Kevin McCloud

There's only so much Kevin McCloud you can take before he starts irritating you. In the past I've found his dramatic pauses and pompous asides quite endearing. I've enjoyed pretending to be Kevin, although I only own two coats.

But recently he has begun to annoy me. Every building he visits, he goes on about the vision of the architect, and the passion of the owner. He goes on about integrity, the sustainability of the materials, how faithful the property will be to its surroundings. And then.

And then, he pauses, thinks about what he's about to say, and says something like "Martin first undertook this project to give his family the dream home they always wanted. I'm worried that this so-called dream home, is turning into (slight pause) a nightmare." And then it goes onto a commercial break.

With his hard hat and his numerous coats, I'm beginning to think he's a one trick pony. We need to see more variety from you, Kevin, and there's only one way to do that. Strictly Come Dancing 2008. Get yourself partnering that Flavia lass.

Kev v Gordon

Wednesday night viewing is pretty good at the moment. Channel 4 is leading the way with Grand Designs followed by Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares USA. You could not get two more different hosts. We spoke last week about "Ramma" as I like to call him and his top-class swearing. Sometimes unnecessary. Always amusing. But before that we have good old Kevin Mcleod and Grand Designs. Kev must be one of the nicest men on TV. Where Gordon likes nothing better than a good f-word (brilliant I know), Kevin will not use one sentence said in a matter-of-fact manner when a verbose monologue with at least one dramatic pause can be used instead. And how many coats does he own ? Las night I counted 5. That is not a record by the way. I think my favourite one at the moment is his green Berghaus.

I decided last night I am watching too much drama and I need to watch more comedy. Mickey has suggested the IT crowd and maybe My Family. I am not so sure dear readers. So what should I watch ??

More great swearing

I agree with Davie that Gordon Ramsay's swearing is a marvellous thing. Much as I love it when he swears at the idiots he's trying to help, I like it best when he's on his own at the end, having sorted it all out, there are no problems left to solve, he's walking off into the sunset, and, for no reason at all, he just swears under his breath. There's really no need, but it's always a great bit of television.

But I don't think Ramsay is the best swearer on television. No, ladies and gentlemen I do not.

The best swearer on television is Susie Essman. She plays Larry David's manager's wife in Curb Your Enthusiasm and she really is the master of the potty mouth. She swears with such ferocity, her face twisted in vitriolic fury, jabbing fingers and fiery eyeballs, she doesn't even need to say the word for it to be offensive. But she does.

I love Curb Your Enthusiasm. But it's only this series that I've realised how much I love Larry David's manager's wife. She's the most hateful, unpleasant, aggressive character on television, and I think she might be the greatest comedy creation this century.

Great swearing

I am absolutely loving Ramsays Kitchen Nightmare USA on Channel 4. I think it is so enjoyable as good old Gordon has not changed his style to suit the Americans. And his style just does not sit easily with them. Week after week he encounters those wholly insincere Americans that we have all encountered at some point in our lives and week after week he launches into expletive laden diatribes that if he was dealing with Brits we would probably not flinch at but which for some reason are compulsive watching when aimed at the Yanks. It as if they have never heard to f word directed at them directly. The look of sheer delight on some of the waitresses faces as this weeks victim (the owner/chef) was described as a fat, lazy effing pig was a joy to behold. I really like Ramsay - he swears and speaks his mind. I have no doubt some of it is for show but I reckon he is the kind of guy you would go on the pull with and he would tell you honestly if someone was out of your league.

Apologies for the lack of February activity. Mickey and I are just too excited about meeting the rest of the Journal blog team.

Torchwood

I do wish they'd stop all this adult content on Torchwood.

It's all so unnecessary. Here I am, sitting at home, settling down for a nice bit of sci-fi escapism. Maybe I've got a glass of fruit juice or I'm having a small fun size chocolate bar as a treat. I don't want any trouble, just want to enjoy a story in which time travel, creatures from space or spooky things play a significant role.

What I don't want is to see a bunch of incompetents blunder from bed to bed, putting the fate of all existence on whether they fancy someone or not, falling in lust with people in a completely unconvincing way and acting completely unprofessionally in a work environment.

