Watch Ranczo and other Polish telly online

This won't be one of my normally long posts, as it's about getting a simple message out simply. If you like Poland's most popular comedy/soap Ranczo, you want to watch it even if you don't live in Poland. If you live in the European Union, you can watch direct from the station's website TVP.PL. That means for example, if you live in the UK, you too can log into the page and watch Ranczo and an entire range of other Polish television programmes and news from Poland.

Are you living in the Polish diaspora  in Canada or the USA or maybe Australia? By getting a VPNUK account and setting it to Great Britain, you to can watch all 6 series of Ranczo. As well you'll be able to access hundreds of hours or other top quality historic and comedic programmes.

You get an easy, reliable, stable and safe access to hundred of hours Polish telly you mostly have to hunt for anywhere else. Plug back into your heritage, get a fix of home anytime you want and as a bonus, watch UK telly ( BBC, ITV, 4od, 5 )

Use this simple link to sign up. If you need help, the team at VPNUK will guide with a live chat. Start watching Poland's highest rated soap Ranczo from the beginning, then move on to other shows like Czas Honoru. I've tried other Eurozone countries and in short, if you can read the language you can use the telly web site. Good luck, let us know how it goes, it works for me.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

Zen and the return of Larkrise

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 . 

2010 nearly done 2011 nearly here

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!

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