Bird Watching.

Wimbledon has been and gone this year and I’m missing it already. Every time it comes around I get more than a little addicted to it and pretty much watch every available match when I can.

I do like tennis and would watch it a lot more if it was on terrestrial tele more. Maybe that’s why I get so excited when Wimbledon’s on because I’ve been starved of tennis for a whole year thanks to Sky having bought all the other tournaments like greedy little kids who come to birthday party buffets with Tupperware boxes.

Holmes versus Moriarty. Heads versus Tails.

Sherlock Holmes has been all the rage in recent years. There’s been the outstanding modern adaptation done by the BBC and there’s also been the big-budget outings on the big screen.

The 2009 Sherlock Holmes movie was directed by Guy Ritchie. It was actually a really good film, Guy Ritchie’s best by far! It starred Robert Downey Jr as Sherlock and Jude Law as Dr Watson. Even though Downey Jr is an American, this isn’t an issue as he captures the pompous British accent that’s perfect for the Sherlock character quite brilliantly.

Well now Guy Ritchie has returned with the second instalment Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows and it’s even better than the first.

America vs. Wild.

The BBC’s brilliant documentary Frozen Planet has wrapped up now but it didn’t quite manage to get to the end of its run without some form of scandal. Now even poor old David Attenborough has been the subject of widespread complaint from the British public. His crime? Misleading viewers, apparently.

Yes during the scene of a polar bear’s birth the documentary actually filmed the scene in a zoo. The run up to the scene was in the wild, and the actual cub being born was filmed in a Dutch zoo. I feel so mislead.

Extra! Extra! Tweet all about it!

Journalism is an ever evolving profession that is becoming increasingly competitive day by day. Technology has changed the way that we receive our news. Gone are the days when the only sources were the broadsheets and television news bulletins. Now there is rolling news broadcasting around the clock, countless digital radio stations, and of course the internet.

The world wide web has changed the way journalism works. The scope has suddenly been vastly expanded with users able to access their news wherever and whenever they want to and even broadcast their own news.

The perfect preparation for a 10km run.

I ran the Manchester 10K again on Sunday which was a gruelling battle between man and road. It was a good race that left my legs heavier than a pair of Americans after Thanksgiving and my ankle in quite a bit of pain. But I made it! All be it in a longer time than last year, a whole six minutes more, meaning I have some work to do for next year. Six minutes in a 10K is a week! Although my time was disappointing, I did manage to raise a lot of money for CICRA (Crohn's in Childhood Research Association) which is always great!

Of course being involved on Sunday meant that my Saturday night was spent indoors watching Saturday night tele. Lucky for me it wasn’t just any Saturday night, this one was special, it was of course Eurovision night!

A Right Royal Shindig.

The royal wedding is fast approaching, so far I’ve been lucky enough to escape the media coverage, but this week it is impossible to avoid. Absolutely impossible. It’s all starting to feel a bit like Glastonbury with people pitching up little tents along the streets of London, the brave little blighters.

I don’t really mind the royal wedding to be fair, I don’t dislike the royals and I don’t dislike the fact that the future prince is marrying. But my God, do we have to have constant wall-to-wall coverage of the royal wedding on every channel!? I wouldn’t be surprised to turn on Cartoon Network and find Ben 10 stood outside Buckingham palace telling me which Hanna-Barbera characters haven’t been invited.

BBC Three does politics.

BBC Three aired a special version of Question Time on Wednesday, the same day as the budget. They made it especially for youths (hence its BBC Three appearance) and named it Young Voter’s Question Time. It was actually pretty good, I hope they do this sort of thing more often as it gets young people involved in politics. Which can only be a good thing.

To keep it down with the kids the Beeb decided to remix the Question Time theme into this weird sped-up version that wasn’t patronising at all, invited 150 under-25s to be in the audience and threw in Richard Bacon to host it. He was actually not too bad, he did sometimes argue with the panellists when he was supposed to be chairman but whatever, I didn’t really care. He otherwise kept a lid on it well and stopped the audience from killing many.

Darling... You are a complete arse!

Well the festive season is well and truly upon us. What comes to your mind when you think of Christmas? Father Christmas? Coca-cola? Jesus? Well no Christmas wouldn’t quite be Christmas if it wasn’t for a bit of pantomime!

