Ian Holloway v Wayne Rooney, BBC budget cuts and Breast cancer

It's been a while since a did a post that covered a multitude of vaguely related things. Just today my in box has  given me grist for the mill and yesterday I made a discovery that shocked even me. Then of course there's a multitude of tiny bits and bobs worth passing on that don't frankly fit in to any of the usual Strictly, Masterchef or History posts.

I may as well reveal the shocking news first. I who have sworn to never watch The One Show as I thought it to be just a step away from bizzaro telly for the truly odd, have become a convert. There's something appealing about the new hosts Jason Manford and Alex Jones that makes the segment where Salman Rushdie plays table tennis seem less surreal. The informative pieces that I'll admit were also on the old One Show, seem to fit better now that the hosts don't seem to be sharing a brain cell. There are in fact three people who are a near guarantee to make me switch channels if they are on a chat show.... James Corden, Adrian Chiles and Katie Price, together these three make almost a whole personality. Perhaps it is the insensitivity and near total lack of knowledge emanating from Mr Chiles that so repelled me from the One Show, but with him gone , the segments worthy of BBC4 are truly informative and entertaining. All my favourite BBC4 presenters seem to be doing a short film a week for them, and  it doesn't seem as pointless now that we don't have interviews in which Yo Yo Ma will be asked for his favourite Lady Gaga track or if he thinks she's a tranny. 

Another chat show that has taken us by storm is the Rob Brydon Show. Normally a comedian with two chairs and a musical guest falls flat on his face as he or she will just end up interviewing the same dreary list of celebs Wossy used to get. But not our Welsh dynamo. He's got a small room, fewer than 200 people in. This intimate setting insures that no person sitting in a chair is immune from interrogation by the host and must be on his or her toes. Guests are mostly drawn from a combination of iconic British personalities to rising stars of comedy and drama. What I consider the icing on the cake, is that Rob Brydon is in fact not a bad singer, and will sit in with musical guests for a bit of a jam session. Guests of late have included Seasick Steve and Paloma Faith. If you like indie pop and music outside of the x factor production line, you will enjoy the segments. Brydon  has filled the void that once was the near exclusive domain of Graham Norton .

So why don't I watch Graham Norton anymore? Besides being off the air at the minute, his guest list had got so polluted with visiting Americans who needed everything explained to them  and the strange allowance of Jedward, TWICE, as well as apparently regular visits by James Corden, that I could not bear to turn on the telly. This sort of booking has replaced his previously entertaining range of comedians, actors, authors, freaks and funny misfits who knitted, made strange toys or channelled dead pets. Since He moved to BBC1 and Jonathan Ross lost his show, the BBC have tried to get Norton to take up the Ross mantle along with his guest list, in the process stripping him of any remaining charm.

In the it sucks to be you department, universally loved NUFC hero Andy Carroll, who is now living with Kevin Nolan under terms of his bail from assault charges, has had his brand new chrome-plated Range Rover burned to a crisp while parked in the drive. Graffiti expressing above mentioned love was found nearby . Joining Caroll this week in the race to see who is more "loved", is Wayne Rooney. He made Alex Ferguson look deeply disappointed and hurt beyond words on Sky sports. While no one will want to burn Wayne's car, I think he wins the twat of the week and the month award. Football has gone wrong when a single player and his agent can hold the the club hostage like that. If he's going to sit and sulk till January and bugger off on a free, then shame on him and the people who think this is ok. Ian Holloway got it right today when he raged at the players and agents who are now bigger than even the biggest clubs. What arrogance, what hubris, what a shame. What is the point of a contract when it means nothing, what is the point of training up a player only to have him throw his toys out the pram and leave when HE's done with YOU!?This rant was so good it made the Russell Howard show

Speaking of tits, some dim bulb with a computer has sent me an e-mail letting me know I've won £500,000. To collect I only had to send an e-mail to "Dear Graham Poll at graham.poll6@gmail.com". If that didn't work I got a second one telling me to use graham.poll9. If you get one of these, don't respond, you're only telling them you have an active e-mail address. Best comedy line of last week goes to visiting American comedienne on Qi XL Animals , when she stopped Ross Noble to ask him "Are you speaking English?". I also learned that if ever meet a honey badger, I should be wearing a steel jock strap.  Want a super power? Get bit by a radioactive hag fish and acquire the skill to ooze mucus at will, very cool and useful as well in a tight spot. Get it, tight?

