(Contains Mild Peril)

My Friends Ain't Enough For One Hand

2008-07-25T13:42:00.003+01:00

My mum's concerned about me and Betty.

You haven't got a hobby. You do nothing with your spare time.

We do. We watch telly. We read. We listen to music. We blog.

Yes but you don't communicate with other people.

Blogging is communicating.

Yes, but it's not face to face. I don't know any other couples like you. Most normal couples have a social life. They meet up with other couples. They go round to other couples' houses. They entertain.

What have we got in common with other couples? Come to think of it what have I ever had in common with most people? Besides, I've got my friends.

Which you see how often?

They're miles away! How often would you see your friends if they moved hundreds of miles away?

We're always making new friends. We've got friends from dancing. Friends from bowls. Friends who we meet on holiday - we're always chatting to new people when we're on holiday. Tell me, Geoff. Are you really happy? Are you really really happy with your life?

Outside of work?

Yes, of course.

Yes.

You need a hobby, though. One where you meet people. Golf.

I hate golf.

You used to play sports. Tennis.

That was for the competition. I didn't make any friends from tennis.

I'm not going to get anywhere with you two am I?

We're happy with our sad little lives.

Are you doing anything at the weekend?

Of course not. You?

Of course.

Nutty Nuptials

2008-07-23T20:03:00.006+01:00

"Wayne phoned me from Scotland last night. He said the wedding was fantastic, the best he's ever been to. You'll never guess where it was held."

"In a castle?"

"No. A field! In the middle of a field in Scotland! You'll never guess what the dress code was."

"Kilts?"

"No! Wellies! Wellies in a field in Scotland! You'll never guess what they sang."

"Donald Where's Your Troosers (Trad Arr)?"

"No. Always Look On The Bright Side Of Life! You know, the Monty Python song!"

Avery Brundage - A Life In Sport

2008-07-22T13:25:00.001+01:00

It's forty years since Tommie Smith and John Carlos gave their Black Power salute on the Olympic rostrum, the most enduring image in the history of the Games.

The documentary, Black Power Salute, filled us in on the background and the characters involved in the event.

It also introduced me to a new villain. Avery Brundage was the International Olympic Committee president at the time. He was fiercely against involving politics in sport and expelled both Smith and Carlos from the Olympic Village and then made sure they were suspended from the US Olympic team.

See if you can spot the difference between the damning biography of Brundage on Wikipedia and the "non-political" stance taken by the Olympic Movement.

Buggered if I can.

WALL-E: THE ALTERNATIVE CUT

2008-07-20T12:15:00.002+01:00

SOUNDTRACK WRITTEN AND PERFORMED BY YORK-E

WALL-E: THE ALTERNATIVE CUT

SOUNDTRACK WRITTEN AND PERFORMED BY YORK-E

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The Victorian Restaurant, Bexleyheath: An Apology

2008-07-17T19:38:00.003+01:00

Back in December 2006, I unfairly wrote a very unflattering review of The Victorian Restaurant, Bexleyheath. Since then my review has not left the front page of Google searches for the restaurant and people have been reading the post in droves.

Today I had my first comment from one of my new readers. They wrote the following...

"I can tell you would not know a first class meal at a resonable price if it bit you on your Burburry cap covered empty heads. Stick to MacDonalds you cheap, moronic, unappreciative egits.

By the way the Victoria Restaurant is a fantastic place to eat, we had our company Christmas do there and found the food, wine, surroundings and staff to be excellent."

I must say I am humbled and I wish to put on record that my experience in the restaurant was tainted by a brain disorder that was shortly afterwards corrected by some very strong prescription drugs.

That December I was in the grip of an irrational hatred for French food. Frogs' legs, snails, foie gras, petits filous, anything French in fact. That day I purposely ordered an English roast, knowing full well that this was the equivalent of choosing omelette and chips in an Indian restaurant. This marked me out as common to the core and fully deserving of a teaspoon of the head chef's spunk mixed in with my gravy. Not that that sort of thing actually goes on. I mean, can you imagine Gordon Ramsay knocking one out into the watercress soup as he effs and jeffs his way through a tense evening populated by incompetent staff and rude customers?

