The NTA's. (Anyone else surprised Cowell's mug didn't appear more often?)

The National Television Awards annually document the many outstanding contributions to British television. It is a time when each of the mainstream channels are able to come together and freely discuss programmes across the board without the concern for publicising the competition. I, for one, find it terribly odd seeing Tess Daly, Len Goodman etc in the same room as Simon Cowell and his minions. It is almost like eating apple crumble with a splash of gravy; the two should never be put together. However, over all, it was a night for much celebration and camaraderie (except of course for those poor souls who lost out).

A special mention is deserved here; guess who was hosting? Only Dermot O’-flipping-Leary. Of course he was. With the phenomenon that was The X Factor being made somewhat less enjoyable by Mr O’Leary, why ever would they not invite him to do the same to this TWO AND A HALF HOUR LONG programme. F.Y.I that is a longer amount of time watching Dermot’s, I’m-talking-but-I’m-not-really-saying-anything-of-interest-to-anyone, fillers than ever on The X Factor.

My personal highlight of the entire two and a half hours was Jedward’s outrageously brilliant performance of THEIR NEW SINGLE ‘Ice, Ice, Baby’. I was so proud it brought tears to my eyes. However, the third Jedward member that came on stage half way through and had the audacity not to conform to the Jedward image ruined it slightly for me. It appeared as if ‘The Legend that is John and Edward’ were mere backing dancers. He must be shot.

I am sure if you wanted to know the winners of all the categories you would either have watched it or Googled it by now. So I will not bore you with the details.

In summary: Corrie won the battle of the soaps, Ant and Dec were as popular as ever winning another couple to add to their collection, The X Factor won best talent show and Simon made a cheeky joke about Arlene leaving Strictly and them LOSING, there was a mammoth tribute to Stephen Fry and I found myself wondering if he had recently died (however, all credit to him, and I love his voice), Simon Cowell’s dentist also got a special mention.

I cannot remember any other awards. But that only means they hold no real relevance or importance. So do not worry.

Oh and Piers Morgan shot himself.

Celebrity Big Brother is Back. Aren't we all excited?

Davina is dressed in black, its raining, there are banners screaming the words 'GET [add most hated celebrity's name here] OUT!], and a handful of anxious, slightly nauseous celebrities are waiting in some unknown location for the imminent boos that await them. I think we all know what this means. Celebrity Big Brother is back. And it's taking its final curtain call.

It doesn't matter what your opinion on Big Brother is (but I'm sure if you are tutting right now it is the wrong one), it has given British Television some classic, funny moments that will go down in the TV record books. Those pompous arrogant tits who feel it necessary to constantly slate the entertainment programmes that millions of us enjoy and are doing not a shred of harm need to go back to BBC 1 where they belong. Nobody is forcing them to watch Big Brother, or Dancing on Ice, or the X Factor. They are very welcome and completely within their rights to sit in their bright, airy, middle-class living rooms whilst watching a period drama with a glass of red wine and a nibble of stilton. But let the rest of us slum it with Davina and watch not so 'famous faces' shouting at one another and getting drunk on a bottle of cider before snogging the nearest human being (male or female) in a game of  'spin-the-bottle'. Because lets face it, its piss-your-pants funny.
However, the arrogant berks have got their way and this year we will be waving goodbye to that much loved programme. But, I must hasten to add, it will be going out with a bang.

Settling down in my living room for what can only be described as an evening of: 'He's an actor right? Whats he in? The Cilit Bang ad? Yeah, thats it. I like him, I like his face.'
All the Celebs are in, and I am sufficiently under-whelmed. However, this is not a rare occurance, it happens every year. By the end of the lauch show I am sobbing, 'I miss Michelle Heaton', but by the end of the Final its more a case of 'OH MY LIFE, THEY WILL NEVER TOP THAT'. How fickle I am.

In any case its going to be a good series. Especially with Big Brother PULLING OUT ALL THE STOPS. Stay tuned for more opinions.

BEST ON THE BOX

The telly of 2009 has been top notch. Here are a few of my personal highlights.

Dancing on Ice-
Ray Quinn was ON FIRE. Ridiculously good and also rather hot in his own hobbit-like-slicked-hair-looks-about-10 way. I fancy him. But then I fancy a fair few unlikely people.




Celebrity Big Brother-
This was, I thought, a brilliant series. Verne Troyer drunk and crashing into the Diary Room door was TV gold. I was not, however, a fan of Tina Malone and her toenail eating ways. But when Michelle Heaton compared her to the female ogre on Shrek, it was so funny, I almost got a hernia.
The clip below should not be watched by those with an aversion to midgets licking babies.



The Inbetweener's-
BRILLIANT. If slightly repulsive. (I say 'slightly'- thats a lie)



Big Chef takes on Little Chef-
Heston Blumenthal, the Chef that can only be described as 'he's-not-a-bloody-chef-who-wants-to-eat-bacon-and-egg-ice-cream?', took on the challenge of re-vamping that much loved (ahem, not by me) chain, Little Chef. The owner of Little Chef literally had me shouting abuse at the television set and making plans to break into his office in the dead of night, steal his expenses figures and sell them to the Daily Mail.


