Category Archives: TV

TV

The Apprentice 2008 – Part 1

The Apprentice, TV

The Apprentice is back. Hooray! Here comes Sir Alan in his big, black menacing car, getting driven around scenic bits of London when in fact his Amstrad office  is in some crappy bit of Essex. Here come the new contestants, installed in another ludriculously over-the-top house again (this time in Battersea) where we’ll see them drinking wine in the kitchen and having arguments in their underwear. And here come (hopefully) exciting new tasks, designed to distinguish the winners from the losers, when all we really want is for the contestants to get hopelessly embarrassed and ridiculed. The show next Wednesday, 26th March, on BBC1 at 9pm.

So, let’s look at some of the contestants:


Raef Bjayou (27 years old) believes he has the charisma to win The Apprentice. Hmmm, it’s literally oozing out of his photo, isn’t it? *yawns* He’s a former estate agent. Nuff said. Verdict: Could be last year’s Adam. Remember him? No, me neither.


Jenny Celerier (36) is a single mum to Simon, who’s 17. Sounds like a self-made woman. Sounds a bit like last year’s finalist, Kristina! Verdict: Could go far.

The Apprentice
Nicholas de Lacy-Brown (23 years old) was born plain old Nicholas Brown, but added the “de Lacy” bit to make him sound more sophisticated. The Apprentice website says he “feels most comfortable in the role of an artistic, country-hopping lord”. For his sake, let’s hope there’s a task where they have to pretend to run a country manor. The website goes on to say “he supplements his earnings with a mixture of artistic endeavour and property development”. In other words, he creates party flyers in Microsoft Office, and once painted a mate’s living room as a favour. Verdict: The kid won’t last. Sir Alan will hate him.


Sara Dhada (25) apparently decided to save the family company – selling cars – by taking over the reins from her brothers. Her brothers were a bit crap, then? She likes “socialising and baking” – hey, we’d probably be friends! I like socialising and eating! She “recently challenged herself to drive from Leicester to Mumbai in seven days”. Only the other day, I challenged myself to ride from Bromley to the moon by bike – in 4 hours. I’m not going to bother trying, but it’s at least important to challenge yourself to do things, don’t you think? Verdict: Mid-table.


Lucinda Ledgerwood (31) …wait a minute! That’s just Katie Hopkins from last year! All she’s done is scrub off her hideous blue eye make-up and cover up her pink cheeks with foundation! So not only was she the first contestant to turn down Sir Alan, but know she wants to be the first to do it all again! Weird. Verdict: Sir Alan won’t be fooled again.


Jennifer Maguire (27) says she can “sell anything. I can sell pieces of paper for £50 and making a living out of it”. These “pieces of paper” intrigue me. What are they? Are they blank A4 sheets, suitable for inkjet printers? Do they have long-lost Picasso sketches on them? What about if these magical pieces of paper are £50 notes? Then you’d only be breaking even. Except you’d most likely have overhead costs, so then you’d be making a loss. Jennifer clearly hasn’t thought this through. Verdict: she could use these pieces of paper to wrap up the competition, ho ho ho.

Tune in for more tomorrow! 

The Knighted Chef

Crazy, TV

Every now and then along comes a scammer whose background story is so poor…you really have to wonder how anyone fell for it. Sure, these scammers usually prey on the poor weak or elderly who don’t really see that they’re being taken for a ride.

Clearly, American TV station The Food Network falls into the “weak and elderly” category. They’ve just sacked Robert Irvine, the presenter of their Dinner: Impossible TV show. Amongst other lies, Irvine had claimed to have helped make the wedding cake for Prince Charles and Diana’s wedding (creating “elaborate side panels” telling the history of the Royals); to have been knighted; and to have cooked for former US Presidents.

Now, I guess the latter technically could have been true, but let’s do a quick think about the first two items. Charles and Diana got married in 1981. Irvine is currently 42. That would have made him 15 at the time of the wedding. I don’t think the Royal Family are quite so stretched for cash that they have to get kids to make their wedding spread. (In fact, Irvine attended the school where the cake was made, but this actual contribution was “picking fruit and things like that”.)

