July 27. Did you spot those empty seats at the Commonwealth Games Opening Ceremony? I’m not sure there were quite so many of them before a nervous looking Susan Boyle started mauling Mull Of Kintyre... This “celebration of Scotland” must have left many proud Jocks reaching for the Macallan Gold. It kicked off with John Barrowman emerging from beneath a giant kilt, answering the age-old question: What’s under a Scotsman’s kilt? A massive c*ck with an American accent.

Barrowman, Connolly, Sean Connery... they all love Scotland so much they couldn’t wait to leave...

Sporting the purple tartan of the clan McTorchwood, John gave us a musical guided tour of Caledonia which stuck strictly to the low road. Way to follow London 2012, JB singing from a roof-rack... We got Nessie, haggis, Donald and his troosers and Greta Green where Barrowman shared a cheeky snog with a male dancer. Not the kind of kiss Glasgow is famous for... but this was a dig at Commonwealth countries opposed to the dreary non-issue of gay marriage.

There were fireworks, dancing teacakes and a staged scene of ordinary Glaswegians singing Rhythm Of My Heart – a song popularised by Rod Stewart, but penned by a Yank and a Czech geezer for a Dutchman. Then came Rod himself, Scotland’s proudest son, from the lowland fishing village of Highgate, North London. How could they follow that? How about Susan Boyle fluffing the opening of Mull Of Kin’tired? (A rather twee anthem written by two Englishmen, much more moving when sung by the Covered End choir)

The regimental pipers saved the day, followed by the Queen and the Red Arrows, some proper class at last. How the Parkhead regulars must have loved the red, white and blue flyover...

It was an eccentric night. Bizarrely the organisers remembered Andy Stewart but no’ Alex Harvey, Nazareth, or Big Country. When the mass, synchronised chair-dancing started I had to check my own medication. It was like something C.U. Jimmy might have devised in the middle of a nervous breakdown. But apart from the Proclaimers’ 500 Miles being slowed to a funeral crawl only one thing riled me: Knowing that we will never see a celebration of English (as opposed to British) folklore and culture in any context on BBC1.

*HAZEL Irvine: “500 Miles as you’ve never heard it before.” Yeah, ruined.

*SMALL joys of the opening ceremony: Scottie dogs, Nicola Benedetti, the Irn Bru bridge.

Irritating: Clare Balding interviewing retired sporting heroes while a band played. Missing: The Krankies, Rab C. Nesbitt, any Trainspotting characters...

ONE burst of “Sit on my face and tell me that you love me” was enough to melt all cynicism about Monty Python Live (Almost). Although for those of us who grew up loving Python, it only takes a word to trigger giggles: Spam! Gumbies! ALBATROS! The old boys packed in the classics: Dead Parrot, Four Yorkshiremen (which actually started life on ITV’s At Last The 1948 Show), and the Spanish Inquisition... which everyone expected. All the deliciously daft ditties were here too – I’m A Lumberjack, the Philosophers’ Song, Every Sperm Is Sacred. Being live they also managed ad-libs, like Palin telling Cleese: “There’s another nice joke coming up, if you can remember it.” They say these were their last-ever shows, but the Pythons left out enough golden moments for an entirely new production: The Piranha Brothers, the North Minehead By-election, Seduced Milkmen, Hell’s Grannies, Cleese’s ranting architect, “Welease Woderick,” the People’s Front of Judea... How many more divorces would it take to reunite these grumpy geniuses for another “last-ever” show? Or even to write something new?

*MEMO to John Cleese: A Fawlty Towers West End run with the full cast could pay for at least two more lookalike brides.

*TOP 3 post-Python silly songs: 1) Thank You Baked Potato – Matt Lucas 2) Raise Your Cup – Jinsy 3) Eels – The Mighty Boosh.

