(More) fame at last! (And a respite for you lot from the damp squib that has been TV is Shit week) - a riposte from Rachel Cooke to Technical Monkey’s critique of her rantings against blogger-critics. Skirting neatly round the main body of TM’s rather cogent argument, she seems far more interested in whingeing about my personal insults - which is fair enough, apart from the fact that she’s misquoted me entirely. I called her a “talentless rah bint”, not a “daft blonde bint”. I have nothing at all against daft or blonde bints, just talentless rah ones. Admittedly, Ms Cooke is also at pains to point out that she isn’t posh - so just talentless, then.

For a more serious reply to her continued publicity-seeking anti-blog guff, check The Bibliosphere, or hang around here for TM’s own response, which will surely follow in the next 24 hours or so.

Having singularly failed to ignite TV is Shit week with my lame attempts at humour yesterday (despite a massively valiant and much-appreciated effort from LZ to come to my rescue…), I’ll try a serious post instead.

So, Chris Morris’s considered deconstruction of Michael Grade has again proved to be accurate… he’s jumped ship from the BBC only a few weeks before the government is due to decide on the level of the licence fee for the next 5-7 years, leaving the Beeb (according to the papers) in some serious doo-doo. Actually, I don’t see it that way myself - post-Hutton, the government were always going to be pretty rough on the Beeb re. funding this time around, and to be frank, the Corporation’s output under Grade hasn’t been “all that”, so the Beeb probably hasn’t lost as much as it thinks it has.

Flicking the remote, ITV certainly need a leg-up; Rupert Murdoch is circling, and already owns 18% of the shares. Richard Branson attempted a merger (through NTL) but was blocked by Murdoch; now all this Shite in Whining Armour can do is bellyache about “distorted competition”.

Murdoch would no doubt be served by running the channel into the ground even more
than it is already (in order to get people over to his crap-filled Sky platform); in this sense, Grade’s move should be good for the consumer. Whatever his faults, Grade surely won’t let ITV continue with the “strategy” of screening what is, to all intents and purposes, daytime TV in evening slots.

Terrestrial television needs a strong ITV to balance and complement the Beeb, and historically the regionals produced some great programmes, but in recent post-merger years it’s just been a shit-fest. Yes, they’ve wheeled out a few old warhorses like Cracker and Prime Suspect this year, but it’s mostly been ever decreasing quality, a fact reflected in their poor advertising revenue (at a time when consumers are spending more than ever). Whatever Chris Morris thinks of Grade, he’s undoubtedly the best-placed man be able to bring some prestige back to the network - and, with any luck, turf Murdoch out on his ear.

Massive issues, rather spidery post…. all thoughts welcome.

A fine, upstanding bunch of people, chat show hosts. Much maligned, under-appreciated and in no way leeches bottom-feeding from the scum-pool of low-quality light entertainment. As such, I’m pleased to inaugurate the first and only annual Shit Sandwich TV is Shit Chat Show awards! There is a (nominal) CASH PRIZE for all winners - should any of the recipients wish to collect (personal collection only), please contact us by e-mail for full details.

Anyway, on with the awards! Everyone (nearly) is a winner!

Award for the Best Nickname Based on the Sensation of Cold - Michael Parkinson

Award for the Best Reference to a Method of Denoting Cattle Ownership - Russell Brand

Posthumous “Hall of Fame” Award (sponsored by the UK Automobile Association and Durex) for the Best Prophylactic Automotive Filial Nomenclature - Johnny Carson

Bounciest Seats Award - Oprah Winfrey

Moving on to the much-coveted “animal awards” section -

Most Dog-Like Host Award - Jerry Springer

Award for Variety of Feline Pelting Methodology - Frank Skinner

Finally, Graham Norton and Jonathan Ross - special mention for having names from which I found it impossible to come up with a cruddy pun.

Davina McCall - sorry love, nothing this year.

Ta-DAAAAA!

(Hang on in there… only another 4 days of “TV is Shit” week to go….)

Following another crushing victory for the forces of toss-stinginess, it’s time for a new “sondage”, mes amis. In the spirit of “TV is Shit” week, as everyone is calling it in 7 Claremont Road, Folkestone, I want your opinion on the worst person / group of people currently on TV. My tastes are slightly unorthodox, in that I don’t mind traditional “hate figures” like Simon Cowell - they’re largely doing it for camp effect, and are actually quite professional. What I HATE is jumped-up amateurs - so I give you, in reverse order of shitness:

4) Ubiquitous jumped-up O’Squit Colin Murray. He’s fucking crap.
3) Loathsome drab Fearne Cotton. She eats Colin Murray’s fucking crap for breakfast.
2) Horrible, horrible, horrible Kate Lawler
1) Loose bloody Women on ITV at lunchtime. I’ve often caught 3 or 4 seconds of this shitgasbord, in passing, by mistake; on Friday, out of dedication to “TV is Shit” week, I forced myself to sit through a whole 5 minutes. I nearly Zidaned my television.

