8.1.20 Absolute Cock of the Day

This evening's journey on the A19 involved some jousting with a black BMW (what else) and the dangerous shenanigans resulting from the driver's undertaking, attempts to muscle in where there was no room, speeding and tailgating.  At one point I am 8 inches away from the tosser who tried to force me back as he tried to squeeze in the fast lane having zoomed up the inside the to bumper of a car ahead.

CY10 GZA

Wanker With Wheels

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5.1.20 TV Review - 2020 Vision

I have not recently bothered with any sort of review, but the new season of shite on the terrestrial channels for 2020 has brought out some frustrations, and I cannot leg some of the matters go.  Rather, I feel obliged record my feelings on some of the pathetic offerings on the five channels.

Yesterday got underway with the usual diet of cookery programmes, as if these are ever in short supply.  Yes, we could gorge so easily on the multiple servings.

Saturday Kitchen
James Martin's Saturday Morning
John and Lisa's Christmas Kitchen (on the fucking 4th of January!)
Nadia's Family Feasts
Beautiful Baking With Juliet Sear
The Great Festive Bake Off 
Best Home Cook (with Mary Fucking Berry)
Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares USA
Extreme Chocolate Makers

I am not sure if the last one counts, but what the fuck! Yes, the overload of food shite is obvious, especially as this was just for Saturday 4th January, and is for the main channels, not the specialist ones that obsess with one thing.  Sadly, food is the obsession for some this month, who are drawn in by the bollocks that is "Veganuary".  This is giving rise to dollops of pontification, and bias that is giving me a bad stomach ache.  First, let's get the other cooking stuff out of the way:

Mary Berry's Country House Secrets *
Saturday Kitchen Best Bites
Jamie and Jimmy's Friday Night Feast (With Mary Fucking Berry)
Come Dine With Me
Couples Come Dine With Me
MasterChef: The Professionals
The Best Dishes Ever
Gino's Italian Express
Food Unwrapped: New Year Health Secrets
* I don't know if this is food related or not, but she's involved.

Then we have some other food-related offerings, because clearly the nation is obsessed with anything that can be eaten.  There is a subtle and not so subtle theme this week, where programme schedulers have opted to give us double or triple helpings of various shows.  Food is included, as evidenced by Channel 5 and its triple on Sunday 5th.

Secrets Of The Kellogg's Factory
From Coco Pops To Weetabix: Britain's Favourite Cereal
The Wonderful World Of Chocolate
Yes, that's FOUR HOURS of a food-fix, that'll prompt you to sit on your sofa and gorge on anything you can get your teeth on.  Elsewhere, there are other food-related snacks.

Lose Weight And Get Fit With Tom Kerridge
The first of six programmes in which Tom and bore us rigid.

How To Lose Weight Well
The Pritikin diet, the protein-pacing diet, and the plant-based greenprint diet.  Yawn.

Eat Well For Less?
The horrendous and ubiquitous Gregg Wallace serves us more shit, explaining to a thick family that buying cheaper food will save them money.  This week, it's the turn of James and Rianna to learn this golden nugget, and help themselves and their two kids - Tallulah-Belle and Penelope (really?)  What the fuck!

Now over to the aforementioned bollocks that is Veganuary, arguably the worst ever made-up word.  Certainly less appealing than the all-month fuckathon which is Fucktober. 

Veganville - Tue 10:35pm BBC1
Five vegans head to Merthyr Tydfil on a mission to convert meat eaters.  Hardly an Enid Blyton plot, and their tactics are more 'animal rights activist' than 'pacifist plant eater'.

Meat The Family - Wed 9:00pm Channel 4
Families care for farm animals in their homes, and then have to decide whether to eat them or not.  Great concept, Channel 4.  Who commissioned this disastrous crap?

Apocalypse Cow: How Meat Killed The Planet - Wed 10:00pm Channel 4
Yes, hot on the heels of wondering whether to eat Babe or not, we are treated to another dose of animal related foodstuff.