ACTUAL laughs on EastEnders as Linda described Phil Mitchell an “evil tomato”. Cousin Roxy is more like ketchup, she goes with anything. Old faces abounded: bent brief Marcus, Patrick’s son Anthony the GP - short for Groped Patients. (Hey Beeb, slippery Paul is the Trueman we want back! It doesn’t matter that he’s dead, that’s never stopped you before!) Poor Patrick got so het-up about Ian paying for Rainie’s ropey services that he had a stroke. The old Patrick, who cheerfully cheated on wife Yolande with former brothel madam Fat Pat, would probably have just laughed and played Ska favourite Pussy Price.

HOT on TV: Rich Hall’s California Stars (BBC4)... Geno Segers, Banshee (Sky At)... Utopia... Suburgatory (E4).

ROT on TV: Dragons Den – tired, timid and risk-free; I’m out... Nicholas Bailey (EastEnders) – more wooden than Lucy’s coffin... Gold bleeping chunks of Python live... The Speakmans’ unspeakable “patients.”

OVER on Dragons Den, Evan Davis revealed “Something in their pitch appears to have riled Duncan Bannatyne... ” which must rank high on any list of things that just don’t need saying. Dunc is about as difficult to rile as Mr. Morris on Friday Night Dinner. He’s Scotland’s grumpiest man... Gollum Davis is there to tell us what we’ve just seen, as if addressing a class of doped-up teenagers with the attention span of hung-over goldfish. Let’s hope he does the same on Newsnight too: “Another Lynton Crosby publicity stunt posing as government policy there... ”

*TOP 3 dragon-slaying businesses blanked in the Den: 1) Trunki 2) Aquatina 3) Tangle Teezer... let’s see what gems they miss this series.

*AUDREY to Michael Rodwell on Corrie: “Gail tells me you’ve been working wonders on her front garden.” Odds on the bush needed a damn good trim.

*MORE trouble on Towie. Arg thought he could smell a hog roast, turned out it was just Gemma sun-bathing.

*WHY is Ray Donovan so ruddy miserable? He’s rich, powerful and connected. His wife still pleasures him in the Tulisa way, and even that doesn’t make him smile... Ray makes Neil Oliver seem like the Laughing Policeman. His randy jailbird Dad Mickey might be a disgraceful old rascal, but he’s tons more fun.

*JO Brand, ‘Born Lippy’? Born for the chippie, surely?

SMALL Joys Of TV: Towie’s Lydia on bedding Arg: “All this stress for thirty seconds of fun.” Scotland’s athletes looking like they were dressed by Spandau Ballet. Northern Soul: Living For The Weekend (BBC4). The Selecter (Isle of Wight fest).

RANDOM Irritations: reporter Colin Brazier ghoulishly rifling through the personal effects of the Flight MH17 dead on Sky News. Dr Who rolling out the Cybermen yet again. England’s Games intro music being S Express, at least the Aussies got AC/DC.

SEPARATED at birth: Nick Faldo and Harrison Ford? Maybe time for Indiana Jones & the Lost Shaft...

*BOFFINS fooled a male spider into trying to mate with a rotating frozen female corpse on Talk To The Animals. Fascinating. I hear they got the idea from seeing Anna Soubry stuck in a revolving door.

July 20. BIG Brother’s Armageddon week was disappointing – no asteroid. But at least Hurricane Biannca shook the show to its foundations. In her short stay, Busty Bee turned bird-brain Winston into a shrinking violet. “When am I going to ride your c*ck?” she asked him sweetly. What a loss she was to the Downing Street catwalk...

“She’s not my type,” protested dud-stud Winnie, because he only dates vestal virgins and University Challenge contestants of course. Stripper Bee is more forward than Lionel Messi. Her full name is Biannca Lake, and half of Essex seems to have had a dip. By her own admission, Bee’s been penetrated more times than the Brazilian back four. You wouldn’t be surprised if she had a visitors’ book on her bedside cabinet. Or if her middle name were Chlamydia. Chris took against her immediately, as did most female viewers; even Rylan must have been jealous of her teeth. She’s trash for sure, but at least she wasn’t putting on an act like dismal Danielle, or trying to kick-start her career like Pop Idol loser Zoe. And Bee did out sanctimonious hypocrite Dani for being the opposite of who she pretends to be.