Secondly, he’s a chef. He may be a good one, but he’s still just a chef that’s presumably only part-way through his career. No matter how well he cooks, I don’t think the Queen doles out knighthoods just because her dinner of spag bol was really tasty.

(Although maybe that’d be one way to get quicker and better service: “If you can deliver my sofa by Tuesday, one will give you a knighthood.”)

Food Network – next time you hire staff, do a quick check of their CV, yeah? Or maybe just run through the “facts” in your head, and see if they actually make sense?

The Celebrity Apprentice

Media, Reality TV, The Apprentice, TV

The Celebrity Apprentice

 Tonight in the U.S. sees the start of The Celebrity Apprentice. Well, what with the writers’ strike, they’ve got to fill the airtime somehow, eh?

14 “celebrities” (that word’s gotta be in quotes, it’s a reality TV show after all) will take part in usual Apprentice style tasks, not to win a job with Donald Trump, but to raise $250,000 for their chosen charity. Collectively, the group seek to raise over $1 million for various charities. Still, I think maybe one or two would appreciate a job at the end of it as well.

So, who are the 14? Well, most aren’t know to a UK reader. There is, however, a Baldwin brother (you know, one of the “other” Baldwins), Romanian super-child-athlete Nadia Comaneci, Gene Simmons out of Kiss, Lennox Lewis and Piers Morgan. Yes, you read that right, Piers Morgan. How is this man becoming a global superstar?? He’s most famous in the U.S. for being a judge on America’s Got Talent – how’d he get that job in the first place? Still, the official Celebrity Apprentice website has an interesting write-up on him:

Morgan studied journalism at Harlow College, beginning his career in local south London newspapers. He was then spotted by Kelvin MacKenzie of The Sun and given his own showbiz column, Bizarre.

He lives in London and East Sussex and is a devoted Arsenal fan.

So apparently his nine-years spent editing one of Britain’s most popular newspapers, The Daily Mirror, doesn’t warrant a mention? Well, I supposed he was sacked from that job – for authorising the publication of faked photos of British soldiers absuing Iraqi prisoners. Someone’s trying to gloss over this, clearly…

Big Brother, Big Mistake – Even the host thinks so

Boring, Reality TV, TV

Big Brother Celebrity Hijack 

This year’s version of Celebrity Big Brother, now known as Big Brother: Celebrity Hijack, begins tonight. Following on from last year’s highly controversial series in which contest Shilpa Shetty was racially bullied, Channel 4 have decided to reformat the programme. The month-long show will now feature twelve bright 18-21 year olds, who each excel in a particular field. Meanwhile, the role of “Big Brother” will be played by various celebrities, who will set tasks and create house rules. Celebrity Big Brothers include Little Britain star Matt Lucas (who kicks proceedings off today), Ian Wright and Joan Rivers.

Have I put you to sleep yet? Doesn’t this sound deadly dull? I mean, the “normal” Big Brother that happens during the summer isn’t exactly riveting telly, but this sounds like an absolute snooze.

Big Brother: Celebrity Hijack host Dermot O’Leary even thinks so…sort of. Dermot told Radio 1’s Newsbeat that it was a “mistake” to change the show’s format, and that he thought the old version was still “a good show “. I agree. To avoid anything like last year events, they’d just have to avoid including incredibly ignorant contestants who think that making racist comments is actually just a bit of a laugh and not upsetting or worrying.

Somebody Save Us!

Music, The Charts, TV

Leon Jackson

Urgh. The X Factor single is the Christmas number one. Leon Jackson’s This Is A Rubbish Song (You’re All Mugs For Buying It And Making Simon Cowell Richer) shot to number one, selling 276,000 copies in only one week. Oh alright, the song is actually called When You Believe and it’s a slightly re-writen cover of a Mariah Carey and Whitney Houston song. Double urgh. Leon’s single sold the most number of copies in one week of any song released this year. People, people, will you never learn??

Alesha wins Strictly!