And this year has been no different, the BBC and ITV have been dishing out their annual pantos starting months ago. I talk of course of Strictly Come Dancing and the X-Factor! Strictly has pulled out some big names this year, Kara Tointon… nope, Michelle Williams… of girl band fame, and of course Scott Maslen… wasn’t he in The Bill once? Audiences spent the first couple of weeks remembering who Paul Daniels was, and once they did he was swiftly voted out. Okay, so the biggest star was Jimi Mystry, by default, but the biggest personality of Strictly this year was of course Anne Widdecombe.

Now, looking at Anne you wouldn’t really think she was built to be a dancer. And you’d be right. Her partner, the more than creepy Anton du Beke, spent most weeks snapping his back in half and dragging her around the dance floor until the public took sheer pity on him and voted them off. Expect him on an accident at work ad soon enough. Poor lad.

Eight eliminations she escaped. Eight! Is this show even about dancing? Well, obviously it’s not, since John Sergeant managed to fumble his way through last year’s show until eventually quitting, the show has been deemed about ‘entertainment’ rather than dancing. Even head judge Len has declared the show to be about entertainment now, no longer are we hearing: “Darling! It’s a travesty Darling!” They still give low scores but I think the judges have realised that they’re as redundant as a spare button on a zip coat.

Ah the judges, that’s what it’s all about. Four bored know-it-alls sit behind a desk stolen from ITV News look blankly onwards as an out of work actor twirls around the dance floor with a professional dancer from High School Musical. Sounds good doesn’t it? 11 million viewers watch this stuff!

The judges are there for a reason though. They give people a reason to watch, as once the dance is done the couple head over to Brucie who waves his chin at them and herds them to the judges for their weekly grilling. Judge number one is panto baddie Craig Revel-Horwood (boo-hiss) a man who could condescend Christ if he wanted to, sits right on the end and generally finds faults with everyone and has no qualms with ripping into the rubbish contestants. He is quite camp, knows his stuff, and likes to use the word ‘darling’ a lot. Generally what he says is right, but that doesn’t mean we have to like it!

Judge number two, is head judge Len Goodman, who’s spared the title of oldest man in the room thanks to Brucie. Len has the deciding vote and holds most of the authority. In previous seasons he’s been a bit like Craig in that he told the truth but nowadays he just grins at you like the gawping fish at the end of Mario Kart and says “thanks for playing.”

Next judge is Alicia Dixon, who replaced Arlene Phillips last season much to the bemusement of everyone except Arlene Phillips. I think Arlene fell out with the BBC producers and to embarrass her even further they threw in their answer to Cheryl Cole. Alicia plays the part of Widow Twanky, not the lead character but the one who just has very little to do except smile and say well done.

Last but not least is Bruno Tonioli, the most eccentric man on the BBC since Jimmy Savile. Bruno essentially plays the comic of the panto, he sits on the end and yells at the dancers exclaiming how hot they are “Scott-t!” Even if it wasn’t Scott dancing it’s “Scott-t!” that’s all he says. And God forbid if Bruce should get to him last, then he just acts like a sticky spring toy forbidden from jumping only to then be released as if by surprise, to which he ends up stood bow-legged on the desk yelling “It was magnificent! The best thing I’ve ever seen! I orgasmed twice! Marry me now! Exquisite! 10! 10! 10! 11!” The crowd obviously laughs it up while the evil Craig shakes his head condescendingly from the opposite side.

As for the dancing itself, it’s been alright. But what I have noticed this season more than others is that the dancers are using the judges' desk a lot more as a part of their routines. They’ll start by standing on the desk and waiting for the music to kick in and then leap off it. Sounds alright only the camera shot at the start gets to see four of the most awkward people sat looking up at the dancer. It’s just bizarre, I’m fairly sure Bruno farted one week just to relieve some of the tension as Len randomly chuckled for no apparent reason.

There are some decent dancers, but they could be better. Next year I want John Bishop on it! I went to see him live earlier this week and that man got moves! Get him on it and I might actually watch it!

All in all Strictly is a lovely family evening filled with favourites, bad guys, a cheering and jeering audience and Billy Connolly. Which is more than I can say for the other show sat across the road in the studios of ITV.

