Caravenners have always had an image problem and Caravanner of the Year has done nothing to dispel that image.  The two part series revolved around a competition organised by the Caravan Club (so they knew what they were getting into).  After 109 years in existence, the Caravan Club decided that they needed an answer to […]

Once upon a time (that is to say in the 1970’s), daytime telly on ITV consisted of schools programmes in the morning, pre-school shows at lunchtime, an Australian soap, the news, something farm house and kitchen like, Crown Court, something else, another Australian soap, kid’s programmes and then a quiz show.  Then in the late […]

Ever since the days of Fanny Craddock, the Galloping Gourmet and Saint Delia Smith, TV has loved a cookery programme (For those of you who don’t know who Fanny Craddock is watch here.  She is something to behold).  A few years ago Cookery became “The new rock’n’roll” (after dance, comedy and errr rock’n’roll.  I’m waiting […]

Mike Read and Terry Wogan must really have thought someone had it in for them at the dawn of 1983.  These two were the kings of breakfast on Radios 1 and 2 respectively.  Breakfast radio was the only broadcasting outlet then; but it was soon to be joined by not one, but two rivals, as […]

“Hello, I’m Shouting at Telly, and I’m an American sitcom addict”.  I know this is an unfashionable statement and really I should be binge watching box sets of Breaking Bad or Games of Thrones, but I don’t have the time.  I did have the time, but I lost it when I stumbled across and old […]

Once upon a time you knew exactly where you stood with the TV channels and drama.  In the 70’s the BBC did costume dramas such as Poldark (complete with shirts), The Onedin Lineand The Duchess of Duke Street; ITV meanwhile did tough crime and action dramas such as The Sweeney, The Professionals and The New Avengers.  Now it’s all changed.  Post Downton, the BBC […]

TV criticism is probably the pinnacle of journalism, nay literature.   Many don’t appreciate how hard wot it is and the effort wot it takes to craft pithy, constructive and relevant reviews.  Ok, regular readers of this blog will know that that statement is a load of tosh.  These TV reviews are irrelevant ramblings of a […]

There’s a new channel in town and it called W.  Or it could be Channel W.  Or the W Channel? It’s part of the UKTV family of channels that was originally formed by BBC Worldwide and Thames TV way back in 1992 when digital TV meant using your finger to change the channel.  It’s now […]

Award season is in full swing and last night we saw the music industry slapping itself (in rhythm) its back at the BRITs. Like the NTAs (see review here) the BRITs weren’t always this arena-filling showcase that it is now. The first occasion when the British music industry decided that huge profits, gold discs, public […]

This week BBC 3 went online.  This is all part of the corporations plan to cut the running cost of the channel from £85m to £30m.  When it was announced last year there was much wailing from critics that BBC 3 was at the heart of creativity in the BBC and removing it from traditional […]

Do you remember the days when history programmes consisted of people talking about history and science programmes simply showed you sciencey stuff?  Well those days are long gone.  If you want to learn anything today you need either; 1) celebrities (such as the Real Marigold Hotel, reviewed here, or Channel 4’s Time Crashers) or 2) […]

We do love to watch a celebrity doing either something extreme (like throwing themselves off a ski jump) or mundane (like baking).  This week the celebs (sort of, more of that later) were out in force.  Sunday saw the return of The Jump.  The great thing about this show is that there is a real […]

Love is in the air (and it’s not even February yet). Dating games have been ratings winners ever since Blind Date hit our screens in 1985 with “Miss Cilla Blaaaacckk”.  Compared to the Americans we were late starters as The Dating Game (the show Blind Date was based on) had been on air since 1965.  […]

Sometimes a programme so derivative comes along you really want to hate it.  The Real Marigold Hotel is just that.  The pitch meeting probably went: “Lets take the plot of a popular film, replace the likes of Dame Judi and Dame Maggie with more affordable and available actors and do it for real.  It will […]