BUSHELL ON THE BOX
March 27. What's happening at BBC drama? Who woke 'em up? War & Peace, Happy Valley, The Night Manager, Line Of Duty... the Beeb have been smashing ITV out of the park all year. Spy drama The Night Manager grips like Wayne Rooney in a VIP Nike box. Last week our man Pine battered the odious Corky to death with his bare hands.
He's as deep into Richard Roper's dodgy arms dealing business as he was in Roper's girlfriend Jed, MCing a spectacular "fireworks display" of weapons for sale.
There were anti-tank missiles, portable surface to air missiles, driverless cars... and for the grand finale, a village was fire-bombed to destruction –
an image that was burned into our retinas as surely and horrifically as Davina's Sport Relief camel toe.
"Nothing quite as pretty as Napalm at night," said Roper, channelling Apocalypse Now. Dirty Dicky has his own "kingdom" manned by mercenaries in Turkey, near the Syrian border. "We are Emperors of Rome," he said, "Blood and steel, the only elements that ever meant anything... "
Hugh Laurie makes the callous and charismatic arms dealer almost likeable. Taking him on is like playing catch with a live grenade. And the trick he pulled on Angela Barr was worthy of Dynamo.
Barr had his arms convoy stopped by the Yanks. They were expecting cluster munitions; they found bags of grain and brand new combine harvesters... only ever deadly in the hands of the Wurzels.
Aware he had a Judas on the firm, Roper had worked some magic of his own. The arms were still in Istanbul; he'd left them on the boat. "They didn't watch the cups," he explained. Priceless.
Tonight they're back in Cairo, where Pine first joined the Nile High Club.
Is it too early to claim a drama revival? The Beeb can't match the spending power of Netflix and Amazon Prime.
Especially not after squandering fortunes on moving to Salford, obscene executive pay-offs and disastrous digital cock-ups.
But mega budgets alone can't guarantee hits, as pricy let-downs like Marco Polo prove. It's not enough to have star names if the scripts are two bob.
And the Beeb's current drama output proves that Britain still has the talent and the know-how to compete on the world stage.
If only we could make sitcoms like we used to...
*PINE slipped out of Roper's haven and found a taxi willing to drive to Istanbul – further than Lands End is from John O'Groats – for under £300. These Uber guys get everywhere.
If that had been a London cabbie he'd have shook his head and said "Sorry mate, I don't go north of the Euphrates after dark."
THE Best Of Bad TV special laid into funny old favourites: The Two Ronnies, Colin Crompton, Hilda Baker, The Comedians... It was as lazy as it was tiresome and predictable. Seriously, you'd find more surprises in the Dr Thorne finale.
Yet the "crimes" the old guard committed against political correctness could be pinned on their more fashionable contemporaries too. I once watched a po-faced, right-on crowd, infected with similar flawed logic, heckle the immortal Dave Allen. And the smug hypocrites could just as easily accuse Monty Python of sexism (Carol Cleveland), homophobia ("No pooftas!") and ethnic stereotyping (Luigi Vercotti etc)... Their tedious "you-can't-say-that" mindset, coupled with TV's preference for middle class comics, has mangled mainstream comedy and left us with the mirthless "cutting edge" dross of Live From The BBC. How many watched Sofie Hagen's routine about "peeing, like, on a man" and thought come back Jim Davidson, all is forgiven?
IS Mind Your Language really that far removed from Little Britain's Ting Tong? And why is Benny Hill unacceptable compared to David Walliams's incontinent old lady? That's real misogyny.
HOT on TV: Harry Kane's cracking goal last night... Daniel Mays, Line Of Duty... Janis Joplin: Little Girl Blue... The A Word.
ROT on TV: Davina McCall – life at the extremely vapid... Best Of Bad TV – worst of knee-jerk snobbery... Think Tank – rhyming slang... Nikesh Patel, Indian Summers – wash-out.
SPACE food traditionally smells of "engine oil, wet dog and BO", according to Heston Blumenthal, which sounds like one of his recipes.
The crackpot chef's mission in Heston's Dinner In Space was to make grub that astronaut Tim Peake actually enjoyed. It wasn't easy. His bacon sandwich exploded like marshmallows in a microwave.
But eventually Heston pulled off a stunning canned salmon. It was one small step for man, one giant leap towards space-kebabs, essential for those long stag and hen weekends on Uranus.