As always, other nominations are welcome. Given how shit and omnipresent TV is, you need a VERY good reason for not giving a toss. Being a Canadian man who lives in Japan and has not heard of any of the people I’ve just mentioned is one such reason.

On a whim, more or less, I’m pleased to announce “TV is Shit” - Shit Sandwich’s TV theme week! Take this as you will - send me endless photos of yourselves dressed up as members of the opposite sex (see below. I’m the one on the right, btw), or just suggestions for television programmes to review, people you hate on television, programmes you hate on television and any other things you hate about television. TV will be the only topic for “debate” this week, providing I don’t get bored.

We’ll start tomorrow with a new poll, and on Monday, we’ll have the inaugural Shit Sandwich Talk Show Host Awards…

Check the rather natty bogroll favicon (as I’m reliably informed they’re called) on the url bar above - more ace ape-ish artistry. And there should / will be an extremely exciting interactive feature coming to the site in the next week or so. Not the chance to slap a virtual me in the face and tell me to stop talking so much bollocks, but something NEARLY as exciting…

I have just finished sitting through Peter Andre and Jordan (ahem) “performing” the famous duet “Endless Love” at the end of ITV shit-fest “This Morning”. Needless to say, it was awful beyond belief.

It’s reasonably well-known that I hate Jordan with a passion - she, arguably more than anyone else, embodies all the artificiality, the materialism, the facile, shallow aspirations and the acceptance of rank stupidity prevalent in Britain today. But I always had a (very) grudging respect for her obvious ability to play the media… no longer. She refuses point blank to acknowledge the fact that she has ABSOLUTELY NO TALENT WHATSOEVER.

Not only was she the worst lip-syncher in the history of cruddy singers (she even forgot to “come in” at one point), she looked completely idiotic. She was sporting a big black curly mumsy wig and a pullover to try and make her look a little less like a post-op transexual breast fetishist and more like Bing Crosby sitting round a fire (or something). But every time she adjusted her seating position in order to pretend to sing, her enormous fake udders wobbled around like boiling eggs in a pan and threatened to knock poor Peter Andre off his seat. And the wig did nothing but make her look a bit like Gary Glitter.

Joe Public, beware - there are apparently TWENTY-TWO tracks on this duets album. Hopefully twenty-two reasons why Jordan will finally accrue the unabating public ridicule she so richly deserves.

Annoying thing of the week - and it looks like it’s spiralling out of control - is little vocal jingles at the end of adverts.

It started with the ridiculously unwieldy “Maybe she’s born with it, maybe it’s Maybelline”, and we all had a chuckle at our quaint transatlantic cousins. Then the appalling “Mmmm, Danone” which you could just about explain away given that it’s a French company.

Nothing followed for a few months, and we thought no more about it. But then came Herbal Essences - a woman singing “Herbal” then whispering “Essences” - which very nearly led me to put my DMs through the old HD-unready. And yesterday, I caught an advert for Scholl - who, I believe, make foot deodorant and affiliated utterly unsexy products - and a woman whispered the company name “sexily” at the end of the ad. GAAAAH!

At least with insurance / debt management adverts you can spot them early and either turn the TV off or, if the remote’s, erm… remote, go “LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA” for a couple of minutes. These are far more insidious, giving no warning before offering a wasp-sting of concentrated annoyance with no possible comeback apart from a primal roar of “NOOOOOOOOO!!!”

What next? “Mmmmm, Kwik Fit”? For fuck’s sake, make it stop!

A friend of mine is a social worker, and apparently at her Christmas party, all staff (sorry, “team facilitators and co-ordinators”) are expected to do a “turn”. I suggested a theme of songs with titles incorporating a social work “twist”, eg -

“Don’t You Want Your Baby?” - the Human League
“Papa’s Got a Brand New Slag” - James Brown
“Annie, I’m not your Daddy” - Kid Creole and the Coconuts
“Broken” (Home) - Tears for Fears
“Teenage Kicks (from the baby I concieved at 14)” - The Undertones

All of these are frankly shit apart from the first one. Can you lot do any better?

A plug for a new venture, http://www.ukpokerbuddies.com, which has been set up by a friend of the site. The idea behind the site is to help people in the UK play poker on a live, face to face basis - it also offers info and advice on poker events, calculating odds and evaluating hands, as well as a poker news feed.

According to TM, “the Friday night poker game is quite culturally embedded in the US, but doesn’t really exist in the UK” - so my donkey-balls display over the summer may even be representative of British naivety as a whole. So get on there and start poking yer buddies, as it were…