Now if you are good soul and want to give to breast cancer awareness, may I suggest you avoid buying pink branded foods, products and other such crass commercial grasping and give directly to the charity. If you like cheese and the pink wrapped cheese is the one you would have bought normally, go right ahead, but for pity's sake, don't encourage this fake marketing  by buying a product from a company that will give a fraction of what you spent to the cause in question. Take note that you care about the cause, keep going , then when you get home, give something through paypal or write a cheque. And on that subject, we are a month away from Children in Need.  Start checking your finances now to make sure you have something to give on the 19th of November.

Spooks has been chugging along nicely. In last week's ep we learn the new commodity will be fresh water  and that there is a new world that resembles the old one of the pre-ideological days, when nations did war unto each other by stealing industrial secrets and attempting to shore their own economies at the expense of others. We also wondered just how bent Lucas was going to be; very it turns out, having set up some drone passing him in hall way. Loved his line where says  " We can be together, I've fixed things". When the fall comes, it will be spectacular. This weeks ep had the President of the United States, oddly referred to as the leader of the free World, chairing yet another doomed to failure, peace conference about the Arab-Israeli conflict. In a fresh twist, it takes a turn at stating the obvious, mainly that ultra religious elements in Israel are far from interested in peace before they get their nationalist agenda firmly in place. One of the most annoying things about the story was that I had so wanted to dislike the Home Secretary, but he turns out have a soul after all.

Speaking of the current government, the spending cuts at the BBC are on the one hand, not as bad as they could have been, and on the other hand still terrible. Or as my mate Keith Topping said, "It's better to loose only one leg instead of the two". The fact is that 16% of operating budget is being taken out of original programming. BBC News and the Welsh service that used to be paid by government departments are now paid for out of the main BBC budget. That budget by the way  frozen now for several years. So it you're nostalgic for the cheap special effects of 70's Doctor who, then wait a few months and you'll be right at home. Merlin has already seriously downgraded it's FX budget from last year with obvious results. I may not say it all the time, but I LOVE THE BBC. If I take away the few programmes I watch on ITV  ( Corrie, the occasional special crime drama and football), I'm left with a huge amount of telly I still watch. In fact if you took away my BBC, I'd be left with nothing.  One hopes that a few Lib Dem  or Tory MPs are caught in a scandal or are too ill to work, It won't take but a handful of seats to bring the whole rotten house of cards coalition down.

I'll close this with a massive praise of Mark Gatiss and his History of Horror of a less detestable kind. It has been a joy to watch, taking us step by step by step through the fascinating , sometimes forgotten sometimes unknown parts of the the story of Horror cinema. I was a boy all over again, watching Frankenstein, Dracula, then moving on to my teens, the Hammer films which I was finally old enough to see. Because of this series I've had to make a list of must watch again  and must watch for the first time classic horror films. I need to see the wax museum films, never seen Freaks, and I've forgotten  more Hammer films than I've watched new films in the last 10 years. I love how Gatiss explores the Luton buses or shows us how Bray studios reinvented the genre with it's more urbane, sexy  and bloody monsters. BTW, I'm with Luton, I'd much rather make up my own monsters, seeing them sometimes  just makes you laugh, robbing the whole build up of any tension and fear. There is one more instalment left covering the Texas chain saw massacre era to now, an era frankly I found far too bloody and macabre without ever telling a story. Zombie films will also get a shout, so if you fear the walking dead, get your trusty shovel, make sure nobody around you is dead and lock the door.

Happy telly people, and don't forget, if there's nowt on telly, go for a walk, read a book or talk to your significant other. Me, I'm off to see if her indoors would like to do something other than stay in for the night.

Nigella, Gordon Ramsay and brilliant comedy

There are days, dear readers, that start off with the best of intentions and are filled with the anticipation of greatness to be experienced. The salivation brought on by the knowledge that what you will see may in fact be better than you ever hoped for. This was not one of them.