LIKE an all-day buffet, the longer Masterchef goes on the less appetising it becomes. The hosts are as dull as the cooking. John Torode's chief function is to state the bleeding obvious, while Hood from Thunderbirds lookalike Gregg Wallace just hollers a lot.
"You're on borrowed time," he barked unkindly at Joe Ludlow. He's 78, mate, he knows that every morning when he looks in the mirror.
Cae seems promising. He's a "professor of medical devices"; probably not the kind that featured on Masters Of Sex... although after he claimed "I've banged the desert" we can't be sure. Tsk. There are American pies for that kind of thing.
Tasting his Earl Grey & Welsh whisky rice pudding, mastermind Gregg detected "a little bit of Earl Grey there as well". You don't say.
The Aussie version is far tastier.
*THINGS Boy George may be hiding under his giant hats: 1) His handcuffs 2) Paddington Bear's marmalade sandwiches 3) The brush from his street-sweeping sentence 4) His modesty 5) His last gold disc, an antique.
*CHEF Vs Science? Duller than Batman v Superman and even more pointless.
*ANY truth in the rumour that Geordie Shore will soon be shown on Syrian TV with the new title Yet More Reasons To Despise Western Infidels?
SMALL Joys of TV: fresh-thinking magicians on Penn & Teller's Fool Me, like Jon Armstrong and his Barbie-sized plunger. Eugene's crotch bite, The Walking Dead; that took balls... possibly literally. Mekons, Buzzcocks & Only Ones songs on The A Word. Childhood's End (Sky 1), familiar sci-fi themes done well.
RANDOM irritations: EastEnders bringing back Fat Pat as a "hallucination", as opposed to a poltergeist or a black magic curse. Andrew Bloody Marr. Adults who dress as kids. Ross Kemp's TV immigration report failing to mention that his old chums Blair and Brown deliberately opened the gates.
*THE ravishing Rachel Riley rode a bicycle across a high-wire on It's Not Rocket Science. Rumours that the bike seat later changed hands for hundreds of pounds are distasteful and uncalled for.
SEPARATED at birth Anne Milton and Julian Clary, one wowed by outstanding members and in awe of Black Rod, the other is an MP.
QUESTIONS: why doesn't anyone in Walford remind charity-robbing, child-abandoning busybody Sonia that she's in no position to occupy the moral high ground?
If Febreze eliminates odours why does it smell of lavender?
How exactly did humans discover that smoking Mork hair on The Aliens' gets them high? Defective hair-straighteners or Lilyhot friction burns?
March 20. You'd have to be as drunk as Phil Mitchell to find Celebrity Juice funny. It's like a tenth rate Shooting Stars.
People titter because Keith Lemon leers at breasts and says "milk, milk". What are we, six? Ooh, he said fanny, he said poo...
On his live show, Lemon got his first laughs with "Oh f***, we're live", followed swiftly by "I whacked her in the face with me c**k". Oscar Wilde eat yer heart out.
This is lobotomised comedy aimed at the Club 18 – 30 crowd after a night on Jäger-bombs; the comic equivalent of a tanked-up footballer at Cheltenham missing his pint glass and piddling on the crowd below. It's lazy toilet humour bereft of wit or insight but it's still arguably preferable to Stewart Lee's smart-arse ramblings.
Lee caters for the smug, right-on, middle class Guardian-reading crowd – the people who share his elitist prejudices.
He despises Only Fools & Horses, arguably the greatest British sitcom ever made, and only last week said that Bowie's Ziggy Stardust album made him "physically sick".
On Thursday he turned his fire on the English flag, linking it falsely to the 1970s National Front (who actually
Marched behind the Union Jack).
He then spent two thirds of a dull, self-indulgent show talking about his cat, allegedly called Jeremy Corbyn, and its diarrhoea, blowing a raspberry for three minutes while he recalled it dumping on the cross of St George.
Looking for laughs in this garbage is like searching for the meaning of life in a Joey Essex documentary.
Ah but clever people tell me I'm missing the joke. Stewart Lee is just as much a character as Keith Lemon, they say, but brighter. His rambling, repetitive shtick is an act; he's actually subverting comedy.
Maybe so, but 1) it's very hard to tell where the fake Lee stops and the real Lee start, and 2) This is the fourth series ploughing the same shallow fallow. Like a herpes sore, there's no getting rid of him.
