Tuesday 31 January 2006

Curb Your Global Warming

John here at work sent me this link to a Larry David interview for you all. It's about a global warming special he did in November. His wife forced him to do it he claims.

I've been enjoying season five of Curb so far (incidentally, this isn't intended to noise anyone who may be reading up), Larry's run ins with Jesus nails, failed Kamikaze pilots, his racist dog, Louis Lewis and the local sex offender have all amused me up til now. I couldn't really say if it's better than season four though. I have about 3 or 4 episodess to go.

The Oscar Nominations

The Oscar nominations have just been announced and here are the biggies.

Best Actor

Philip Seymour Hoffman
CAPOTE

Terrence Howard
HUSTLE & FLOW

Heath Ledger
BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN

Joaquin Phoenix
WALK THE LINE

David Strathairn
GOOD NIGHT, AND GOOD LUCK

I like all those guys though I would go for Philip Seymour Hoffman if I had to pick one I wanted to win. Much like Chris Cooper a couple of years ago David Strathairn is finally being rewarded after his years of excellent supporting roles and leads in John Sayles films.

Best Supporting Actor


George Clooney
SYRIANA

Matt Dillon
CRASH

Paul Giamatti
CINDERELLA MAN

Jake Gyllenhaal
BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN

William Hurt
A HISTORY OF VIOLENCE

George Clooney has been nominated for Best Supporting Actor and Best Director, which I think is a first. It may also be a first for a nominated director receiving an actor nomination in the same year, for a film he didn't direct. To add to that he also has a Best Original Screenplay nomination.

Nice to see Matt Dillon being nominated for Best Actor. He's a guy I've always liked. Beautiful Girls is one of my favourite films and he has a good body of work throughout his career and he usually turns in a great performance even if the film itself isn't up to much.

I would be happy also to see Paul Giamatti get this one. He didn't get a nomination for his outstanding performance last year in Sideways and he deserves his nod this time.

I'm completely puzzled at William Hurt's nomination though. He appears in a ludicrous cameo in what's become the most overrated film for me this decade.

Best Actress

Judi Dench
MRS. HENDERSON PRESENTS

Felicity Huffman
TRANSAMERICA

Keira Knightley
PRIDE & PREJUDICE

Charlize Theron
NORTH COUNTRY

Reese Witherspoon
WALK THE LINE

This is the one the British press will focus on as there are two Brits in the nominees in Judi Dench and Keira Knightley. Nice to see Felicity Huffman and Charlize Theron in there as I've enjoyed them both on TV in Sports Night and Arrested Development respectively.

Best Supporting Actress

Amy Adams
JUNEBUG

Catherine Keener
CAPOTE

Frances McDormand
NORTH COUNTRY

Rachel Weisz
THE CONSTANT GARDENER

Michelle Williams
BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN

I'm a fan of Catherine Keener, who was nominated before for Being John Malkovich. For Frances McDormand this now makes 4 nominations with one win for Fargo.


Best Director


Ang Lee
BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN

Bennett Miller
CAPOTE

Paul Haggis
CRASH

George Clooney
GOOD NIGHT, AND GOOD LUCK

Steven Spielberg
MUNICH

Interesting category this one, some first time directing nominees in there along with a previous nominee in Ang Lee and the two time Best Director winner Steven Spielberg.

Best Picture

BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN
CAPOTE
CRASH
GOOD NIGHT, AND GOOD LUCK
MUNICH

Hard to work out who's going to win. Will people think Munich is too controversial? Is Brokeback Mountain too gay? Is Capote too gay? I think Crash might sneak this one.

March of the Penguins and Murderball are both up for Best Documentary Feature.

In the Documentary Short category the one that catches my eye is THE DEATH OF KEVIN CARTER: CASUALTY OF THE BANG BANG CLUB by Dan Krauss.

Paul Haggis has picked up a screenwriting nomination, just as he did last year. Woody Allen is back with his 21st Oscar nomination for original screenplay for Match Point and his first nomination since Deconstructing Harry in 1997.

Good also to see Crash getting so many nominations. That was my favourite film of last year that's eligible in this year's Oscars. The two that I placed higher were included in last year's Oscars.

