Will & Grace has two qualities that none of us look for in a comedy: it’s turgid and unfunny.

For some reason, team written American comedy is still huge, whether the producers are still churning it out or television schedulers around the world are still showing endless repeats in back-to-back episodes, we simply cannot get away from these canned-laugh-a-minute exemplars of inoffensive ‘humor’.

Will & Grace is the worst of these, mostly due to the characters: one of them is funny because he is (hee hee) gay; one of them is funny because she is (ha ha) a woman with problems. Except that none of them are funny at all.

Watching episodes of Will & grace is like a form of torture most inhumane. All episodes need to be pulled from the face of the Earth, there is no redeeming feature.

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.

Having been resoundingly lambasted for several of my recent posts, I’d like to make it clear that I actually like Deal or No Deal. As the title of this website suggests, though, even the best things in life can be shit. Deal or No Deal certainly has some shitty aspects.

Infuriating, even.

I’m talking, here, about the UK version of Deal or No Deal, which is aired on Channel 4 in a mid afternoon / early evening (or later on More 4 or E4 or some other version of 4 if you actually have a job) - not the Australian version, which I have also watched, and from which I can gather that the game can be played entirely differently (if not in as good a way).

Here are my problems with Deal or No Deal:

1. Noel Edmonds;
2. The emotional energy that contestants seem to invest in what is essentially a game of absolute chance.

I’ll pick up on my second point - having, as I mentioned, witnessed Deal or No Deal being played in Australia, I have seen a far more straightforward approach to what is, at its very core, a straightforward game: opening boxes at random.

However, we Brits feel the need to attach as much emotion to this game as we can; we feel the need to use “special numbers”; we simply need this money because “my grandad’s dog just died of leukemia” (or some other self-pitying rationale); we won’t pick that box because its our “friend” or “I just have this feeling about number 16 today”.

Utter claptrap.

It’s a game of chance.

Its funny how seemingly intelligent, rational human beings can suddenly regress into paganistic superstition as soon as their name is selected and they carry their little red box to the front of the studio. But thats not the worst of it - I can tolerate a bit of quaint number choice, however, the self-indulgence is something else.

We get life stories; tales of how people are “doing it for their kids”; family photos and all manner of other crap. Honestly, at Noel’s little interview (which has, over time, grown and grown to take up the entire first quarter of the show) we get all sorts of deeply personal (if not irrelevant) information, and have the displeasure of learning about some nobodies family circumstances: WE DON’T CARE, JUST GET ON WITH OPENING THE BOXES. It is as if, having been handed their fifteen minutes of fame (or even an hour), the contestent wants to milk the moment for everything, leaving us all feeling a little violated.

Its not about you!

Just watch how much love there is in the room here - too much:

Deal or No Deal (UK) an episode of Oprah, followed by some meaningful box opening.

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!

The artistry and pure ingenuity of these animations is admirable -but why are they so strange?

Nothing has ever quite disturbed me as watching these cartoons. Maybe it was just poor translation or maybe they really were as bizarre as the script suggested.

Since Pokemon became so popular, people started to watch other Japanese manga and anime cartoons. I watched Akira, I film that left me feeling bewildered and unresolved in some way. Perhaps it was because I didn’t understand what the characters were doing, why they were doing it and what the end result was.

I managed to enjoy Akira and several episodes of Pokemon, only because my younger brother and I descended into fits of giggles every time we watched them.

I realise that there are some decent Japanese animations out there. What I am ranting against in this shitopedia post is the utterly incomprehensible, acid-induced, transcendental manga-style cartoons that make more sense through the lens of opiates than through the normal concentration of an open-minded film lover.

I love football and I’m a keeper, so I generally stick up for the man between the posts. However, what Dida of AC Milan did in their UEFA Champions League match against Celtic yesterday places him firmly in the Shitopedia forever.

I’m not putting him in for the mistake that led to Celtic winning the game 2-1 either.

No.

It was his ridiculous play-acting antics when a Celtic fan ran on and quite literally TICKLED his chest. Dida ran towards the fan, then exhibited what can only be described as ‘really, really lame’ acting, as he collapsed on the floor, holding his neck.

Didn’t see it? Watch this:

Dida left the field on a stretcher after this. You couldn’t make it up. First class toss-bag.

My word, how this man still has a TV show is quite beyond me!

I watched the David Letterman show the other day when I couldn’t sleep. It scared me so much I was nearly up all night. The jokes he tells are bad enough, but what nearly made me lose a night’s sleep was one question: why are the audience laughing so hard?

Seriously, he tells some of the worst jokes I have ever heard.

If Bob Monkhouse had never got his ’shit joke’ book back, and was still onscreen, he’d be outstripping Letterman’s banal comedy. But that’s not the worst of it with the David Letterman show.

You’ve also got the horrible organ music all the time while he is telling his ‘great jokes’ - unnecessary at best - and the ‘quirky’ ‘character’ who plays the organ, without who’s interjections I’m sure the whole world could live quite happily.

So many questions, so few answers.

What is that awful music for, anyway? Why must all of your guests be accompanied by it? Do you HAVE to hold up that CD every time we come back from the ad break? Why can’t you be FUNNY?

Surely Letterman has a team of researchers working on his show, he should use them to write some funny jokes, and stop being such a sycophant to his dull guests. Even then, I’m afraid, the show would still have all the appeal of doing a Klinsman Dive down Tesco’s car park, then bathing in vinegar… for a week.

Letterman on Video - Paris Hilton Interview

It had to happen - the unfunny dullard interviews the complete imbicile, watch it here as Letterman interviews Hilton:

The most ludicrous thing I have seen in a long time. Have you heard how much the audience is laughing? How much are they paid to laugh at that? Is there a big flashing “That was a joke, so you should laugh now” sign? There must be.

This is one thing which irritates me more than any other - advertisements during TV coverage of sport.

It is really annoying how the commercial channels which show sport - any sport - decide to maximise their advertising revenue by showing adverts while the game is in progress.

The main trouble is not just that they show adverts, it is their timing of them. Naturally, the only times in live sport when there is a break long enough to show an advert is when points have just been scored, when there is an injury, or a break (such as half time).

In cricket, the breaks come between wickets. This is not a good time to show an advert! In fact, wickets are the best bit - we want to see a replay, not an ad for Vodafone.

When the rugby is on, as soon as a try is scored, we cut to adverts. Again, this is the time for a replay, not an ad break.

During football, a goal will also see us inflicted with an advertisement.

There are plenty of breaks in play where advertising can be slotted in - injuries are quite a good time - in cricket, the game is designed to have breaks (drinks, lunch, tea etc) show some ads then, by all means.

If you must advertise during sport, then put the advert on the screen - have the scoreboard sponsored in an inobtrusive fashion - but keep showing the play at all times. This would actually have the advertisers branding on the screen for much longer than the 20 second speed ad that we get, and it would also mean we get to actually enjoy the sporting occasion.

Come to mention it, you can even have the replays sponsored if you must, and you’d probably achieve the same amount of revenue, and not piss as many sports fans off in the process.

I once witnessed the ridiculous situation on a horse racing channel when they were happily showing a load of adverts for “unsecured personal loans” but had to cut back because a race had started. By the time they did, it was nearly over, as it was a sprint. And this was on a subscription channel. It is bad news when the one sport you have been paid to provide to your viewers comes secondary to your desire to make advertising dollars…

Sort it out, or stop showing sport on your channel.