An article written for TV Pixie.

It’s been just over a fortnight since the new team at The One Show settled on to the red sofa and into their new roles. They say three’s a crowd, and it is admittedly very odd to see Jason Manford dismissed on a Thursday evening to make way for Chris Evans’ entertainment-based Friday strand

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And doesn’t he do it well.

The master of audio and TV cut-ups, Cassetteboy’s already dazzled us with his mangling of The One Show and The Apprentice. It was only a matter of time before he destroyed the Dragons. Video below…

The best thing about there only being six girls left (apart from me having to remember all the names) is that we have more time to get into the politics of the Top Model house, whilst seeing more of the contestants doing exactly nothing to smash those dumb model stereotypes.

Tiffany summed this up perfectly, whilst the girls were dissecting Kirsty The Bitch’s leaving letter by saying that they clearly don’t have enough to do, which is making them become picky.

And picky they are. The crux of Why Absent Kirsty Is Still A Bitch was that she’d taken the letter that Nicola had written to Kirsty last week. Alisha isn’t happy that there is a gap on the fridge where it should have been and doesn’t think anyone will miss her. I’d be more upset by the fact that Kirsty didn’t wish anyone good luck (or even best wishes), but reading is clearly not high on the girls’ agenda.

First shoot this week was a beauty piece for Revlon, with the winning girl getting a campaign for her troubles. For those of you not up with model parlance, a beauty shoot is basically a close up head shot with loads of makeup.

The girls were all nervous. Amelia was so nervous that she couldn’t even move her hands like a normal person, preferring to do an entire Vogue move every time she was called upon to move them. Joy was really excited just to have her face photographed, thinking that it will sort everyone out – because if you can’t sort your face out, you’re no good at modelling. Joy also informed us that her hands look like those of a corpse and they usually have to paint them in the shoots. This is information that I could have had before.

The winner was Alisha and she took the win with her usual grace, explaining that the other girls wouldn’t know what was about to hit them, because the FIRE was coming. Alisha pointed out that Charlotte was smiling but her eyes weren’t, which was quite observant for someone taking part in this programme. Their prize was cocktails at the Hoxton Pony, which sounds like somewhere made up purely to amuse us. She chose Tiffany and Olivia to join her.

The other girls told them that they hoped they’d have a good night and everyone but the party goers knew they were lying. Charlotte said that she was down because of what Julien said to her last week about being fat. She doesn’t care that her backside is round, she said. Whilst crying. Cut to Olivia telling the other girls in the Hoxton Pony (which looked exactly how you might imagine it to look) that Charlotte should be a plus sized model. Pleasant.

Back at the house, Charlotte said that she may have a round bum but she still isn’t the biggest girl in the competition and looked pointedly at Amelia, who had just said in her interview that she‘d noticed Charlotte’s put on a few pounds. Amelia didn’t think she was taking the criticism well.

Joy wanted them both to shut up. I’m beginning to love Joy, a little bit.

We then had a really useless section where the girls all had face to face chats with Elle. They all cried at being in close proximity to their mentor, which was odd because they’ve all met her before, loads of times. Joy was the best though, because she sat staring at Elle with tears in her eyes and barely answered any questions. The look of horror on Tiffany’s face when Elle told her that she needed another haircut was equally priceless.

The next shoot was at Pinewood Studios, with an ambulance in the room – always good for the nerves. The shoot involved jumping off some scaffolding and landing on a giant mattress in the name of Galaxy Ripple. Amelia kneed herself in the nose on the practice run and ended up in the ambulance. Olivia freaked out completely and couldn’t do it. Amelia suggested pushing her off. Only Charlotte, who was happy for her round bum to be landed on, managed to pull off a half decent shot with any kind of dignity. Alisha was ready for Julien though. She’s going to bring the fabled FIRE to the judging if he starts on her, because she’s jumped off the scaffolding.

In the judging room, there was much made of the fact that there was any freaking out at all about jumping twenty feet in the name of a photo shoot, even given that there was no forewarning. Only Charley pointed out that his agent might have asked him beforehand if it was something he would be OK with. He was given a look of pity for this.

Julien took back his statement that Charlotte was fat, he just meant that catwalk models are a bit thinner than her, which is clearly not taking it back at all. Olivia, of course, is in the bottom two. There was some attempt to pretend that she wasn’t there because she wouldn’t jump twenty feet on to a blow up mattress, but it was transparent and she went home.  Olivia wanted to stay, but she didn’t want to take the place of someone willing to jump off some scaffolding. Writing her leaving letter, she then faded out of the picture.

Bye Olivia!

Next Week:

• The girls will take photographs of each other.
• The underwhelming celebrity encounter will be with George Lamb.
• The girls get their photo taken with some rugby players.

I don’t know how they’re going to keep this momentum up for another five weeks!

If you’re looking for a film to watch with your beloved in the near future, then try new romcom, Going The Distance. Starring Drew Barrymore and Justin Long, it’s about long distance relationships and all that business. It’s in cinemas in nine days time.