Yes, X-Factor, the newly crowned ‘most tired show on television’ since Big Brother finished earlier in the year. I can sum this show up in a word. Awful. No wait I can do better than that: Terrible. No that’s not good enough: atrocious. No that’s still not covering it: Harrowing. Yeah that’s a bit more like it, shouldn’t have really given myself a one word limit there, but I’d have been here all day if I didn’t.

I can’t stand X-Factor, I genuinely hate its existence. Especially the first few weeks where ITV literally round up people with serious mental health issues and throws them out on stage where they proceed to sing a crumbling rendition of Ronan Keating’s ’When You Say Nothing At All’, which is then followed by Simon Cowell and his motley crew calling them the worst thing they’ve ever seen (amazing how it keeps getting topped isn’t it?) and the audience laughs deliriously at them. They walk off in shame, crying, and are greeted by a smirking Dermot O’Leary who then takes a huge handful of salt and rubs it in their faces turns them round and boots them out onto the streets again. It is actually appalling. This is entertainment? Laughing at mental disorders on a Saturday night?

Well anyway, it bloody well finished last week, thank God, it’s the main benefit to Christmas falling on a Saturday this year. The winner was not Gamu, it was Matt Cardle, who I’ve only just now realised exists on this planet. He used to be a painter and decorator but now he’s the one being decorated by pretty much everyone in the UK media.

I’ll admit, I know nothing about the man, I only found the painter and decorator fact in the Metro where I read up on the amazing final that 20 million people watched. 20 million, that’s over 25% of the British population sat in front of a flashing box watching a bunch of nobodies crawl about on stage desperately clawing at the fabled 15 minutes of fame. I mean who was watching the other channels? Watch could’ve just shown hardcore porn and no one would have noticed!

To me, Matt looks a bit bland. Okay, he’s more memorable than last year’s winner (answers on a postcard), who incidentally entered the chart with his new single at number 68 on Sunday, but he seems to have the charisma of a moth-eaten cardigan. I don’t know, maybe I’m not being fair, I’ve only seen him sing once, and yes he can sing, but who cares? I’ve seen overweight middle-aged women being thrown around a dance floor dressed as a matador’s cape that have entertained me more than this guy!

Apparently Matt beat a girl called Rebecca and a band called ‘One Direction’, which is a brilliant name I have to say, I’m sure they’ll go on to great things. Anyway the cardigan won it and subsequently released his single: Biffy Clyro’s hit record ‘Many of Horror’. That’s when I thought: hang on a minute, according to an interview I read a few weeks ago Matt said he would only release new material, but what’s this? Looks to me like a cover version of an all round popular chart hit. So you lied to us Matt? How could you? Oh no wait, they changed the song title to “When we Collide.” Ah right well that’s alright then. 

How gullible is this man? He seriously thinks he has his own life now, where he makes his own decisions. No, you are no property of Simon Cowell and you will go out there and you will sing and dance to the tune of whatever he sees fit until he gets bored of you and simply gets someone else from next year’s X-Factor! Idiot.

Matt was mentored by Dannii Minogue, the less famous of the two sisters, she’s the one who didn’t marry Jason Donovan on Neighbours. She’s one of the four judges and plays one of the more well liked ones. Cheryl Cole is the other female judge, who, to be honest is looking more and more thin by the day. I’m actually worried about her, has she forgotten how to eat or something? She looks like Olive Oil! If she turns to one side she bloody disappears! I’m not entirely sure why Cheryl is on the panel, given she’s an expert in pretty much nothing but she sits there anyway.

Either side of the lovely ladies is behemoth Cowell and Louis Walsh. Cowell, who is still looking more and more like a Pez dispenser by the day, is the meanie of the gang, Officer Dibble if you will. Louis Walsh, well, he’s just Bennie. Louis makes no sense to me when he talks, all I hear is the same thing. Maybe because it is the same thing! Every week he comes out and says to one of the performers “That was the best performance on X-Factor EVER!” If this show gets any better he’s going to end up having a heart attack! Every week it's: “Best performance ever! It’ll never be topped this!” Until the week after when he says: “Best performance ever! It’ll never be topped this!” Succeeded by the following week’s show where he says: “Best performance ever! It’ll never be topped this!” You get the idea.