So, dear readers, if ever you're in Bexleyheath, come and join me for some top notch French cuisine. The Duck A L'Orange sounds right up my rue!

Street Survival

2008-07-16T13:43:00.003+01:00

When I'm walking where there are people about...

If someone in front of me lights a cigarette I quicken my pace and overtake them.

If someone in front of me smells of bad body odour I quicken my pace and overtake them.

If someone in front of me smells of urine I quicken my pace and overtake them.

If someone in front of me has been shopping in Lush I quicken my pace and overtake them.

Don't Step On The Cracks

2008-07-13T11:43:00.005+01:00

I don't believe in superstitions but I've had a few over the years. Usually of the sort, "if I don't throw this piece of paper directly in the bin, I've got a terminal illness." I've never missed unless I've tried the old "if I throw this piece of paper directly into the bin, I've got a terminal illness." OK, I can change my mind when the paper's in mid-flight.

When I was a young teenager I had a book written by an author who'd died of a terminal illness. I couldn't bring myself to read it and kept it on top of the wardrobe, back picture cover down so I couldn't catch whatever had killed him.

In recent years my main one involves my funeral tie. If my navy blue funeral tie falls off its tie rack, it means someone is going to die. It does fall off occasionally, but as yet the funeral I'm expecting to attend in the near future hasn't happened.

This proves to me that superstition is nonsense.

I've also yet to be convinced that the future can be "read" by "chosen" people. A work colleague of mine has just been to see a Tarot reader. She was told that there are going to be six redundancies at work in August and that in the end our department will be one of the last ones to go.

This is patently nonsense. It's not August, it's September!

The Long Walk To Finchley

2008-07-10T20:00:00.001+01:00

This drama was about Thatcher's early political years. Her failure to get selected to be a candidate in East Kent, her success in capturing Britain's most eligible divorcee Denis, her success in producing two beautiful twins and her eventual success in winning over the Tories in Finchley (with a little help from the lovelorn (yes, lovelorn) Ted Heath....

Yes, it was more a comedy really. Including really hackneyed jokes foretelling things that were to happen later in the evil family's life which I won't bore you with here.

What was disconcerting, however, was that she was played by the outstandingly beautiful Andrea Riseborough...

Jesus, I fancy Thatcher!

"I wonder if anybody's ever pleasured themselves to a picture of the real Thatcher?" said Betty.

"And anticipating the moment of release shouted 'MAGGIE! MAGGIE! MAGGIE!...'"

"OUT! OUT! OUT!"

N.B. The retiring Member for Finchley was played by the increasingly jowly Geoffrey Palmer (who I once saw in Tesco's)

Hit The North

2008-07-09T13:11:00.004+01:00

I got in from work last night and Betty was livid. I could tell because Adam and The Ants were blaring out from the stereo.

"I've recorded some of Richard and Judy for you," she said. You've got to see it. I'm so angry."

This was the cause of her ire.

"I can't believe it," I said. "Not another book deal for a blogging middle class English woman. This one sounds even worse than the rest. Speaking as a husband, son and a father..."

"You're not a father. Are you?"

"OK maybe not. But how on earth does this twat represent bloggers? I've got absolutely nothing in common with her. She calls it work! Work! It's not bloody work! It's a bleeding diversion from work! I'm going to do a post about this. About how all the published bloggers are middle class women. What about the working class male bloggers, eh? What about blogs such as...as... MY BIRD IS A SORT!"

"OK."

"Or GEEZER WITH A PERMANENT HARD ON."

"FIRST BEER OF THE DAY?"

"PROUD SCOUSER IN THE COSTAS."

"WIFE IN THE DOCK."

"Yeah, what about them? Middle class wanker publishers."

