Eek!
I've been inadvertantly sucked into a reality show. Channel Five's Make Me A Supermodel is currently running far too many times a week, and with Sky+ it's all too easy to keep up. This is the second series, and it is what it sounds like: 12 lithe, self-absorbed individuals battling it out to be the best at walking in some clothes. It's amazing how quickly you get dragged down to its level: "Look! He's really good at putting one foot in front of the other! She's really goot at wearing trousers!" There's nothing profound about it. Funny-lookin' Rachel Hunter leads a panel of harsh judges that includes a bossy woman from a model agency, ker-azy photographer Perou (whom I once went to LA with to interview and photograph Marilyn Manson - a gentle chap, but he looks frightening in all those Gothic rings and his wraparounds and he was wearing two-foot rubber platform brothel-creepers and I was glad I wasn't sitting next to him on the plane) and dapper editor of GQ, Dylan Jones (how he finds the time to put his magazine together I do not know). Plus, an assortment of ugly-looking, style-free fashion and style professionals whose main advice to the hapless future clothes-rails is, "Work it!" (One of them actually said, "Work that hat!") I'm not promoting this show as a must-see - they're four evictions through it already, with only eight to go - but it's morbidly fascinating. And nobody's watching it. It's definitely not water cooler television. Tuesday's episode fell from 700,000 viewers last week to 484,000 this week, a 2.1% share for the sixth of 24 episodes. Its viewing figures are positively anorexic.

Marvel at Albert's dead eyes! Guess how long before Kerrie starts crying again! Guess how long before James refers to being gay and "separate from the other guys"! Shiver at the frigid, ruthless sight of Swedish Marianne! Place bets on how long before Jen hits somebody for looking at her thighs! Wonder if Waz will say anything that sounds like a statement rather than a question?! (Yes, there is someone called Waz on it.)

I hereby put figurative money on Luke winning. Like anybody cares. Work that remote.

To the Riverbank Park Plaza on London's Albert Embankment (short walk from Vauxhall Station) for the MDAs and the MJAs, that's the Magazine Design Awards and the Magazine Journalism Awards, combined for the first time to create a fairly typical industry bash with 22 perspex logos handed out after a perfunctory mass-catering dinner at which the vinegary wine runs out before the hard bread rolls have been eaten. I'll be honest, this was a nice break from book-writing exile. I went out for breakfast with Phill Jupitus in Old Compton Street at 10.30 at a lovely upmarket cafe called Balans (three-egg omelette with ham, mushrooms and mozzerella), which was an entirely pleasant occasion. I also had a meeting this afternoon with my friends at TCM, Tuner Classic Movies, for whom I am hosting the Classic Shorts Awards again, next week at the NFT, just to run through order of events, so I was up and down, in and out all day. It was nice to do a bit of walking. All too sedentary, the author's life.

Anyway, I was invited to the MDA/MJAs, thrown by trade magazine Press Gazette, by my benefactors Radio Times, who had entered me, without my knowledge, for Reviewer Of The Year. I had been shortlisted. I didn't expect for a moment to win, and this was not false modesty, but it would have been rude not to get the suit dry-cleaned and show my face. Half of the awards were for design, half for journalism. My category looked like this:

Andrew Billen, New Statesman
Andrew Collins, Radio Times
Boris Johnson, GQ
Kieran Long, Icon
Matt Master, BBC Top Gear Magazine
Ben Walters, Time Out London

Now, in my opinion, Andrew's Billen's TV reviews in the NS are in a category of their own: possibly the only really essential TV writing outside of Mark Lawson in the UK media. Not since Clive James in the Observer or Paul Morley in Arena has television been so lovingly, intelligently and incisively covered in print. I look forward to his column every week. I confess I have never read Boris's car reviews in GQ (my new friends at Top Gear who shared Table 16 with the RT overspill, tell me that Boris often returns his cars with dents in), nor any of the other nominees. I met Matt Master, as he was sitting opposite me, and we agreed to root for each other, since we are both owned by BBC Worldwide. In the event, the best man won: Andrew Billen. It was, in fact, a memorable night for the newly-revamped, modest-circulation NS, as they almost swept the board, winning just about every design award going, plus Exclusive Of The Year for their political editor Martin Bright, and a commendation in Columnist Of The Year for Peter Wilby. Only Grazia equalled it for gongs, bafflingly enough (unless fooling the public into thinking you're something you're not is a consideration), with GQ a close second. (It was nice to see my old NME and Q pal and former Loft member Bill Prince on the GQ table beforehand - where he is still deputy editor - another good, social reason to attend such an otherwise gruelling event.)