Comedy is a matter of taste of course, but it's a matter of fact that Oxbridge comedians – of which Lee is one – get most TV bookings, because Oxbridge educated commissioners control the process.
The same kind of cretins who sacked Les Dawson...
CRACKING crime drama Happy Valley has been gripping and grisly in equal measure. On Tuesday it was also unexpected funny.
Killer cop John Wadsworth contemplated suicide on a railway bridge. Sgt Cawood tried to talk him out of it, but hadn't had the training. Wadsworth told her what she should be saying.
"I've talked down 17 people," he said proudly. "Never lost one... "
"Don't mess my record up before I've started," she begged. Too late.
Sarah Lancashire is superbly convincing as Catherine Cawood. She's tough and determined but also compassionate when required.
The scene where she cradled blood-splattered Alison (Susan Lynch on fine form) was wonderfully tender.
And her face at the end, as she watched grandson Ryan, the child of the psychopath who raped her daughter, wordlessly expressed all of her fears for his future.
TV's top cops have always been blokes. But Cawood is up there with Juliet Bravo, Jane Tennison and Sarah Lund in a growing band of formidable frontline females.
SAD scenes on EastEnders (surely not) as little Ollie Carter nearly pegged it. Mick was so flustered he completely dropped his slang, telling absolutely no-one: "Me saucepan's 'ad a right bang on the canister, 'e's got claret on 'is watch 'n' chain".
Blood on his brain! Good golly, poor Ollie. At least it proves he's got one, unlike most of the Carters.
*NOTE to writers: "Laurel & Hardy" for Bacardi? Tsk. It's Tom Hardy now, chaps.
*WHO wants Ronnie Mitchell dead? Is it a) Charlie Cotton b) Carl's mum or c) 7million viewers? (PS. IF you thought Ronnie and Jack's shower encounter was hot, search 'Sam Janus shower scene Up And Under'... )
HOT on TV: Happy Valley finale... new Daredevil (Netflix)... Jerry-Jane Pears on Houdini & Doyle... The Walking Dead (Fox)... Occupied finale (Sky Arts).
ROT on TV: The Last Leg – limp... Indian Summers – wet and mild... Dr Yawn... The X-Files – time for the Axe File... @elevenish – not even vaguely @funnyish... You're Back In The Room – feeling sleepy, very sleepy.
I WAS wrong about Pine on The Night Manager. I said he'd bed Jed, but instead he took her standing up inside his hotel room. Talk about driving a woman up the wall...
Steamy shots of Pine's pink posterior excited viewers. Well, Corky did warn him to butt out. But was our spy's room-servicing that impressive? The would-be Bond barely lasted 007 seconds!
Maybe try some of Sharapova's Meldonium, mate.
ON Monday's Corrie, Eileen told Phelan that Michael was "taking it quite hard", and by Wednesday night so was she...
Can't quite see the appeal, myself; she's a body double for the Cookie Monster and he looks like a malignant Tweety bird.
Let's hope Michael is back under Gail's duvet of doom soon, and that one morning he'll wake up and tear off his face mask to reveal... the leering features of Richard Hillman...
*JO Brand's Hell Of A Walk – just one letter away from being the worst adult film ever...
*JO did really well. Let's hear it for her personal trainers: Ronald McDonald, Colonel Sanders and Papa John.
*SEX act of the week: the "Brentwood hello" – when a woman wakes a man up with fellatio. Sadly the term, immortalised by the OJ trial, refers to Brentwood, California rather than Essex, where you're more likely to be woken up with a Faulkbourne **** off.
TV questions: if you slept with a zombie would they be the real grateful dead? Why did ITV do away with Conan Doyle's Scottish accent? Can we be sure Richard Arnold is really 100% gay? Only one morning this month I'm sure he didn't mention it.
SMALL Joys of TV: Arena: Loretta Lynn – Still A Country Girl. The Interviews: Peter Sellers. Nate Dendy (Penn & Teller Fool Us). Corrie's Rana. Payet's free kick against Man U. The First Dates waitresses. Scorpion, ITV2. Aussie comic Felicity Ward on her fella: "He was so hot, I thought I was a bet."
RANDOM irritations: Chris Carter's X-cruciating X-Files dialogue. Jamie Oliver's sugar hypocrisy. Cenotaph doughnuts. Prattling Caitlin Moran. Katherine Kelly being cast in three current prime-time dramas. BBC2's dull, jargon-heavy Obama doc.
