Stumped for a Xmas present idea?

It was so much easier in the 50's and 60's when these TV ads were running. I think I may have bought some for various people at the time. I wonder if they are still alive?

A downer on Downton

When I'm feeling depressed by worldy affairs, I find that a quick burst of Petula Clark singing Downtown soon perks me up. Hard to believe that the clip comes from 1964, around about the first time my IWC accepted my offer of a trip to the pictures in Newport. Perhaps we should make Downtown 'our' song?


Downtown I like but Downton me no like. And I'm not the only one. Here's what Rachel Cook, TV critic for the New Statesman, writes in the latest issue of that excellent magazine. Lovely stuff and I've just added a few photographs that seemed appropriate.


A sad week, should your tastes extend to dotty costume dramas. At Downton Abbey, the big house of ridiculousness and anachronisms where this column begins, Julian Fellowes' cheap little rape plot line reached a feeble denouement in the final episode of the series (10 November, 9pm) when Bates (Brendan Coyle) pushed the valet who'd attacked Mrs Bates in front of a bus and killed him - an excellent use of his precious day off, one has to admit.

Meanwhile, Violet, the dowager duchess (Maggie Smith), having somehow intuited that her unwed grand-daughter Lady Edith (Laura Carmichael) is up the duff by her bounder of a newspaper editor boyfriend, decided that the best solution all round - pass the smelling salts! - would be an all-expenses-paid, five-month-long trip to Switzerland. At least there, she'll be able to blame her swollen belly on too much Toblerone.

Most unexcitingly of all, Lady Mary (Michelle Dockery) now has two hot-ish chaps dancing her attendance: Lord Gillingham and Charles Blake, both of whom must first have appeared in an episode I missed (that is, all of them) and both of whom look like Thunderbirds puppets, only with fob watches instead of strings. Dullards, the pair of them; Lord "Tony" Gillingham's only claim to fame is that it was his valet whom Bates so swiftly despatched. Some viewers will perhaps be hoping for a threesome in series five, though how Dockery's acting skills would cope with such a scenario, one can only imagine. Would a sex troika in the king-size she once shared with the ineffably boring Matthew Crawley render her any the less plank-like? I fear not. I've seen walnut commodes more animated than Lady Mary.

Lady Mary? Walnut commode?

What is to be done about Downton Abbey? I don't know! ITV will, I fear, keep flogging this particular dead horse - "I'm sorry to have to tell you, Lord Grantham, but your favourite hunter was knocked down early this morning by Tom Branson, who was in a particular rush to get to a political meeting where he hoped to meet Miss Bunting, who had promised to show him her red bloomers; yes, I'm afraid these socialist girls are terribly easy, m'lord" - until such a time as the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences (one of the groups that hand out the Emmys) begins to ignore it. So let us hope that is soon.

Or that ITV grasps just how bad a writer Julian Fellowes is and locks him in a room for a month with only Chris Morris and some classic Coronation Street on TV for company. Or until Maggie Smith storms off (I don't believe the show could survive without her). Or that Fellowes is made the new presenter of Daybreak, which would leave him too knackered to worry about butlers at a Time of Great Social Upheaval.

As for all of you people who still watch it, what is wrong with you? Seriously. Are you gripped in an ironic, postmodern, sneery, let' s-count-the-extras-at-Lady-Sarah's- village-bazaar, tee-hee kind of a way? (On this point, I spotted two: one in a sack race, the other manning the test-your-strength attraction.) Or are you simply waiting to see if Lady Mary's expression is ever going to change?

Confession time. In truth, all my negativity towards Downton Abbey is just sour grapes. Not many people know that I did once audition for a part but didn't get it. Bates and I just didn't get on. He wanted to be called Mister but I couldn't stop myself from calling him Master and sniggering in a very schoolboy-ish way. However, they did give me one of the auditions stills as a momento.

Made in Chelsea wins a prize? Good grief.

Glancing cursorily down the list of winners at last night's British Academy of Film and Television Arts Awards, I noticed the above category. 'Reality and Constructed Factual'? Never 'eard of it. What's all that about?

Apparently it's a new one to recognise programmes where 'participants are placed in a constructed environment or format and filmed interacting in situations devised by producers'. So now we know. I'd put it a slightly different way: Reality & Constructed Reality = Manipulated TV = Crap

If you think I'm being harsh in my judgement, have you ever seen Made in Chelsea? It really is unwatchable - 30 seconds was enough to make my nose bleed. Avoid it like the bubonic plague. Unless, of course, you need something to rant about.

The Great British Public and TV Shows

When I’m pottering around the house, my normal background companion is BBC Radio 4. Rarely will I watch daytime TV and when I do I find that its general vacuuity quickly renders me comatose.

Almost inevitably, sooner or later whichever channel (Dave? Yesterday? Braindead TV?) is providing my subconscious snooze-a-thon will air a rerun of a “classic” game show. The usual favourites are Wheel of Fortune, Family Fortunes, Countdown and, that old chestnut, Catchphrase. It wasn’t until recently, however, that I made the mistake of actually watching a sizable chunk of an episode of Family Fortunes over lunchtime (My excuse? It was on, I was too lazy to move as I was engrossed in my sandwich and, let's face it, sometimes pressing the remote control is just too much effort). As I watched I became entranced, nay hypnotised, by the spectacle unfolding before my eyes and I began to wonder… where on earth do they find these people?

I remember one of the questions that came up on that fateful show (this is not a joke – this is the real question and the real answers). Les Dennis was the unfortunate individual having to interact with the cretinous contestants, and he had to go along the line of family members and get a suggested answer from each of them. Here’s how it went:

Question: Name a phrase which people often use to mean "stop talking".
Answer A: "Stop shouting".
Answer B: "Stop talking".
Answer C: "Stop talking".
Answer D: "Stop shouting".

Even poor old Les was momentarily speechless after these responses.
I already have a fairly low opinion of the general public (oooh really?), but it mystifies me which particular rocks they have to search under to find people so utterly lacking in either intelligence or imagination. You might have noticed if you watch any kind of game show on British TV that all the contestants are pretty much evenly matched. Can you imagine what would happen if they got this wrong? Think of the chaos that would ensue if a Mastermind contestant somehow managed to get onto a show like Catchphrase? I reckon that there must be some kind of behind-the-scenes filtering process which sorts potential contestants into shows appropriate to their level of intellect. I imagine something along these lines:

Question: Where would you normally find a campanologist?
Answer A: In a bell tower.
Answer B: On a campsite.
Answer C: In a gay bar.
Answer D: That's not really a word. You've just made it up!

And here is where I suspect picking each of these answers would lead you:
Answer A: Who Wants To Be A Millionaire.
Answer B: Family Fortunes.
Answer C: Catchphrase.
Answer D: Big Brother.

One thing is for sure; no matter whether it's Family Fortunes, Catchphrase or Big Brother, the Great British Public will never cease to amaze, perplex and entertain me with their seemingly limitless capacity for self-induced ritual humiliation. Gold medals to all!

Yet more drivel!

Britain's Got Talent. More tosh but tosh with a cruel edge to it. Putting no hopers on TV really is the pits. Why I am watching it? 'Cos I'm at my mum's and she has the remote control!

Drivel drivel, drivel!

Have caught a few minutes of an awful programme - Over the Rainbow. What absolute tosh. No more on it from me.

Some words on reality television shows

Prurient, contrived, trivial, infantile, boring...............'nuff said?