June 24. IT’S a shame the Argee Bargee speed-dating service on EastEnders ended so soon. I was looking forward to hearing: “Hi, I’m Derek, and when I’m not bullying schoolgirls I like to torment puppies and pull the wings off butterflies.” “I’m Roxy, I’ve dropped more flies than Bronco.” Or “Wotcha, I’m Phil, I shagged me bruvva’s wife and killed a geezer by torching me own car lot. Me last bride topped ’erself. Got any crack?”

Very few Walford folk are remotely likeable. Last week saw the build-up to the jinxed wedding of Satan’s sister Janine Butcher and Mad Michael Moon, the Nut and the Slut, the dodgiest duo since Burke & Hare. It was fourth time round for Janine (isn’t she still married to Ryan?). “Try not to kill this one,” quipped her brother Fick Rick – a reference to the cute way she murdered Fat Barry on honeymoon. Oh, and the time she pretended to be Jewish to con some rich old schmuck, who died from the shock, down the synagogue aisle...

Janine was five when she first appeared in the Square as a lying, bed-wetting, tealeaf. These turned out to be her good points. She turned tricks, turned blackmailer, ran over Danielle... Any normal bloke would run away from her so fast you’d hear a ‘skedaddle’ cartoon sound effect. But groom Michael is not normal...

Traumatized as a child by the shock of finding his Mum’s corpse, Michael is as slippery as a weasel soaked in diesel. He conned Mad Jean out of her Lotto winnings for an investment scheme (the Bank of Moon) that even Jimmy Carr might consider questionable.

Which puts us in another quandary: Yes, Michael is a messed-up conman with a malicious streak the size of Kim Kardashian’s khyber, but Jean is the soap’s most irritating character since Huw and Lenny. At one stage it looked like they’d enjoy a sausage surprise together... which wouldn’t have been as hard to believe as say Phil and Stella or Minty and Heather or Jay and Abi. The kid looks twelve! The wedding was going great (apart from the happy couple walking out for pre-nup negotiations mid-ceremony, as you do) until Janine went into labour prematurely. The poor mite was born without a heartbeat, unlike its psychotic parents who were born without hearts.

*GIVEN the state of most Walford marriages it’s surprising the bride and groom don’t just wear the rings on their middle fingers.

*THINGS to perk up Enders: 1) Phil with a Wayne Rooney hairweave 2) New Vic landlord: Hellboy 3) David Cameron leaves daughter in Vic; ten minutes later she tells Sam Cam: “You ain’t my muvva!”

*WHO remembers Fat Barry’s honeymoon death fall? No-one had gone down a cliff so unconvincingly since Sue Barker...

NORTH London’s Caledonian Road – known locally as The Cally – once housed a thriving live-stock market. Dirty old men would loiter when calves were delivered because, as abattoir worker Roy recalled: “You know, when the calf sucks the teat of the cow... I’ll leave it to your imagination.” Just say moo. Years later when North Londoners wanted to see something that sucked that reliably they’d go and watch Gus Caesar. The Secret History Of Our Streets brings history alive. It allows real people on screen, like publican Eileen, and shows how they cope with life’s upheavals with humour. (Enders please note). Locals stood up to the corporate might of British Rail to stop them demolishing their homes. But no-one seems to challenge Cypriot spiv Andrew, who boasted about ignoring planning regulations and renting out a warren of poky underground flats. He’s probably burrowing under St Pancras to build a giant kebab shop as we speak.

THE first question raised by Prime Suspect USA wasn’t so much whodunit as why bother? The brilliant British original launched in 1991. Setting the gritty US version in today’s New York feels as out of time as the Euro. Would Jane Timoney (their Tennison) really be the only female detective on a modern force apparently hand-picked by Gene Hunt? In fairness, Maria Bello is terrific as the homicide squad’s first woman boss. Nailing the bad guy, she copped the worst beating this side of Chris Brown’s kitchen, but won over most of her women-hating team in the process - except resentful Reg, who makes Andy Capp look metrosexual. It’s watchable enough. I just wish they’d changed the title...