The X-Factor judges are boring. They have no personality, except for Cowell, they have no talent, and none of them say ‘darling’! At least on Strictly they have a bit of a laugh, alright it’s all aimed at Brucie and Anne Widdecombe, but fair play to them, they all take it with a pinch of salt and they're all good sports. They obviously want to win the show, but if they don’t they don’t go and cry about it. X-Factor contestants treat the show as if it’s the biggest thing that will ever happen to them. I walked into a KFC once, as crap as it was, it was still a better experience than being on the X-Factor. Get over it you bunch of ungrateful idiots. “I’m doing this for my pet goldfish who died when I was only twelve.” Oh Boo-hoo, why don’t you get a job! I’m sure Blooper would be chuffed with that more than this abomination!

Of course X-Factor, like Strictly, is just a panto in disguise. From the tacky set to the stereotypical panto characters sat behind the desks. It’s just cheap, crappy, pointless, soul destroying television. You can actually feel your self respect dripping from your ears whilst watching it, and if you close your eyes you can see your high school form tutor shaking her head disapprovingly at you.

Strictly is okay, good casual viewing, a bit of a laugh and not treated too seriously. X-Factor is rubbish, and you can say “Oh no it isn’t” all you like, it won’t change my mind, because it bloody well is.

If Radio 2 wore slippers.

You know, I haven’t watched television for a bit. So I thought I’d have a browse on Friday night to see what was gleefully entertaining the nation. I stumbled upon Children in Need! That snuck up on us didn’t it?

I don’t know how I’d managed to forget it was on, but I did. So I was quite surprised when I saw it on the box. I just flicked to BBC One and there he was in all his glory, father to the nation, like an old slipper with a chequered inlay. Terry Wogan in high definition. Bless him.

It’s like the one day a year Britain sees him now, he’s like some sort of softly spoken Irish Santa Claus. He was presenting with Tess Daly who as I write this must be nursing a very painful jaw, she’s be smiling even more than usual on tele this weekend; Children in Need and Strictly. Plastered onto her face, she has the expression of a lonely check-in desk worker at the least busiest airport in the world if Brad Pitt came wandering up with his passport.

All in all it was a decent show, from what I saw of it anyway. Most of it is celebrities generously helping to raise money and then there are always those who are just flogging an album. Mastermind was pretty funny, and Strictly was a lot better with Wogan as a judge. I saw some sort of Eastenders and Coronation Street collaboration which wasn’t actually that good at all but it had a funny moment where Gail and some other woman tried to get one over on each other by saying what they’d been though. A clear mickey take of the writers, well executed. The rest was rubbish.

What else was there? I missed the newsreaders do their usual dance about. How did I manage that? I’ll YouTube it…

Yeah it was pretty average, looks like this year they went with a Lady Gaga theme. Nobody dressed up as meat, out of respect for Ross Noble (she really is a thief), instead they dressed as a satellite, a cleaner, a microphone and Storm from X-men. It was pretty average, I think the producers knew this as they literally dressed a random guy as a Direct Line red telephone and pushed him onto the stage! Seriously what’s that all about? It wasn’t that funny to be honest, I think the funniest thing about it is the audience’s obvious fatigue about half way through after clapping along to the music, by the end they were clapping as frequently as it rains in the Sahara.

I did manage to see Doctor Who invite a couple of kids into the Tardis for tea, which just sounds wrong but it was actually a really nice piece. After which they showed a sneak peek at the upcoming Christmas special which I wasn’t interested in until I saw who was in it! Michael Gambon! I love Gambon, he is quality, I don’t know how the producers got him but a congratulations is in order! Welcome to the Layer Cake indeed.

After the Doctor they went off to see what people had been up to in your area, which for me was London as I was watching on BBC HD and I’ll be darned if I’m putting in the effort to change to normal BBC One! There really were lots of people generously fundraising, B&Q giving lots of money, and Pudsey himself working in some sort of warehouse in a high-vis vest! Hang on. Why does he need that? Who’s going to miss him? That’s health and safety gone mad! I mean he’s big and yellow for crying out loud! They should make cyclists dress as Pudsey the bear! That’d help me out a bit as all they seem to wear round here is a helmet with a tiny blinking red light on it!

