignore the fan boys at ITV going on about the famous victory, Chile did not do enough with it's chances and may well end up paying with an early trip home.

Liverpool v Honduras was a better show, despite the minnows never getting near the Spanish keeper, it was at least pretty football. for most of the match. 2-0 does in fact reflect the honest result, Honduras defended well and were a worthy opponent. There was bit of rough stuff and we saw the use of a bog roll as on pitch treatment to a nasty split lip. TBH if the Saudi ref had been at this one the card haul would have been twice as high. But football isn't a rough sport for nothing, we got a good physical  match with some pretty passing.  Only problem again is the scoreline, 2-0 may not be enough to get out of the group. Spain never really turned on the heat like Portugal or Germany. It's all still to play for and Spain know they could have nailed down the spot if they had tried earlier and harder .

Coronation Street has nothing on the continuing goings on in the France Camp and England, both having hotted up even more. The French practised today. several players were seen perfecting hostage demands in between passes and penalty takes while Raymond Domenech received the Minister of Sport sent in to get the children in line. While I will never advocate open rebellion for no good reason, these players have cause and plenty of it. Larent Blanc, Manchester United legend is to take up the managerial post after the team returns, and if the trend continues that's  tomorrow night . The only people who seem to think there is nothing wrong with the status quo are Domenech, the FFF and the Government. The tradition of knowing better goes back a long way and shows no sign of waning. In stead of keeping Anelka around and sending in Blanc early, they will persist in destroying the souls of those players. I cannot bring myself to guess how the France South Africa match will pan out, but the South Africans have an excellent chance to go out winners.

Across the channel so to speak, in the England camp, John Terry inexplicably was allowed to have a press conference, followed on by a bit with Capello on ITV. You can read the summary here , but it's clear from  Capello and the FA that it's the last chance saloon time for Capello. Win on Wednesday and he's saved his job for two years, loose or draw and he's gone. I'm torn, I'd love to see the lads win, but I want Capello gone. As far as he's concerned he's done nothing wrong and the players are being dramatic for nothing. As you know, I have argued that our players are spoilt, uncommitted and rudderless, this only explains the normal mediocrity we suffer from. What is happening now goes way beyond that, England are not quite the basket case France is but when  Capello says there is no revolution.....I say  BOLLOKS. The thick black smoke coming from behind him is telling another story. I would be happy of a win, but I won't for a second think it has anything to do with the manager nor will I delude myself into thinking we are world beaters.

Because the English football fan needs to find solace somewhere,  he nuzzles at the teet of someone else's misfortune, it's Perverse!.  So I'll be watching  France v South Africa  as for the second set of matches, here's hoping the footie is worth splitting ourselves in two for.