*NO sign of Timoney’s sister Ann. She’s probably busy occupying Wall Street. (Ann Timoney, anti-money... okay, please yerselves.)

HOT on TV: Mario Bello (Prime Suspect USA)... Braquo (FX)... Marlon Davis (Comedy Empire).

ROT on TV: True Love – the worst thing to hit Margate since the ’49 storm, and considerably wetter... the Hugo Chavez Show – as endless and overblown as Leveson... Make Me Happy (BBC4) – what made me happy was switching over.

*BIG Brother’s Benedict was a preachy, self-righteous bore, banging on about his, ahem, unorthodox shower-gel. An old joke holds that there is a giant wall in heaven covered in clocks, each representing the life of someone living. Whenever that person pleasures themselves, their clock leaps forward an hour and they lose 60 minutes of their life. You’d look in vain for Benedict’s clock, because St Peter explains: “That’s in the kitchen. We use it as a fan.”

*IS Embarrassing Bodies the antidote to casual sex? It certainly changes the way we look at each other. Your date may seem cute but who knows what lumps, sores and assorted horrors are going on under the glad-rags?

*THEY had obesity and head lice on Embarrassing Bodies, which I believe were Heather and Shirley’s nicknames at Walford High.

*CHERRY Healey: How To Get A Life. Stop watching Cherry Healey?

*IF there was a point to True Love, it was better hidden than Jimmy Carr’s cash. Unless director Dominic Savage had purposely set out to prove that big-name actors are rubbish without a script...

*WILL it be happy-ever-after for Dev and Sunita on Corrie? Possibly. But there’s more chance of catching Norris Cole dancing to Skrillex or Emily Bishop writing mummy porn.

*WHEN China sends their next woman into space, can it be Sherrie Hewson?

*THERE was no male-orientated TV drama on Father’s Day, but my daughters did give me an unexpected gift – they let me use the phone.

RANDOM irritations: BBC1’s dire, doom-mongering football ‘analysts’. Fosters “sponsors of original comedy” sponsoring A Short History Of Everything, which is neither. Chris Moyles presenting stand-up - cheesier than a Gary Lineker pun.

SMALL Joys Of TV: Eva’s cleavage (Corrie). BBC4’s Bowie Night. Jimmy Carr’s tax ribbing (8 Out Of Ten Cats). Paloma Faith. Milton Jones.

*JOE Longthorne got an MBE – great; now give him as Audience With.

*SEPARATED at birth: William Hague and Elmer Fudd, one associated with Looney Tunes, the other a cartoon.

*AFTER John Lydon advertising Country Life, the new BA ad features the Clash’s London Calling. Ha! They think it’s funny, turning rebellion into money... Wake me up when McDonald’s start using The Feeding Of The 5,000.

*MISSING from last weekend’s post-punk show on BBC4: Killing Joke, Theatre Of Hate, The Exploited, The Alarm, Southern Death Cult (continued White Lion – quick 80s reference for old Sounds readers.)

June 17. CHRIS the bailiff got evicted on Big Brother, which made a nice change but was a big mistake. Squeaky Chris was comedy gold. He flew off the handle like a motorbike stuntman. His voice is so high that only dogs could hear every word. And his torso looked like Darren Lyons’s fake six-pack after it’d been left too close to a fire.

It was tragic to lose him so soon. He’d only had one row, with big gob Bex (Mandy Dingle’s stunt-double). I wanted him to fall out with paranoid nutcase Lydia too. Chris was like Smithy from Gavin & Stacey gone bad; the Hyde to Smithy’s Jekyll. All Arron brings to the party are arrogance and abs – so female voters, we’ve just found your level.

The week’s challenge was to last two days without laughing... which sounds a lot like a C4 Comedy Gala. They could have set them all off just by flashing up a picture of Wayne Rooney’s haircut. Instead Big Bro sent in stand-ups, Keith Harris and circus acts – who couldn’t really compete because the biggest clowns are already in there. Keith quipped that Chris could be Orville’s dad, as they look and sound exactly alike...