Whatever, it was all ruined anyway when I saw the loathsome annoyance that is… I can’t actually bring myself to write her name. I’ll give you a clue, she works on Radio 1, she did Top of the Pops and she did a Nintendo DS advert with her mate Holly Willoughby as well. Anyway, she appeared after that so it was time to change channel.

That’s why I missed the newsreaders!

Well it didn’t turn out to be the best idea I’ve ever had anyway as all you do is end up on ITV watching adverts. And yes I’m greeted with the usual DFS advert. Another sale? Wow, who’d have thought it! It’s not the same sodding sale you’ve had all year round is it?! This isn’t even the annoying part. The annoying part is it’s November 19th, 35 days away from December 25th and it‘s a Christmassy advert!

Every year it seems to get earlier and earlier. This year has to be a new record for me. On October 8th I heard a Christmassy advert on the radio. 78 days before the actual day! I’ve no idea what it was about now but yes jingle bells and all that, for crying out loud it’s ages away! It drives me insane! I know people who have their Christmas tree up already! What’s the bloody point? You might as well just leave it up from last year!

That’s all you get, once the calendar flips over from September to October. Christmas thrown in your gormless face like a soggy custard pie. Now, don’t get me wrong, I love Christmas, it’s probably the best day ever, even if it isn’t as good as it was when you were a kid. It’s just that I only really start to feel Christmassy a little into December, because, well, that’s when Christmas is! All the promotion and constant barrage of the Pogues just ends up making it anti-climatic rather than the crescendo it’s supposed to be.

I just want to walk into a shop in November and not be treated to Noddy Holder shouting “It’s Chriiiiiiiistmassss!” at me. That’d be nice. And I’d love to turn on the TV without seeing Peter Kay dressing up with the M&S girls at a party with Jamie Redknapp on the decks. Yes, you haven’t read that wrong, it exists. It really does. Well it beats webuyanycar at least. God help us if they make a Christmas advert.

Oh well, it’s not like I have anything to do with deciding when Christmas starts. That’s Coca Cola’s job. This year they have decided upon November 12th to kick of the merriness with their ‘Holidays are coming’ advert. Holidays. What is that about? This isn’t America. We need our own version of it here in Britain where Terry Wogan drives it round wearing a cardigan, no pants and slippers smoking a pipe throwing Boots 3 for 2 deals at people as he drives by. Much more realistic. Oh well, such is life.

Happy Holidays one and all.

***

I'll post the Marks and Spencer advert below, see if you can spot Peter Kay's body double.

Switch it off standby.

One hundred and forty five pounds and fifty pence. That’s how much a television licence will set you back for one year of flickering light from your idiot box. So for that amount of cash you would probably expect at least something for it wouldn’t you. I mean, when you walk up to an ice cream van you pay a pound and you expect a 99 right? You don’t expect the ice cream man to take your quid, scarper to the driving seat and speed off towards the border do you? So why is it okay for the BBC to take £145.50 from you and do exactly that?

Now, recently the BBC Trust decided to put a freeze on the licence fee, so you will pay £145.50 for the next two years until it goes up again in 2012 where you should probably expect a bit of a hike thanks to the Olympics and of course the end of the world. So for now you can count yourselves lucky.

So where does all the money go? Well, according to the BBC Trust’s figures for 2009/10, 66% of it goes towards television, 17% on radio and just 6% online. The remaining money goes towards such things as investments in new technology and general running costs, not to mention the whole digital TV switchover malarkey.

As you can see then, the bulk of the money goes towards financing the television channels. These channels are: BBC One, Two, Three, and Four, BBC HD, CBBC, Cbeebies, BBC News 24, and BBC Parliament. Oh and BBC Alba for the Scottish, something else Scotland can have from the rest of the UK, I’m hoping we get a good Christmas present from them this year.

So obviously there’s a lot to pay for, hence the charging of extortionate amounts of money via the licence fee. Now I don’t mind the BBC too much, I just feel that they are ripping us off really. I just don’t feel we get very much back from it. Unfortunately the Beeb can’t please everyone. For example, I hate Radio One so therefore I don’t listen to it, but some thirteen year old girl might love Radio One so she will listen to it (and probably text in as well while she’s at it telling Jo Wiley how much fun she had at the weekend). I’ve been known to watch Match of the Day, but that very same thirteen year old girl probably doesn’t because she doesn’t understand what’s so enthralling about 22 blokes kicking a ball about a field. It’s okay she’ll learn.