Find out more about it at their Facebook page…and video below…

We’ve seen it trailed on the show – they keep bringing the footage out to get our rubbernecking hopes up – and now, pre-screening, the girl who punches her pal onstage in The X Factor in an upcoming episode has spoken out about the whole palaver.

She’s got anger issues, apparently.

Simon Cowell has referred to their audition as the ‘worst in X Factor history’, and on top of some mockery and crowd cruelty, it all became too much for Abbey Johnstone, who lashed out at her ex-chum with her flailing fists, with arms like pistons, driving her clenched hand towards her face like a steam train heading for a hay-bale. Or something.

Speaking to the Daily Mail, Abbey said:

“Simon Cowell said we had serious attitude problems and then Lisa told Louis Walsh I fancied him.

“She had just started singing, and I decided I didn’t want to sing. I ran off stage but the X Factor people physically forced me to go back on again, and I couldn’t take it anymore.

“I have anger issues and I couldn’t take any more of the audience booing us and calling me fat. I just flipped out, and now I think the whole thing’s being blown out of proportion.”

“As soon as it happened I knew we shouldn’t be friends after, but ever since her friends, family, and other people in the street have all started having a go at me.

“I’ve had things thrown at me in the street and it has all started making me depressed… I don’t want to be known as the girl who punched her mate in the face on The X Factor because that’s not who I am.”

“I’ve tried to go round to see Lisa and sort it all out since it happened, but her family just came out and abused me and said I ruined Lisa’s dream.

“I’d been best mates with Lisa for at least 18 months and she said she wanted to go on the show. I didn’t think she should do it on her own, so I said I’d go on with her for support. My family told me not to go on it, and now after all this I wish I’d listened to them.”

Today’s lesson appears to be:

Whether they’re advising you not to attend a Katie Price book launch or to decline an invitation to audition at The X Factor – for God’s sake, listen to your family and friends.

Katie Price has landed herself in hot water over language she used with a thirteen year old boy during a PR event for her new, undoubtedly ghost-written novel.

Attending a book-signing in Devon for her latest masterpiece, ‘Paradise’, Price is said to have asked youngster Jack McBirney: ‘Are you looking at my t*ts?’

Before you start writing to your MPs, it gets worse. Not content with humiliating this poor, tender child, she went on to sign his book:

“To Jack and wet dreams. Jordan.”

Leaving aside the grammatical issues here, it seems the model was implying that she’d be happy to inspire filthy and ungodly dreams in one so young. Which technically makes her a paedo, (it says here – in a big book of rules). Jack was taken aback:

“I waited for ages to see her and when I walked up she asked if I was looking at her chest. I wasn’t at all.

“She asked me what I wanted her to write. I said I didn’t mind and she put the thing about wet dreams. I was very surprised.”

“I just wanted an autograph. I got Patrick Moore and Brian May’s autographs from book signings and they never wrote anything rude.”

That last sentence breaks makes my heart. If only every celebrity were as clean-living as astronomical double act, May and Moore.

It fell to Jack’s grandmother and carer, Shirley Williams (not that Shirley Williams) to sum up her outrage:

“That woman is a disgrace. Jack is 13 for heaven’s sake. Jack looks his age. He is very obviously a young teenage boy and it was wrong.

“Imagine a grown man leaving a sex message for a girl that age – they would be arrested. She is a mother and should know better.

“People should think twice about letting children go to a Katie Price book signing.”

Indeed they should think twice about letting children go to a Katie Price book signing, Mrs Williams. And for many, many more reasons than the one you’re complaining about.

If you’ve not seen the trailers for Shane Meadows’ This Is England ‘86 offshoot on Channel 4, you’re skipping the ads like a genius.

Revisiting the youngsters several years down the line in the year Maradona ruined the World Cup, a couple of video clips have been released to tease the new four part series. Video below…

Brace yourselves, Doctor Who fans, for writer Steven Moffat has spoken.

And those of you who like your villains to move unconvincingly and be shaped like bollards are about to be disappointed.

There will be no Daleks in the next series of Doctor Who.

Whilst speaking at the Edinburgh TV Festival, Moffat told the audience that whilst work hasn’t yet finished on the 2011 series, as yet no plans have been made to bring back the Daleks for this outing.

“There will be a Dalek story when we’ve got a good idea for a Dalek story. [When it does eventually happen], there will be lots of different kinds of Daleks.”

He also revealed that the series would be split into two, with one screening in the spring and one in the autumn. Presumably leaving a Sherlock-shaped hole in the summer schedule, for Cumberpatch and Freeman to fill with their wily ways…

Bored of the current Susan Boyle?

Don’t fear! There’s a new one coming along!

Let’s sweep the current Susan Boyle under the carpet and forget she ever existed, for now we have Dublin’s Mary Byrne – and she’s hopefully not quite as batty as the original.

In Saturday’s episode, prepare to see a pre-malaria Cheryl Cole break down and flood the arena with brackish tears as Byrne sings a Shirley Bassey number, ‘I Have Nothing’, causing an entire auditorium to poo itself with delight and overwhelming emotion. I’m touching cloth just thinking about it.