Watching housemates trying not to laugh was funnier than any of the turns. Luke S did it by flinging his mouth open in a silent scream (exactly the response that seeing Luke A naked would elicit, I’d imagine). Luke S has struck up the first relationship, with childish slapper Ashleigh, or as I like to think of her, Miss Chlamydia 2013. Ash appears to be thicker than an elderly Japanese tourist’s photo album, but each to their own. I like funny Shievonne, Sara, who’s hilarious in drink, and Lauren who is bright, cute and amazing with a banana. Deana is dishy but dim. Caroline is such a patronising snob she should be a Cabinet minister. Adam, who resembles a younger slimmer Barry White, should get through to the final week. But the others fail to impress, especially Dominic who was caught on camera pleasuring himself in the bath. If they’d sent in the clowns then, would he have knocked one out?

*MEDICAL up-date. Dull transsexual Luke A has a vagina; posh bore Scott is a vagina.

*CHRIS’S next job? Arse double for Rihanna; he has the perfect face for it.

* MOODY Lydia boasts about how normal her ‘celebrity’ boyfriend Andy Scott-Lee is. Wow, and that’s despite him appearing on The Mint and not winning Pop Idol.

THE US porn industry is going tits up, according to Louis Theroux, who revisited the scene 15 years on. He’s always been a massive plonker, maybe he thought he’d come in useful. Theroux’s schtick is to hang about gormlessly, trying to get people to open up. (Maybe I should rephrase that...) He interviewed new actors – coming attractions? And caught up with folk he’d met in ’97. The mood drooped like the before part of a Viagra ad. Only seedy director Rob Black was his old thrusting self. Once jailed for shock-porn, Black now knocks out blue superhero parodies... which makes you wonder what Wonder Woman does with her lasso these days. And brings new meaning to the thought of Batman and The Joker exchanging blows. No doubt his X Men are post-op transsexuals and his Silver Surfer does a helluva lot more rising.

*SUPER-hero sex? It’ll never catch on. What girl wants her fella to be faster than a speeding bullet?

WOULD it hurt comedy panel shows to try a bit harder? The once unmissable Mock The Week now seems as listless as Paul Merton on Have I Got News For You. There wasn’t one decent topical gag in the whole half hour. A Short History Of Everything Else is HIGNFY with the topicality and any pretence of satire drained out; just lame quips and archive footage of forgotten news stories. If you wanted weak banter about things that happened years ago, wouldn’t you just watch Dave?

HOT on TV: Braquo (FX)... Mad Men finale... 2 Broke Girls (E4)... Sharon Horgan, although sadly Dead Boss is a dead loss.

ROT on TV: Live At The Electric – dead in the head... A Short History Of Everything Else – have I got recycled ideas for you... You Cannot Be Serious – you cannot be funny.

*ABI’S maths revision got knocked to the floor by her randy parents on EastEnders. They have a whole new way of “doing tables”. Max’s interest in maths started with Stacey, when he realised 35 went into 16 four times a night.

*KAT Moon was referred to as “prime beef”. I can’t believe it’s not mutton.

I like Kat actress Jessie Wallace; she reminds me of a bit of Madonna’s right tit – cold, over-exposed and yet somehow still saucy.

TOWIE turned Marbella into Essex on the Med this week. It was like every other episode but with bikinis - The Only Way Is Kleenex. Alleged highlights included dimbo Joey trying to push open a sliding door, and Lucy saying yes to Mario’s proposal, which on balance is probably dumber. He’ll never love anyone as much as he loves himself, Luce. Elsewhere Gemma dumped Argy, flashing her swimsuit at him saying “You ain’t getting this candy.” Maybe if she’d consumed a little less ‘candy’, she wouldn’t have looked like half a ton of condemned veal wrapped up in a black bin-liner.

*IT’D be easy to write off Mark Wright’s new show as Hollywood Shite, so let’s do just that. It’s like Entourage with a lobotomy.

*HOW come Zippy hasn’t done a David Cameron remix of his BGT hit: “Where’s me keys, where’s me phone, where’s me daughter?”

