BBC Breakfast is brilliant. I’ve tried Today on Radio 4 but the upper-middle class presenters (who all speak reeeeeeally sloooooowly) tend to make my early morning coma even worse than it already is.
I’ve no idea what’s on Channel 4 any more, since RI:SE was axed and the lovely Zora Suleman removed from our screens. The days of the Big Breakfast are long gone. GMTV is all soft-furnishings, cheesy grins and Ben Sheppard, so clearly it’s BBC1 all the way.
The set up is a big screen, a sofa, suits and presenters. Quite a sparse scene, so the presenters have to do all the work. Rather than come on like your childless Uncle and Auntie as they do over on GMTV, the BBC presenters look as knackered as you are. This results in them frequently fluffing their lines and wearing expressions that say ‘what the giddy fuckfuck am I doing out of bed at this ungodly hour?’.
Here’s a look at the ones I see in my window of viewing before I’m herded onto the cattle truck, with breakfast still dripping down my chin.
Sian’s the most straightforward of the bunch. She’s a no bullshit presenter from the old school. Slick, professional and focused, she’s the adhesive that keeps this shambles running, and may God bless her for that.
Bill’s apparently an amateur beekeeper, chicken-lover and fan of Wycombe Wanderers. This trio of outside interests clearly play on his mind when he’s called upon to make a link, as he becomes so bewildered by his autocue that he often umms and aahs over his actions like a confused old man. The inevitable shouting from production ringing in his ears is clearly too much for him to take and his face relaxes into a dazed sleepiness. He looks like he should be sitting in his pyjamas reading the headlines from a tabloid – like a Dad trying to wake up slowly as his wife witters on about shoes.
Somehow Declan manages to look even more shattered than Billy Turnbull. His wry humour makes the economy seem fleetingly comprehensible, but then as soon as he’s gone, like a mirage, your understanding dissolves and you’re back to blaming the credit crunch on some American mortgage or something like that.
Chris is either on very strong uppers or is a child dressed up as a man. He should be intensely irritating, with his perpetually chipper attitude to sport and his sharp and cutting mockery of our hero Bill, but for some reason he gets away with it. He’s like the short kid at school who didn’t get bullied because he was a half-decent striker. You want to dislike him but you just can’t.
Last on our whistlestop tour of morning mutterers is the lovely Susanna Reid. Susanne stood in for Sian when she was on holiday. She’s like Sian but more distant. Her valium-eyes droop low and her slow, suttering speech patterns make you feel like your sitting with a Vicodin-drenched housewife somewhere in suburban Surrey with a hot water bottle. It’s a strange way to start the day when Susanna’s at the helm.
I’ve missed off the other business bloke who always strikes me as stern and sarcastic. I’ve also omitted the spaced out weathergirl who always stands, inexplicably, in the Blue Peter garden. Even when it’s pissing it down with rain. And I’ve missed off some others. Apologies to those not on the list. I’m sure you’ll consider packing it all in when you realise you’ve been left out.
God bless BBC Breakfast, God and the Queen.
*end of football comment*
77 Comments
Is Susanna the brunette who was one of Dermot’s pregnancy victims? I like her, if it’s her.
Are you trying to tell me she’s been soiled by Dermot La Murrrrnahurrrrn?
It’s a fucking disgrace.
I was suckled by the tit of GMTV as a nipper but in my teenage years, when I had control over my own breakfast viewing habits, I switched over to the mighty Breakfast.
It’s all safe, warm and cosy as well as being, at times, a news programme.
GMTV is like a rolling NEW! magazine. for orange-faced teenage mothers.
(although, by saying that, I’m accusing my own family of being scum. This hateful, generalising thing backfires sometimes, I guess).
Oh, and the brunette is well hot. That’s good middle-class stock – I’ll need to infiltrate it with my worker’s wand.
Remember when Dermot was on and they all fell pregnant? I note there’s been no more pregnancies since his departure. Make up your own mind …
He’s clearly a scatterer of seed, this Dermot fellow. I imagine his sperms are very robust.
- Bill Turnball looks like a haunted ventriloquists dummy.
- They have an annoying habit of breaking up news coverage with some Marks and Sparks mum style informal banter. ‘Haha, yes I bought an ipod and I don’t know how to us it! Cripes!’ *turns to camera* ‘Now, child sodomy was just another phrase for 6 year old Kalvin Williams from Stoke until….’
For these reasons and many more, I can’t stand BBC breakfast news. I used to live at home last year and my rents had it on every morning, horrible.
Declan left *weeks* ago.
Hollins: I so would.
good review though. 0
E
I can’t watch TV in the mornings, I prefer to, er, not watch TV
I’d like to mention that not all the presenters of Today are upper middle class. The anchor, John Humpries was born in Splott, a poor working class district of central Cardiff, son of Winifred Mary a hairdresser, and Edward George Humphrys, a self employed french polisher
I’m standing on your boat, Piqued. I listen to music (not the radio, morning DJs need to be taken down an ally and beaten like the inhumanly cheery scum they are) and it’s usually something to get me awake. Slipknot work well for this.