Betty's Birthday Meal

2008-07-07T18:20:00.001+01:00

So we booked a table at a Soho restaurant for Saturday evening. Not realising Saturday was Pride London Day. As opposed to London Pride Day which would attract streets of Keith Flett lookalikes.

We walked through Soho as the party was winding down. Or was it winding up for the night to come? Well, we walked through Soho in a bit of an alcoholic daze, unfazed by the bloke pissing against a wall and the broken bottles underfoot. In the restaurant, we sat at a window table so we could see younger people drinking, chatting, kissing, hugging, punching and littering. A glass or a bottle was thrown at the restaurant window. I felt bloody old.

At 9.30 precisely, the street cleaners came and removed all the rubbish from the street. A little later the fire brigade turned up to sort out a gush which was making a bit of a river of one side of the street. They came, they went and everybody carried on doing what they were doing.

I'd chosen the restaurant from the Time Out Guide 1998. Back then, Phill Jupitus was a regular. The food was supposed to be decent and the portions were meant to be large, plenty enough for a man of Jupitus' girth. Of course we didn't see him there and no wonder, for he would have needed ten main courses as his starter.

We left the restaurant, unsatiated, and walked back through the partying crowd, just avoiding stepping in a drunk young woman's vomit. We missed our train by 30 seconds. With half an hour to kill we went to the nearest pub where they graciously relieved us of £9.50 for two glasses of wine.

We stepped off the train the other end and my stomach was demanding more food. So into the kebab shop it was for a nice hot portion of chips. While we were waiting for the order, a very unusual family got out of a cab and joined us at the counter. Dad had a head like a violent billiard ball and big earrings. Mum and the kids looked like they'd stepped out of a 1973 holiday camp. This was obviously the climax to their night out. Kebabs and chips to take away.

They seemed to be regulars. All it now needed was Phill Jupitus to walk in to make it the perfect evening.

He didn't.

That Hateful Inch

2008-07-05T11:35:00.001+01:00

I haven't watched any of Wimbledon this year. Neither has Betty. Yet we both used to be big tennis fans. What happened?

I'll tell you what happened, kids. Are you sitting comfortably?

The inch that changed tennis forever happened, that's what happened. I bang on about this every Wimbledon-time. Though it applies to any of the other just as important as Wimbledon tournaments around the world.

The article I've linked to seems to think it was a good thing. Well they would because they sell the monstrosity that is the modern tennis racquet. Let me take you back to a time much gentler than the current time.

There was a ten year old boy called Geoffrey. His dad's friend played social tennis. No, this was not a euphemism for swinging...

Geoffrey's dad's friend was a very nice man. And he offered to teach the boy how to play tennis. He leant him a racquet, very similar to his own. He showed him the basics.

After a few elementary lessons, Geoffrey was able to hit the ball against a wall. He practised and practised against the wall of the garage bordering the local field. He could hit the ball harder and more accurate. He was ready to play with other people.

Meanwhile, Geoffrey's friend had been taught a few elementary strokes. He had practised, too.

So they joined a club together. They joined the junior section of their local tennis club. There was no tuition there. The kids were left to get on with it.

So Geoffrey and his friend played against each other. Hour after hour, game after game, set after set. They developed well, with their own individual styles. As they got older, they were invited to play with the seniors. They could hold their own as they had the individual techniques to surprise their stronger opponents. They both specialised in a heavy topspin forehand, though they could vary their strokes using drop shots, lobs, slices, etc. They only went to the net when forced to. They hugged the baseline.

Then came the extra inch.

Suddenly, racquets became wider. There was more room for error. What used to be a balls up with the old racquet became a winning shot with the new. Slow, considered skill was out, POWER was in.

Everybody started buying the new bigger racquets. They became more confident, more powerful players overnight. More aces were being hit. Serve and volley was where it was at. POW! POW! Baseline players with old-fashioned smaller wooden racquets were getting blasted off court. Taller players were at an advantage. They could serve, volley and smash. The little guys couldn't use their guile any more. A game of chess became a game of real war.