*SOMEONE buy Marco Pierre White a comb – even clowns think his barnet looks ridiculous.

*THINGS I’d like to see on TV: CGI enhanced deformities beamed via Skype to baffle the doctors on Embarrassing Bodies...“My word, his penis appears to have a smiley face...”, “is that an alien bursting out of your stomach?”, “so when exactly did these udders develop...?”

Random Irritations: Lizo Mzimba’s shirts – why can’t the scrawny BBC news entertainment correspondent find one that fits? Theroux not calling his porn show 15-Up. ‘The Men Who Made Us Fat’ – did they put a gun to our heads? We make ourselves fat! The guy on Punk Britannia citing A Very British Coup as if it were a factual book rather than a paranoid work of fiction penned by a Bennite MP.

Small Joys of TV: The Secret Life Of Bob Monkhouse. Phil Davis. Ronaldo missing open goals. Pete getting decked by a train guard (Mad Men). TOWIE bikini babes. Sara’s rat-arsed rendition of God Save The Queen (Big Brother). Hic-hic-hooray.

SEPARATED at birth: Avengers star Jeremy ‘Hawkeye’ Remmer and Freddie ‘Parrot Face’ Davies. Runners-up: Corrie’s Dev as Elvis and Mescaleros era Joe Strummer.

MEMO to BBC4: if punk is dead who were all those people watching the Cockney Rejects go down a storm at Download last weekend?

BBC4’s Punk Britannia was very much an NME take on the spiky phenomenon. It had far too much on pub rock, and nowhere near enough on bands such as the Ruts, Skids, Angelic Upstarts and the Members who in their different ways carried the torch for punk rock in 1978 and 9 (long after the NME decided punk was dead). The third part of the series was full of reverence for The Fall, the Raincoats and the Marxist funk band Gang Of Four, while ignoring the Apocalypse punk bands entirely. Important blue collar bands such as the Business, whose album The Truth became the template for US streetpunk went under the BBC radar. They didn’t go to art school and clearly didn’t drop the names of the right intellectuals in interviews.

Isn’t it odd that a show about post-punk would ignore Big Country? This brilliant band, formed in 1981 by former Skids guitar Stuart Adamson successfully mixed folk, rock and Celtic themes, and notched up hits including ‘Wonderland’, ‘Chance’ and ‘In A Big Country’ as well as three Top 3 albums. All a lot more listenable than ‘Death Disco’.

June 10. After all that down-market Jubilee coverage, Big Brother bounced back to bring British TV a touch of much-needed class. There’s teacher turned porn star Benedict; Conor whose favourite trick at parties is to drape his old chap over his wrist and pretend it’s a watch. And Essex girl Ashleigh, 20, who arrived promising to “swear constantly”, her fake tan streaking in the rain. She’s already delighted us with her thoughts on golden showers. “Every boy has got a fantasy of pissing on a girl,” she claimed. Well, what a sheltered life I’ve led! Although thinking about it, Angela Merkel could probably do with a good soaking.

I like kooky blonde Lauren, a criminology student who’s a karate black belt - surely a costumed crime-buster in the making? Funny Shievonne and leggy Sara seem good value too. But maybe not Caroline, an irritating posh bird whose unkempt barnet makes her look like she’s just been flung off of a fairground waltzer. How much Prozac would you need to take to suffer a summer with this creature? I’d OD by Father’s Day.

The others are either disturbed or disturbing. Babbling doorman Chris is like squeaky Joe Pasquale on steroids. Transsexual Luke A (short for Attention-Seeker) was born female yet has a deeper voice than him. Luke worried about people finding out his sex-change secret, and then insisted on telling them anyway. Tsk, just like a woman. We’ve had fake cocks in the house before of course, most notably Craig Coates...