Ugeine, are you carrying drugs?
‘choo after blad?
PHWOAAAAR!
Sorry – that comment was meant for the other thread.
That E you had for SH, got any more
Ugeine – music is for the bus in.
This morning I listened to Brian Eno and arrived at work hypnotised,
I prefer to live a life without music.
Nietzsche said ‘life without music is a mistake’
I think that says it all
I go to live gigs and stuff but struggle to enjoy anything recorded.
Aaah, I get you. It was supposed to be a thumbs up. Look:
0
E
Dave: Really?
How can you not like ANY recorded music? Are you ill?
What about Carly Simon?
I was round Carly’s the other day, as it ‘appens.
What about The Rubettes, everyone loves The Rubettes?
Obviously he means ‘I don’t listen to recorded music, apart from Jimmy Buffet’.
What if the live band use samples……
That thumbs up thing is rather neat U
SH: I know. corrrr or phwoorrr or whatever
Are we talking about music? Do you need me to give you a run down of my faves again?
Nifty, aint it Piqued? I like the devil horns one as well, \m/.
( @ Y @ )
U, fantastic
Dave, they don’t look like that in real life
My arse looks exactly like this:
(_x_)
(The ‘x’ is my arsehole)
Oh look! All shit is coming out of arsehole!!!!!
(_x_)
”
”
“
Jesus SH, you’re firing off to the left, YOU’RE FIRING OFF TO THE LEFT MAN
I come here for the intellectual cut n thurst. not to see you shitting SH.
It’s a great day for comments today – our best yet in all respects.
Cocks?
No thanks NC, I prefer fan-knees
Cocks?
okay then, 4 please
I must be imagining things.
I could have sworn I heard somebody say … cocks?
\m/ 0 \m/
n
n||m
\ / screw you guys
Ugeine’s thumbs up woz rubbish, as he’s only got 2 fingers. I think mine is better…
Oooohh it’s gone all rubbish now – it looked way better before I posted it.
o v
I [O=O]
/\
My Mate Piqued listening to Radio 4 in da morning!
What the fuck are these thing supposed to be?
Mine was supposed to be a hand giving you all the finger (you have to move the n on the top line across to the right a bit and there were a few spaces between the slashes on the third line).
Where is everyone?
0
|
|====>
| |
..n
n||m
\__/
theyre all here clarry! everyones round at my place.
I can see that thumb thing now you mention it
n
n l l m
\ /
hours of fun.
That’s a bit better, but it looks like i’ve chopped off the end of my finger and all blood’s coming out.
If you write ‘55378008′
Etc.
What happens?
…n
n l l m
\____/
to you too, you cheeky bitch!
I think napoleons mauybe referring to the old calculator gag: boobs etc
also hilarious
NC: did you find the chesty dollybirds you were after?
Ugeine’s cock’s a bit funny, isn’t it?
God only knows what Dave’s is supposed to be, the bit to the right looks a bit like a ghetto blaster.
You get pleasured by the guy from the Aero advert.
CM – your hand is too fat.
*wins*
I do actually shit to the left.
It’s a talent……….
Quite high brow in here today, huh?
Clarry – my hand is an accurate representation and merely reflects the fine girth available elsewhere on my body.
*takes moral high ground*
*totally wins*
‘Ugeine’s cock’s a bit funny, isn’t it?’
It’s a genetical problem…
*Actually just read the words beneath Dave’s efforts and concur that his pic is better. Sorry Dave.
U – All i’m saying is that it’s a bit pointy…
CM – You always have to lower the tone. It’s not safe in here.
Mingles – I did, thanks. And that was t6he old ‘boobless’ gag (type 55378008 into a calculator and turn it upside down). My brain’s not working today.
But mine was a ‘freestyle’ whilst you zombie buggers all copied from an existing template. I must get some ’style’ points for that, surely?
You hungover Nappers?
I sliced my thumb open trying to open a wine bottle with a pair of scissors last night.
sorry Clarry – I just like freaking out. My penis is actually very very small and thin.
BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!
Piqued – No. Just a bit un-with it. The upstairs flat flooded my kitchen at three in the morning. Brain done not up to working proper, like.
clarry – before I spend my life working this shit out – what the fuck is ‘word twist’ and is it worth playing?
Also, I wont play if I have even the slightest chance of losing. my ego is too fragile.
That word game on the pub machines is good. I won my money back last week on one of those.
Please, please, please join my campaign to get Bill Turnbull off our TV screens in the morning:
http://caughtinthemiddleman.wordpress.com/2008/07/29/kill-bill-3/
Middle Man – NO!
Turnbull is a hero. Get lost.