I miss the days when you could measure the correct height of the net by laying one racquet horizontally on top of a vertical one. When the game was hypnotically beautiful, to play and to watch. The game lost me a long time ago. And it's not having me back.

Top Tips

2008-07-03T13:29:00.005+01:00

Some useful information I learnt from watching Tuesday's episode of Criminal Justice. If you're ever banged up in prison, tell them you're a Mormon. That's the wonderful Pete Postlethwaite's line, anyway. If you say you're a Mormon you won't get the revolting prison tea, but a delicious mug of hot chocolate. But isn't there caffeine in chocolate, too? Ours is not to wonder why.

This reminds me of some more advice I was once given. If ever you're in hospital, say you only eat kosher food. It's brought in from outside and is hot and delicious. The only thing is, if you're unlikely to make it out of hospital you get a visit from the rabbi. Who'll probably ask you if you're eating well.

By the way, star spotters, guess which one of the following I just made eye contact with in the street...

1. Mitch Winehouse, leaning out of his cab, buying a copy of The Evening Standard.

2. Leonard Cohen, combing his hair, looking at his reflection in the window of Currys.

3. ABC's Martin Fry walking towards Covent Garden, in conversation with an attractive young lady.

The 1970s That Never Went Away

2008-07-01T13:16:00.004+01:00

My mum has recently started a diary. So has my stepdad. They're to remind them of what they've done in case they forget. They haven't got blogs, though. My mum's glad I've got a hobby but a little concerned about what sort of people I may be mixing with. "They could be swingers, or anything," she's said.

Of course you can never tell who's up to what. I was once in a pub with a young man from work, his father, and his father's male friend. We were all peckish so one of them suggested we go for a meal. On the way to the restaurant, I was asked "Are you sure you want to do this? You know what this is about, don't you? It's not just a meal, you know." I graciously made my excuses and had a bean burger at Burger King.

So how would you react if you had heard that someone you know may be, say, a swinger? Just supposing, of course. I'm not saying that I'm in a similar situation at the moment. Oh no, far from it. How would you act in their presence?

Would you...

a) Whistle the tune to the Jungle Book song King of the Swingers?

b) Whisper in their ear, "Come on, big boy, show us your car keys"?

c) Continue to act as if you know nothing, trying but failing not to imagine exactly what goes on?

Saturday Glastonbury 2008

2008-06-29T12:21:00.003+01:00

Betty: Is there something wrong with me? I can't understand why people like her.

Geoff: I can understand why people like her. I can't understand why intelligent people like her.

Betty: It's like, if you were in a bar where she was performing, you'd carry on your conversation.

Geoff: She's the new Sade. Coffee table music.

Betty: It's like the 80s all over again. When pop music was very polished, accomplished and boring. I hate pop music now.

Geoff: I bet this is going to go on for the full hour. They're not going to show any Elbow or Hot Chip. It's the BBC trying to outdo ITV. If she hadn't been on that Nelson Mandela thing we wouldn't get a full hour of this...Well, actually we probably would. Because everybody's supposed to think she's some sort of genius.

Betty: I'd prefer James Blunt to this. At least you can laugh at him. He's a Tim Nice But Dim figure to me. This is just depressing.

Geoff: It's a choice between this...Joan Armatrading...The Wombats...Sod it, we're watching The Wire.

Betty: "When you walk through the garden..."

Geoff: "You gotta watch your back..."

Betty: "Well I beg your pardon..."

Geoff: "Walk the straight and narrow track..."

Betty: "If you walk with Jesus..."

Geoff: "He's gonna save your soul..."

Betty: "You gotta keep the devil..."

Geoff: "Way down in the hole..."

Betty: "He's got the fire and the fury..."

...ad nauseum...

Seven Songs

2008-06-27T10:55:00.003+01:00

Boz has kindly handed me the meme baton. His own choices are great so go check 'em out.