RT didn't win anything, despite nominations for Best Design, Best Subbing Team and Best Cover (the Daleks and Cybermen one, in case you're interested, and unless you're "in the industry", you're entitled not to be). But it was good to see them all, including the venerable Andrew Duncan, who was walking with a stick after a recent accident. Main drawback to the evening? The sheer density of carcinogenic smoke on my bloody table. I was literally hemmed in by smokers: all four of my RT colleagues, plus most of Top Gear, who in line with the programme they are branded after, look death in the face and laugh. It was, if I may say so, disgusting. The smoke screen and the excrutiating a capella soul group, The Magnets, who were our "entertainment", hastened my teetotal exit when it was all over.

But not before what turned out to be an actual piece of "networking." (Use of the very phrase nauseates me slightly, unless it's the fag smoke.) I was moved to go over the victorious NS table, already carousing with champagne and their backs sore from slapping, to state for the record that Andrew Billen deserved to beat me. He seemed unsurprisingly bamboozled by my fan-like behaviour, but it was sincere, and from a peer of sorts, and not a drop of drink had been taken on my part. (Drink at these dos and you end up sucked into banging the table and being a corporate dick.) I think a good TV critic needs telling, and I was happy to have done so. Anyway, before slipping away and leaving them to it, I was accosted myself by Martin Bright, their award-winning political editor, who declared himself a fan of mine. How topsy turvy this all was! I batted back the adoration and explained that I was an NS subscriber of long-standing, and then he told me I should write for them. I informed him that I had, in the distant past, written a piece about Billy Bragg and a couple of reviews, but under previous regimes, so he demanded that I meet their editor, John Kampfner, who probably had carousing to be getting on with, but was polite enough to engage me in conversation and give me his card.

So, I walked back to Vauxhall Station with a possibly champagane-fulled and certainly vague NS offer of work in my wallet, and a deep strata of smoke in my dry-cleaned suit and poor old asthmatic lungs. We'll see if John Kampfner remembers me in the morning, when I turn up at their offices demanding work!

At last!
The little-seen BBC3/BBC2 comedy Grass, starring Simon Day, is finally coming out on DVD. All eight episodes (plus exclusive audio commentary on two episodes by Simon and myself) available as part of this post-Fast Show box set from November 6, which also houses two series of Swiss Toni and Ralph & Ted. I wish it was available as a stand-alone DVD - and there are plans for such a release in the new year, I believe - but for now, at least it's out in the public domain, ripe for either reassessment, or just plain old assessment. Compensation for the frankly random way Grass was scheduled on BBC2 in 2003. Not the first time this has ever happened to a programme, of course, but that kind of treatment is usually reserved for US imports, or ratings failures, and Grass didn't even have chance to become a failure - it was on at different times every week on Saturday night, some might say a self-defeating tactic for a serial, which is what it was. (You might equally say that making a serial comedy is self-defeating, but Grass is in some ways the polar opposite to Not Going Out - no audience, no laughter, heavy on story development, lighter on gags and punchlines, and shot mostly on location in the beautiful Norfolk countryside.) Anyway, must get back to work, but I'm delighted it's finally coming out.

This is a book. It is my next book. It looks very nice and is already advertised on Amazon. It is coming out in May 2007, apparently. However, I haven't finished writing it yet. Indeed, I must finish writing it by November 1 when my publisher expects to read it. Which is why I may not be posting much in the way of blog over the next couple of weeks. I hope you understand. I've also spent two days in bed, ill, and I'm behind schedule. Back to work.

Ker-ching!
So, Google have bought YouTube for $1.65 billion, or "almost 900 million quid". I'm a late starter to this latest craze, I'll be honest, but this very morning, my life was made easier and cheaper by YouTube.