But even taking that fact into consideration I still feel we’re being ripped off! Over the last few years all the BBC has really produced is Doctor Who and Sherlock which are decent enough shows, but they don’t really warrant the fee and Sherlock was only three episodes long and it was basically a Doctor Who spin off! Speaking of which they refuse to be original, all you’ll find on their channels are continuing shows such as Top Gear and repeats of BBC shows from yesteryear. Now this is all very nice but I can find these two things on Dave and UK Gold so for crying out loud do something else!

When they do finally find something else to do, they go and flog it to death. Take Mock the Week for example, which I managed to catch the other night in it’s new graveyard slot. Honestly this show should stop now, it used to be really funny and topical. But now it’s a platform for some of the worst new comedians to yell out some of the most pointless drivel you’ll ever hear. Dara O’Briain doesn’t do anything anymore, Frankie Boyle has gone now and it seems Russell Howard has too. Meaning Hugh Dennis is forced to carry it single-handedly. If I was him I’d be out of there by now, he is far too good for what that show’s become. I mean, what’s the point? You get the same thing on Radio 4 and that costs much less to produce. It needs putting down, it doesn’t know when to quit.

Speaking of not knowing when to quit. Harry and Paul was back on our screens last week. Cheap television: take one idea that’s kind of funny and run with it, and run with it, and run with it, and keep on running with it. Yes, unfortunately it wasn’t the best watch. The past two series were very funny and they were a good social commentary on modern Britain. However, the sketches they do are now redundant, they’ve done all they can with them. The ‘Seen you coming’ sketch, in which Harry Enfield plays a man running a shop in an upper class area selling tat to dim witted women, has now lost its appeal. It’s all been done now, so stop doing it. Instead they have created a rival for him across the road, played by, yes you’ve guessed it, Harry Enfield. There was a prolonged sketch about the Beatles that was terrible, it was literally a filler, they had 5 minutes to fill and did so with this. Lazy and just plain awful. And don’t even get me started on the weird bloke asking a woman if she’s a model sketch. Honestly, what was that about?

It wasn’t all bad, the Dragon’s Den sketches are still funny, but even that was dragged out too much. And Lenny Henry was in it briefly, along with Simon Greenall (Alan Partridge’s Geordie mate). This was the first episode of the series so it may get better. But I doubt it will. It’s the new Little Britain, only with less of the annoying catch phrases.

To be fair to the BBC, it’s not just them who are doing this. Look what ITV have on offer: X-factor, a show so tired Simon Cowell now wears dark glasses to cover up his mid-show snoozes; Family Fortunes, a show so ridiculous they might as well get that 'Rev' Terry Jones’ moustache to host it; and Emmerdale. Then there’s Channel 4: The Inbetweeners, which is what happens when you give E4 writers an 18 certificate, Deal or no Deal, so cheap to make the phone bill is the biggest expenditure, and everyone’s favourite time waste: Big Brother. They all do it. So, comparing them to all the other channels, BBCs television is far superior. But is it really worth £145.50? No, it’s not.

But what are the options? Abolish it completely and have them raise money through advertisements and such is one avenue but that will just create even worse tele than we’re watching right now. We could also have a subscription like service in which you only pay for the programme types you want to watch. Drama or sport for example. That might work. The problem you have really is that the BBC runs programmes and services for a whole range of demographics. It has to supply many things, such as news, sport, kids shows, drama,  educational shows and parliament broadcasts for example. It’s not as easy as being say The Disney Channel where all you have to do is make shows to keep teenagers entertained for 20 minutes at a time.

What I would do is simply lower the fee and get rid of the dead wood. It’s not hard to see what they’re wasting money on. Remember the World Cup coverage? So much waste there. They had Chris Moyles and ‘Comedy’ Dave do commentary on a random group match. That was fun. More pundits and reporters than you can wave a red card at went to the tournament, as well as a massive studio for them all. But the worst was paying Emmanuel Adebayor money to be an analyst. Why? Why do this? He knows very little, he’s annoying, he brings nothing to the team and he cant even turn his phone off! Why was he there!?