TV Maths: Asgard from Stargate + wig = Gail Platt.
*TROLLS and "mud-born" skin-shifters abound in Beowulf. Far-fetched, yes, but easier to believe than the scores of ethnic characters swanning around 8th century Scandinavia. I'm waiting for the Aborigines to show.
And what's ITV got against Eskimos?
March 13. Wouldn't Famous Rich & Homeless be more effective if BBC1 signed up politicians for it?
Or at least celebrities who actually care about the problem?
Instead they have people who used to be famous, and aren't that rich, living rough for a week.
Or in Willie Thorne's case throwing a wobbly and checking into a hotel, an option that's not open to many in cardboard city.
Bankrupt snooker ace Thorne, who gambled away his millions, was more interested in watching Leicester versus Chelsea in the pub than talking to homeless folk.
He went (snooker) loopy with the camera crew telling them to "stop taking the p*ss" – they weren't – and claimed he was being "talked down to" by a likable homeless bloke called Steps – he wasn't.
A cynic might think Willie was only there for the air time.
Ex C4 cleaner Kim Woodburn did slightly better. She befriended one homeless teenager, giving her 60p to phone her Mum.
But when the girl didn't move back home immediately, the Brunhilde of Bleach tore a strip off her, calling her "a disgrace" and "a little horror", adding that she hoped her mother never forgave her.
Yeah, that'll help.
Kim didn't think to ask if there was a reason why she wouldn't go home.
Julia Bradbury got clocked by ex-con Steven, a Countryfile fan, who took her under his wing and told her about his Spice addiction (not to be confused with OId Spice... that's Geri Horner).
Steven had done time for robbery and GBH but Julia wrapped him round her little finger calling him "my knight in shining armour" as he scoured the bins for cardboard for her to kip on.
Former quiz host Nick Hancock roughed it properly and seemed genuinely interested in talking to the lost souls he met.
He was moved to tears by the generosity shown to him by one woman who'd grown up in care homes and been living rough for years.
Some street people are con artists, but many are just unlucky. A surprising number are ex Forces.
It's an escalating scandal, fuelled by immigration and community breakdown, and it requires much more than a well-meaning TV show.
DID you watch E4's comedy thriller Aliens? I haven't felt so let-down since a BBC continuity announcer said "Abbey Clancy reveals all next in It Takes Two"... and she didn't.
Here's the set-up: space aliens crash-landed 40 years ago and are kept segregated in a hell-hole called Troy, a ghetto so grim it could be twinned with Mad Max's Fury Road. Or Walford.
We call them Morks, as in Mork & Mindy of "Nanu, nanu" fame. Morks look like us, but smoking their hair ("fur") gets humans high.
Border guard Lewis hates 'em. He gets his kicks lusting over a webcam beauty called Lilyhot. Not too surprisingly he turns out to be half-Mork and she's the Mork girlfriend of a fur-trafficking gang.
The comedy's a nanu, no-no. Titters are meant to come from a gay Mork's clumsy 1970s sitcom crush on Lewis.
The aliens can be pole-axed by dog whistles and get trippy on cleansing products. Laugh? I nearly offered Lilyhot a Bold 2-in-1.
If the show is supposed to be a heavy-handed metaphor for immigration it misfires. Humans think Morks are violent crims, and mostly they are.
District 9, Star Crossed and Alien Nation handled similar themes better. Aliens would have been stronger as a straight thriller.
IT'S Tom Hollander versus Tom Hollander on Sunday nights now. He's become a sawn-off version of Jekyll and Hyde.
Nice Tom is decent Doctor Thorne on ITV; nasty Tom is Lance "Corky" Corkoran on The Night Manager, a dead-eyed bastard on the trail of our lonesome Pine.
Camp Corky is bitchy, menacing and far more fun – he threatened to hang Pine up by "those lovely ankles until the truth falls out of you by gravity".
Dr Thorne could have been called: Downton 2 – Posh, Snooty & Broke. It has a fine cast, particularly Ian McShane, but poor pacing, intrusive background music and a distinct lack of heaving bosoms made the costume drama hard-going.
It's difficult to watch ocean-going snob Arabella de Courcey without wanting to send for Madame Guillotine.
*TV questions: is Arabella one of the de Courceys who like their Nookie Bear?
Was Paloma Faith dressed by Daphne from Scooby Doo last weekend?
If Corrie's Big Eileen "did a Kim Kardashian" would it break the internet or just the camera?