Cole declares that she loves the ‘power and emotion’ of the performance, saying it’s her ‘favourite audition in Dublin’, whilst Simon Cowell goes further.

“I think, no, I know, you have an amazing voice”
“I don’t know why you suffer from no confidence”

Later he told the audience and panel:

“I absolutely love her, she is genuinely a lovely woman with great talent and I hope the audience loves her too. She deserves this break.”

Putting that into our Babelfish Cowell Translation System, that passage of text can be transcribed as follows:

‘BZZZT.

EXCELLENT PITCH.

NO NEED FOR AUTOTUNE.

WILL SHIFT MEGA-UNITS

THUMBS UP

SELL SELL SELL’

Can’t wait for the inevitable Christmas album of cover versions and post-release nervous breakdown.

You might think we’ve had ‘em all. TV experts are ten-a-penny these days, covering everything from infant sleeping patterns to interior design by way of dog-training, Apprentice-rearing, marital guidance and cooking soufflés.

But there’s surely a way to scrape together a format out of every expertise in existence?

There’s more mileage in this TV expert business – and we’re sure of it. If Freaky Eaters got away with getting a weekly, hour-long show out of food psychology, surely we can come up with some workable formats for our own experts to ply their trade in? The kinds of experts WE want to see running the game and showing plebs how it’s done!

We want your TV experts WWMers – and we want a show title that perfectly showcases what the show’s going to be about!

You can have this lot for starters:

Top of the Lollipops

Each week, master lollipop lady Lynn Lubbock puts three members of the public through their paces, testing their ability to safely shepherd children across busy streets using only the signature hand-held road-sign as her aid. This week, builder Ken Torso mistakenly twizzles his lolly 180 degrees the wrong way, resulting in seven injured children and a fatal pile up.

Prostituition

An edgy new reality vehicle on Channel 5 that sees lady of the night, Tamara Whackwatterer guide students through the busy life of an old-school harlot. In this week’s outing, her students are on level three of their training and must look to master Greek, but school bursar Geraldine Bunter accidentally performs the wrong twist during a £20 HJ, and finds herself on the receiving end of a right telling off.

Politician – Heal Thyself

In which former members of parliament with genuine, long term illnesses are taught how to treat their own conditions using barbaric antique surgical equipment. In today’s episode, John Prescott removes his own hemorrhoids with a rusty pair of shears.

See what we mean?

It’s bloody easy. I can’t believe they haven’t actually made that last one.

So come on, WWMers – get your thinking caps on and give us some new reality rubbish to idly absorb of an evening. Pitch us some expertise telly – and pitch it to us now!

It seems those who expected Josie to do the double at the end of Ultimate Big Brother (including me) have been proved wrong.

Following a miserable couple of days, the West Country every-woman BB11 winner has walked, making the odds on who will actually win it now go mother-loving haywire.

Following the unsuccessful attempt from her BB boyfriend to escape through the camera runs, Josie managed to flee through the same maze of corridors and, as fate would have it, ran straight into John James’s arms. If the people involved are to be believed, he just happened to be in the car park having recorded her a message in the main BB HQ. This is apparently how the conversation went:

J:  “Thank god you were here when I came out!”
JJ: “You’re so stupid! I love you so much!”
J:  “I can’t handle it no more, honestly. I’m so glad you were just there then.”
JJ: “Did you go out the same fire exit?”
J:  “Yes. I just thought f*** this it’s not worth it.”

As a last hurrah she apologised to producers saying:

“I’m so sorry guys. They’re all really nice people don’t get me wrong, I’m normal I’m not a celebrity I’m not like that”

So that’s the end of BB11 for sure, and now it’s just down to the remaining minor celebrities to give the dwindling crowd their jollies.

I hope Brian Belo goes in and wets the bed again.

In order for me to get a fancy night out in hot Essex nightspot, Faces, I’ve been asked to tell you about this EXCITING new show in which you, the drab member of the public, could potentially appear!

In order for me to start ironing my Wrangler jeans and pulling on my collarless shirt before a limo ride into town, I’d best tell you what it’s all about. So read on.

The Only Way Is Essex is a new ‘glam’ reality show that will feature the ‘hottest girls and the sexiest guys’. Apparently all you need to do is audition by sending in a video of yourself to the microsite. I’ve not been given much to go on beyond the trailer below, but if you fancy yourself as a bit of a looker, hail from Essex or nearby and fancy being on ITV, then do go for it.

And for the trouble of posting this, I’ll see you all at Faces – Essex’s premier nightspot. I’ll be the fellow on the dancefloor surrounded by the ladies, sipping on a blastaway and shaking my bottom to Kenny Loggins’ Footloose.

Can you believe it? A limo!

An article written for TV Pixie.

Ever bashed your crown on the underside of your boiler, or managed to smash your forehead on a shelf whilst hastily getting out of a seat? Then you’ve probably also pondered the fragility of your grey matter – and considered that we tend to take the protection our skull affords us for granted a lot of the time.

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