Words Dept.: category

One of the most enlightening pieces of journalism re the Russell Brand/Jonathan Toss incident was when the BBC’s David Sillito solicited the views of people queuing to watch the filming of the Alan Titchmarsh Show and compared them with the views of people queuing to watch Never Mind the Buzzcocks. The former group (old people) [...]

Russell Brand and his pal Jonathan Toss have clearly touched a nerve over this whole “He fucked your granddaughter” business. But let’s get it into perspective. Why is Gordon Brown even thinking about this when real actual stuff is happening in the world? Aren’t we supposed to be on the verge of a global recession [...]

I was intrigued to see in the promo promoting the forthcoming BBC drama schedule (you know, the one with Elbow singing in the background) that Kenneth Branagh is starring as Kurt Wallander in an adaptation of the Henning Mankell books.
I recently discovered the joys of Scandanavian crime fiction, which is a generally magnificent and undiscovered [...]

Michael Howard, the former Conservative leader now making a living as a Count Dracula impersonator, has waded into the Peston debate, demanding an investigation into how the BBC’s business editor found out about banks requesting a financial bail-out from the government. I sense some political momentum gathering behind this, having seen Michael Portillo honking on [...]

I may have created the impression the other day that I think Robert Peston is a tosser. This wasn’t my intention at all because, notwithstanding his numerous presentational faux pas, I actually deeply admire his ability to get up the noses of the Daily Mail (“Does this man have too much power?”), various bloggers and, [...]

God love BBC business editor Robert Peston, whose broad range of bizarre vocal ticks brings a light touch to news of even the most dire financial crisis. His willingness to experiment with the boundaries of word and syllable emphasis within a given sentence never ceases to amuse. You sit there waiting for it to die [...]

I shared a lift with David Miliband earlier. He muttered something about having scrambled eggs for breakfast, which he described as “jolly nice”. Some bloke standing next to him agreed they had been quite tasty.
Can I have a job at the BBC now?
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I’ve always felt a strange affinity with Noel Edmonds and recently realised I had several things in common with the man. Bad facial hair, diminutive stature, wardrobe full of crap shirts and knitwear, etc.
Now I find out that he shares my view (first expressed in April – like, get with the program, Noel) that the [...]

Later this week, a supposedly unforgettable, magical, vast, breathtaking and captivating cultural event is coming to Liverpool. It’s called La Machine and it’s a large-scale art project created by French artist François Delarozière.
I use the word “supposedly” because nobody can truly know whether it will live up to the various adjectives used above (which, like [...]

I’m thoroughly enjoying Journey to the East, Jamie Hewlett and Damon Albarn’s animated title sequence for the BBC’s Olympics coverage. Much better than some of the dross that’s actually taking place in Beijing – I mean, really, who wants to watch the Czech Republic win gold in shooting, let alone watch it in high definition, [...]