Wallace and Gromit are nominated for Best Animated Feature.

So only now to arrange an Oscars party and the traditional sweep. Sunday March 5th.

Monday 30 January 2006

Munich

Ever since his performance in Chopper blew me away I’ve been a big fan of Eric Bana. I’ve pretty much seen everything he’s done since then, (which admittedly isn’t all that much) even the Australian film The Nugget. He has, however, not done anything as powerful as his film debut.

Munich doesn’t change that. Based on the events in the aftermath of the 1972 Olympic Games Munich Massacre, Munich doesn’t quite hit the spot. Kevin MacDonald’s brilliant Oscar winning documentary One Day in September told the story of the hostage taking, botched rescue attempts and subsequent slaughter of 11 Israeli athletes. Munich promises to tell us of Mossad’s secret mission to exterminate those they thought responsible for the hostage taking.

The mission, codenamed Operation Wrath of God (though that term never features in the film) is lead by Bana’s Avner, a former bodyguard now in charge of his own team of Field Operatives.

I think Spielberg is an outstanding filmmaker. He’s possibly the greatest director working at the moment. As a storyteller he’s flawed. He tends to put across his points in a tyrannical fashion. The scene that most grated for me was Bana’s character struggling to cope with normal life with his mind flashing back to the massacre of the athletes. However the character has no memory of this as he wasn’t there and although he could have known what happened hardly seems the overwhelming image for the trauma he’s been through. This all happens during a sex scene which makes it even more excruciating.

It seemed more like a device to hammer home a point. Avner’s worries and doubts would have centred on the people he killed himself as that is where his conscience would lie. It’s odd for me that the characters accepted the roles of assassins easily enough and only later started to question if what they were doing was right and if they were killing the correct people. Of course another criticism that has been levelled at the film is that the Mossad assassins were ruthless killers with no conscience who wouldn’t have stopped to consider the outcome of their actions.

The film certainly doesn’t show that the mission was a good idea. It clearly indicates that the revenge mission ultimately brought about many, many more deaths and the increase in terrorist ranks.

Factually of course it misses its mark here and there. The main criticism this article offers is that the film misses out the blunder which ultimately ended the mission. The Lillehammer affair saw a hurriedly assembled Mossad hit team murder a Moroccan waiter mistaking him for Ali Hassan Salameh, their number one target.

Spielberg’s film can get around this omission by the fact that it falls out with the period covered by the movie and by the fact that it’s made clear that Avner’s team were not the only ones sent out to kill.

As for the film itself, Bana is good, though doesn’t really have many big moments, what he does is all small and perhaps his performance is all the better for it. Geoffrey Rush is superb as his handler and pretty much steals every scene he’s in. Ciaran Hinds, (who began his stage career at the Glasgow Citizens Theatre as the rear end of a horse in the production of Cinderella, according to the imdb) is also a stand out as Carl, the group’s ‘cleaner’.

It’s worth going to see but I really felt it was missing something. All in it gets 3 Tom stars.

Saturday 28 January 2006

Glue Kicks Ass Yet Again

Well, another sold out show, another brilliant response from the audience, another round of half cut folk coming up to us afterwards telling us we should be on the tele.

Glue kicked ass last night yet again. We always seem to think we're going to fuck up at some stage in a show and even though there was some ad-libbing required, (as always), we never really missed a step.

Everyone turned in energetic performances and the new stuff went over really well. Again, Bertie proved a favorite, but the ones about Jesus also proved popular and Paul from our work loved the "someone famous turning up at your hoose pished wans" as he put it before nicking off to The Arches.

A shame that once again, not one of the people we asked from TV or radio cared to show up. They'll all be kicking themselves one day.

We piss so hard on the competition it's not true.

Friday 27 January 2006

"Occifer, Instead of Jail - How About I be Idolised by my Fans Tonight?"

Well here's some of the competition for tonight out the way. There's a sold out Barrowlands audience now at a loose end.

From the Barras website "This concert was confirmed on Wed went on Sale Thu @ 9 am sold out by 10 am." How about adding "Cancelled by Friday lunchtime"?