Some of the other double and triple helpings feature all sorts of themes.  There is of course the daily dose from ITV of quizes, and the block-booking of three hours in the schedules.

3:00 Tenable
4:00 Tipping Point
5:00 The Chase

Channel 5 likes a more macabre theme for its double on Tuesday:

10:00 Murdered On My Honeymoon
11:05 Missing Or Murdered: The Disappearance Of Lee Boxell

We already had some boring digging and exploration in yesterday's Channel 5 triple:

7:05 Digging Up Britain's Past
8:00 Tony Robinson's History Of Britain
9:00 How The Victorians Built Britain

Ov aer on ITV yesterday, things were so much worse.  After a double dose of celebrity shit
(a good name for a show, surely?) we had three hours of singing-related shite before another celebrity serving.  Overall, six hours and twenty minutes of awfulness.

5:00 The Chase Celebrity Special
6:00 Celebrity Catchphrase
7:00 The Masked Singer
8:30 The Voice
10:05 Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? Celebrity Special

The ITV Sunday schedule brings together all the aforementioned components for a line-up that is truly horrendous.  Three hours of cooking, then after the news and weather, The Voice, The Masked Singer, Tipping Point, more news and weather, then The Chase Celebrity Special, Dancing On Ice, The Masked Singer and WWTBAM Celebrity Special again.  Basically 13 hours of re-runs and shit.

Elsewhere, some of the random programmes in the TV Guide bring little delight.  Channel 5 at least resisted the temptation of calling Britain's Loudest Snorers "The Great British Snore Off".  BBC2's listing for this afternoon is mildly confusing, as I wonder if they went together:

Holiday Of My Lifetime With Len Goodman With Paralympian Baroness Tanni Grey-Thompson

Portillo is off and running (well, train catching) with the first of his fifteen editions of Great British Railway Journeys.  Yet another programme that forces use of the word "British".  Channel 5 has introduced its own option for railways, with a one-hour-and-fifty minute slog, World's Most Scenic Railway Journey: Minute By Minute.  Then, to really push the boat/train out, we have World's Most Luxurious Trains as well on Channel 5, and hour on Wednesday night.

There are a fair few holiday and home related listings, as below:
BBC2 - Get Away For Winter 
Channel 4 - Sun, Sea And Selling Houses
Channel 4 - A New Life In The Sun - Channel 4
Channel 4 - A Place In The Sun: Home Or Away
BBC1 - Escape To The Country
BBC1 - I Escaped To The Country
Channel 5 - Bargain-Loving Brits In The Sun
Channel 5 - The All-Inclusive: How Do They Do It?

I have seen the BBC2 programme The Baby Has Landed, but was totally unaware that Jonny Wilkinson had even drop-kicked it.

Wednesday night on BBC1 sees two crappy programmes; Eating With My Ex followed by My Mate's A Bad Date.  I am not even going to bother you with details of the content of either.

I am not going to bother watching Thursday night's Channel 5 programme at 11:05pm.  I'd watch Debbie Does Dallas, but somehow Eamonn & Ruth Do Monte Carlo holds no attraction at all.  Meanwhile, on Channel 4, there is some nudity in the line-up, with a triple offer:

10:00pm - Naked Attraction
11:00pm - Naked Beach
12:00 - Sun, Sea And Surgery

The last of these was mentioned gratuitously by me, as it piqued my interest.  Elsewhere, I have zero interest in the Channel 5 Secret Scotland With Susan Calman on Friday night.  The write-up confirms that she will take a "500-mile trip around the northernmost parts of Britain".  The Proclaimers spring to mind.

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2.1.20 Festive Times

As ever, I have completed by review of the TV Choice guide, regarding the excessive use of the word 'Festive', and the pages are again littered with the adjective.

This year, ITV stole the crown from Channel 4 as the most festive of the main five channels, and the word featured 103 times over the 21 days reviewed.  That's an average of 4.9, up from the previous record of 4.24.

The other thing to point out is that 76 uses of festive occurred from 14th to 25th December, and only 27 after Christmas Day.  Thus, there is a very clear decline in 'festivity' once Christmas kicked in - which is odd.

Happy New Year

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25.12.19 MasterChef ShitShow

As a starter, here are some pathetic utterances in the world of food, just to get you going.  As Bamber Gascoigne would have said, "Your starter for ten".  A programme on Food Network has provided the sustainable source for this post.

There is a few more ingredients to add - woman (Gizzi) on the Food Network channel
Boil it up - her again
So it's super super smooth, and to get it extra smooth .... -  her again
Reduce it down - a different woman (Lisa Faulkner) this time, same channel, same shite
Chop it through - Matt, joining in with the shit
I'm gonna flavour this up - Jun Tanaka on the same show

However, the focus of my attention now is the BBC main course of MasterChef.  There are different versions - Re-Match, Celebrity, Kids, etc.  But the standard version offers nourishment enough in terms of verbal bollocks.  Yes, aside from the extended coverage of apron tying (which of course can quite legitimately now be a contender for inclusion in the Olympics, such is the prevalence of the sport) and the face-pulling creepiness of Gregg Wallace, there is an inordinate amount of contentious rubbish spoken by all.

MasterChef  has recently given us so much in the way of crap.  I've sat and listened to weird activities like "frying off"  and "saucing the plate".  Thicko Gregg Wallace of course is exuberant (my gentle term to comment on his scary facial expressions and runaway mouth) and while performing on his other TV show in various factories each week, treats us to grammatical flops like "How many ingredients goes into a mince pie".  Monica Galetti is not immune from criticism, herself capable of "saucing the plate" and pointless use of the word "cookery", while all the time retaining an awareness of how flavours "cut through" something else.  Sean Pertwee whispers, purrs and fucking annoys throughout these shows, trying to be oddly seductive with his explanations and observations on the kitchen activities.  He is far from excused, as his own waffle includes so many servings of crap, such as:

It was marinaded - Sean Pertwee
While Stu roasts off his cabbage - Sean Pertwee

But, folks, the MasterShit talker on MasterChef this series has proven to be Marcus Wareing.

His relentless chatter contains numerous faux pas, and aside from his addiction to the forced use of the work "cookery" at every possible opportunity (instead of "cooking"), he cannot seem to avoid talking about how things have been executed.  This is not in reference to the wringing of a chicken's neck or the stunning and throat cutting of a larger animal (sadly not Gregg) but the fairly normal activity of cooking.  "Executing cookery" does not cunting exist!

What you want to do with the shallots is sweat them down - Marcus Wareing
To sort of mellow the curry flavour down - Marcus Wareing
I asked you to butcher down the chicken - Marcus Wareing
You don't want too much temperature - Marcus Wareing
It's been marinaded - Marcus Wareing
They've been marinading - Marcus Wareing
I like how it was sauced in the middle - Marcus Wareing
The cookery of the guinea fowl is outstanding - Marcus Wareing

There is much more in the pot, but you get the point.  Spare prepositions are sprinkled randomly into conversation, tautology is rife, and butter has to be in everything (according to Gregg).  Monica has toned down her eyebrow movements and facial expressions, passing the spare capacity to Gregg, who can scare kids at 1000 paces.  As he leers into the screen, Marcus models greasy hair and Monica toys with whether to wear her glasses or not.  It all takes far too long and I still struggle with the fact that chefs are routinely asked to do extra tasks, like cook in a famous restaurant for a famous chef whom no one knows, yet their efforts are not scored and no account of their efforts is taken in deciding who goes through to the next round.  I have nothing more to say, other than in respect of the unfortunate death of the word "dish".  It is now abused to cunting fuck, over used, and misused.  The knock on effect is that the once intriguing "Dish of the Day" term is sadly antagonistic.

