It was sooooo hard and they were almost sick. The poor little celebs had to climb a big mountain. They even raised £1.6 million in the process. Well done. But what they didn’t tell you was that it took 33 climbers, 2 doctors, 100 porters, two runners and half a tonne of broadcasting equipment to do it.

Every day, a team of hard-as-nails crew got up before the stars, climbed ahead to film, sent a runner to take the tape back to camp which was then edited while the celebrities rested. How fit was the guy that ran down the mountain and back up again in the time it took the celebrities to do one day’s walking? Surely the mountain isn’t that impressive if you can get two editing suites up it without using a helicopter?

The BBC is really irritating during Comic Relief, thinking it’s a great way to spend the licence fee and take a bit of a holiday whilst squeezing every little last penny out of the British public. However, there’s nothing comic, or relieving about sending several wealthy celebrities on a challenge that isn’t that difficult with a team of staff that cost at least a million pounds. Making each of them work in a soup kitchen for a week could have been cheaper, funnier and they wouldn’t have had the nerve to pose in sunglasses whilst they did it.

Here’s the blacklist of people who claim to be among God’s chosen ones:

• Jenny McCarthy
• Nicole Kidman
• Katherine McPhee
• Michael J Fox
• Jessica Simpson
• Madonna
• Big Gun
• Yolanda Adams
• Movado

Let us know if you come across any more.

I’m impressed that Kanye West wants us to think he drinks Ribena, and would have believed his non-written rouse, if it weren’t for one thing…

Please Kanye West, explain to me, how does one pronounce the word “rubbish”?

The evergreen pushy momma’s boy Usher is a perennial irritant: coming back year after year with his absurd lyrics and insanely catchy base-lines.

Usher’s music is generally above average; the guy can sing; and he also, in his mother, has a built in maternal publicity/management machine. And this is where my questions begin to appear.

Let’s take “love in the club”, the Ush dog’s latest musical offering. I’m worried about any mother who - as manager of her beloved son - would seemingly condone such questionable activities as engaging in promiscuity in a nightclub toilet. On the floor.

That’s not cool, mom.

Tom Cruise has truly gone nuts. I’m not one to believe everything I read at the hairdresser’s, but South Park must have hit the nail on the head. I didn’t know how warped his mind was until I saw this performance on Oprah.
continue reading "Tom Cruise -what a nutter"

Jeremy Kyle, and his TV show of the same name, have been out of these pages for far too long.

For years, the unemployed and unwashed of Great Britain had the dubious pleasure of witnessing every social ill that faced the UK played out in the glorious technicolour of the Trisha show. Occasionally, we would hear Trisha’s motherly opinion. Until, one fateful day, Trisha went to channel five, and Jeremy Kyle was discovered, ranting and raving, shortly after pub kicking out time, by ITV executives, who offered him the job of replacing Ms Goddard.

What a shame.

Now we have to listen to this sanctimonious moron’s opinion - and he has one on everything - about why Tracy has been sleeping around with her string of drug and alcohol addicted lovers, or Tyler has trouble dealing with rejection without resorting to aggression. Or we get to see some DNA test results announced.

A judge recently described Kyles show as ” a human form of bear baiting” - not too far from the mark.

Watch the following video clip for more details:

Jeremy Kyle: a ranting, raving buffoon, who feels qualified to treat psychological disorders by shouting at people.

Last night we watched Derren Brown, sois-disant Mentalist (mental might be the word) or illusionist, who had trailed his Channel 4 show, The System, as a foolproof way of beating the bookmakers.

He purported to show a single mother, whom he had e-mailed anonymously with five horse racing winners in a row, then was to invite her to Sandown where she was to back a certain horse, the “sixth winner”, with all the money she could muster. She had about £1,000 left from her earlier winnings, borrowed £1,000 from her father and, if maths are right, must have borrowed £2,000 (which she could ill afford) from a loan company.

Brown had her hand him this £4,000 for him to stake for her on Moon Over Miami. Which lost.

The untold hurt she must have felt must have been appalling. I have never in my life seen a show with such a rank, vile, bullying element - not even the dreaded Big Brother.

The denouement was that, of course, the ticket he had handed her had the winner’s name on it, and she collected.

But what he did was unforgiveable, utterly.

The System actually involved contacting some 7,500 or more ordinary people, sending one-sixth of them the name of one horse each in a six-runner race. All losers were then deleted and the “winning” group then divided again into six groups, again given one name each of a further six: so of course, eventually, there were a handful of six people with Five Winners In a Row.

All the “winners” were filmed betting in their fifth race, without yet meeting Brown. Only the winning ticket, the lady featured in the show, was asked back to the appalling torture-fest which was the final game.

The credits said that “all losers were offered their stakes back”, but does not make it clear whether they accepted or not.

This was television at its lowest point. For shame, Derren Brown; for shame, Channel 4.

I think the trade descriptions department needs to be activated for this piece of televisual garbage.

The latest UK installment has just started, and even without having watched any of it, it has already earned a mention on this erudite website. I have certain problems with Reality TV shows, but using viewer discretion, I am more than happy that people who enjoy them (there are apparently a few) are permitted to watch them. I choose not to. My problem is that I am limited to one English speaking radio station at the moment, and the presenters keep on going on about IaCgmooh.

This whilst I’m trapped in my steel box on the way to work. My main gripe is:

Who on earth are these so called celebrities?!

Perhaps someone who has actually watched the program can try to educate me. I have heard of one of them - the singer who had road wage or something… The rest aren’t even on the C-List as far as I can tell.

IaCgmooh is crap.

Recently the good old Middlesbrough has been labelled as the worst place to live in Britain, with Edinburgh top of the poll.

I work in Middlesbrough and was most amused to see this rant by good old Jeff Stelling, he backs up our office sentiment entirely!

Saturday’s Daily Telegraph (UK) buried a piece of news down page on page 9 (Saturday 3 November 2007) which is really worth a shout of Victor Meldrewness.

Hidden beside the advertisements was this:

‘A Government minister who once called dangerous drivers “serial potential killers” was fined yesterday for using a mobile phone while driving.

‘Liam Byrne, the immigration minister, sat on a parliamentary committee that increased fixed penalty fines for driving while using a mobile from £30 to £60.

‘Mr [Note: Daily Telegraph, why call him Mr here, when other court cases just use the surname?] Byrne, 37, a former police officer and a rising star in Gordon Brown’s government, claimed [he] was taking an important call about deportation when he was stopped in Birmingham in July.’

He was fined £100 plust costs and given three points on his licence.

My point is that the sheer hypocrisy of the MP for Birmingham Hodge Hill is unbelievable. And how did the story come to be so “buried”? A front page link would have been worthwhile.

No matter how important the call, the law is that you must not use a mobile (except for handsfree) while driving. He should have pulled over to take or recall the call.

Byrne should do the honourable thing and resign. But then, pigs might fly.