It’s time for more reviews of more new shows most people might never even see…

Ugly Betty is ABC’s new comedy drama for laydees is set in the world of fashion magazines so it contains all of the expected cliched characters that will appeal to viewers of Sex And The City and Desperate Housewives. The plot? Betty lives in Queens (in a Spider-Man kind of street) and is, unlike all of the fashion women, not the classic American beauty. Beauty means size zero and horribly superficial with big hair and a botox problem in this world so Betty and her niceness doesn’t fit in. She gets given a job at a top fashion magazine as the big cheese (Jim Robinson from Neighbours aka That Man from Lost) wants to hire someone to assist his son who had a tendency to sleep with all previous assistants. Evil boss tries to make Betty quit until he realises (schmaltz alert) that she’s actually very good at her job and he is a mean nasty man and becomes nicer boss. Ex- popstar and beauty queen Vanessa Williams appears as a vampish character with a poofy bitchy assistant, Ashley Jensen from Extras appears as a rare nice person (Scottish and a bit of a misfit again) and it’s all very girly but alright for its target audience. I am not the target so am not all that bothered but it would be a reasonable hit if shown at the right timeslot and marketed as the new SATC or summink… with music from KT Tunstall at the end (of course).

Help Me Help You is another new ABC comedy and is about therapy and stuff. It’s got Ted Danson (avec hairpiece. Larry David will be so disappointed) as a therapist and some other folks who I haven’t seen before as therapees, if that’s the right word. It’s handily a group therapy thing so we get to see all the issues at once and laugh at them (or not as the case might be). We have a man who jumped out of his office window and landed on his boss, a woman with no social skills, a neurotic gay man (not coming to terms with his sexuality but incredibly cliched poofy and embarrassingly portrayed throughout) , a woman with multiple issues and a man with illegally voilent tendencies plus a really awful theme tune. There’s no laughter track and no incessant gags and one-liners unlike a lot of bad sitcoms. It’s not Huff: The Sitcom (although he is called Dotor Hoffman and has the same dog) by a longshot. It’s rather rubbish. And his ex-wife is Malcolm In The Middle’s Mom.

It’s the weekend and I have nothing funny or enlightening to say except I am glad that I am staying at home all day and not having to talk to another human being except the one I love so here’s another in my random series of What The Bloggers Say…

This week Clive continued being a slave to TKMaxx (costs less. Yes) and found some time to explore the more strange stock items of the Designer Brand Clothing Shop For Chavs and find a TKMaxx snowboard to comlement the TKMaxx piece of wood. He also found a salt shaker: “Simply pull on the handle in a wanking type motion and the salt will sprinken on your chips, that or seamen will go all over your…Penis Cakes.” Lovely.

Closetcase did best man duties at his brother’s wedding and enjoyed it but seemed a bit incorrect with his views on Civil Partnerships (in my opinion): “The night went very well indeed. In fact I think the whole day went very well – Everyone seemed to have a really good time… it actually made me feel a little sad that I will never experience such a thing myself. I know that civil partnerships have now been legalised in the UK for gay people to get married, but I just don’t think it’s the same. For one you cant do it in a church, so you miss the atmosphere and experience there. Secondly there is no bride – all its nice to be able to see the bride walk in to the church all dressed up and looking fabulous. Thirdly, I don’t think that a gay marriage would ever been as successful. I got a feeling that if I was ever to have a gay marriage not much of my family would turn up – it just wouldn’t be the same.”

I can vouch for it being exactly the same, if not better. So there!

Mister Ben Baker went to see Clerks 2 and liked it then made his 5th ‘All The Way From Over There’ podcast. I’ve not listened to it yet but the previous ones were a fine mix of silly stupid and clever, with a sprinkling of the finer side of obscure odd tunes. It beats that ‘hilarious’ Ricky Gervais talking to his stupid friend any day….

Cheryl got upset about Mark Lamarr being replaced on Never Mind The Buzzcocks: “Postitives: – New titles look quite good, still prefer the old ones – the set was quite good, i loved the set – seeing the NMTB mugs – BILL BAILEY standing right near us before him and Phill Jupitus sat down – piss taking of Anthea Turner… Negatives: – Simon Amstell trying to be Mark- Simon not saying much when i was thinking in my head “Mark would do something here” or “Mark would take the piss here” – Simon reading fake lines that Mark “left” and just saying them wrong – Simon wearing a black suit and momontarily making me fancying the curly head gay jewish boy (if he don’t talk he is quite hot) – There was something missing from the show. I wasn’t laughing as much as i normally do – Numb bum from the seat – Phill Jupitus’ glasses.. whats going on with them? Though last night i reckon he may have been doing an honour for Mark by going a bit 50′s throwback-esque…” She calmed down later.