The newcomers energized the house, spreading scandal and paranoia. Up till then the only excitement was waiting for Horrible Helen to kick off. The woman is like pepper-spray in human form. Those signs Big Brother stuck up saying ‘Do not use – out of order’ should have been plastered all over her gob. Elsewhere, tedious Steven’s furtive fumbles with Kimberly raised many questions. Largely: “Is he for real?”, “What did he just say?” and “How controlling is this dick?” I thought that “I’m coming for you” message on the bathroom mirror was Steven’s idea of foreplay. The producers’ constant game-changing is even more irritating than Mark’s whining accent. Granting immunity to nuisances, tampering with nominations, controlling who we can vote for... Who do they think they are, the EU? BB works best when no-one is safe.

*ON the fish-catching task, we were told the ones “with the fullest bucket” would win. Tsk. Kimberly should have walked that. Kim described her in-house shagging as “a big thing.” Lucky girl.

LAST year, Utopia showed us the most chilling eyeball torture scene this side of a slomo Big Mo strip-show. This series has caused a bigger stink by painting the death of Airey Neave, the MP murdered by Irish terrorists, as the work of MI5. Although why you’d be more outraged by that than the thriller’s main thrust - our rulers planning to secretly sterilize 90per cent of humanity - escapes me. Alternate history is nothing new. New takes on JFK’s assassination have featured in everything from Watchmen to the X Files. Utopia’s real problems are bog-standard student paranoia and clunky dialogue. But its bold filming techniques should be celebrated - as should war hero Airey Neave’s real-life bravery.

*ON Utopia a brilliant boffin developed Janus, a protein that switches off human reproduction. It’s the dead opposite of Samantha Janus whose smouldering looks have done much to encourage it.

NICK & Margaret: Too Many Immigrants? was more stage-managed than a Cheryl Cole publicity stunt. Despite promising to “bring both sides of the argument together”, the BBC’s agenda was clear – they wanted “to change the minds” of those who object to an open door immigration policy. So the everyday English folk featured only met hard-working, successful newcomers. The fallacy at the heart of the BBC argument is that it is racist or worse to advocate border controls. It isn’t. It’s common sense. As most English participants said, the problem isn’t immigration itself, but numbers, lack of entry qualifications and culture clashes. To dismiss their concerns by telling them that tea originated in China, as one contributor did, was just patronising and muddle-headed. Many immigrants have enriched our culture greatly, of course, but you can’t just ignore the ones who don’t. So rather than unemployed builders, why not get smug academics to hang out with nutty jihadists or Albanian people smugglers and see if that changes their minds instead?

HOT on TV: Ray Donovan... Julia Louis-Dreyfus (Veep)... Silicon Valley... 24 finale... Royal Marines Commando School.

ROT on TV: Saturday night schedules... The BBC’s immigration shows – Blatantly Biased Cobblers... Nick Knowles, Break The Safe – break the autocue and watch him flounder.

DID the ghost of John Lennon write Marcus’s final scenes on Corrie? Talk about imagine no possessions... Despite being around since 2007 and living on t’Street for three years, Marcus left with one small bag to his name. No books, CDs, or ornaments; not many clothes, not a stick of furniture. Blimey, I know NHS wages are low but that’s ridiculous. My missus takes more on a day-trip to Margate.

*THE daftest ever soap exit? Kareena leaving EastEnders in just the clothes she was wearing. She didn’t even take a change of drawers. Isn’t that just like every woman you’ve met.

*IS Charlie on Towie after Joey Essex’s King of Stupid crown? Consider the evidence: he looks like the lost Musketeer (Athos, Porthos and Mole Chops), he talks tough about hard-nut Elliott. And worst of all he’s sticking with Foghorn Ferne, despite her asking Elliott for a shag in the bogs (the romantic fool!) “I think she’ll change,” he told Chloe. Yeah? There’s more chance of Gemma Collins joining Cameron’s Cabinet.