This week, for Radio Times film section, from the available selection of films that are on television next week, I had elected to write my Classic Movie Moment about From Dusk Till Dawn. I usually choose a film for this feature from my own DVD collection. I picked this one mainly because I like it, but also because I was convinced that I have it. Unfortunately, I must have had it on video, and before the move, as regular readers will know, the videos went to a number of grateful charity shops. You'll be ahead of me here, but I need to watch the "moment" in question in order to evocatively describe it in 188 words. Thinking I would have to walk down to Blockbuster and rent it, I decided to search on YouTube and yes, the precise scene I wanted was on there, ready to view. Thus, YouTube saved me a walk, about three pounds fifty and at least 15 minutes of my life. It also gave me a warm glow that somebody somewhere would bother to upload the scene in the convenience store in From Dusk Till Dawn where George Clooney says, "Everybody be cool!" and makes a Molotov cocktail from a toilet roll and some lighter fluid.

I hope what makes this site so joyous will not change under its new ownership.

Never done this before either, so here goes:

Good seed
This is really not a great photograph, but it is pictorial proof that, after too long a gestation period, my first bird feeder is now up in the new garden. The 12-port food court. It went up last night, suspended from the branch of a small pear tree by some very thick cord I found at Homebase, at approximately 1800 hrs. And although this event is not pictured, two blue tits became its first visitors at 1143 this morning. The adventure begins.

Two films

At last, getting back into the swing of things. Normal service. Finally been to our new local cinema, which is a 12-screen Odeon, to catch up with Children Of Men, which only the house-move and aftermath have prevented us from seeing sooner. It was an afternoon showing, and there was only one other punter in there. Now I've seen it, I can see why. It's the most singularly depressing film I've seen since my Ingmar Bergman binge about four years ago! Set in Britain 2027, it's a brilliantly recognisable dystopia, with enough that's the same to make the stuff that's different seem all the more possible. The human race has become infertile. No baby has been born for 18 years. Order has collapsed. We have nothing to live for. "Britain soldiers on!" according to isolationist government propaganda. Borders have been closed and immigrants are being rounded up and shipped out (hey, it's a utopian vision of the future for Daily Mail readers!) We have our own Homeland Security! Bexhill-On-Sea is a refugee camp. You have to hand it to director Alfonso Cuaron, his production designers Jim Clay and Geoffrey Kirkland, and cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki: Children Of Men (God, I'm getting quite depressed just thinking about it) is a beautifully realised world. Clive Owen is perfectly cast as the government drone-turned-accidental hero, dropped, all crumpled and smoking, into the middle of it. Michael Caine gets the role of his life as a pot-smoking political cartoonist who lives in the woods. And among all the despair and violence and ennui, a nice touch is that people seem incredibly attached to their pets. Dogs and cats are held dear everywhere. Whether this was in PD James' novel or not, I don't know, but it's a rare touch of warmth in the middle of the misery. I was impressed by the film, and it's very British (there's a car chase, a nail-biting one, that involves a car that won't start rolling down the hill, desperately hoping to achieve a hill start; and when Owen throws himself behind a wall to protect himself during a gunfight, he lands on some refugees already hiding there and says sorry!), but I wouldn't advise you to go and see it unless you're in such a bright, optimistic mood you can take it. (If you haven't see the trailers, which give away the whole plot, you'll enjoy it more, which is why I have refrained from giving it away. Talking of which ...)


Hard Candy, which is due out on DVD in a couple of weeks, also appears to be a depressing, grim prospect. It's a low-budget, no-star, California-set thriller about internet grooming that begins with a letchy 32-year-old photographer meeting up with a precocious 14-year-old girl in a coffee shop after a flirtatious session in a chatroom. He grooms her further by appearing "normal", hitting the right cultural buttons by mentioning Goldfrapp, and buying her an Edward Hopper t-shirt, which she goes into the toilets to try on for him, while he waits outside. Yuck. It's suitably creepy, and full of dread, despite the bright, sunny setting. They go back to his apartment, where his glamour shots of suspiciously young girls adorn the walls. They drink vodka. And that is where I shall shut up. It's best not to know what happens next. The twist comes about 25 minutes in. From there, it's a whole other film. And a very good one. Directed by a first-timer who did some Prodigy and Stone Temple Pilots videos, it's stylish but economically-staged, with great use of colour. It's also unpredictable. It could make a stage play. Hats off to the two actors, Patrick Wilson and Ellen Page (who was, thank heavens, 18 when she shot the film), who keep your attention throughout. Warning: there is a long, gruesome bit in the middle, but sit through it, and you will be rewarded. You don't actually see very much, as with all the best horror. On balance, there's not quite enough material to fill the 100 minutes, but you've got to hand it to all involved, this is an original, thought-provoking piece of talky schlock.

