Words Dept.

It’s now more than seven months since Channel 4 pulled The Devil Wears Primark, an Alexa Chung-fronted documentary (no, really) which was supposed to have examined Primark’s use of sweat shops. The C4 website says: The advertised transmission of The Devil Wears Primark on Sunday 1 June 2008 was postponed. We plan to show the [...]

Peter Kay is coming back with a spoof on TV talent shows with the extraordinary title of Britain’s Got the Pop Factor and Possibly a New Jesus Christ Soapstar Superstar on Ice. Enough to fill-up the EPG listing on its own although, of course, no further explanation is really needed. The first time I really [...]

Just set the video for The Devil Wears Primark and found myself recording a shite film called Without a Paddle instead. As mentioned previously, I was quite looking forward to this (notwithstanding the fact that it’s presented by Alexa Chung, who manages to both look and sound annoying, as well as having an annoying name). [...]

It will be depressing if the imminent destruction of the world is allowed to come about while Mondeo man worries about the cost of diesel, as the Guardian suggested yesterday. But at least another vaguely ethical issue seems to be rising up the media agenda like rubbish school dinners and free-range eggs. I’m talking about [...]

What the hell was Carol Vorderman doing advertising Bernard Matthews Chicken Drummers – six for a quid at Farmfoods – during the ad break for Hugh’s Chicken Run tonight? This was a programme exploring the issue of chicken production that illustrated the conditions in which standard supermarket chickens are reared – shit-and-piss-covered, fat, immobile and [...]

While it’s probably advisable not to get sucked into the largely fatuous online “debate” Channel 4 is trying to stoke up, I found it a bit daft that Manchester was rated the 17th worst place to live in a “Best and Worst” list on Channel 4 last night. As is usual with this annual feast [...]

I’m watching in disbelief a programme called Most Annoying TV Moments We Hate To Love on BBC3. It’s really innovative – they have lots of clips of TV shows interspersed with talking heads, most of whom you’ve never heard of – Neil “Don’t Call Me Doctor” Fox, Derek Acorah and Nikki off Big Brother are [...]

…will be resumed imminently. I’ve been on holiday (Lake District, since you ask), which is why I haven’t posted for a while. Glad to see the thing about the Dispatches programme is still attracting interest. The Liberal Democrat Voice says this blog hosts an “interesting online discussion” about the programme (ha!), while David Ottewell of [...]

I’ve just watched Andrew Gilligan on Channel 4′s Dispatches present a compelling story about a property developer who donated £5,000 to the Manchester Labour Party a few weeks before being chosen as preferred bidder for a casino in the city. None of the councillors involved declared an interest, although they were subsequently cleared of wrongdoing [...]

Proving political correctness is almost certainly dead, Nuts magazine has a semi-nude photo spread this week featuring disgraced posh racist Emily from Big Brother. (For those unfamiliar with the intellectual tour de force that is Channel 4′s summer schedule, she got kicked out for calling a fellow contestant the N-word… apparently in jest, blah, blah, [...]