Happy endings on the show tonight though as Arg remembers a Lydia what you fancy does you good...

*DARA O’Briain joking about his doctor wife: “Often if you sleep with a GP and ask ‘Is there any chance we could do something special?’, they say ‘No, we have to refer you... ’”

*IF TV can nick an arcade game format for Tipping Point, why not Whack-A-Mole? Five irritating reality TV “celebrities”, one giant mallet, hours of fun...

*DANNY Dyer brings real London slang to Albert Square. Will he ever talk about his Patsies (Patsy Palmers = Farmers; Farmer Giles = Piles)?

*GILLIAN Taylforth’s indecency trial, recreated last weekend, had unexpected consequences. For starters, it completely changed the meaning of asking a barmaid for a G&T.

*NICK Knowles wishes he was the new Brucie. Great! Why not start by developing some kind of talent and mastering an entertainment skill?

SMALL Joys Of TV: The palpable tension between Eamonn and Ruth on This Morning. Game Of Thrones fan Andrew Neil telling Ken Clarke “You’re probably still watching The Onedin Line.” New Falling Skies, but where were Nick and Margaret to tell us how wonderful the aliens are, how their technology will enrich our lives and how the human resistance are just simple-minded bigots of the worst kind?

RANDOM Irritations: Daytime presenters hosting every ITV entertainment format going. Excess sugar in TV cooking shows – Mary Berry should be sponsored by diabetes. Bridget Christie. The ‘Alternative Comedy Experience’ – try finding someone funny.

WORLD Cup Cousins: Miroslav Klose and Odo from Deep Space Nine.

WITHOUT comment: Mary Anne Hobbs was talking about childhood bicycles when she said: “I was desperate for a chopper but my Dad wouldn’t hear of it.”

July 13. True Blood, back for its final series, is said to be “sexier, scarier, bloodier,” which is TV talk for shallow, silly and bloody annoying. The vampire drama had brains and class when it started, not to mention the greatest opening credits since The Sopranos. These days it’s more like Geordie Shore with fangs.

It started as a parable about how society copes with a misunderstood minority (murdering vampires). But that concept has taken more of a hammering than Sookie’s part-faerie furry parts. It’s all blood, gore and phwoar now. The only memorable scene in the opening episode was Jason enjoying hot open-air sex with Violet on his car bonnet. Hey Jase, that’s not how you drive a stake into a vampire!

Sadly the script is more like a car crash. Vampire Bill is one of the good guys again; no-one mentions that small business of him decapitating the Louisiana state governor live on TV last series. Adilyn happily chats about boys with Jessica, the fruit-loop who murdered her sisters for their delicious half-faerie blood... Andy, their cop Dad, hasn’t even considered nicking Jess for homicide. Wobbly gob Tara gets such a throw-away death in the opening moments you know she’ll be back “in spirit” soon. Yadda, yadda, yadda.

The good people of Bon Temps are not happy and can you blame them? They’ve been plagued by waves of fictional nuisances since 2008: Vampires, werewolves, witches, inbred were-panthers, ancient goddesses, shape-shifters... and now marauding H-Vamps. Not too surprising they blame fang-banger Sookie for their misfortune, and being telepathic, she hears their hate and pain. If only HBO could hear ours. This series, originally adapted by brilliant Alan Ball, once felt bold and ground-breaking. Now the only character I look forward to is vampire Pam and her acid put-downs. And the funny thing is, in all the rewriting, they’ve managed to completely subvert the show’s original bleeding-heart message. Cos now the moral of this story is: if you trust the murderous minority, if you make excuses for them and allow them to live alongside you, they will repay you with absolute bloody carnage.