Deana, Miss India UK, was first in and had to put three of these chumps up for eviction. She took forever to decide, not cos it was a hard choice but because her brain works really, really slowly. She nominated Conor (for ignoring her), ex-glam model Victoria, 41, and stressed-out drama queen Lydia – and that was before she found out she’s Andy Scott-Lee’s girlfriend. Naturally Vicky went. The rest of the housemates are: model Arron, thinks he’s funny – we’ll be the judge of that, pal. Posh gay student Scott, Brit-born Yank Adam (self-styled gangsta), and alpha male entrepreneur Luke S. It’s too soon to predict a winner but a fiver says foul-mouthed Ashleigh will be the first to put a couple of hands on Conor’s “wristwatch”.

TOWN planners out to “improve” Deptford, south-east London, demolished the best part of it in the 60s - and ripped the heart out of a thriving community. Homes they condemned as slums were perfectly habitable. But, as The Secret History Of Our Streets showed, locals had no power to resist faceless officialdom. They were forced out to the suburbs. Replacement estates built in the name of progress became soulless hell-holes while the kind of houses the council flattened now sell for £750K...

HOT on TV: Game Of Thrones zombies... Marco Pierre White (Kitchen Wars)... The Fruit ’n’ Veg Market.

ROT on TV: BBC1’s flotilla coverage – there’s more intelligent life in Prince Philip’s urine sample... Cheryl Cole singing flat – by royal disappointment... Fearne Cotton – still rotten.

TOM Jones lusted over Beyoncé on Monday – but only on Corrie. Tom, played by randy Karl, looked more like Tony Angelino from Fools & Horses – he’ll certainly do more cwying. Sunita didn’t look like Beyoncé at all, but she definitely fits the hits: Crazy In Love, Naughty Girl, Love On Top... She’ll be a single lady soon enough.

*SUNITA, arranging a session with Karl, told him “You’d better use the back entrance, just to be on the safe side.” I say, luv, steady on.

*MASOOD proposed to Zainab again on EastEnders. And they say Jean Slater is nuts...

*KAT’S back! Woo-hoo. The question is: will she cheat on Alfie... before or after Gary Barlow’s knighthood?

*THEY rejected a robot comedian on America’s Got Talent. Quite right. One Jimmy Carr is enough.

*COMIC book hero Green Lantern has come out as gay. Half an hour later he got offered his own TV chat show.

*LEWIS said he’s “too old-fashioned” to make a move on Dr. Laura. Don’t worry mate. She's a forensic pathologist - she's used to laying out dead bodies and getting stuck in.

*PAUL Sinha on The Chaser is very cutting for a man whose neck looks like a stack of Cumberland sausages.

JUBILEE irritations: a BBC nitwit claiming Nelson fought at Waterloo. The RAF fly-past being headed by a Yank Dakota. ITN’s Mark Austin – sneering and snooty doing vox-pops; a ventriloquist dummy has more empathy. Lenny Henry landing the prestige gig after three decades of not being funny.

SMALL Joys of TV: Madness turning Buck House into a Camden backstreet. Grace Jones hoola-hooping. Marco Pierre White looking like a deranged silent movie clown. And the transit of Venus - this won’t happen again for 100 years... just like a happy marriage in Walford.

SEPARATED at birth: Micky Flanagan and Billy The Fish.

June 5. THE three day Diamond Jubilee knees-up was up-lifting – despite Olympian levels of BBC incompetence. Highs included the Red Arrows turning grey skies red, white and blue, those little boats, redolent of Dunkirk, and Madness on the Palace roof, singing “Our House... in the middle of One’s street.” Old stagers – Tom Jones, Rolf and Bassey in particular – sparkled at last night’s Jubilee concert, which is more than can be said for Miranda Hart. Has there ever been feebler, more blithering comedy patter at a national event? Yes, if you count Omid Djalili and Sandi Toksvig’s painful banter on the Zephyr the day before. Never a Somalian pirate around when you need one, is there?

BBC1’s flotilla coverage was particularly shoddy, let down by clueless commentators, ill-timed cutaways and glaring factual errors. It was like they were trying to turn a historic event into a so-what edition of The One Show. Mercifully these clods couldn’t dampen the sense of occasion any more than the lashing rain could silence the Royal College of Music choir belting out Land Of Hope & Glory.