Christopher went to see Clerks 2 and liked it then ummed and aahhhed about the ladies and decided that he has a ‘limited window’ when it comes to chicks: “The Limited Window is something that comes into play with any potential romantic partners. Lately, this particular vetting process has become stranger and stricter and my boredom threshold has decreased meaning that if I don’t hit it off with someone RIGHT away (NOTE: Appearances aren’t that important, music taste etc is) then I’ll make good my escape pretty sharpish…sometimes through bathroom windows…There is no point, in my fuddled, messed up mind at least, wasting too long with someone if the feeling isn’t just so. I don’t want to meet a ‘safe bet’ and then have them freak out a year or so later. Life is too damn short to waste on lunatics. I wasted almost 5 years on someone who, well, blah, blah, wah, wah..” Bless him. He’ll make a lovely husband for somebody one day when he realises it will happen when he least expects it.

Mick said what I would have said about the Iron Man film so I have just quoted him instead: “In what seems to be a bit of audacious casting, Robert Downey Jr. has been cast as industrialist inventor Tony Stark in the upcoming Iron Man movie. Casting an ex-everything-addict as the alcoholic Iron Man is either extremely brilliant or extremely risky. I just hope they put cold tea in the decanters and not real whisky. Downey is a great actor, though. That’s if they mention the alcoholism at all in the flick. I’ve got high hopes for this film: It’s the first one Marvel have funded themselves, and it’s directed by Jon Favreau, who has previous-he played Foggy Nelson in Daredevil. I’ve been let down before, though.” Damn those comicbook films! At least it wasn’t Nicolas Cage!

Norton had pink eye but resisted getting a piratey eyepatch and watched the Stephen Fry Depression Show instead: “I don’t want to be bi-polar; all the celebs are getting on this band wagon.Can’t I just be polar? I could run around on the artic tundra, hiding my black nose with a white paw as I creep-up on some unsuspecting penguin… and, by the way, if anyone can tell me why they are called “penguins” I’ll buy you dinner. And no, “Because that’s what they are called” doesn’t work for me.” The eye is still pink but the polar bear costume has not been purchased.

Bert had a workplace injury: “At approximately 4.28pm (according to the accident book at work) I was starting to get a bit over-excited. For the first time. I’d managed to get some work mates to agree to come along and mingle with my karaoke pals. And we were playing a few tunes to get in the mood. And I put on ‘I Predict A Riot’, and for some reason decided I would run between two rows of desks, use the final desk as a launching post to propel myself into the air, do an anticlockwise turn with my right leg swinging round, and land between the next two rows of desks. I am not a gymnast. I landed with a huge thud on the inside of my right knee. So I spent the evening barely able to walk, and am writing now with a kinky tubular support bandage about my person. I also sustained an impressive carpet burn to my forearm. It’s a shame that everyone witnessed this tumble, otherwise I could claim that my wounds were the result of some sweaty moshpit activity, or perhaps caused by leaping from a galloping horse to save a spider from being crushed by a falling anvil… And that accident book at work? To prevent future generations discovering quite the level of general horseplay in the artwork studio, the cause of injury went down as ‘Slipped and fell’. Which sounds REALLY gay.” He then went to karaoke and won a prize so there’s no moral to that particular tale.

Si from Life Is Cock also went to see Clerks 2 and had this to say: “Well I can hardly say that was worth the 12 year wait. I went to see Clerks 2 last night, and fucking hell, it was as bad as I’ve heard Jersey Girl is reputed to be. (I still haven’t been able to bring myself to watch that) It was all about growing and learning and being able to tell your friends you love them and how much you need them. And hey, kids are cool! It wasn’t just the characters that haven’t moved on, even the soundtrack seemed to be stuck in the mid 90s featuring Soul Asylum and, shudder, Alanis Morrissette. AND, what was going on with Dante’s fiances face? why did no one comment on the amount of comestic surgery she’d blatantly had? Well done Kevin, along with not being able to direct you can now add not being able to write to your CV.” Hmm… so who is right and who is wrong about this particular film? I am not going to see it and I don’t really care!

So that was the week that blogs. How was your week?