So I must "List seven songs you are into right now. No matter what the genre, whether they have words, or even if they’re not any good, but they must be songs you’re really enjoying now, shaping your spring. Post these instructions in your blog along with your seven songs."

Although my spring sprung many moons ago, I can still dream...

1. Rush - Closer To The Heart
A week in Cornwall with nothing but Planet Rock to listen to may have been depressing but it made me re-evaluate my past. I still liked quite a few of the songs including this wondrous Yes rip-off. And any radio station that has Alice Cooper and Rick Wakeman as DJs can't be all bad.

2. Spiritualized - Soul On Fire
He nearly died, you know! Just think how good he could be if he was clean!

3. Sex Pistols - Bodies
Not an "abortion" song, a "Pauline" song. For more information, read "more info" on the YouTube page.

4. David Bowie - John, I'm Only Dancing
We can't get this version anywhere, just the inferior one on The Best Of David Bowie 1969/74.

5. Grandmaster Flash & Melle Mel - White Lines
I've heard this by accident three times in the past few weeks. Is it linked to a new film or something? I wasn't too keen on it when it first came out but I love it now.

6. Scooter - Jumping All Over The World
To celebrate Germany's forthcoming triumphant Euro 2008 victory. As a result of my recent reading and watching, I can imagine a troop of Shane MacGowan's uncles and the puppets from Team America dancing to this. The chorus is, of course, lifted from the sublime A Glass Of Champagne by the brilliant Sailor. Now there's a solid gold classic.

7. Quiet Village - Too High To Move
From one of the albums of the year by Brighton's answer to The Avalanches. What the fuck happened to The Avalanches?

I hereby hand the baton to those of you on my sidebar who haven't yet done this. I'm nosey that way.

North Cornwall, June 2008

2008-06-24T12:50:00.000+01:00

It started so well. The weather and the scenery were beautiful.

Absolutely gorgeous

We were really relaxed and laid back.

The foot that launched a thousand ships

Then came the dark clouds.

If Anton Corbijn sold holidays...

And with them came a cloud over my mood. A mini nervous breakdown, caused by the following...

1. Work frustrations rearing their ugly head.
2. The dead atmosphere in the village's one horse pub with its loop of The Eagles Greatest Hits Including The Really Shit Stuff From The Eighties and the seventies menu including gammon with pineapple rings.
3. The small claustrophobic rooms in the cottage.
4. Being woken at 6.30 each morning by the clippety clop hooves of a ghost horse.
5. The shit radio reception in the cottage, giving us a choice of the appalling Virgin or the "Take me back to when I was a miserable fifteen year old" Planet Rock.
6. The shit television reception in the cottage which made all the Euro 2008 matches look like they were being played in snowstorms.
7. Our dirty clothes getting locked in the cottage's broken washing machine.
8. A hairy coastal drive in which I thought the car was going to break down stuck on the edge of a cliff as I attempted a tricky seventy-three point turn.

We left for home six days early.

Those of you who aren't going on holiday this year can laugh your tits off. Go on, it's funny. Those of you going somewhere more sensible, I salute you.

I need a holiday.

A Hard Rain's a-Gonna Fall

2008-06-11T13:50:00.001+01:00

We're off for a couple of weeks on Saturday. Not saying where, mind.

In the meantime, why not go here for some sizzling sausage discourse?

p.s. Bloglines had better sort themselves out by the time we get back. Or at least reply to my query!

Mark Lawson Interviews Alexei Sayle

2008-06-09T13:31:00.003+01:00

Something Alexei Sayle said in interview with Mark Lawson. Something along the lines of "You can't be a real writer and host game shows at the same time."

I've never read a novel by Stephen Fry so I'm not really qualified to agree or disagree with Sayle. But I did accidently turn QI on for a couple of minutes at the weekend and wasn't really surprised by the level of sixth form debating society smugness on show.