BBC commentators managed to get the date of the Queen’s Coronation wrong, and the size of HMS Belfast. They referred to the top deck of the royal barge as “the first floor”, and even managed to call the Queen “Her Royal Highness” instead of Her Majesty. But my favourite cock-up was the claim that the hatter Lock & Co provided a hat for Horatio Nelson to wear at the Battle of Waterloo. Waterloo, a land battle, was in 1815 – ten years after the great Admiral died at sea during the Battle of Trafalgar.

*THE Queen didn’t actually enjoy any of the music on offer, but got through the ordeal by listening to Cradle Of Filth on her iPod.

*BEST gag? Lee Mack: “Standing outside Buckingham Palace, asking everyone to cheer for Madness... what would George III think?”

*BEST TV commentator: David Starkey on ITV, full of knowledge and enthusiasm and at one point moved to tears by the majesty of it all.

*BIGGEST relief: Lang Lang not going on too long long.

*WAS the Sky News coverage any better? Here’s a verbatim quote from Eamonn Holmes: “There’s some sort of barge going past. There’s a bit of steam, horns going off... it’s some sort of river boat.” Only LSD could have improved fat-boy Eamonn: “Hey, it’s the Love Boat. And Aquaman... Captain Pugwash... Captain Birdseye... and look, there’s the Kraken...”

Things the Jubilee showed us we lack: 1) a Navy 2) A commentator of the stature of Richard Dimbleby or Raymond Baxter. 3) Comedians the whole nation loves.

June 3. THE Baftas are British TV patting itself on the back for a job well done. It’s the broadcasting equivalent of bankers giving themselves bonuses for bringing us to the brink of economic catastrophe.

Dara promised us “the very best” of UK telly shortly after the ludicrous luvvie fest opened with shots of comedy sex-pest Keith Lemon and a couple of clods from TOWIE. Wow, all the stars. We were then subjected to toe-curlingly rotten ‘comic’ exchanges from various planks presenting awards.

Gongs went, inexplicably, to Coronation Street, and to Jennifer Saunders for that half-cocked Ab Fab revival. And a prestigious Bafta fellowship was bestowed upon an elderly Aussie painter and decorator with a kangaroo fetish. (Good on ya, Rolf). Had there been a chat-show category, Peaches Geldof might have walked it.

Sport was absurdly lumped in with national events, resulting in the New Zealand All-Blacks being pipped (Pippa-ed?) for glory by the Royal Wedding. Even Piri Weepu couldn’t compete with that bum. And I understand Pips pushes harder under pressure.

In drama, Fred West buried the opposition. Whether or not you think it’s right to dramatise this sick bastard so soon after the event, there’s no denying that the acting in ITV’s Appropriate Adult was magnificent. Mrs Brown’s victory was one in the eye for comedy snobs. The likes of Friday Night Dinner pale compared to US sitcoms Modern Family and The Middle. But then what do we do well now? Baking perhaps, but virtually all must-see shows on TV are imported. And it’s tragic. Two of the four series up for a drama Bafta have already been axed, including winner, The Fades. Perversely, our two latest runaway drama smashes, ITV’s Downton Abbey and BBC1’s Sherlock, weren’t even in the running.

No current British drama comes close to Game Of Thrones, which this week ended with the most enjoyable twist this side of a John Travolta massage. Titanic battle scenes too. The Beeb made quality series once. But it’s been a mighty long time since Boys From The Blackstuff or House Of Cards. The best they can do is re-boot old hits, like Dr Who and Sherlock; the rest is dross - Candy Cabs, Outcasts, medical soaps. TV Polyfilla. We kid ourselves British TV is world class, but compared to the Yanks and the Swedes we’re not even trying.

*BAFTA joys: Rolf dressing like a psychedelic Colonel Sanders. Jack Whitehall’s face falling faster than Facebook share price when Mrs. Brown’s Boys beat Fresh Meat. Kelly Brook – she didn’t win a Bafta, but did bring her own golden globes...