HOT on TV: Beth Morris, The Voice... Ian McShane... Hugh Laurie, The Night Manager... Penn & Teller: Fool Us In Vegas.
ROT on TV: The Jump – dump... Raised By Wolves – written by gibbons... You're Back In The Room – I'm back in the pub.
MOTHER'S Day in Walford lasted all week and felt like an advert for adoption. We had rows, assault, bust-ups, baby Ollie caught in the crossfire... And Claudette attempted to kill Gavin with what looked like the Oscar she'll never get.
Only the dead gerbil on top of his head saved him. It made Call The Midwife feel like Happy Days.
*HAPPY Valley blew my mind – and also Daryl's, as his mum blasted him in the back of the skull with a shotgun after filling him full of dreams. I'm guessing writer Sally Wainwright has read Steinbeck's Of Mice & Men... So was Daryl behind all the deaths in Mumble Valley (except for Vicky, who DS John Wadsworth topped)? We'll all be glued to the subtitles this week.
*A MUM rowing the Atlantic accidentally flashed her privates on BBC Breakfast. "We have to row in the nude because we get so wet," she explained. Enough to raise any man's mainsail...
*HOW did Spencer Jones slip through BBC2's comedy net? He's like Mr Bean meets Tommy Cooper; child-like, daft, at times irritating (that constant chortling) but quite endearing. More please.
*THE Story Of Cats "explores cats like never before", unless you'd seen Big Cats on Sky... Here's my cat question: Lions crossed with tigers are called ligers. If you crossed a tiger with an ocelot, would it get any sleep?
SMALL Joys of TV: Brad cracking up over Robbie Grabarz's name on The Chase. Magnificent Michaela Cole, Aliens. Mulder tripping on The X Files. Faith Nelson's wobble, The Voice. Simon Pierro's iPad magic.
RANDOM irritations: Paloma Faith's baby voice. Over-acting on Murder. BBC News linking George Martin to Rolf Harris. The Beeb remaking classic sitcoms cos they can't make decent new ones; odds-on they'll muck 'em up.
SEPARATED at birth: Jack Garratt and Hornswoggle? One resembles a grumpy leprechaun and wears a succession of really bad hats, the other was a WWE wrestler.
March 6. The race row was a millstone around the neck of the Oscars until Chris Rock grabbed it and bludgeoned them about the head with it. "If they nominated hosts I wouldn't even have got this job," he jibed, adding "Y'all would be watching Neil Patrick Harris right now." Jada Pinkett Smith copped it next: "Jada boycotting the Oscars is like me boycotting Rihanna's panties – I wasn't invited." Rock treats convention like Tracy Barlow treats human decency, like an imposition to be mocked and played with.
The last time Chris hosted, he horrified Hollywood by saying there were only four real stars and "Tobey Maguire is just a boy in pants."
This time he was like a dog with a bone. He couldn't let race die, and it got tedious because the real issue isn't #OscarsSoWhite, it's #OscarsSoTame.
Few of the results in this four-hour snooze-in surprised, and several of the nominated flicks looked One Show dull. Rock asked black movie-goers in Compton what they thought of the Academy's shortlisted flicks. Most hadn't heard of them let alone seen 'em. Bafta's choices would probably get the same response in Dagenham. Look at the classic films that haven't won over the years: Goodfellas, Duck Soup, ET, The Shawshank Redemption... the disconnection between quality and reward is actually shocking.
The po-faced political bombardment also irritated – abuse, climate change, Sam Smith's delusions, Trump-bashing... it was like being whacked round the head with a rolled-up copy of the Guardian.
But black talent is under-used, and Idris Elba should have been nominated, as should Creed's Tessa Thompson and Michael B. Jordan.
Hopefully studios will now be shamed into creating the opportunities that Rock demanded. But actors should be rated for their ability, not as a token gesture.
Protestors who demand ethnic quotas for the Baftas are demented. How demeaning would that be?
They might as well decide the award by tossing a coin. Tails David Oyelowo, heads Lenny Henry... Or Claudette from EastEnders so they could have the after-party in her cleavage.
Chris Rock is brilliantly funny, but the Oscars don't need to be edgy and dangerous. Most movies are about escapism after all.
Maybe the Academy should get back to showbiz next year. Billy Crystal is still alive.
*THE greatest snub to a man of colour? Sly Stallone, robbed again.