Going nucular!
So, who's more dangerous? This man:



Or these men?



Obviously, only one of them has a nuclear bomb and is an eccentric playboy despot who rules over a totalitarian state that worships him as a tubby deity because he tells them to, but the news that North Korea has tested its first weapon of mass destruction has not only put "the world" in a spin (it's definitely the whole world, the news has checked), but destroyed all pretence towards objective and sensible news reporting at ITN. Hence, Mark Austin (left, who's never looked comfortable in a suit) and Washington correspondent John Irvine (right, just took up the post in April), losing all sense of decorum last night on the ITV News. The facts seem to be that, after years of diplomatic pressure, a bellicose N Korea exploded a nuclear bomb in a mine, perhaps just to piss of S Korea, whose foreign minister has been made UN Secretary General (enjoy those negotiations with your neighbour in the future!). This officially makes N Korea the ninth nuclear power on earth. The other nuclear powers don't seem too happy about welcoming a new member to their exclusive club. Another fact: this affects the balance of power between China, Japan and the other Korea. Where the reporting goes wrong on ITN is the emotive, persuasive way it is put across.

For a start - and my beloved Channel 4 News also do this - anchorman Mark Austin presented the entire programme from Beijing, and kept going on about it. All it meant was that he was stood on a hill in the early morning, rather than sat at his desk or marching up and down the Americanised ITV set in London. So what? We went over to John Irvine in Washington, who was stood in front of Capitol Hill in case you wondered, and whose key billing at least told the top story (that President Bush is very angry, and what he thinks is the only news in town). Irvine emoted and sensationalised wildly, editorialising in Fox News style, and the thrust was one of barely-concealed macho glee that there might be a punch-up, and that America had every right to be cross. Obviously either a big fan of Chris Morris, or he's never seen The Day Today, Irvine said this of the bomb test: "It's a nuclear-sized slap in the face [to President Bush]." Let's run through that again. A nuclear-sized slap. What size is "nuclear"? Is it bigger than an atomic-sized slap? Clearly it's bigger than a conventional-sized slap. John Irvine wrote this sentence and it must have been at least glanced at by his producer, and then he said it, live, to the nation, without a shred of embarrassment.

Back in the studio, again leaving behind common sense, Mark Austin said that because Bush had, in his first State of the Union, identified N Korea as one of his "axis of evil", their nuclear test meant that "his prophecy had come true." Now, was his address a prophecy? Or was it just a convenient grouping-together of rogue states to help create an identifiable "enemy" for the American people at a time of great confusion and invisible foes? Had Bush or his speechwriters actually said, "I predict that N Korea will join the axis of evil," it would have been a prophecy, Mark. We hear a lot about how the N Koreans are kept in the dark with their specially-piped-in news. Ours is supposed to be good. It isn't, is it? It's showbiz.

As usual, I switched off the news knowing less than when I had turned it on. Still, last week's Extras (the Baftas one), which I watched on my Sky+, was the very best episode of the series. It could have stood alone as a half-hour comedy play.

Not Staying In
I hope you don't think me obsessed - and in fact, if I was, you'd have to let me off - but as a self-anointed junkie for overnight TV ratings, I have been on tenterhooks today about how Not Going Out fared on Friday night. I waited all morning while Media Guardian got their act together. They posted Sunday's up first ("1.7m turn up for Five's live birth"), then Saturday's ("ITV all-of-a-quiver as Robin Hood rides in"), then, finally, at lunchtime, Friday's - by which time I'd had advance word from Avalon - "Taggart sees off BBC1 sitcom."