Glue in the Press

You may have noticed that You Owe Me Glue had their first coverage in the press this week. The East Kilbride News had a small feature of us accompanied by a photograph. It was mainly culled from the press release, along with a paragraph about Britain's tradition of sketch shows. Dazza got clipped round the ear by his Dad for the photograph. I did give the guy a choice of three. Said photo can be seen here. The article's headline was something like 'Sketch Show Will Have Fans Stuck to Their Seats'.

As for tonight's show well rehearsals last night were patchy. There are definitely two sketches that I'm nowhere near on and I think we have a few props missing. Other than that we're all set for our 3 quid laugh fest.

Have a look at some photographs from this week's rehearsals below.







Wednesday 25 January 2006

Chris Penn 1962-2006

Reservoir Dogs actor Chris Penn died yesterday at athe age of 43 (though that news item and a few others say he was 40). Latterly he frequently turned up in bit parts in films such as Starsky and Hutch and Rush Hour. But he should be better known for his character actor roles in films like At Close Range, The Funeral and Reservoir Dogs. He's also memorable in Short Cuts and True Romance.

Tuesday 24 January 2006

Glasgow Comedy Festival and Glue

The Glasgow International Comedy Festival website is now online so go have a look at our page. We're on two consecutive Thursdays the 9th and the 16th. I'd like to say we'll be doing something special for it, but we probably won't.

Britain's Biggest Bams

As regular readers will know I'm particularly unhappy with the nutcase group Christian Voice's campaign against Jerry Springer The Opera. The show goes on a nationwide tour beginning this week, I'm hoping to go see it when it comes to Glasgow in March. Of course protests are planned for the opening night on Friday. It would appear that one bunch of nutcases attracts another and Christian Voice are reacting to the news that joining them on the frontline will be none other than the BNP. Everyone's favourite bampot group have begun distributing leaflets on behalf of Stephen Green's crackpot crusade. Good luck with the merger.

Monday 23 January 2006

Demetri Interview

Here’s a pretty big interview with Demetri Martin. He talks at length about his love of skateboarding and about meeting Steven Wright.

Arrested Development in Limbo?

There's good news and bad news for us fans of Arrested Development. Showtime seem keener than ever to pick the show up, however series creator Mitchell Hurwitz's continued involvement is the dealbreaker. At the moment he's remaining quiet on whether he wants to carry on with the show. The show of course still hasn't actually been cancelled by Fox.

You can have a look at Will Arnett on Conan O'Brien's show here. In the interview he talks of AD in the past tense, though he also thinks it's called 'Invested Development,' says he liked 'The guy who played my brother' and talks about his new sitcom 'Give Me a Breaksville'

Thursday 19 January 2006

Daniel Kitson @ The Stand

Since it was my birthday yesterday, (you all knew anyway) Jo took me to see Daniel Kitson at The Stand. He’s in the early stages of a national tour at the moment. This is the fourth time I’ve seen him in about 18 months and save for about 5 minutes on the topic of first class carriages on trains he did a completely new 2 and a half hour show.

To be honest I’ve seen him funnier but he still managed to be consistent and frequently hilarious. He reached his peak for me with his dissection of lads’ mags and in particular his impression of Johnny Vaughan’s ad for Nuts magazine. “Wiiiiimmmmennnnn…..wiiiiiiimmmmmmennnnn….what he wants to say is Slllllaaaaaaagggggggsssss…..sllllaaaaaaagggggsssss….” he thought of the average Nuts reader; into women, sport and cars, buying the magazine because “This is a hateful smorgasbord of my prime interests”.

Jill, who came with us had never seen (or indeed heard of) him before, but she was in absolute hysterics all the way through. There are no photographs from the show to illustrate the post cos unlike the woman who took a photograph of him I knew he’d turn any camera flash into a five minute bit.

Here’s a couple of decent reviews that cover some other shows in the tour. Brighton and Norwich. And here’s a review from the first night of his tour that ended up as part of the show.