*PLAYING Russian Roulette in Marrakesh, as you do, Pam spoke of ending up “in Hell having a three-way with the devil.” I think she’ll find Jimmy Savile has beaten her to it.

*RE Jason’s car sex with Violet, what are the odds he failed the emergency stop?

JIMMY McGovern’s Common was raw, authentic and controversial. Sure it was also flawed, but at least it had something worth saying. McGovern took on joint enterprise, the law that says if you’re part of a group when someone commits a crime, you’re just as guilty as the perpetrator. Even if you had no idea what they were planning... In this case murder; 17-year-old Johnjo’s only involvement was to drive three older lads to pick up pizza. McGovern’s conviction, voiced by Shelagh, is that joint enterprise, or common purpose, is about “getting working class scum off our streets.” (The police opinion – that the law is a tool for cracking down on gangs – wasn’t voiced.) Common was bleak, powerful, wonderfully cast and occasionally ridiculous, do prosecution briefs really discuss plea bargaining directly with defendants? It reminded us that BBC drama can mean more than medical soap. It can raise issues, right wrongs, and even change lives. They should create more screen time for sharp working class writers - like the ones McGovern used on The Street. It’s been nearly 50 years since Cathy Come Home. We’ve still got people sleeping on the streets; too many of them ex-squaddies.

CAR mechanic Luke turned down Cougar Carla’s drunken advances on Corrie. What a dip-stick. He’s normally a dab hand at touching up bodywork and sliding under the bonnet too. Luke was a bit turned off when he found Buggles in Carla’s CD collection - the only Horn she got that night was Trevor. But rejecting her? It makes you wonder how pungent her red wine breath must be. Elsewhere Nick filled in Kal’s Mum about Leanne’s back story. She wasn’t impressed. We’re meant to find this harsh, but it’s hard to think of any family who’d welcome a cheating ex-hooker, ex-cokehead convicted arsonist... unless she was marrying into the Mitchells.

HOT on TV: Germany thrashing Brazil... Common... new Banshee (Sky Atlantic)... Braquo finale... Marie Avgeropoulus, The 100 (E4)... Penny Dreadful finale.

ROT on TV: Brazil... Foghorn Ferne (TOWIE)... This Old Thing – threadbare tat... Kirstie’s Fill Your House For Fun – C4 fill their schedules with cobblers.

HOT not on TV: Extant (Amazon Prime).

MUCH lewd speculation followed Steven urging Kimberly to “Open it” in bed on Big Brother. Your minds! All she had down there was an all-time World Cup Panini sticker book; he just wanted to slot de Kock in next to Fanni.

*WHOSE side are you on, TOWIE fans, Charlie or Ferne’s? It’s like having to choose between malaria and typhoid... or Argentina and Germany. Charlie is frequently out-acted by his mole, while as Elliott said of Ferne – to her face - “I’ve seen more class in a sewer rat.”

*GEMMA Collins says women should be “fabulous and classy.” Shame she’s just flabby and arsey. Gem now calls herself “GC”. Gobby Cow? Grotesque Clot? Even BB’s Steven would tell her to “Shut it.”

*I’VE got a celebrity groping confession. In my time, I’ve met Debbie Harry, Diana Ross, Pamela Anderson... and the only star who ever tried it on with me was... the late, great Frankie Howerd. That’s how poxed my luck is.

*ANYONE doubting Tamla Motown’s enduring greatness should just look at the songs ITV’s Motown Top 20 missed: I Second That Emotion, Superstition, Ball Of Confusion, I’m Going To Make You Love Me... How about doing a similar list-show for Atlantic and Stax, ITV? Otis Redding, Aretha Franklyn, Booker T, Wilson Pickett, Arthur Conley, Rufus Thomas, Sam & Dave... incredibly their output was just as wonderful.

*THERE is no such thing as a right to be forgotten, we’re told. Though it helps if you’re a climate change sceptic looking for BBC exposure...

SMALL Joys Of TV: Pipers In The Trenches. House Of Cards (Drama). Car sex (True Blood) – great airbags. Kylie Olsson, Download – showing up BBC3’s lame Glasto team. Castor’s crazed rants on Episodes attacking “predictable, stale” Network TV: “Nothing’s fresh, nothing’s bold; it’s all the same rehashed predigested garbage.” They sacked him, natch.

RANDOM Irritations: lack of subtitles on 24, Jack Bauer whispering over that booming soundtrack would baffle Superman. People claiming EastEnders is ripping off Breaking Bad with their drug story; they’re not, they’re ripping off Weeds.

WORLD Cup Cousins: Colombia’s Yepes and The Hound from Game Of Thrones. Runner-up: Alejandro Sabella/Francis Wheen.

TV Maths. Chris Evans + Mesut Ozil’s eyes = Beaker, The Muppets.

SO many magical World Cup moments... Hoddle pronouncing Algeria “al jazeera”... Tyldsley claiming that Iranian players had “their Christian names on their shirts.” Top goof though was Gabby Logan who told Roy Hodgson: “You had the chance to score, you penetrated that Italian box.”

July 6. Kate Quilton ate a freshly slaughtered octopus on The World’s Best Diet. Its tentacles were still wriggling. Sod that. I want my food to be dead, not having a fit. Outside of Todd Carty’s kitchen, the world’s worst grub is apparently consumed in the Marshall Islands. Thanks to the Yanks, these north Pacific folk spend their short lives filling up on processed crap. Even the alphabet soup there spells out “RUN!” It wasn’t the only surprise. Turns out the Ethiopians have a healthier diet than we do. So shouldn’t they be putting on charity concerts to send us food parcels? Ethiopia’s miracle nosh is teff, a grain with seeds so small it looks like a bowl of sand. And frankly if that’s the answer, I’ll take my chances with a bacon sandwich.

Kate tackled her octopus in South Korea, where the other local delicacy is fermented skate. “It’s like licking a urinal clean,” she moaned. Quite how Kate knows what a gent’s toilet tastes like is her business. But I suppose even urinal cakes can look appetizing after a skinful.

Italy and Spain ranked highly, but Iceland won proving that Kerry Katona isn’t quite as daft as she seems. Nutrition ‘experts’ played a huge role in the decline of Britain’s eating habits; those nagging nannies who told us eggs were bad, milk was full of fat, and red meat would kill us dead. Now we know that eggs are fine, milk builds bones and the only colour of meat to worry about is green. Even chocolate is good for your heart. It doesn’t do your arse any good, but that’s the choice you have to make.

The real villain is sugary processed food. Diets rich in fish, fresh fruit and veg are best, combined with exercise and red wine in moderation. So it turns out Granny knew best all along... it really does boil down to “Eat your greens”, and “a little of what you fancy does you good.”

*JUNK food is popular because it’s cheap. But it’s not such a bargain if you factor in the cost of by-pass surgery.

*WHY was Scotland excluded from this? It’s outrageous that the Scots, with their proud culinary tradition of deep-fried sporrans, sheep lungs and al-fresco heroin, were robbed of their shot at the title.

IMAGINE did Monty Python. It made a nice change to see elderly comedy legends on TV who weren’t being led away in cuffs. But Alan Yentob’s documentary was the most blatant piece of toadying since George Galloway met Saddam Hussein. Don’t get me wrong, I loved Monty Python. Like many people my age I could if asked in drink (and frequently unasked and sober), recite huge swathes of their old sketches. But haven’t they become the things they once mocked – greedy, lazy, pompous and stale? The Pythons know they’re flogging a dead parrot but the BBC’s ‘creative director’ was far too star-struck to mention it. If he had any probing or vaguely interesting questions to ask he left ’em until after filming.