What else can we bin? Well the whole of BBC Three for a start, Casualty, there’s one, do we really need Holby AND Casualty? How about Eastender’s budget, get that down, the same people would watch it if its budget were 50 pence a year anyway. Sack a few pointless people: Bruce Forsythe, Scott Mills, whoever writes Miranda. Before you know it we’ll have cut expenditure by half and hence we can cut the fee by half and we might even have better quality tele in the process.

It is highly unlikely that we wont have to pay a licence fee in the future though. It’s an effective way of generating cash, and Britain doesn’t have a society that would actually do anything about it anyway. If you look at the big European picture we don’t pay that much for the privilege of TV. Iceland for example have to fork out 32460 króna (£183) a year for it. And our mates over in Germany have to pay 204 euros (£178) a year. Yes, some pay a lot less than us (Ireland, France and Croatia for example) and some don’t even pay anything (Spain, Portugal, Hungary to name but a few) but that’s how their countries are run and they don’t share the same extensive service the Beeb provides. And hey, we could be like the Italians where they show adverts as well as charging for a licence. Well done Italy.

So looking at that it’s not a lot of money really considering what you get for it. But I think my main problem with it is the fact that a wealthy family with seven flat screen LED televisions pays the same amount for it as a much poorer family with only one basic television to all huddle around. Yet so many people of all social classes are always complaining about their money troubles in these hard times, surely it's harder to be poor right? You know some morning radio DJs only get paid £40,000 a month. Keep it in perspective people. Now, where’s my 99?

You mustn't be afraid to dream a little bigger, darling.

It’s the start of a new football season so it’s the start of another dreary Match of the Day series. Ultimately the feeling of watching Match of the Day leaves you feeling so empty inside even Shrek doesn’t want to live there. Either you’re sat at home watching it alone on a Saturday night crying into your brew or you’re up early Sunday morning crying into your Ready Brek.

It’s only really acceptable to watch if you’re eating a pizza with your mates, like the over the top scene from last year’s opening titles, or sat in the pub watching it on mute (which is the best way to view). In fact it’s actually quite fun in the pub, you can play ‘guess what patronising comment Hanson has brought out this time’, you know when it’s coming when Lineker gives you that look through the screen with that smarmy look of guilt on his face, like a dog who’s just relieved himself on the carpet.

So I’ve packed it in, cant be bothered with it. It’s as long-winded as it is boring so I’ve decided to just stick with Sunday night’s mischievous scamp of a younger brother: Match of the Day 2. Hosted by everyone’s favourite everyman: Adrian Chiles.

But no, Chiles is no more, instead we have a man known as Colin Murray, who Liverpool fans may recognise from channel five’s coverage of the Europa League last season. I personally remember him from his days doing the graveyard shift on Radio 1 in which he’d spend hours on end going on about the Kooks or the Klaxons, annoying me as a toiled away at my part time job. The things we do to get by ‘ay Colin.

To be fair to the little Irishman he’s actually quite decent. After his pre-season training in South Africa he actually does a good job at presenting the action. He’s quite warm and likeable unlike Lineker who has somehow developed the personality of a retired sock puppet. Unfortunately though I think the Beeb want him to be the new Adrian Chiles, you do get the impression there’s an executive producer stood off camera with a rifle aimed at his forehead: ‘Become Adrian or I’ll put a hole in your cranium’. Still, it’s better than working for ITV.

Now, what would Match of the Day be without its pundits? Better. But they’re here anyway. On Saturday’s helping you’ll find the bored looking Alan Hansen, who I’m thinking is a vampire as he keeps eying up Lineker and I cant decide if he wants to make love to him or consume his salt and vinegar flavoured blood; Alan Shearer who has half as much charisma as a ripped tea towel floating in a barrel or frogspawn; and Mark Lawrenson. Match of the Day 2 seems to be sticking with the winning formula of Lee Dixon and a randomer.

