I'm going to ring-rang-a-dong for a holiday

This is going to be my last blog post for a while as, thanks to my employer's policy of making us all have two weeks off when holidays are at their most expensive, I'm going away at the weekend and, along with the fact I'm going to be away for a chunk of August, I'll have limited internet time over the summer. So I thought I'd do a what-I've-been-watching-on-TV round-up.

Let's start with Guesstimation, a dreadful new Saturday night vehicle for Nick Knowles. It won't surprise you to learn that I hate Knowles. He comes across as the kind of idiot who stands at the bar in pubs spraffing off to his pathetic mates about how great he is while mentally undressing every woman who walks into the bar. To compound my hatred I heard him being interviewed on Radio Nottingham last week while trying to promote Guesstimation. While he was at it he thought he'd slip in that he's doing a new reality show. The woman interviewing him stopped him and reminded him that in the past he's slated reality television (while conveniently forgetting that he made his name on DIY SOS, and appeared on Comic Relief Does Fame Academy), well of course he went off on one defending what he'd said and his show. Like I said, an idiot. And have you ever noticed that, apart from DIY SOS, his shows never get past a couple of series before being canned? Why is he still employed by a major terrestrial broadcaster, anyone else would be on QVC by now. Oh, and that permanent 'designer stubble' winds me up a treat an'all.
Anyway, getting back to Guesstimation, it's crap. It surely has to be the dullest game show format ever devised. the aim of the game is, get this, to guess stuff. Well that's not very interesting for the viewer is it? There's no conferring so we have to wonder what two teams of twats are actually thinking. There's nothing for the viewer at home, well, apart from throwing crisps at the telly when one woman guessed that Tokyo was 350 miles away from London. That's the distance form London to Edinburgh.

At the weekend I watched a film on BBC4 called The Mother, it was shown as part of BBC4's season about old codgers. The film's plot revolved around a widow (Anne Reid) having an affair with her daughter's boyfriend (Daniel Craig). I don't know why, but the sight of Ken Barlow's first wife being taken up the Gary Glitter by James Bond has traumatised me and left having nightmares.
The film didn't really go anywhere and at the end I was left feeling worthless and empty. No doubt Reid and Craig had similar feelings when they watched it back. Having said that though, Anne Reid does have nice knockers for her age.

What about Wallander? Have you seen that? I'm not talking about those Kenny Branagh ones from last year, I'm talking about the Swedish ones currently running on BBC4. I've only seen the one, but they're very good. I have to watch them in bursts of a bout thirty minutes at a time though because of the subtitles. Normally when you watch a film with subtitles it's usually French and the action's punctuated with bits of rumpy-pumpy so you have time to give your brain a rest. Wallander's relentless though, the plots moving on constantly so you don't even have time to think that they all sound like the chef off of The Muppets.
Apparently Wallander says an awful lot about modern Sweden. Shame that, I've always fancied going to Sweden, but I don't fancy getting blown up in a bank.

Don't get me started on On Thin Ice, a show where Ben Fogle and James Cracknell try and race other teams to the South Pole. I watch it because I find polar exploration fascinating, but I find the whole thing rather pointless. If you're going there for scientific purposes, fair enough, but to go and race? You need your head looking at. And they're so miserable doing it, especially when Cracknell's foot looks as though it's going to drop off and he wakes every morning to a massive coughing fit. Factor in the fact that you're constantly trying not to get frostbite in your winkle every time you go for a leak, and a happy time is not being had by all. I find it oddly enjoyable though.

Also good to see the return of Only Connect. The contestants are usually overgrown students, but I enjoy it, not least for Victoria Coren. I'd marry her, I would. The problem is she's a shark at poker and I have trouble remembering the rules to snap. Never mind, we can but dream.

While I'm away this blog will celebrate its 1st birthday (a week tomorrow), which is something of a feat for me as my blogs don't normally make it that far. So happy birthday Modern Gutnish! You'll never know how much trouble I had naming you.

Right, that's me then, I'll leave you with my favouritest summer song in the history of the world. Have a good summer and I'll see you in a few weeks. Bye!

Pretty women out walking with gorillas down my street

I don't know how much truth there is in this, but hasn't Joe Jackson realised that he screwed up his youngest son's life by making him perform as a child? Now he's planning on the same for his 'grandkids'.
Personally, I think he should go back to making his own records, is She Really Going Out With Him? and It's Different for Girls a bona fide new wave classic in my book.

If you believe they put a man on the Moon

I've decided I like niceness. I think events over the past few months have taught me to be a nicer, more tolerant person. I've even decided to stop dissing other people's taste in music; if you like it fine, please listen and gain your pleasure from it. (besides, I can hardly talk considering I own albums by Yes) I like the sort of all pervading niceness you get on say the Radcliffe and Maconie radio show, which is just like listening to your mates banter punctuated with some quality tunes. Or I like the sort of niceness you get on BBC4.

Well, I thought I'd turned to niceness until the weekend. It started off badly with me coming home from work on Friday night to be confronted by Friday Night Jonathan Ross. The line-up was Vivienne Westwood, James May and Rufus Wainwright. Westwood came out and it was pretty obvious from the off that she there to bang on about the environment and how we were all fucked. She didn't need to tell me that, I know already, where's she been for the last ten years? Personally I think, by the look of her, she's been playing an ageing Elizabeth I in yet another film about the troubled Tudor monarch.
Then, after James May who spoke more sense about the fragility of the earth and environmentally-friendly transport in the space of a minute than Westwood did in her whole interview, they wheeled on that droning sod Rufus Wainwright. What gives with him? Is he the emperor's new clothes because I can see absolutely nothing to attract me to his music whatsoever. I've worked with openly gay guys and they've all been the most happiest-in-their-own-skin people I've ever come across. He makes being gay sound like a slog. Besides, he must have some pretty saucy snaps of some high-ranking BBC official considering he was interviewed on Radcliffe and Maconie on Wednesday night, had a full hour long Imagine film dedicated to him on the same night and on Friday had fifteen minutes with Jonathan Ross to plug his new sodding opera which no one wants to see.

