the bbc – big barrowload of contradictions

We’re heading back to the delights of Italian TV very shortly. I’ve mocked it many times but I tell you what, the situation at the BBC is getting just as bad. You’d think after all that furore over the Queen’s documentary, then the Jonathan Ross/Russell Brand debacle they’d be pulling out all the stops to prevent any further on-air howlers. Well on Sunday evening something was pulled out all right; John Barrowman’s ‘fruit and nuts’. By all accounts that’s ‘all it was’ – presumably he spared us the dairy milk.

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farewell parky, thank goodness

Did you happen to see the final interviews on the Parkinson show on Saturday night? What did you think? I thought it was all a touch indulgent and a bit sad really. Not because he’s going but because it looked like a tired format which had long overrun its time – an old silver-haired guy chatting to 3 other grey-haired old geysers whose conversations were re-hashes of previous chats. Then a change in pace with a less-than challenging chat with David Beckham followed by ‘young’ Peter Kay, whose routine was just embarrassing. Dressing Parkinson up as a lollypop man wasn’t exactly cutting edge. Then a song tribute from Dame Judy and a 2 minute chat with her which was hi-jacked by Billy Connolly, which was immediately followed by… a song tribute from Dame Edna with both songs trying futilely to find a decent rhyme with Parky. Now if Dame Judy had sung about the ‘flirt from Yorkshire who chats… whilst he porks yer’ I’d have shown more interest.