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24.11.19 The Grand Old Duke Of York

It seems that not only is Prince Andrew now exposed as a more than dishonourable man, he has been shown to have no idea what counts as truthful.  Aside from his own actions and flaws, it seems he has continued to allow influence from his awful ex-wife, Sarah Ferguson and one of the two offspring.  Yes, as well as Amanda Thirsk, a misguided adviser who has in fact served the public so well in pressing Andrew to speak out via the BBC, both Beatrice and Sarah encouraged him and helped with the planning of the interview.  These two have ended up making positive contributions to the public's awareness of the Duke of York's deeds etc.  I normally bemoan the 'freeloading' that is permanently associated with all of the Yorks, but it now seems appropriate to highlight the help these two have given to the exposing of what needed to be exposed.

The knock-on effects of course includes the fallout for the other three Yorks.  Far from a 'clearing of the air' ahead of Beatrice's wedding, the outpouring of arrogance and up-his-own-arse-ness will most certainly cause a shrinking of the public's tolerance of them all (if having no effect on their actual feelings of entitlement).

Apparently Beatrice has been crying all week, in the aftermath of the interview and the public's reaction.  What about the tears of all of those coerced and abused by Epstein?  Far from putting all the rumours behind them, the interview has brought the house down.  The only conceivable outcome for the Royal Family is an amputation of the horrible foursome all together.

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23.11.19 The Chase

A 'celebrity' version of the chase today featured Natalie Cassidy.  I know; a stretch too far indeed.  Anyway, I was all set to be unimpressed, and I was suitably rewarded.  Sadly for the charity involved, her performance was weaker than I though humanly possible.  Her cash-builder round yielded a total of £2000.  The two questions she got right were Rio de Janeiro for the host of the games, and Jam for what could go in front of Tart and something else.  This from somebody who had claimed in the small talk beforehand that she liked quizes, and was quite good at general knowledge.  How the un-mighty fall.

The embarrassment might have (you'd think) toned down her verbal input and attitude for the further input.  But no - she was up her arse.  Her £2k on the board was added to with offers of £1k for a step lower, and £50k for a step nearer.  She went for the grand.

The questions were able to reveal her ongoing weakness, yet she goaded the Beast without just cause.  Scraping through with the £1k was deemed an achievement by no one in the studio other than Natalie.  Her smugness was nauseating.

3 of the 12 point total were gained by her, with Dave the cook getting the other 9.  Obviously they were caught in a minute.

Crap indeed.

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17.11.19 Three Labour Disasters

There are so very many Labour disasters which I could spout on about, but it would be rather pointless.  Better I give just a brief comment.

Instead of the official opposition being in the driving seat, and perfectly placed to expose the Tory Cunts for what they undoubtedly are, Labour is in disarray.  Corbyn is no doubt a nice chap, but he is in no way fit to be a 'leader' and all that such entails.  His fence sitting is quite utterly amazing, and of course misplaced.  His being at odds with other prominent figures in the party, at odds with official Labour Party policy and at odds with other parties, is all obvious - and well documented.  It is this situation that results in the overall result - he is failing so completely in his approach to presenting a party for the working classes. 

To his right, we have John McDonnell, a complete lunatic; enough said.  Then to his underside, we have Diane Abbott, the most useless minister-in-waiting that the country could wish for.  As a trio, they are simply awful, and to so many people, unelectable.  Removal of the trio would, with perhaps Kier Starmer as leader, would suddenly transform Labour (perhaps with an added nudge to dispense with Emily Thornberry) and give it a chance to contest head to head with Boris Johnson.

Sadly, Labour as a party is misguided, and actually, useless.  That is so sad - appalling in fact - and the consequences are dire for the country.  The Tory front bench is not of the same ilk at all, and collectively the ministers form a cunt-of-a-cabinet.  Lies, deceit, cuntism and greed are combined in a cocktail that is lethal.  The lack of a credible opposition will allow the Tories to walk all over ordinary people.  In the end, the cuntism will be exposed, but by then, it will be way too late, and the UK will have been fucked to the point of no return.

"Oh dear" is the understatement of the post-war times.

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