SILK heated up as randy brief Clive got off with female solicitor George in the ladies loo of a pub; an encounter that left him flushed... and a queue of women with their legs crossed. To add insult to injury, he also left the toilet seat up. It was all steamier than a Melanie Sykes tweet; and very little appeared to be inadmissible, m’lud. Carlsberg don’t do legal briefings, but if they did... Clive was in Oxford to prosecute three posh students who’d ripped off a waitress’s knickers as a secret society initiation rite (The Borises?). They were the kind of spoilt, silver-spoon vermin likely to end up running the country, or worse, BBC Comedy. Even when found guilty they only got eight months. Meanwhile, QC Martha (Quite Cute) did her bleeding heart bit for screw-ball Ricky, who got eight years for smashing up a mini-mart. He’d been abused y’see; society was to blame. One rule for them and another one for us was the obvious message. And once it would have been true. These days though, isn’t it more likely to be: slapped wrists for the guilty and no justice at all for the victims?

KERRY Katona had to cook for a bunch of deadbeats on Celebrity Come Dine With Me. Surprisingly she didn’t go to Iceland. This alleged “Jubilee special” was an embarrassment of name-dropping (Lionel Blair), burping (Cheryl Fergison) and bad jokes (Keith Harris). “Prince Charles always calls me ‘Lionel’,” bragged Blair, prompting Dave Lamb to ask, “What else would he call you?” There is an answer to that, but it’s a word only the Duke of Edinburgh uses. Kerry took the biscuit, turning her nose up at Cheryl’s greasy menu – “I can’t be eating this s***” – before serving up fish and chips herself. For afters the lazy cow brought in an ice-cream van. The only thing Katona can cook expertly is crack. Guests like this make us think more kindly of the King of Bahrain.

*MISSING from the menus: Orville a l’orange. I wish he could fry, or end up in a pie, he’s a... (Cut! – Ed)

HOT on TV: Biffo (The Meat Market)... Game Of Thrones (Sky Atlantic)... Christina Hendricks (Madmen).

ROT on TV: the BAFTAs – Banal & Flat, Talent Atrocious... Bruno Toniolo – turn it in... Eurovision – like a badly choreographed acid flash-back... Revenge (E4) – clichéd and wooden; drama-sh*te.

GOD Save The Queens set out to examine how gay entertainers changed attitudes to homosexuality (if indeed they did). A more interesting question would be: has leaving the closet ruined gay culture? The journey from Kenneth Williams to Louie Spence has not been an uphill one, if you’ll excuse the term. The show confused ‘camp’ with gay - they’re not the same thing. It ignored camp pioneers like Sid Field; forgot that Round The Horne’s writers were straight and claimed polari as “gay slang”, when it was always much more than that.

*WHAT do those Melanie Sykes tweets tell us? 1) She’s wild and crazy 2) She doesn’t understand Twitter or 3) Celebrity Big Brother is casting?

*SCENES I’d like to see: BBC1 boss Danny Cohen booking into a hotel, requesting a wake-up call... and the receptionist showing him the viewing figures for The Voice.

*THE Voice cost BBC1 £22million; money well spent... if they’d set out to create a clone of The X Factor with half the viewers, zero judgement and a lot more turning around.

*CYNDI Lauper is 60 this month. She’ll be on Later singing her new single, Girls Just Wanna Stay In & Knit.

*HOW about an Embarrassing Bodies celebrity special? They could treat Ann Robinson for ingrained frostbite and get to the bottom of Damon Albarn’s Beetlebum.

RANDOM irritations: Bafta winners who “haven’t thought about what to say”. Eurovision autopsies – it’s bent, get over it. The Voice letting Cheryl Cole mime. Over-use of phrases ‘ground-breaking’ and ‘pushing the barriers’ on Great British Menu - it's only cooking!

SMALL Joys of TV: Evidently John Cooper Clarke. Time-lapse flowers (Kingdom of Plants). The New Jersey invasion of South Park. Jay’s hair mysteriously sprouting inches between scenes on Tuesday’s EastEnders. Greggs having a spokeswoman called Wendy Baker...

SEPARATED at birth: Hotel Chocolat boss Angus Thirlwell and Sting, one responsible for endless over-sweet tripe, and so’s the other one.