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Fern Britton: Sad fools who criticise her should be ashamed

Posted by David Higgerson on July 1, 2008 1:44 PM

IF you believe everything you read in the national newspapers, then the current tale about Fern Britton is certainly a sorry one.

To recap: Somehow she ended up on the front page of the News of the World after they got the shock horror story that her recent weight loss was not just down to exercise and eating well – she'd had a gastric band.

Now, about a month on from this, if the “sources” on the This Morning programme are to believed, Fern's brave face in front of the cameras is masking a weepy, withdrawn woman off camera who now fears for her career.

I have several questions, all of which start with the word “why.” Why should she lose her job? Why does one, reasonably good mid-morning TV presenter's choice of weight loss warrant the front page of the UK's best-selling Sunday newspaper? And why is she being treated as though she failed to mention she was the strategist behind Robert Mugabe's Zimbabwe regime?

Hurrah! Mock the Week is back!

Posted by Remote Control on June 17, 2008 6:33 PM

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IF there is one DVD you buy this summer, perhaps as an alternative to the ongoing football, it has to be the best of Mock The Week.

Regular readers of this blog will know no programme comes anywhere close in my estimations as Mock The Week. Like the bastard younger brother of Have I Got News For You, it's satirical comedy left off the leash, and with the likes of Russell Howard, Dara O'Briain and Frankie Boyle, it doesn't know when to stop when it comes to crossing the line.

How to make politics interesting? Give it the Rainbow treatment

Posted by Remote Control on April 27, 2008 5:51 PM

Perhaps it tells us something about the importance the internet now plays in local elections when Have I Got News For You turns to YouTube to find funny clips.

Is Mihir Bose cute?

Posted by Remote Control on April 9, 2008 12:25 AM

Watching Mihir Bose on the BBC News bulletins is fascinating. I was going to write at length about him and the uncanny similarity between his spoken sentence structure and that of Yoda from Star Wars.

But just as I was gearing up to write, I was told to stop. By my girlfriend.

Damages. Best drama on TV.

Posted by me on March 31, 2008 10:20 PM

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There's something about American dramas which makes British broadcasters, Sky excluded, think they can just be shunted around the schedules. I think I've already mentioned Entourage on previous posts, but Damages is another great example.

This is Heathrow calling. We have a story

Posted by Remote Control on March 29, 2008 8:24 PM

Is it me, or does the current coverage of the Heathrow "crisis" serve to prove that when it comes to rolling news, big news is defined by how quickly News 24 and Sky News can get camera crews there?

Yes, thousands of people have been affected. Dozens of flights have been cancelled. But does this not happen every day at an airport Heathrow's size? If the same happened when Manchester Airport completes its refurbishment, would we have a similar number of national journalists providing live feeds at check-in gates?

A revolution from the armchair

Posted by Remote Control on March 27, 2008 1:45 PM

ONE of the downsides to being a journalist is that it can be very hard to switch off. And it's for that reason, on my week off, that the echo of Sky News can be heard around the house.

Admittedly, it's been quite a quiet news week, not surprising seeing as we're at the tail end of a bank holiday.

Two stories have dominated: China and the visit of President Sarkozy of France to these shores. Oh, and David Beckham's 100th cap which is a huge non-story if ever there was one.

Afghanistan - and Ross Kemp

Posted by Remote Control on February 28, 2008 11:00 PM

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On the news tonight, journalism's worst-kept secret was out in the open: Prince Harry is in Afghanistan. The government had the good grace to acknowledge the fact that when the British media said it wouldn't report that we had a member of the royal family on the front-line, it kept its word.

Instead, it fell to the normally very impressive Drudge Report to break the blackout, and probably put some lives at risk as a result. As it is, Drudge may well be claiming the big news, but it appears to have broken on some little-known Aussie website last month. Still, plenty of journalists have fallen into the trap of claiming an exclusive when in fact it's not - doesn't stop them looking rather daft when it gets pointed out their exclusive is anything but though.

Grange Hill: The End

Posted by Remote Control on February 6, 2008 2:11 PM

So Grange Hill is being axed. Cue lots of people, mostly in their 20s, 30s and 40s all lamenting the passing of a programme from their youth.

Naturally, none of them have watched Grange Hill for quite a long time. Which is just as well, because a childrens' TV programme which still grabs the attention of men and women over the age of 20 wouldn't be hitting its target audience.

Gladiators ready...

Posted by Remote Control on February 3, 2008 10:42 PM

Admittedly, it wasn't the biggest news story of the week last week, but it was interesting all the same - Gladiators making a return to our TV screens.

I can't remember why Gladiators stopped on ITV - although it did seem to attract a lot of scandal.

But that hasn't stopped Sky One digging it up, brushing it down and adding it to its schedules for later this year.

BBC own goal with Neighbours

Posted by me on December 5, 2007 7:10 AM

On Monday, the Liverpool Daily Post reported that Liverpool has probably missed out on the chance to be the setting for the soap the BBC hopes to replace Neighbours.

This is the BBC which, as we all know, is funded by the tax payer, and the BBC which never tires of telling us how a) it is committed to the regions and b) relishes investing in new talent.

'classic' 'british' and 'sitcom'

Posted by Remote Control on October 30, 2007 11:15 PM

Three words that, if ever in the same sentence, tell you one thing: The programme in question was crap.

Which is why this news scares me.

I mean, how about investing in something new? Arguing that reduced budgets means more repeats is one thing, but using whatever cash you do have to reheat a naff formula for the 21st century is madness.

To mock or not to mock? That's a bit of a question... (with video)

Posted by Remote Control on July 26, 2007 9:14 AM

IT'S a tough call. Much as I want to stick it out with
True Dare Kiss (BBC 1m 9pm) it's getting harder to as the weeks go by.

As dramas go, it is excellent. Sneaky, feuding, head-strong sisters and an eyeliner-wearing brother all battling it out with a dark secret in the background.

Tonight is episode five out of six, so that's four hours I've put into it so far.

But then there is Mock the Week, (BBC2, 10pm) which is now into its third week of the third series.

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