Wednesday 18 January 2006

It's the Final Countdown

Sometimes I just wish that Fox would get on with it and cancel Arrested Development instead of gibbering pish about it. I thought the idea of a two hour final episode was great, until I realised it's simply the final 4 episodes being shown back to back opposite the coverage of the opening ceremony of the Winter Olympics. Still if the viewing public in America had any sense they'd be settling down to watch GOB go to Iraq to entertain the troops and not some daft gala.

Glue 2006

We've kicked off rehearsals for Glue 2006. It's all going well so far, but we've only about 9 days to the show. Prices are down for that gig to 3 quid. A bargain if we do say so ourselves. The website has been updated a wee bit. Thanks to Tommy for that. There are also a load more photographs on Flickr. The links to both are on the left. You will see that there's a handful of Glue rehearsal photos below. Go to the Flickr page for loads more including several of me jumping about like a big daftie.






Monday 16 January 2006

The Great Fizzy Giveaway Bonanza!!!


As you may or may not know, my family is moving to Falkirk in May.

We bought a house there this week.

We're pretty psyched.

As such I am getting rid of a whole bunch of choice crap including: A PS1!!! An entire home photographic lab (and I mean entire)! A Commodore Amiga 600!!! A briefcase! A compressor unit I don’t know how to work! A whole stack of videos!

And loads of other crap, I mean choice goodies!

I have stuff like Subbuteo as well I’d give a way to a good home, but only to someone I know would play with it.

But its mainly stacks of videos. If you feel that you need stuff like “Almost Famous” ex rental or “The Searchers” taped off the tele, feel free to give me a bell. Tom already has first dibs.

What else did I want to say? Oh Aye, the Rangers game last week. Sorry I didn’t update with a full match report but really, apart from Boyd’s hat-trick it was pretty unremarkable.

The most enjoyable part of it was being at the ground. I love hanging about football grounds, looking at the programme stands, smelling the burgers, waiting for the team bus; all that rubbish. At Ibrox you have of course a load of traders selling “yerbigflagggggs” – giant and often vaguely sectarian (or if not, just exceptionally patriotic) flags of all types.

It’s quite funny watching the huge selection of oddities who follow the Rangers come and go as well, although I too am living proof that there is no such thing as a handsome hun.

Onto my main hobby – sitting on my increasingly fat arse and watching obscure comedy. Graeme at work put me onto a bit of a comedy phenomenon in his own country of Canada, Trailer Park Boys.

It’s basically a spoof documentary about 2 co-dependant ex – cons who live in a trailer park and the daft stuff they get up to. I’ve just started watching my second season of it and it is very good, often hilarious.

Particularly funny are their arch enemies Mr Lahey and Randy the park supervisors, their flip sides, losers for the Law. Main character Julian’s best friend Bubbles is also hilarious in look, manner and deed. Definitely one to look out for if you're into a bit of torrenting.

“I Got Jiggy With it!*”

I made my debut as a DJ at the weekend. I played a half-hour ‘set’ at my friend Jennifer’s birthday party at The Research Club.

I asked John at work for some tips. His advice was “Don’t get drunk beforehand”. I couldn’t really say that I set the room alight; it was pretty quiet at that time and the meagre space only really became a dance floor and about half one in the morning.

Still I did have someone ask me ‘what’s this?’ during Teenage Fanclub, she was one of the folk I was with right enough.

I was paid with a free pint, which is more than I usually get for doing stand-up.

As you’ll see from the advert I was the only one who thought to use his real name.

My set list went as follows

The Wolf Parade – It’s a Curse
The Specials – Gangsters (live on SNL)
The New Pornographers – My Slow Descent into Alcoholism
Ben Folds Five – Underground
Rilo Kiley – Portions for Foxes
Mighty Mighty Bosstones – Someday I Suppose
The Postal Service – Such Great Heights
Teenage Fanclub – It’s all in my Mind
Giant Drag – This isn’t It
Arcade Fire – Wake Up

The guy on after me had a metal box full of about one hundred CDs. He also had several wallets full of them. I had two CDs that I had made up earlier that day.

*Seinfeld – The Reverse Peephole

Friday 13 January 2006

Red Raw Reviewed

I came across this amusing review of a recent Red Raw at the Edinburgh Stand. The comments are maybe fair enough, but the reviewer can't help come across as a smug twat.