Busy busy busy…

Never Mind The Buzzcocks has survived Lamarr although Amstell seems to have found the regeneration a bit wobbly. Not in a Colin Baker style, more of a Sylvester McCoy way, as he couldn’t read more than two lines before making stupid noises…

I still don’t understand why the common people love reading books about child abuse so much. It all started with hose books about evil nuns so I’ll blame them. Father Jack was right!

While having a sit down I noticed that my pants were disintegrating around the leg bits. Imagine a spider web made of black pants material and you’re there. Is this normal or have I experienced a secondary mutation to go with my ability to see through bullshit?

Thelma Barlow is doing a villain thing in Doctor Who. Evil Dolly Dinner lady! Or, as The Sun pointed out incorrectly, she “don’t really know” much apart from that and Coronation Street. Except that Mavis never had a catchphrase, it was another example of the odd 80s trend for impressionists (and Les Dennis) to give their impressions their own catchphrases. And why not? Oh dear.

Evil Beardy Christian (but not very Christian at all) Bloke got off the whole ‘God Botherer Bothers Gays’ charge and is now being very gracious about the whole saga. If you remember, he was arrested for public nuisance after doing leaflets and saying nasty things and being a general a-hole at a Gay Pride event. For a man who doesn’t like the brown love he spends a lot of time around the bum crew: “The only function of the police Minorities Support Unit seems to be to stop certain sections of society from having their feathers ruffled. If the day ever came when people were locked up for simply doing what we were doing then it would be a very sad day indeed. The police over-reacted in a big way, partly I think from a sense of their own importance. The police are too tied up in following politically correct behaviour. This was a complete waste of public money.” Well if you want to talk about time wasting and police time then maybe we should talk about his crazy gang doing all them pickets at Jerry Springer: The Opera and encouraging threatening behaviour by publishing people they don’t like (i.e. ‘sinners’) email and home addresses on his website? No? Alright then.

Now that’s what I call a party with a happy atmosphere!

Celebrity 4×4 Watch: Angelina Jolie has no brain as she is not only driving her monstertruck (well she needs a lot of space for the little orphans she catches and babies from other actresses’ stolen husbands, doesn’t she?) but she’s on the bloody mobile!

I can’t see a seatbelt either. It ‘s not making me very jolie at all.

Is it Christmas yet? Feck off, decorations and Christmas cakes! Yea, Tesco, I mean you!

Today’s book of the day: An unofficial biography of Colleen Thingy Who Is Wayne Rooney’s Fiancee. When’s the official one coming out then? Who would buy it? Why? What? Where? When? What the f**k? How long do you have to be engaged to a man before it becomes obvious that there’s no wedding date in the diary anyway?

Arse.

That Amstell done good. The nineteenth series of Never Mind The Buzzcocks started production tonight and once he learns to read it will be fine. Simon had a bit of a problem with following the moving words on the screen by that thing that films him but once he learns how to do that there will be less precious time wasted. He carried on the tradition of hating certain people (James Blunt, Ronan Keating, Patrick Kielty) via the means of pretending to have some left over Lamarr jokes and got a few Jewish references in there but it was the same kind of script as the old days and it suited him as it did the previous host. Phill and Bill were the same as ever but Jupitus wore a kind of Fat Lamarr 50s Throwback tribute outfit with glasses for some reason and Bailey laid off of the woodland creature references all evening, opting to focus on rearranging items on the (new) desk. New theme tune at last and new title sequence too. About bloody time…

It still took 3 hours to record so it hasn’t changed that much. The guests followed my Buzzcocks Equation perfectly (an old popstar, a new popstar, a comedian and a confused celebrity) as expected: Ricky Ross from Deacon Blue looking a bit bemused, Aleesha who was in Mystique (I think they spelt it differently, i.e wrong) being the comedy young person to banter with Simon, Anthea Turner with her housewife schtick, rubbish autobiography and jokes about her having a penis, and ‘comedian’ Phil Nichol who was just fucking awful and as funny as the wacky smell person in the office who thinks he is hilarious but is not. Nichol was next to Jupitus and I actually thought he was a midget at one point. Is he? I don’t know. He played the producer in Annually Retentive (awful) and the screamingly camp showbiz reporter in Broken News (best not mention that either) but he won the big comedy award at Edinburgh this year. Maybe he’s better when doing his own show?

I did a crap photoshop to try and recreate the evening.