My intention was to fire up the iPlayer and watch some cookery programmes I had missed during the week. One, Gordon Ramsay's best restaurant always leaves me hungry and I wasn't for a minute expecting quality from Nigella, but OH the horrors, what I did get was 10 times worse, and that was Gordon Ramsay. Nigella Kitchen...Nigella's new series for the brain dead, mammary enamoured, far exceeded my lowest expectations.

Now you may ask why I bothered with Nigella at all? Yes I know it was going to be only slightly better than the annoying Miss Dahl, but as an honest person I need to at least watch something before I tell you it's rubbish. If I may begin with the beginning, Nigella, they're prawns, I don't need an epic poem about your first lover or that the smell evokes summers with your Nan while visiting the Lake District. Tell me where to get them, what a good price is and for G-d's sake, de vein the damn things.  Just how lazy are you?  Oh I forgot , you're Nigella "you can just get the cheaper powder that taste the same" Lawson. The so called recipe for roasted potatoes suggested amusingly that  chucking in a few unpeeled bits of garlic in a pan would somehow miraculously flavour your tatties drenched in, I cant believe you said this, non extra virgin olive oil. I saw nary a sign of "seasoning", garlic is to be used sparingly so as not to offend any people without taste buds. The atrocities committed to the sea food was even worse, she double cooked her calamari before putting into a pan for roasting, great way to produce rubber rings that taste even worse, not that you would notice them over the bland over cooked shrimps with vein still in. Then there was the so called salami pasta in alleged sauce.  The sauce was a tin of tomatoes watered down with pasta water. Is that it????? where is the seasoning, the onions,  the garlic , the pesto , the pine nuts, the hint of chilli maybe, or grated cheese for extra zing? And why in heaven's name was she cutting the salami with scissors??? Had she never heard of a knife? I never did get past the 10 minute mark, but I can assume the assault, had it continued would have rendered me catatonic. What Nigella Lawson knows about cooking is not worth passing on to other breathing beings intent on wasting good ingredients. As for her pantry, it was too sparse and was too brightly lit. You want food to age faster, expose it to too much light. As for the contents, it was filled with rubbish most self respecting cooks would never buy. There was nothing in it she had made herself in advance and the packets of noodles were the kind my father used to keep when he cooked just enough for himself, her pantry was in fact, empty.  A proper pantry would have been groaning with spices, herbs, flours, yeast, lards or various kinds of oils, vinegars and pastes. I didn't see barley, lima beans, rice, polenta or dried fruits like raisins or prunes. I bet she doesn't even know the names of half the utensils artfully arrayed on her work area but never used in the recipes. People please do me a favour, do not watch this ever, if you like knockers, there are plenty of shapely well endowed women on the internet who are willing to show you more than a sweater. If however you wanted to cook for your family, watch a Jamie Oliver repeat, or perhaps pick up a Hairy Bikers book, loads of great ideas with real food and real cooking skills. Other than keeping her massive breasts in constant camera shot, how this woman gets commissioned for new series is a mystery to me.

SO what did I do to calm my nerves, reset my brain to default cookery senses? I watched episode 3 of Ramsay's best restaurants, Chinese. I expected to be in a food trance that would only be ended with Dim Sum on Sunday. Instead, I was even more furious than after the Nigella debacle. Normally the programme is spot on, the criticisms just and the tests fair. But the Chinese episode showed a cultural chasm on the part of the viewers and Gordon Ramsay himself in regards to Chinese cuisine. I can speak from experience about this as I was married for 14 years to a Chinese woman and by extension her family. My father in law was a chef and we ate all sorts at home. If we went out it was only to proper, REAL, Chinese restaurants. My current (and best) wife is Jewish and raised in the belief that if pork is served  in a Chinese place in Queens, it's kosher. Any way you slice it, neither of us or my ex wife or my now deceased former father in law, would set foot in The Kai or You Yue. Both are what you call "White Devil" places. One tries to posh up to the level of the Fat Duck or one of Gordon's places and the other is just basic Chinese for non Chinese customers. Little wonder they were recommended by the ordinary Briton who thinks they make strawberry somosas or lamb chops in China. Dover Sole is also not a big seller in Hong Kong or the mainland. What the average Chinese person eats, even far from home, is so much more varied than what the white bland Briton is prepared for.