This week‘s randomer is none other than Robbie Savage fresh from captaining Radio 5 Live and irritating Derby County audiences. He’s apparently come dressed as Arthur from Inception, but unlike Arthur he isn’t kicked back into reality, instead he’s barking on about Fulham being chalk and cheese. “Sparky would’ve been doing his nut.” You’re doing my nut.  I’m not sure why Savage believes he’s a credible source of football knowledge, but he does. Last season he said Newcastle wouldn’t be promoted, this year they’re going down. What has he based that opinion on? They lost to Manchester United on day one at Old Trafford. So imagine my joy when I get to watch Newcastle obliterate Villa 6-0, with Andy Carroll jetting off after scoring his third as if to show Savage what he could have won. Of course this moment of joy didn’t last long though as the buoyant tea towel Shearer appears in the director’s box waving money around. Seems you cant escape him, even on a Sunday.

Of course Colin Murray, like myself, enjoyed watching it and forced Savage to eat his words. Which I can only imagine tastes a bit like leek, sand and mineral water. For this Murray is in my good books. He isn’t perfect, he spent most of the time addressing Robbie and Lee through the camera, but he did a good job. At least he’s shut up about the Klaxons.

Thankfully the evergreen Dixon, a man who’s a couple of years away from a Shredded Wheat advert, is on hand to tidy up where Savage makes a mess. He’s not actually a bad pundit, he’s got the knowledge of the game but the only problem is he’s forced to just be the ‘defence guy’ as if he has no clue about the attacking side of the game. He played for Arsenal for crying out loud! I can only imagine how frustrated he must be. First he gets forced to tell viewers about the back four needing to stick together every week, then he loses his mate Adrian, now he’s got Robbie Savage sat next to him clutching his arm. I’m waiting for the day when he just snaps and massacres the studio using only a ham sandwich and a hairnet, bludgeoning the randomer to death until finally being shot by the executive producer who’s been forced to change his target due to 3 people complaining to Ofcom about it. Spoil sport. But at least Murray could be himself then.

Dixon isn’t the only remnant from last season. That’s right, Kevin Day, a man who has been on more buses than Blakey, is back! Hooray! Okay so it’s not that exciting. I honestly don’t know how Kevin Day keeps getting out of bed in the morning. He gets sent to the dullest places on the planet, to meet the biggest bunch of weirdoes waltzing around the English countryside, and usually at about 3 in the morning. It’s as if the BBC are just messing with him, seeing how much pain and misery they can put him through without him grabbing a red sweatshirt and doing the truffle shuffle in front of a bull who’s just watched the whole of Heroes season 3 back to back. This is a man who has been to Portsmouth more than twice, been forced to use twitter and even sent to visit a man who commutes from the Isle of Man to Wolverhampton to watch a side managed by Mick McCarthy!

This weekend he had the unfortunate job of travelling down to the Emirates on a coach full of Blackpool fans, who are looking shamefully bemused and are still mistaking the rain patter on the roof of the bus as ‘Non, je ne regrette rien.’ But the kick never comes and it becomes apparent that this is not a dream. To the delight of the Blackpool fans, but also to the utter despair of Kevin Day who is really struggling to find anyone half interesting to interview about their chances. It must have been a long journey, thank God it’s just to the Emirates in North London and not the actual Emirates. I loved the end of his segment when he just waved them off as they headed back up the M1. You just know when he left shot of the camera he was flicking the Vs.

Sticking with the Blackpool fans, this year Match of the Day 2 are giving you, yes you, the chance to chant the match of the day theme tune because apparently it belongs to you. Now as anyone who’s been on Youtube will know you own absolute diddly squat, so I don’t really get this segment. Nevertheless Tangerine fans, knocking about a service station somewhere between Blackpool and North London, chant out a near perfect rendition of the bleak ringtone. On the plus side however it’s the first time in history that a Little Chef hasn’t been the most depressing thing at a service station. Anyway, Murray wants you to email him or something, so get to it.

So that’s it, you’ve seen the highlights of Sunday’s games and Saturday’s goals. Now send me off to bed with 2 good 2 bad. No. It’s not on anymore. Why BBC? Why? I just sat through this and you’re not even going to show me a Wigan fan eating a pie with a toothbrush? They’re replacing it with service station X-factor? Get me Sky on the phone. Now.

***

Match of the Day 2 is on every Sunday night, times vary. It’s on the iplayer Tuesday after midnight. But if there’s snooker on you might as well forget it.

Heroes season 3 is available in most stores selling dvds but should be avoided at all costs.