A real shit day again so here’s some choice mp3s for making moods improve. I am addicted to my mp3 sites at the moment…

New Amy Winehouse approaching… Two tracks at Just Like Music. Video to Rehab on YouTube. I f*cking love this woman for some reason. Maybe it’s a gay thing.

Badly Drawn Boy with a new track in both audio and audiovisual. And a hat. Of course. At The Rocksuckers.

Lily Allen remixed to death with vocoders, gun shots, stuttering samples and backwards singing and a lot of ‘crack whore’ for you … i.e a bit messy but you get the idea… at Discobelle. The Lily and Mark Ronson cover of Oh My God crops up over at Analog Giant.

There’s a new Sparklehorse album. There are some tracks from it at Sneakmove. I am getting into it.

I got a new t-shirt but I am a bit ashamed…

I might wear it tomorrow for the nerdy comedy event. I must be proud of my geekiness after all.

That Nicky Wire album is indeed horrible in case you cared.

The computer said no but mostly said yes. Damn you, Commodore 64! Next time I’ll make it an Acorn or a ZX81. Those were the days, oh yes. I must stop working at work until it’s dark then getting up before it’s light and arriving back there in the same dark. It’s not right but it’s okay because I have (10) friends.

Today’s random MySpace friend is Tracy. She is my friend because she was the first person to get pissed at my wedding reception and the first to almost achieve a Sir Digby Chicken Caesar-like drunken calm. Well done, lady. She’s from Newcastle, you know. Who said I wasn’t inclusive?

It’s the last Lost tonight. Well, technically the last 2. It’s good. Watch it. Unlike The Lost Experience which is a rubbish interactive game with loads of bits of video that have now been pieced together and stuck on YouTube but are distinctly poopy.

If you’re a great big nerd and like a bit of Doctor Who can I urge you to go out (or sit here and online shop it) and buy the new Big Finish CD? It’s called The Reaping and I’ve listened to half of it so far and think it;s really very good indeed. The story? Well, The Doctor (Version 6 but he’s good on audio) takes Peri (who is also good on audio) to the moon to visit a place run by Brummie clones (no, not some lunar gay bar) who have access to every bit of telly ever made. A bit like YouTube in space. Peri checks up on 1984 America (because she comes from there) and finds out that her best friend’s Dad has been murdered, cue them going to the funeral and getting involved in a whole load of drama including a Peri / Her Mom reunion and some of them nasty Cyber people. A lot of these audio dramas have a similar attitude to the recent TV series so they’re pacy, funy, dramatic and a bit silly where nesessary. Just how I like it.

Cover by Lee Binding as usual… Buy it if only to keep him in the manner he has become accustomed to, i.e. up until all hours schmoozing and meeting inappropriate men.

New clips of That Mitchell And Webb Look are online at that BBC2 site…

Episode 3 is great. It includes Chip & Pin AND The Green Clarinet plus the return of Sir Digby Chicken Caesar!

… and I am making friends! No, not the “you don’t say!” American sitcom filled with lame gags kind of Friends…

And remember…

Stay Numberwang!

That other Manic Street Preachers solo album is out today. I haven’t hear Nicky Wire’s project yet though. I liked the other one’s one, as he sang all the words properly for once….

Oh how hectic. Today I stayed late at work and have been upgrading the shop computer system (it has gone from Vic 20 to Commodore 64) , realising I have spent exactly five whole years working for The Company (and I still like it), eating too much, having bucketloads of tea, not killing any DLLs (yet), updating my MySpace (purely to promote my blogs. I still hate MySpace) and realising that I really like that Jamelia album.

What a weird day.

I have got to finish the C64 project very early in the morning. I am lucky that like that nice Mrs Thatcher I don’t need much sleep. Oh how I miss the olden days when she ran the country.*

* except I am lying. She was a c**t and will be dead soon.

This blog is turning into a list of things that I watch on the telly but as that’s all I’m doing apart from running a large suburban bookshop, being all married, cooking, cleaning and eating there’s not much else to say…

More American TV pilots appeared. I watched Smith which is a show where a whole load of cliches are put together but kind of work. Ray Liotta (from the movie) plays the leader guy of a group of men who do robberies (and is married to Viginia Madsen from those 90s straight to video films) and shit then run away and don’t get caught. Jonny Lee Miller from the ‘brit flick’ films plays another guy in the gang (the token British one), some Australian guy from soaps and films plays another American one who shoots some criminals after having a bit of a surf, and a blond chick plays the token laydee in the gang of crims. They go steal an old painting and one of their gang gets shot and killed so they blow up the escape boat with him on it and fly home all melodrama-y on a plane. British one probably fucks blonde chick in the plane toilet as they’re upset about their dead friend. Their kind of boss is the scary lady terrorist wife from 24 season 4 aka The Mother Of Behrooz. She still has the scary voice.