THE stand-by of every lazy TV executive is the ‘celebrity special’ version of shows that were never special to begin with. Thanks to this modern pox we’ve learnt that Rosemary Shrager doesn’t get Catchphrase, Russell Grant can’t cook to save his life, and Paul Hollywood didn’t know who Narcissus was... even though he also found true love in his reflection. It isn’t all dross, though. Thanks to The Cube we’ve also discovered that Mollie from the Saturdays has brilliant ball control (hold that thought, fellas... ) and looks particularly fine in slow motion.

HOT on TV: Braquo (Fox)... Kym Marsh... Edge Of Darkness re-runs (BBC4)... Burn Notice finale (Fox)... Nashville finale (More4).

ROT on TV: star-struck Gemma Cairney at Glastonbury... Alan Yentob – turning out more puff than Jus-Rol Pastry... The Honourable Woman – hon-watchable... Secret Life of Students – no secrets.

PALS reckon Scott Robinson looked like a young version of me on All-Star Mr & Mrs. That’s doubly worrying. Firstly because he’s from Pitsea, a stone’s throw from where I once lived. Secondly because it raises the slim possibility that his lovely wife Kerry might, in a dark environment after sufficient drink, mistake me for him. The shock might prove fatal. Still, it’s a risk I’m prepared to take.

*ITV’s celeb version isn’t a patch on the original’s small joys. One Mister, asked to name his missus’s favourite flower, told host Derek Batey: “That’s easy. Homepride.” Asked to name the last thing his wife took off at night, another hubby tactfully answered: “Her feet off the floor.” Her Indoors was less bashful. “Ma knickers,” she replied.

MIRANDA Sawyer says female punks like the Slits meant “it’s no longer shocking to see a woman on stage.” Was it ever shocking? Miranda was 3 when Janis Joplin died, but surely she’s heard of Joan Jett and Elkie Brooks? Not to mention Cher, Grace Slick, Patti Smith, Billie Holiday... I think she’d find Marie Lloyd unsettled a few buttoned-up bores a century ago.

*SAWYER claimed that by posing topless caked in mud, the Slits “subverted male desire.” How little she knows blokes.

*BIG Brother’s horrible Helen is annoyingly attractive. She’s like the Poundland Eva Green – specifically when Eva’s possessed by a demon on Penny Dreadful.

*RYLAN Clark moaned that Big Brother’s Bit On The Side audience didn’t laugh at his jokes. Hey Rylan, having heard your gags, get used to it.

*WHY didn’t Carol Jackson’s EastEnders drug-dealing trend as hash-tag hash?

*JAMES Corden? No deal!

*ON Corrie, Gail defended her relationship with Michael Rodwell insisting “I can spot a wrong’un a mile off.” Maybe so but it rarely stops her bedding them. Les Dennis’s character admitted: “I made a mistake, a bad one.” But enough about trusting Amanda...

SMALL Joys Of TV: Dolly Parton playing the Benny Hill theme at Glastonbury. Metallica’s triumph. Mad Mr Morris on Friday Night Dinner. Robin Of Sherwood (ITV Encore). Human sacrifices on Vikings – horrible, yes, but it wouldn’t half perk up Question Time.

RANDOM Irritations: C5’s Greatest Sitcoms list blanking Hancock and Bilko. Ferne McCann’s bandana (TOWIE). BBC double standards – they cut “girl” from a sport show, but use it on The Culture Show; they find women in lingerie unacceptable except when Monty Python have them.

SEPARATED At Birth: Uruguay’s Diego Godin and Mick Jones from The Clash. One linked to outrageous South American nutters, the other backed the Sandinistas...

*IS it me or is Ulrika starting to look like Catweazle without the beard?

SPOOF football aggro film The Hooligan Factory is out on DVD on 14th July and I have one (worth £9.99) to give away to ten lucky readers. For a chance to win just tell me which of these movies is not about terrace thugs. Is it a) Green Street b) The Firm or c) Monsters Inc? Answers on a postcard by Wednesday to Garry’s Hooligan Contest, PO Box 10220, Sutton Coldfield, B76 1ZH. Usual rules apply.

Previously...