Entertainment, Strictly Come Dancing, TV

So, Alesha Dixon won Strictly Come Dancing last night, and what a worthy winner she was! With her professional dance parter, Matthew Cutler, she proved to be a very consistent performer throughout the series. She also performed marginally better in the final over her rival Matt Di Angelo. BUT I was a little bit disappointed with her finale, the free dance. Dancing to Bonnie Tyler’s classic, I Need A Hero, there was waaay too much cape action for me. AND to me it also looked like the kind of dance that two tweenagers would make up in their bedroom on a Saturday afternoon! See here:

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yoaTCEgghOM]

On the other hand, Matt Di Angelo, with dance partner Flavia Cacace, was superb with his free dance to Lenny Kravitz’s Are You Gonna Go My Way! Take a look:

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kIzKTsc2jyY]

On another note, I was crying throughout the final – the show is too beautiful! So entertaining, funny, warm…I could go on. X Factor, on the other hand, makes me cry bitter tears. Of pain. And regret. Stupid X Factor.

X Factor Party – Rhydian No Show

Celebrity Parties, Music, TV

X Factor Final 

The X Factor wrap party took place in London last night, with runner-up Rhydian Roberts not in attendance! The Daily Mail reports that Rhydian, favourite to win the show, deliberately snubbed the party in fury after learning that thousands of his fans apparently couldn’t get through to vote for him on Saturday night.

Whatever happened to losing gracefully?! Honestly, this whole show gets ever more farcical. If he’d attended, the majority of people at the party would have congratulated him and proclaimed him to be who they would have wanted to see win. And if Ofcom investigate the phone voting, he might even become the winner one day. By not attending, he just looks like a sore loser!

Oh, having said that, judges Simon Cowell, Sharon Osbourne and Dannii Minogue were also not in attendance. Hmmm, they’ve no doubt picked up their fat paycheques so screw the rest! God forbid that they should have to do anything as demeaning as liasing with the contestants!

Sheesh.

Wrong X Factor winner?

Boring, Music, TV

Rhydian Roberts 

And ahem, no, I’m not referring to my previous post. I still stand by the fact that the British public have won now that the show is over!

But here’s the actual story. Some Rhydian Roberts fans have complained, saying that they were unable to phone in and vote during Saturday night’s final. Welsh singer Rhydian was the favourite to win the show, but in a suprise result, he lost out to 18-year-old Leon Jackson from Scotland. Rhydian fans said that they tried up to vote up to 10 times in some cases, but that phone lines were constantly busy. Some Welsh radio stations have now said that they will boycott Leon’s Christmas single, and are demanding a recount of the voting in the final. (Although how would a recount work? If fans’s votes didn’t register in the first place, a recount isn’t going to change anything!)

I too will boycott Leon Jackson’s Christmas single.

But I don’t want a recount. I’m okay without one, thanks.

And the Winner of X Factor 2007…is… *dramatic pause*

Boring, Music, TV

X Factor 

The British public!

Yes! This absolutely awful excuse for a TV programme, filled with half-decent singers that might be good in some kind of cabaret show touring the country but let’s face it they’re not really going to cut the mustard in the pop charts, and which uses staged fights between the judges to try and drum up some kind of interest is FINALLY OVER! We no longer have to suffer!

Oh, and in case you’re interested, Same Difference, the brother/sister group, actually won. Hah! No, they didn’t. Who cares?! Okay, fine it was Leon. Who?

New Flake Girl – Interesting Choice!

Advertising, Music, TV

Joss Stone 

Joss Stone is to be the new Flake girl in TV commercials that will begin appearing from Spring 2008. She’s the first non-model to take the role. Say what you will about her (ahem…I make have implied in the past that she was somewhat annoying), whatever way you look at this decision, it’s an interesting choice! I thought the whole point of the Flake ads was that they picked a relative unknowns. I don’t really see how Joss Stone is any better suited to, well, thousands of other girls out there? Maybe she eats chocolate really seductively. Oh God, I don’t want to know!

Best bit of this story, as BBC News reports:

“Her appointment was revealed in the trade magazine, The Grocer.”

Oooh, how flash!