It’s not a terrible show but not stunningly great either. I shall give it some time to impress me…

… unlike The Office (American Edition) which was back and still very good. With a few references to the first series (now available on DVD) because the Diversity Day taught Michael nothing about tact as proved when he finds out that Oscar is actually a genuinely gay man. Jim has transferred to the other office and the people there are as weird as the one we are familiar with and they sneak in another old chestnut with a calculator in jelly. They’re going to drag the whole Jim/Pam thing out forever at this rate but that’s the only downside to the long life this series now has.

Too many characters? Not really. I still stand by my belief that it’s better than the original, if only for the lack of silly dancing and excessive Gervaisesque mugging to camera expressions.

When not getting addicted to the joys of YouTube I have been tormenting myself by catching up with Nip/Tuck. It’s incredibly dumb and wrong but it’s the perfect no-brainer show to watch after reading some heavy shit about the world. So far in this season we have had the weirdness of Larry Hagman’s ballbag op, Matt becoming a Scientologist with help from Kimber (who used to be a bit of a whore and had her own range of lifelike full size sex dolls long before that Channel Five documentary that was on the other night) , Christian seeing a psychiatrist played by Brooke Shields (a dig at Tom Cruise? Maybe) and then f*cking her after she suggested he might be a bit gay, Sean and Julia getting back together , getting pregnant and having a handicapped baby (and Sean f*cking a prospective nanny. They end up geting an angry male dwarf nanny), Christian befriending a male hunk who came to the surgery to have a bit of work done to make him look like his way older homosexualist sugar daddy played by Richard Chamberlain (who is a real gay. Storyline based on Liberace, fact fans) and trying to straighten him out by paying a lapdance to do sex with him… and so on. Filthy people, all of them! They also did an ‘aren’t we modern?’ story with one of Christian’s sex conquests becoming extremely popular on that YouTube. Well I never saw that kind of thing on there, only dancing action figures and stuff.

Doctor Kildare never did that kind of operation, did he?

We also watched that very critically acclaimed film called Brick. It was quite good, with a strange hybrid format (that sounds so cliched) of yer classic noir stuff mixed with 90′s indie flick. Lots of femme fatale, running around, drug deals, jealousy, high school lunhes and a mysterious dead girl…

… and The Pin. Who lived in a rather David Lynch kind of basement. And why not?

And in other rambles, the daddy long legses of the house are at war with the much better spiders. We watched a DLL get caught in a web and die. I am not evil but I enjoyed that. There were two more DLL corpses in the carpet this morning. I think the spiders are winning this war but it was always a dead cert in my eyes. I mean, how many superheroes do you know of that have the powers of a daddy long legs?

and The Zapping has the new Magic Numbers mp3. Marvellous.

I think all bands should look like this.

It was very childish and silly and owed more than a small debt to the genius that was Rock Profile but we loved Star Stories: George Michael last night on the telly. There are clips and stuff and not just of ‘George’ and his gay voice. Click here for a full load of clips, including a scary Boy George and Bono.

There’s also an interview with ‘George Michael’:

Do you have a favourite holiday destination?
You won’t believe this, but there’s a REAL Club Tropicana! It’s in Blackpool though and it’s shit. The drinks aren’t free and there’s always trouble at chucking out time. So I’ll have to say Greece.

What’s your favourite book?
Anything by Oscar Wilde. Call of the Wilde is good. Basically he was another gay icon who was confused about his sexuality, and had trouble with the law. Although he never actually wanked himself off in front of a policeman.

Of course, my life story wouldn’t be complete without some mention of my sexuality. Looking back, maybe there was a better way of coming out than being arrested in a public toilet in LA and being charged with a lewd act. Maybe I should have just had a few close friends round and told them.

And so here I am, two arrests, dozens of hit records, and an unquantifiable amount of painful and protracted public humiliation later. But I’m still the same old George – I’ve still got a serious political point to make, I just do it in videos where I’m surrounded by bump ‘n’ grind dancers dressed in PVC policemen’s uniforms. But whatever I do, I’ll always remember: I’ve gotta have faith!

I couldn’t find any better pictures… Bah. It’s lurking online in those Bit Torrent sites though.