As for our Chef Gordon, I know for a fact he has not spent more than a few hours in a proper Chinese restaurant. If he had , he would be aware that cooks, sous chefs and family , SPEAK LOUDLY AT EACH OTHER! It's normal, it's in the blood and you cannot tell them not to do it.  Presentation and service are also not the same as you would expect in a normal European eatery. Chinese food comes often, all at once in several large plates and bowls. In fact you're supposed to eat it all with a bowl of rice you put things on. I hear some of you ask  what's wrong with just a plate of large cubed beef? Chinese cuisine makes sure the meats are not alone on the plate or in your mouth , they are prepared to last and stretch and mingle with your veg, nuts and sauces. In essence to pick up anything that large with chopsticks is impolite and a waste of food. Half that amount sliced, could have fed an entire family. Meats are served on a bed of various kinds of noodles and seasoned in more than just rice wine. During preparation, meat. like all ingredients in Chinese cookery, is sliced thin for easy marinating, cooking, and eating.  Oriental food is the art of the delicate mouthful that merges sweet, sour, crunchy, soft, slimy and pasty.  In fact my former Father in law cooked with sherry, whiskey,sesame oil, and fish oil for starters. The array of spices I learned to use from him and others like him, is far greater than those on display at either of the kitchens in the ep. Furthermore, to subject the Chinese chefs to a kitchen without a real wok station is to handicap the gentlemen in question. It was sad to see these fine cooks reduce their cuisine to a series of fake Chinese to please white devils who wouldn't know real Chinese if it crawled out of the bowl and said hello. I have eaten , kidneys, mushrooms, vast amounts of fish, octopus, abalone, shark, pork, beef, assorted offal, chicken and duck. Tea, an entire separate level of ceremony, seems to have been completely dropped and the desserts in no way resemble anything you would be offered in a Chinese home or eatery. You don't need to take the piss out of the cuisine or dumb it down to make it palatable, to have a food adventure. The handful of Chinese dinners in the third test were hardly quoted and far too polite to say the food was rubbish. In the case of the Kai, to equate it to so called Michelin level Chinese is an insult to the grand traditions of Chinese cuisine that include food so fine, rare and delicate that only Emperors were allowed to eat it.  There is of course the intermediary level reserved for high holy days, weddings and  foods prepared in honour of the seasons. There is a reason why things are done the way they are, and it is bound up in the rich traditions of face, communal dinning and the high wire act of selecting the best morsel from your side of the plate without offending the eldest or the most important person at the table.  Try this one for fun if you're with Chinese people in a restaurant, .... try paying, the acrobatics and diplomacy involved in this is worthy of a screen play. Gordon Ramsay got it horribly wrong.

And finally .... I watched with great delight, The Rob Brydon show, free of James Corden, he had on Stephen Fry, rising young comic Daniel Sloss and Seasick Steve. The half hour went by far too quickly, but not before we heard Rob Brydon accompany Seasick and have Stephen Fry give us a useful definition we can all apply daily... Countryside....To kill Piers Morgan. For a chaser, one tuned into Qi XL- Hoaxes and 8 out of 10 cats. I learned a few interesting things. Cauliflower is misunderstood, Sean Locke is mostly not funny on Qi or Cats, Daniel Sloss IS funny, and Stephen Fry has some strange ideas about oranges.....Oh and the hoax item on Qi??? I won't tell you, you can watch for yourself.

Have you missed  BBC 3's Ideal? Fix that now. A sitcom about a variegated group of unique individuals, starring Mick Miller, Johny Vegas and our own Alfie Joey. If you don't get it, just spend some time in an older building in a neighbourhood of artists, dreamers, writers, musicians, con men, schemers, gays, sex workers, students, and assorted nutters the NHS has deemed safe to walk the streets. Their unique views on the world get credence from each other, feeding and encouraging schemes only slightly less insane than the current story line on Ideal. I have partied with these people, they are real, well almost all of them, I've never met Cartoon Head.

Next post is Strictly Strictly, far too much to say in one short paragraph. Laters all. Howay the Lads, Good Luck against Manchester City!