He knows fine well that it's a new act night with an admission price of one pound. So to say that the most experienced comic of the night was 'the highlight of the evening' isn't serving much of a service as a review.

Wednesday 11 January 2006

“I’d Literally Rather Sleep with a Rat”

Here's an interiew with Graham Linehan about his new sitcom The IT Crowd. It's a good interview that covers a lot of his influences and his ways of writing.

'Victoria Wood recently said that old-fashioned style sitcoms were dead because The Office was so good, you can’t go back to studio sitcoms. So I kind of hope that this is proof that that’s not true.'

Tuesday 10 January 2006

More Endless Art

When I was researching a new YOMG sketch earlier on I decided to look for the lyrics to 'More Endless Art' by the Irish band A House. I found this nice page. If you don't know, 'Endless Art' was a single the band released in I think about 1992. It featured mostly the names of dead artists and their dates.

I used it in my video production class at college, when I made a film about the Glasgow Underground that featured Kelvingrove Art Galleries. We, quite by chance managed to match the lyric 'Masters of their arts Claude Monet 1840 to 1926' to a Monet painting.

Anyway it was pointed out to the band that 'Endless Art' featured no females, so they went about recording an all female version in 'More Endless Art'. Amusingly as that post points out two of the females featured were alive at the time of the recording and one of them is still alive today. The post includes links to all of the artists' pages on Wikipeida.

If you dunno who A House were you can find out all about them at the page of singer Dave Couse's new band Dave Couse and the Impossible. There's also this fansite.

This Place is Dead

Not that he told us about it, but Ronnie has replaced 160676 dot net, which shut down a few weeks ago with This Place is Dead. It would appear that it's a joint effort with Tommy who shut down Heavy Sedation recently. Just a note for future guys, be nice if we didn't have to read your news from websites based in Nashville. ;o)

The World's Wildest Comedian

Doug Stanhope has been profiled in GQ magazine. You can download a zip file of the article here.

Monday 9 January 2006

Rangers 5 Peterhead 0

Fraser, Ian from work and myself went to see Rangers take on Peterhead in the Scottish Cup on Saturday. Unlike city rivals Celtic, the Teddy Bears had no problems disposing of their lower league opponents.

I'll let Rangers fan Fraser tell you more about the match, but below I have a handful of photographs.









Friday 6 January 2006

The New Pornographers on Video

Tommy and Nicola look for yourselves here, this is a video of The New Pornographers at ABC2 in Glasgow last month.

Wolf Parade on Late Late Show

This links to a live video of The Wolf Parade playing This Heart’s on Fire on Craig Ferguson’s Late Late Show on Wednesday night. There are some other vide and interview links on the page.

Thursday 5 January 2006

A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The Gong Show...


This is from Chortle which I think we have a permanent link to below.

Rowan Campbell, quite a funny guy according to Tom, gives his account of going to play the Gong Show at the Comedy Store in merry old London:

“Left the little white croft house, up the driveway, turned right opposite the church. Passed the wee hall, 200 yards up passed the two houses, drove three miles on the track past salt-licking sheep to the haunted house then 12 miles to Ulsta where I just had time to grab a six pack of McEwans export, and a Shetland Times, before I boarded the ferry to Toft.

Waited 8 hours then got the bus to Lerwick. Luckily the weather was just fine enough for the Northlink ferry to sail and 12 hours later I was in Aberdeen from where National Express carried me to Victoria 36 hours later. Got to the Comedy Store, got on stage and then GONG.

Turned round and went home.”



I wouldn’t play the Comedy Store if my life depended on it and why? Well, I didn't get into comedy to be a piece of meat chucked at baying dogs.


If some bunch of over the hill performers want to pretend that this kind of experience "toughens you up" and is in some way beneficial to a young performer they can trot on, but for me its not even remotely what comedy is about.

Treating people like that is unbelievably arrogant and having a club where that sort of thing is routine strikes me as Caligulan decadence at its very worst.

Yes, no one is forced up there I suppose but isn’t it odd (and silly) that comedy seems to be the only art form where the very opposite of nurturing new talent is the norm?

No wonder TV producers are frequently going on about the dearth of new comedy talent.

To his (partial) credit Alan A’s Gong Show offers £100 as the prize; but it's money for being a jester to a baying mob - no one's offering that money for proper inventive entertaining comedy - it's like going 3 rounds with a boxer at an old style Circus. Its bear baiting.

How about giving us a ton to promote an original sketch show, with new stuff every month? Or am I just talking crazy?

But the excitement of Gong Shows has nothing to do with the possibility of discovering anything good or innovative, it's the whiff of blood in the air. You'd get exactly the same sort of crowd if you were hanging the poor buggers.

March of the Penguins


I went to see March of the Penguins last night. It was very good, but perhaps I wasn’t knocked out by it like most of America has been ($77 million at the box office). The cinematography was excellent and it was a fascinating story, that of the penguins, but it was more sad than anything else for me.

The fragility of the penguins existence and the trauma the things suffer at the loss of their young made it more uncomfortable for me than life affirming. That’s not to say it wasn’t a very well made documentary that’s well worth seeing.

Speaking of movies, I finally have my dozen movies of 2005 posted. However since I started it on 30th December it's got lost further down the page, scroll down or click here.

Stewart to Host Oscars

The Daily Show’s Jon Stewart has been confirmed as the host of the 78th Oscars.

"I Have Nightmares, but it's Never Boring. It's not Coldplay."

Here's a brilliant article from The Guardian attempting to track down the 43 members of The Fall.

Tuesday 3 January 2006

"You Like Those Cowboys, Don't You?"

Larry David won’t be going to see Ang Lee’s Brokeback Mountain. He outlines his reasons in the New York Times, reprinted here.

Queen’s Park 1 Albion Rovers 1

Also yesterday I went along to Hampden Park to see Queen’s Park host Coatbridge’s Albion Rovers in a Division 3 game. It was a little odd to see the national stadium so empty. The attendance was a mere 576, quite normal for The Spiders this season.

As a spectacle the game offered very little. Albion Rovers had the grip of the game in the first half, scoring a nice effort from 20 yards. In the second half Queen’s got back into it and after Rovers were reduced to ten men they practically camped in their half, grabbing an equaliser, but failing to find the winner, despite several good chances.

A draw was probably on the whole a fair result. There are some photographs below.







The Family Stone

Went to see The Family Stone last night. It wasn’t very good. It was an attempt at a kooky family Christmas film that fell flat due to its incomplete execution.

The big arc in the film is how Dermot Mulroney’s family don’t like his girlfriend Sarah Jessica Parker. They don’t just not like her they HATE her. Except they don’t really convey this bar a couple of snide remarks and there’s no real reason given as to why they would hate her.

Two romances in the film come out of nowhere, one in particular hinting at a bit of back story, but as that never materialises we have to assume that the hot romance took place over 24 hours.

What holds it up for its running time is the mainly likeable cast and the picturesque snowy little town setting. TV’s Coach Craig T. Nelson and Diane Keaton make pleasing parents, for the most part, although her borne out of nothing hatred for Sarah Jessica Parker’s character put me off her a bit. Rachel McAdams did a passable grouchy younger sister and Luke Wilson and Claire Danes were inoffensive enough. It missed a comedy character, one of those, he’s-just-there-for-the-laughs kind of roles.

For some reason I’ve never liked Dermot Mulroney and his stupid face. Maybe it’s because in real life he’s married to Catherine Keener.

All in all give The Family Stone a miss, as I’m sure you were intending anyway.

Jonathan Ross's review has wound me up enough to add some more.

"Luke Wilson is splendid..." the reliable Luke Wilson turns in a laid back performance playing a character with no real depth who goes from creepy weirdo to romantic hero with no stops in between.

"Diane Keaton...beautifully restrained and understated..." it helps to be understated if your character is underdeveloped. Keaton's character is the focal point for all the other characters to come together, but this is never fully explored and what should have been a touching story thread seems clumsily handled.