Friday Night With Jonathon Ross-
I am not the biggest fan of Jonathon Ross and his 'good-humoured' arrogance and floppy hair, but I cannot deny that he gets some bloody good guests on his show.



24-
Jack Bauer is my one and only 'old man' crush. His manly exclamations of 'dammit!', 'son of a bitch', and 'copy that', literally glue me to the seat (there's not really any need for the action packed, blood drenched, 'real time' rest of the programme). And with the return of Tony, Chloe and Bill in the seventh season, I could hardly contain my joy when they all started WORKING AS A TEAM!




Never Mind the Buzzcocks-
I am a devoted fan of NMTB and when I heard that Simon with-his-witty-oneliners-and-his-big-bushy-hair Amstell would not be returning for the new series I was devastated. HOWEVER, those clever producers have managed to remedy the situation in the best possible way they could; Noel Fielding. Remember I was talking about my unlikely crushes? Noel Fielding is another, extremely strong, undying one.



I'm a Celebrity, Get me out of Here-
This much anticipated series was slightly anticlimatical. Much anticipated due to the return of a certain busty lady. Katie Price. Or 'Pricey's back', as she would like to be known.
However when she walked out of the Jungle due to the persistent Bush Tucker Trials the British public (you guys!) were inflicting upon her, the series took something of a nose dive.




The X Factor-
What can I say? 2009 has been Simon Cowell's year. And boy have I loved it.
The X Factor has raked in millions of viewers and won the rating's battle outright. This year the press has been all over it, with Dannii outing Danyl on live television, Olly and Stacey's romance rumours, and Danyl's alledged bullying. But nothing could top the real winner of the show. The one act who will be able to grab fame and fortune with both hands and grip the nation for years to come. You know who I'm talking about. JED-FLIPPIN'-WARD.




Happy 2010 everybody. Lets hope for another year of TV classics.

A big fat turkey with a side order of adultery.

Its the time of year when every celebrity chef you could shake a stick at enters our television screens and blesses us with their wisdom and knowledge of how it is CORRECT TO DO CHRISTMAS. Whether it be Nigella's over use of the dairy food-group/any product with an unhealthy fat content, Jamie's rustic cooking style and incessant use of the word 'tiger', or Heston's use of whale vomit as a delectable ingredient, we are inundated with various ways of how to make our Christmas almost as good as theirs will be. The issue with celebrity chefs 'doing Christmas' is that they seem to bypass the idea that we may not have a production team and band of loyal 'servants' who will grate our cheese and measure each ingrediant before putting it into small pyrex dishes so as the extent of work we have to do is merely to tip each ingrediant into a slightly bigger bowl and stir. Therefore, for us to make such an array of over-the-top dishes, it could take us a little longer than the allotted hour that the chef's appears to have. Those tricksters!

The ads! We all know Christmas has arrived when we first catch a glimpe of that beautiful Coca Cola advert. At any other time of the year I would immediately switch over to another channel as soon as someone utters the words 'See you after the break!' (even if the only option is Traffic Cops or Tess Daley's 'dead-behind-the-eyes' face). But once those festive adverts come on I can't avert my eyes. My personal favourite has got to be a toss up between Sainbury's (due to the wonder that is Jamie Oliver), Waitrose, or, of course, Marks and Spencers. You may notice a theme of food. Well, I admit, the thing that most draws me to Christmas is sheer gluttony.

 Soaps at this time of year are wonderfully depressing. For some reason the producers seem to think that Christmas has a tendency to get a little too jolly and they must put an end to that in any way they can. Being the producer of a soap that, of course, means our much loved/hated characters get fully imbursed in the horrors that coinsidently coinside with the Christmas holidays. So get ready for lots of screaming in the streets, inappropriate sexual antics, a possible jail sentence, ooh and it wouldn't be Christmas without a murder thrown in for good measure.

Of course there are also the films that never fail to pop up on our screens at Christmas time. Mary Poppins and Chitty Chitty Bang Bang are a must watch. But merely because the British like tradition so much- although at no other time of the year would we sit down and think 'I know what I'll do, I'll slap on a bit of Julie Andrews with an umbrella and a big bag!'- we feel it acceptable to spend hours watching films for the nineteenth time with a box of Lindt chocolates BECAUSE ITS CHRISTMAS.

Merry Christmas one and all!

My new years resolution (see last year for more details)

2009 is drawing to a close and we will soon be forced to say goodbye to the noughties. For me it has been the most memorable of all decades (due to the fact that I have been above the age of eight and so can retain the likes of 'memories'). We have seen a black President be elected in the United States, music and the charts have been taken over by Sir Simon Cowell (I salute you), the 'King of Pop', Michael Jackson tragically passed away, we witnessed the moment Susan Boyle shocked the nation with her beautiful voice and unruly eyebrows, we said farewell to Harry Potter, and most devestatingly of all; Katie Price and Peter Andre split up.