You have the Welsh girl going from Guppy to Barrowman even though she's engaged. You've got the boss, Barrowman, going after the office junior during work time which would generally be frowned upon in a professional organisation. How can Barrowman do his year end appraisals with any objectivity? He'd have serious problems in an industrial tribunal if he sacked someone.

All for the sake of Torchwood being an "adult" programme.

Well, I say no. It's not adult. It's very very childish. It seems to be written with exactly the same mentality as Doctor Who, except they've stuck a few bedroom scenes in, and put in a bit of saucy chat about kissing and cuddling and that.

I'm sorry to harp on about it all the time, but if you want adult mixed with fantasy, watch Battlestar Galactica. The writers haven't just redone Star Trek and added a couple of sex scenes and a few swears. They've written an adult drama which just happens to be in space. And that's how Torchwood should be done. An adult drama which just happens to have Welsh people kissing and a cuddling in it.

Hmm. This is perhaps my worst post ever. I should have just gone on about how India Fisher's narration on Masterchef is still annoying me. ("For now they can relax, but tomorrow they face two even tougher challenges etc." every episode. Every single episode.)

Mastermind

I remember as a child that Ma Davie was a huge fan of University Challenge and Mastermind. She loved answering the questions and to be fair she generally did pretty well. I used to listen to her and think she was very intelligent and would I ever reach that level of intelligence. Of course I knew I would and even at the tender age of 11 I was aware that Ma Davie had many years more experience than me and had read more books and therefore it was only a matter of time before I became that intelligent. I am watching Mastermind as I type. Has this been dumbed down ? I could never answer any questions and now it all seems fairly straight forward and I could certainly make a guess at a lot of the questions rather than pass. And there has been a woman on who chose "The Sopranos" as her specialist subject !! Really - is this allowable? In the 1980's they picked subjects such as "the life and works of some obscure musician" or "King Henry VIII's life between 1508 and 1511". Now someone is picking their favourite TV programme ? I could go and answer questions about the Bill or Neighbours and presumably win this competition. Unbelievable.

Mickey's Review of Christmas Part 2

Davie's criticism of Doctor Who's Christmas Special allows me to flow seamlessly into part II of my eagerly awaited "Mickey's Review of Christmas" series of posts. For my next thing that I was going to review was the Doctor Who Christmas Special.

And here, I'm starting it now. Look!

Doctor Who

Six weeks ago I was going to do a blog entry where I predicted that the Doctor Who Christmas special would be rubbish. But I was busy with other things (work and that probably, but it might have been laziness), so what would have been an incisive piece of speculative tripe never got to be written. What it would have said was that the fact that they've got Kylie Minogue in it meant that the story would be very dull and they needed a star name to make us forget about how bad it was.

And it turns out that if I had written this, I would have been right. Not even the presence of the great B Cribbins (when oh when will he be knighted?) could rescue it.

And now Davie has watched it, thinking that the Christmas Special will be one of the better episodes, finds a lot of rubbish about a mad company director, and it puts him off sci-fi for another ten years. My success in recommending Heroes to him had almost persuaded him to watch Battlestar Galactica, but this has cancelled out all my good work.

There was one good thing about it. One of the few people to survive was the arrogant dislikable fellow and at the end of it he was still arrogant and dislikable. He hadn't "grown" or "learnt something". I liked that. It reminded me of real life.

New Year Celebrations with Take That

Not my choice of programme to watch over the new year, although thank all that is good that we didn't watch Jool's Holland Hootenanny which appears to have been recorded and not done live over New Year. (Seriously, anyone who thought it was live is clearly a little dim, and anyone who then wrote in to complain that it wasn't live can't handle the 21st century and needs to be taken away to somewhere safe.)

Back to Take That - if there's anyone I didn't want to be the first to "officially" wish me happy new year it was Kate Thornton. I'd have had a happier new year if she'd kept her official new year wishes to herself, but there you go - 2008 off to the worst possible start, thanks Kate.

So there you have it. I watched four programmes over Christmas and New Year and they were all dreadful old rubbish. If only I'd taken time to watch To The Manor Born.