"Sarah Jessica Parker's excellent performance as the brittle, unlikeable newcomer..." SJP puts in a perfectly fine performance, her character's 'unlikeable' qualities come mainly during a ham-fisted bit of dialogue as she gets herself into deep water with the family over some apparently homophobic comments. However by this point in the film the family already hate her and all seem to fly into a rage at what comes across as someone failing to find the right words to make an ill advised comment.

Don't let the quality actors or familiar setting and storyline in this film fool you. It's a badly orchestrated attempt at a feel good family film. It features a clip of Judy Garland in Meet Me in St Louis and that's the kind of film it would like to be, but it's much closer to the Home For the Holidays camp.

50 Years 50 Gadgets

PC World polled their editors and came up with The 50 Greatest Gadgets of the Past 50 Years. Numbers one and two should be no surprises. The article links to longer histories of various items.

'I'm not Jon Stewart.'

Here’s a good article on Craig Ferguson and The Late Late Show.

Happy New Rant


A lot of talk about the death of the sitcom over Christmas, including a very pompous article in the Radio Times by a TV critic whose name I can’t recall.

This to me seems to be a contrived debate about nothing in particular; a classic chattering classes BBC style non-issue debate.

Considering recent shows like The Office, Father Ted, Still Game and Spaced have been excellent and well received critically what is this discussion about? Because to me it seems to be about the way sitcoms are produced, shot and sold to audiences, which is not what we should be talking about. The only criteria should be whether or not the show is funny.

Shows like Armando Ianucci’s The Thick Of It demonstrate that the sitcom is not dead, merely as it ever was, evolving.

The fact that this show doesn’t have “mass appeal” or a particularly broad approach is simply recognition of the fact that broadcasting has fundamentally changed, something even people who write for the Radio Times don’t seem to be able to grasp.

The reason why there are no new Dads Armys is simple. Back then, your only other choice was ITV or a book. Your humour had to be broad, because you were aiming at the dead centre of the British public. Now you have to know your demographic.

The so-called traditional sitcom still exists and still gets ratings – the likes of My Family and My Hero are awful, but get an audience, so what’s the real issue?

There is an issue certainly about how bad sitcoms in this country have become but you only have to look to the US to see excellent shows like Arrested Development and Curb Your Enthusiasm existing squaring within the parameters of the traditional. So the idea that the sitcom is dead is merely hyperbolic balderdash; an unhelpful and inaccurate contribution to the debate on the decline of Televised British Comedy.

I personally blame the cowardice, ineptitude and tendency towards nepotism that pervades the television industry in general for a decline in standards that has been obvious in all branches of British television, particularly news coverage, not just the humble sitcom.

Regarding that decline in standards, I have to nail my colours to the mast and say enough is enough with these Jerry Springer style panel shows.

I had the gross misfortune to catch some of The Jeremy Kyle Show last night and my God, what obnoxious filth it is.

I am heart sick of smug, careerist wankers like Kyle encouraging Britain’s least intelligent people to parade their personal misery for the entertainment of whoever gets off on this pointless trash.

The idea that everyone somehow deserves to be the star of the show, to have their 15 minutes has to be challenged, especially when your 15 minutes is managed and manipulated in such a way that it makes you look utterly foolish at best.

The participants in Kyle’s farce are plainly encouraged (if not instructed) to “go off on one” when they appear onstage in classic Springer Show tradition and are then subjected to demeaning, condescending advice from a man whose only qualification seems to be that he has a microphone.

“Dave, your alcoholism has destroyed your family, true or false?”

It’s utterly brutal, and that’s essentially what I object to. When did appearing on television become more important that your dignity? How can being ridiculed and harangued in public by a haircut be in any way healthy?

“You won’t like me saying this but you’re demanding respect from your mother. Respect has to be earned”

It truly beggars belief.

It’s a freak show masquerading as a helpful discussion show and isn’t just bad TV, its evil, plain and simple.

I’m all for personal responsibility and of course anyone who agrees to appear on one of these shows has to have some inkling as to what they are letting themselves in for but that is no excuse for this kind of blatant exploitation of obviously vulnerable people.

It’s like watching bright folk poke thick folk with sticks and everyone involved should be thoroughly ashamed of themselves.