I confuse Mark Lawson with that journalist who told the Scientologist "YOU WERE NOT THERE!" I kept expecting him to interrupt Sayle with those words. But Sayle was talking about his life and he was there.

He said Ben Elton decided he was going to be famous early on and everything he does is in the pursuit of fame. Ben will never be satisfied. I regularly see young women on the train reading Ben Elton novels. It never seems to be the same one. I'm sure that would satisfy most ugly middle aged men.

I have never attempted to read a Ben Elton novel, or an Alexei Sayle one. I did once try a Rob Newman one but couldn't get into it. I have never read a David Baddiel novel or a Frank Skinner novel or a Dawn French novel or a Jennifer Saunders novel or an Adrian Edmondson novel or a Lenny Henry novel either.

I wonder if any of you have ever read a novel written by one of the New Wave Of Alternative Comedians? Jo Brand? Arthur Smith? You know, one of those.

Royal Flush

2008-06-07T14:15:00.000+01:00

It has been announced that Gillian McKeith has been employed by the Royal Family as their personal health advisor.

Here we see the first interview for the post of Royal Faeces Inspector.

The job is live-in and commands a salary of £12,600 per annum. The Queen is interviewing candidates herself as she wants someone she can look in the eye and feel comfortable with.

My Head is My Only House Unless it Rains

2008-06-05T13:16:00.002+01:00

The credit crunch is biting or the credit bite is crunching, whatever, and people are losing their homes and first time buyers can't afford mortgages. Of course, it's been coming a long time as house prices have been obscene for a very long time and they've just been getting more and more obscene year by year.

BBC's The Money Programme and Panorama investigate by snooping on a few people's lives.

Except they don't choose people who you may feel sympathy for, people with mortgages at an almost sensible multiple of their salaries (I say "almost sensible" because it has been impossible for some years now for most people to afford a property with a wholly sensible mortgage).

The programme makers choose people like:-

1. The 19 year old boy who lives with his parents. His girlfriend and young child live with her parents. His parents are willing to give him the deposit on a house but mortgage lenders consider him too big a risk. He won't rent because renting is "dead money". This "dead money" bollocks has obviously been drummed into him by his stupid parents who got married at 12, had 16 children and still managed to buy their first home outright at the age of 21!

2. The young couple with a young child who are renting a tiny, damp flat in the very expensive town they grew up in. They deperately want to buy a property. The problem is their combined income is just about enough to keep them in a tiny, damp flat in the very expensive town they grew up in.

3. The family with the 125% mortgage, living in their "dream home" which they bought at the time when house prices peaked.

4. The 23 year old estate agent who has two mortgages. One on a one bedroom house for himself. The other on a one bedroom flat which he can only rent out at a rate which doesn't cover the mortgage he's paying on it.

5. The divorcee mother of one who expects to be able to pay the mortgage on a three bedroom semi all by herself! Is she crazy?

The only thing you can glean from these exposes is that we are living in idiot Britain. Nowhere did they say that house prices are absolutely fucking obscene and that a lot of decent-earning, sensible people are going to lose their homes or cannot afford to buy. No, they choose bleeding idiots for us to feel superior to.

Dumbing down cunts.

******

N.B. Betty's latest post doesn't seem to have been picked up by Bloglines. Has anybody else had this trouble? Is it something to do with her old skool template? Or has she been barred for taking the piss out of Lily Allen?

I Think I Need Some Sunshine

2008-06-02T20:05:00.002+01:00

I'm going through a bit of a "blogging's a great way of making cyber friends but what, honestly, have any of us got in common?" phase. I haven't even got much in common with my real life friends, let alone you bunch of self-publishing egotists. Reading the Dawkins book doesn't help because I don't think I've got much in common with other atheists, either.

Take the British Humanist Association, of which Dawkins is a "distinguished" supporter. "The Humanist view of life is progressive and optimistic, in awe of human potential, living without fear of judgement and death, finding enough purpose and meaning in life, love and leaving a good legacy." So says President Polly Toynbee.

