TV Review: Shooting Stars

In an age of the unwanted comeback (hello Take That, Boyzone and Peter Mandelson) those bods at TV HQ have finally bought back something we’d been greatly anticipating - Shooting Stars.

The all new anniversary edition was preceded by Shooting Stars: The Inside Story, a mockumentary of sorts which mixed backstage characters portrayed by Vic & Bob and previous guests. Keep reading.

Normality Incorporated

...just a slice of lemon thanks Roger!

Oh hello, you've just caught me enjoying an afternoon with Sir Roger Moore.
Anyway, this is just a quick note to inform you all that I now also write for another blog called Normality Incorporated. See how I hinted at that in the post title?
It's in the early stages at the moment, but it's very promising. Go and subscribe!

TV Review: Lily Allen & Friends

“I don't know what's sicker, animals having sex or you clapping.”

Only Lily Allen and her friends at the BBC could command such an exclamation from Cuba Gooding Jr. Her tasteless attempt at a new chat show can be best described as Heat magazine crossbred with a little Graham Norton-esque audience participation. It was actually painful to sit through Allen’s new vehicle, paper-cut painful. Keep reading.

TV Review: Doctor Who - Voyage of the Damned, Christmas Special

It was once said that everybody is doing a brand new dance now, and that we should perform said dance, known as the locomotion. It was Kylie Minogue who made that statement, and it just so happens that she also starred in this year’s epic Doctor Who special as a delightfully downtrodden waitress.

The fact that ‘downtrodden’ almost rhymes with ‘wooden’ isn’t just a coincidence; Kylie’s performance was lacking in parts, but fortunately that didn’t detract from the overall enjoyment. The special was set on board the spaceship Titanic and, you guessed it, something went wrong. Keep reading.

TV Review: Spooks s6 Ep10

Last night saw the finale of the ever-fantastical BBC spy series, Spooks. If you’ve never seen it before, it is about a group of egotistical clerical officers who take themselves far too seriously, and snoop on baddies from largely non-Christian countries.

In this week’s episode the Israelis airstrike a school located on the Gaza Strip, and while it isn’t really clear why that happened or why it involves the British, it just does. Events do seem to be created on the hoof in this episodic window on the fictional offices of MI5. For instance, the Venezuelans of all people randomly sent a coded message to our boys via the medium of Beethoven’s 7th. Keep reading.

I say potato, you say?

You have successfully arrived at the second vegetable review. This one charts the experience of eating a jacket potato.

If you gaze to the right of your internet visualiser you'll see the potato starts off as a sort of mutant, the inners trying to escape by means of those ugly yellow tentacles. Before it crawled off I was able to pin it down and remove the tentacle/leg appendages it had spawned. Be warned! This should only be carried out if you have the correct protective apparatus. I did, so I was alright.

Not many things scare me in this world, but standing proudly among Iggy Pop's chest, Lorne Spicer, and Watford Gap services is the part grown potato.

Potatoes are often famed for their healing properties, they can heal an Island of it's inhabitants simply by not growing. The black potato which is indigenous to Chester-le-Street has been known to cure Monkhouse's disease, and can also cure breathing if taken in the correct dose.

It is exactly 5041 days since the final festival of the potato, or Potatoalia, to use the correct Gaelic name. Yorkshire was lucky enough to be the last host of this popular event where many of our northern cousins would go to worship mestre da batata, which roughly translates as the 'Potato Master'.

Many of you will also remember Danny of popular rock/punk ensemble "Heard'Sayers" was in fact a King Edward potato. Producers recently said that a vegetable band member was cutting edge at the time, but now everyone does it. They went on to explain that a potato was chosen merely because it can hold a falsetto better than broccoli, "it just does."

Nine minutes and a lot of reminiscing later, my big potato was cooked. There was some disagreement while in the microwave as to whether it should remain still, or rock from side to side. It decided on the latter much to my alarm. Again, on the right of your glass peering square is the finished product. The smell was literally half as good as it looks.

The potato you see in the picture is untainted, but it is possible to add toppings, such is the infinitely versatile nature of the ever talented potato. These vary from cheese and baked beans to the more familiar chocolate sauce and vodka dressing those who reside in parts of Essex enjoy.

So behold the humble potato, a vegetable with more wit than a similarly dressed foul-mouthed TV chef yet full of humility and wisdom.