WHAT does Davina bring to nature programmes? Absolutely McCall. Her Life At The Extreme was like a dim teenager's holiday footage.
"Oh my God, there's a giraffe," she squawked. "Oh my god, it's like... it's a cheetah." Oh my god, is this a grown woman?
David Attenborough she ain't. Davina's insights included "This place is insane!" and "It's super-duper hot" – what, in Namibia? Who'd have thought it? "I've never been a huge fan of scorpions," she said. Thanks for sharing. She had nothing of interest to say, and her idea of extreme living was talking to the camera without make-up on.
There were two funny moments – when she decided to "build a boma", which I misheard... And when Davina decided to race a cheetah.
Would he try and eat her, she asked? "Dunno," replied the keeper. "No-one's ever been stupid enough to run in cheetah camp."
Looking at dunes McCall gasped "There's nothing here". That's also the review.
*SEND Ben Price into a forest next, ITV. He might seem less wooden there.
R.I.P. Tony Warren, the man who inflicted the curse of soaps on us... I'm only half-joking. Warren's Coronation Street was wonderful, with its strong women, warm humour and big heart. Sally Lindsay called it "a celebration of the working class".
And it was. But what soap is now? Like Dead-Enders, Corrie has been lumbered with psychos, "ishoos", and logic that is looser than Liz McDonald's knicker elastic.
The Street is full of wrong'uns. They've had five murders and 13 deaths this decade. Tracy is so toxic it's hard to believe Arnie hasn't come back from 2029 to protect humanity from her.
Even the good guys include thieves, thugs and arsonists. Yes Mary, Norris and Sal still raise a smile, but there is way too much cobblers on t'cobbles. In recent memory we've had that chronic camping trip, over-night addictions, recycled plots, Steve's tiling, character re-writes (it's caring Todd now!?!), people pausing for chats in blazing infernos, tough-as-boots Carla caving in to Tracy...
Ee, happen it were better back in Uncle Albert's day. You need Izzy's dope deals on wheels to get through an episode.
HOT on TV: new House Of Cards (Netflix)... The People vs OJ Simpson... Poppy Drayton, The Shannara Chronicles.
ROT on TV: Davina McCall's Life At The Extreme – as lightweight as the desert breeze... Sarah Silverman's bafflingly bad Oscars Bond gags – oh, oh dear... Who's The Boss? – utter toss.
BOBBY Finestra has committed his biggest outrage yet on Vinyl – he's axed Status Quo from his New York record label.
"Do Status Quo make any money?" he asked. Told no, he added "Then f*** em!" Shocking (but true, Quo only ever had one US hit).
Bobby's head of talent Julie has a real way with words, He described one band as sounding "like five dogs with their cocks caught in a lawnmower." And "like an ice pick in the eardrum." That's what we need on The X Factor. Hire him, Simon!
*SO that's where Boy George gets his hats from – Ken Dodd's diddymen. It's still hard to see the point of The Voice, though.
They're supposed to judge contenders on how they sound, yet Geo chose Cody over Heather because of how she looks and Jordan was brought back just for being transgender. It's a farce.
*GLORY holes in cubicle walls made C4's gay sauna experience "a
lot like skiing". I can see that: a pole in each hand, both gripped for dear life... and before you know it... white out. It gives whole new meaning to a piste basher.
*TOO Much TV? At five nights a week it certainly is. The series makes The One Show look like The Ascent Of Man.
*ITV's Grantchester was like Father Brown with sex crimes and a hunkier vicar. Father Blue perhaps?
*LOUIS Walsh is going deaf, he says. We knew that when he signed Jedward.
SMALL Joys of TV: Ant & Dec's I'm A Celebrity Get Out Of Me Ear. Craig Gardner's free kick against Leicester. Darryl Fitton's Ska entry music. Louis CK at the Oscars. Alice Cooper pretend-guillotining a hapless record company exec on Vinyl.
RANDOM irritations: Germaine on Raised By Wolves – most infuriating TV teen since Simon Barlow. Yet more mumbling on Happy Valley. Let's Play Darts for Sport Relief cutting the matches and filling the show with padding – it's the "arrers" we want to see!
TV questions: does Mary Berry share a hairdresser with Lady Penelope from Thunderbirds?
Is Jenny "bag-lady" Beavan styled by the Hairy Bikers?
When Popeye blew his pipe, why didn't he burn his face?
Previously...