The media has developed over the last ten years like a woman after 90 boob jobs. The internet with social networking sites has become more advanced than we could have anticipated. With the likes of Twitter captivating the country, we can read updates and statements from our favourite celebrities or public figues with just a tap of our iPhone. Straight from the horses mouth (no offence intended).
With the internet offering us newspaper/magazine websites, email updates, and Twitter we have instant access to any news or gossip the media would like to throw at us. Because of this, the media has become ever more powerful in todays society and the lives of not only mainstream celebrities but politicians and such are under constant scrutiny.

So where will we be in 10 years time? Perhaps reading things like this off a screen in the palm of our hand whilst our speech-sensitive kitchen knocks us up a cheese toastie.
We can be certain that Simon Cowell will have taken over the world, we will be referring to Ms Cole as 'Dame Cheryl', Jedward will be presenting the Ten O'clock News, and Joe McElderry... sorry who?

My news years resolution is to learn about topics a little more substantial than the X Factor and 'Ooh, aren't R-Pattz and Zac Efron looking H.O.T'.
It that case I will start planning blog posts on the relevant and topical issues of; '[Insert Celebrity name] could do with a burger!' and 'Vanessa Hudgens is a bitch'.

Happy New Year!

The horrors of being/having/knowing a teenager.

We've all been one, whether you admit it or not. There are those few years in time when we become a spotty-faced, binge-drinking, socially inept human being who is anything but a pleasure to be around.
When I look back at my 'teenager-ish' years I am hit with a surge of shame. For I was probably what you would call the epitome of a horrible teenager. For me, nothing mattered except my boyfriend and my friends. I didn't care about school work (something that I still stand by to some degree), I 'hated' my family, I rebelled from any authority or restrictions and was just 'too damn cool' to get off my backside if it wasnt for a party or to makeout with my boyfriend. Thinking about this now actually makes me want to shoot the memory clean out of my brain.
Although I still have 'teen' at the end of my age I feel I have passed the worst of this soul destroying time in ones life.

I am sure everyone goes through the symptoms of teen-arsewhole-itis to varying degrees but I defy you to completely deny it! My younger brother is presently going through the various stages. He enjoys sitting on his X-Box, conversing with the rest of the family for as limited an amount of time as he can get away with, and grunting about 15 seconds after he is asked a question.
He is a joy, as I'm sure you can imagine.

Who knows why we all are forced to commit to a few years of tireless teenage tendencies, all I know is that it happens to the best of us. Even those of us who deny completely the idea of being a 'teenager' at all. For example my older brother is possibly the person most against being a teenager that you will ever come across. From the age of 13 to 18 he denied being called a teenager no matter how much we tried to persaude him that 'you have 'teen' at the end of your age mate, there's no getting away from it!'. And he was one of the most argumentative, MOST TEENAGER-Y teenagers I've ever met.

*starts to plan a future involving anything but having children*

Grumpy people who hate Christmas.

 They are all around, just waiting for an opportune moment to complain about the latest thing. Gordon Brown, The X Factor, immigrants, spotty faced teenagers and at this time of year: Christmas.
Christmas is a time that should bring joy to all. The shops and streets are daubed in twinkly lights and christmas trees, but the grumpy people among us get fed up with the constant carol singing, chocolate giving local churches who insist on inviting you to the millions of services they feel it is acceptable to hold at this time of year.
Christmas, for me, makes me want to implode with glee. You get a chocolate every day without having to traipse to the newsagents and you get to over-play the same songs that endlessly stick in your head- with the aid of that drug that damn Lady GaGa puts in hers- all through December (although I tend to start slightly earlier: October anyone?). And Christmas dinner, oh Christmas dinner. A plump Turkey that your mother has stuffed with chestnuts and sausage meat in a very indecent fashion (rather her than me). Little sausages wrapped in bacon that the elder generation insist on calling 'pigs in blankets'- I really wish they wouldn't. Roast potatoes and parsnips, I am copiously salivating at the thought, I must desist. Oh and the sprouts, the vegetable that tastes most like fart, but is necessary to endure at Christmas time.
However, these wonderful little perks of the month of December seem to get the grumpier of us in a bit of a tizz. It seems to give them an extra special opportunity to moan and groan with the added benefit that the rest of us are thoroughly enjoying ourselves.

At the end of September when you get your first leaflet through the door adorned with a christmas tree or a sprig of holly in the corner you can tell those who are going to be revelling in the horror of Christmas or those who at the age of 35 will still be spending Christmas Eve unable to sleep.
I am one of the latter. The first Christmas advert I saw this year caused me to jump up from the sofa and cry, 'CHRISTMAS IS HERE' at the top of my voice to the great surprise of my mother and father who had just exclaimed 'ITS ONLY BLOODY AUGUST!'.


As Christmas creeps up, closer and closer, these Christmas grumps are in their element. They can grumble about the cold, but the fact that 'Eoghan Quigg will make it in the US before we get a white christmas in this country!'. The price of all the presents they are forced to buy for people they don't even like and the shops trying to trick us out of our money with their cheesey adverts. And, of course, how our Christmas is never going to be as perfect as the one on the Marks and Spencer's advert so we might as well give up now.

I say, have some babies and then you'll be forced to don the Santa suit and sing carols around the fire YOU SCROOGE!