My view of life is pretty much the opposite to that. I am no optimist and I'm not going to leave a good legacy. I'm going to go out in an orgy of drink and drugs, not marveling at Mother Nature through Darwinian spectacles.

And as for the Association's "distinguished" supporters. Sirs, Lords, OBEs, MBEs, CBEs. Sir Jonathan Miller CBE! Come on Jonathan, you can do better than that! Sir Jonathan Miller CBE, GCE, BSc, Phd! There, that's better.

Take Me To The River

2008-05-31T15:15:00.002+01:00

I am reading Richard Dawkins' The God Delusion.

"What's the point?" you may ask. "Isn't it preaching to the converted?"

Well, I suppose it is, though I never had to be converted. But so what, anyway? I will read it then I will forget about it. I won't become any more of an atheist for reading it. I won't start arguing with the religious people I meet, asking them for evidence of their God.

I will not wear one of Dawkins' hoodies...

or stick a Darwin fish on my car...

...to proclaim my atheism to the world. I don't take pride in my disbelief. I have never believed in the supernatural. So what?

I'm enjoying the book, especially the arguments for God's existence. There really are some hilarious ones, such as Pascal's wager and Stephen Unwin's Bayesian argument. Why try to justify faith?

Dawkins comes unstuck, though, with his knowledge of popular culture. He asks the question why is the Cluedo character known as the "Reverend Green" in all English speaking areas other than North America, where he is known as plain "Mr Green"?

The answer is, of course, that the Reverend Al Green would sue, not wishing to be associated with a character who bludgeons posh English twats to death with a length of lead piping in the conservatory.

Beneath A Bushel No More

2008-05-29T18:28:00.001+01:00

Though I've never watched it, as far as I can tell from reports, Britain's Got Talent consists of hula hoopers, acrobats, karate kickers, dancers, all-rounders, swing singers, opera singers, pop singers, whistlers, spoons players, gurners, teeth chatterers, cheek slappers, cooks, magicians, funny walkers, contortionists, garglers, plate spinners, pie eaters, beer drinkers, balloon shapers, bubble blowers, animal tamers, impressionists, ventriloquists, mind readers, spiritualists, hummers, buzzers, farters, spitters, archers, darts throwers, knife throwers, fire eaters, directory rippers, arse kickers, cellists, violinists, pianists, guitarists, washboard players, rappers, scratchers, strippers, pole dancers, sheep shaggers and car fuckers all competing for one place on the Royal Variety Performance, in front of the ever watchful eye of Simon Cowell.

Well good bloody luck to each and every one of them.

You're Havana Laff

2008-05-28T20:05:00.000+01:00

"Allo, Darlin'. I'm gonna laugh you into bed, I am."

Geoff: I quite fancy reading the Fidel Castro autobiography.

Betty: Will that be before or after Booky Wook?

Gore Fest

2008-05-27T13:35:00.002+01:00

The South Bank Show on Gore Vidal ends with a bit of awkwardness between the unpredictable 82 year old Vidal and the toadying jet black haired 68 year old Melvyn Bragg.

The camera lingers on Vidal for a while and as he starts to read we see pictures of the Earth in space.

He reads the longest sentence I've ever heard, from 'The Golden Age', 2000. I think this is what he says. It's a little too much for me.

"As for the human case, generations of men come and go and in eternity are no more than bacteria upon a luminous slide and the fall of a republic or the rise of empire, so significant to those involved, is not detectable upon the slide even with an interested eye to behold that steadily proliferating species which would either end in time or, with luck, become something else, since change is the nature of life and its hope."

We see Vidal read the last few lines as operatic music accompanies a still of the man himself and as the credits to the programme roll, as we cogitate in a state of awe, we hear the following voiceover...

"Sarah Ferguson's on a mission to help a family of overweight smokers in the first of a two-part documentary. Can she battle the bulge on a budget? The Duchess in Hull, new to ITV1, tomorrow night at 9. Next here, Hitler In Colour."