Now, lets' move on to Master Chef, I only watch the celebrity ones as I can't be doing with real people cooking lamb with a redcurrant jus. How come Middlemiss won? After a week of cooking challenges, where she was proved to be the worst cook, she made the best all-round meal at the end and won. What was the point in the previous bits of the final if they're not going to be taken into consideration? I've never liked Middlemiss anyway.

Moving onto Saturday and the only two minutes I caught of that Katie Price interview left me spitting my cider all over the settee. She went on television and told everyone she'd had a miscarriage. Is there nothing she'd like to keep private? Then she revealed she'd 'ran the marathon bleeding.' (presumably the London marathon) Did we need to know that? Of course not.

I'd like to say though how much I've enjoyed BBC 4's series of programmes marking the 40th anniversary of the Moon landings. I love all that old NASA stuff. One programme concerned Neil Armstrong's withdrawal into being a semi-recluse. Can't say as I blame him, after all, what are people going to ask you? "What was walking on the Moon like?" That's what people ask you. How tiresome would that get? And let's not forget, he was good at his job which is why he was picked as an astronaut. He didn't do it for fame. Do you think ITV would show an exclusive interview with Neil Armstrong on a Saturday night? A man who, let's face it, has a million more interesting things to say than Katie Price, Jordan or Rufus Wainwright added together. No, I don't think they would either. More's the pity...

The love that dare not speak its name.

Can I just say that I like Sarah Brown? It seems the press do too, when was the last time you saw a disparaging article about her in the paper? Perhaps that's because the press could never forgive the previous PM's wife for never really letting go of her working class upbringing as she helped herself to any freebie and perk that was going. While Sarah manages to juggle a career, being the PM's wife, running charity dos and being mother to two children, one of whom has a serious medical condition. Not only that but I reckon most blokes fancy her on the sly. I know I do, and not even on the sly, she's all mumsy, like (a bit like Nigella, MILF-tastic). And I reckon she's good in the kitchen too, I must start following her on Twitter, she, ugh, 'tweets' recipes, apparently.

Sarah Brown must be hugely more popular than her husband and it's no wonder he gets her to help out at any public event going. Mind you, having worked in PR she must know all about that stuff, I wish she'd stop him smiling though, it unsettles me. Oh, and she should also stop getting him to comment on the most trivial matters. Do we really need to know his opinion on the deaths of Jade Goody and Michael Jackson?

I reckon she's head and shoulders above that Michelle Obama with her arms on show all the time, desperately showing us she doesn't have bingo wings. Oh, and I'll never forgive her for pushing our lovely Queen around like some doddery old grandma. And as for that Carla Bruni, I don't really buy that. I mean, a giraffe of a supermodel who makes records, married to a midget Harry H Corbett lookalike? I don't think so...

Anyway, big up Sarah Brown. I definitely would.

While I'm kind of on the subject of politics, you know how I hate politicians, but why is it, on the rare occasions I watch Question Time, is Shami Chakrabarti on it? Is she on every week? Mind you, I definitely would. There was also a woman on it called Sarah Teather, she looks like the comedy drummer from Roman Holliday, almost as if her face was being reflected off the back of a spoon. I think I would. Is Question Time supposed to give you the horn? And can you tell I'm not getting any? I'm sure all those hard-working career women would be pleased to read this. It's been a long week...

Rushian roulette

I've spent a lot of time on You Tube recently looking at old videos of Rush. I've never seen most of them before as when Rush were troubling the lower reaches of the pop charts in the late 70s and early 80s, they never got shown, and I didn't know who Rush were then anyway. What irks me though is these amateur musicians who like to play along with their favourite tracks. What with Rush being a bit of a musos band you get quite a lot playing a long to everyone's favourite Canuck prog-metal power trio.
Take this fellow:

He's paying along to Rush's Neil Peart. A man who is often hailed as one of the best drummers still living. Why does he think he can play any better? Nobody's interested in it. Are they? Well 192,000+ were interested enough to watch it. Mind you, they were probably thinking "Why doesn't he go out, get some exercise and get some of that lard off instead of sitting at home behind his expensive drum set up playing along to someone else? Or even better form a band and make some music of his own? And he should stop wanking too, it'll send him blind." I mean, how much would you love yourself to actually film yourself and then put it on the internet? Does he think he can do any better? Clearly not as he just drums along parrot fashion, like an unoriginal turd. Then you get all the other musos chiming in with comments like "Mmm, really tight man, I'd love to see you and Neil in a drum war!" Well the amateur would clearly lose, wouldn't he? Considering he has to drum along to someone else to perfect his 'chops' and can't come up with his own stuff.
Anyway, this girl pisses all over our friend above. And she's THIRTEEN. And she can do all that fancy stick twirling stuff.


I get inundated with literally no letters asking me why I like Rush. Try these three originals for size, they tell you everything you need to know about the mighty Canadians. Ladies: try asking yourself, could you ever love Geddy Lee (the singer)? Plenty of Rush's female fans do. I'll leave that thought with you.





This one's a belter with Aimee Mann playing a camerawoman. The director was obviously going mad with new technology: