Month: December 2006

  • Happy Christmas, Reader

  • Lawson Way

    Every year, the residents of Lawson Way in Sheringham, Norfolk, put ever more elaborate Christmas light displays on in their small cul-de-sac. See more pictures of their “tasteful” street here.

  • The Christian O’Connell Show Panto

    Up early for camera duty for the Breakfast Show panto this morning. Great fun with Thandie Newton, David Tennant and Brian Blessed joining the team.

  • Madness

    Baggy Trousers was one of the first pop songs that really made an impact on me back in 1980 or so. I learnt all the words from Smash Hits (or maybe Number One). But I don’t think I’ve seen Madness live before… until last night. Wembley Arena was a heaving throng (far fewer seats than…

  • Saturday Night Telly

    So I had the misfortune to be sniffly with a cold in front of the TV on Saturday night, and having watched Strictly Come Dancing, and Robin Hood, I was not going to join the mindless masses by watching the X-Factor final. My main problem with these programmes is that none of the songs is…

  • Socially Networked Alleged Criminals

    In a 21st century socially networked world, what’s the first thing that any budding journalist should do when they hear about someone being arrested for a crime? Yes – it’s check out whether they have a Myspace page. And I guess you could go on to find out whether they’ve got any photos on Flickr…

  • I Suppose *Someone* Has To Go Out With Them

    Wasn’t this the most disappointing news of the weekend? Yesterday evening Five Live aired Fighting Talk: Any Other Business as a kind of broadcast pilot for a current affairs spin-off of the sports show. There’s another episode next Sunday. Richard Bacon did a good job hosting it, and alongside him were Stewart Lee, Rod Liddle…

  • Copyright Extension

    I wrote at length about the Gower Review the other day, and in particular the section related to music copyright extension. Towards the end I noted that an advert had been published in the FT listing the names of 3,500 – 4,000 people who were in favour of the extension. If you don’t read Boing…

  • Ed Reardon Returns

    I make no apology for mentioning Ed Reardon’s Week once again. Two reasons to mention it this week: 1) The third series starts on Friday morning at 11.30am on BBC Radio 4 with an episode called The Name-Check. Listen live, or listen again! 2) BBC Radio 7 is repeating the first series on Monday evenings…

  • Sports Personality of the Year

    Or SPOTY to its friends, if it still has any. If you care at all about this award, you’ll know that Zara Phillips won on Sunday night. She achieved a lot, and was in my top three, although wasn’t my favourite. There’s obviously a suspicion that the fact that she’s 11th in line to throne…

  • New bits

    Just a note to say that there are a couple of new TV reviews over on the righthand side. I’ve been a bit lackadaisical about these of late. Oh, and hello if you’ve come here via Campaign magazine. Thank you to Kathryn Jacob for mentioning me!

  • The Gower Review

    This week has finally seen the publication of the Gowers Review of Intellectual Property conducted on behalf of the Treasury, and the departments of Trade and Industry, and Cutlure, Sport and Media. All the press reports have been about the need to protect intellectual property rights more rigorously from pirating and counterfeiting. There are also…