Over to them:

Taggart sees off BBC1 sitcom
Julia Day
Monday October 9, 2006
MediaGuardian.co.uk

"BBC1's new Friday night sitcom Not Going Out lost out in the ratings on its debut outing to ITV1 favourite Taggart. Written by and starring standup comedian Lee Mack, the sitcom was watched by 2.8 million people, a 13.9% share of the available audience at 9.30pm, according to unofficial overnights.

"Along with the 10 O'Clock News, it was the only part of the evening from 8pm onwards where BBC1 didn't win the ratings battle, when the second part of Taggart on ITV1 proved a bigger draw, with an average of 4.2 million tuning in, a 20.7% share. BBC1's EastEnders, the Green Green Grass, Outtake TV, Friday Night With Jonathan Ross and the movie Road Trip all proved the most popular choice from the nation's sofas on Friday night. Jonathan Ross continues to show Channel 4's Charlotte Church how to handle a chatshow. His show was watched by 3.8 million viewers and attracted a 27.6% share between 10.35pm and 11.35pm, while hers gained a 1.3 million audience and 7.3% share between 10pm and 10.55pm.

"On BBC2, Gardener's World was watched by 3.1 million viewers, a 14.6% share between 8.30pm and 9pm and the Galapagos series managed to hold on to Monty Don's audience through to 9.50pm. The second instalment from the islands garnered a 15% share."

So there you have it. The people have spoken. Apparently it was 2.9 million at its peak, so those who agree with Clare and Steve in the post below but don't have any connection to me probably switched off or over. I'm pretty sure 2.8m is respectable for a new show without a major TV star in it, and we were never going to beat Taggart. Perhaps it'll do better next week, when it comes after the first in a new series of Have I Got News (I'm not a scheduler, but I would have run these in the same first week, rather than staggered), or even in week three, after Lee has been on Jonathan Ross. I understand Jack Dee's Lead Balloon is the highest-ever watched comedy on BBC4 with 383,000 viewers. It's all relative. For me, I just measure the programme's success in smiles.

I have had an allen key in my hand again. I suppose it is a prerequisite of moving house. When we moved from a furnished, rented flat into our first house back in 1997 I found myself on my hands and knees a lot, assembling a small catalogue's worth of Ikea furniture with pornographic-sounding names. It was cheap and handy and presentable and we lived quite near Croydon. Also, all snobbery aside, I liked Ikea furniture. I still do. Ikea has its downsides - the tyranny of their lightbulbs being the most obvious, the fact that normal mattresses don't fit their beds, and their shops can be strength-sapping when they're busy. (Also - new thrill! - they now charge 70p if you want to use a Visa card.) But one problem I've never had with Ikea is putting the stuff together. In fact, I love putting it together! I find the instructions clear, and I've never had a missing screw or piece of dowell. Today, I assembled this ...



... in 50 minutes flat. (Actually, it started out flat, but ended up, 50 minutes later, bathroom chest-shaped; width: 40 cm; depth: 40 cm; height: 125 cm.) It's called an Aneboda. I like the ones that require not just the allen key, but also a selection of screwdrivers and a hammer. Last week, I assembled this ...



... in about 10 minutes. (It's only four bits of wood, but still.) It's called a Mikael. In neither case did I end up stressed or confused. In both cases, I ended up with a nice piece of furniture that cost remarkably little and which I didn't have to have delivered. I don't mention this so that you are impressed by me - although I am impressive - but to dispell the myth that Ikea furniture is difficult to assemble. It isn't. And you get a free allen key with every purchase!

This is not intended as advertising for the Swedish store. There's much nicer furniture out there in the world. But not having erected any for so long, I'm infused with enthusiasm for their methodology. I've never eaten their food though. I rather suspect you have to assemble it yourself.

BBC1, 9.30
That's it. I am no longer able to objectively view this programme. It went out, after Anne Robinson's Outtake TV, at the same time as Galapagos on BBC2, Taggart on ITV1, The Best Of The Worst on C4 and The All-Star Talent Show on Five. Presumably viewership will have been down in households that take the Observer. In the same slot last week, one-off Lenny Henry comedy drama vehicle Berry's Way scored 3.2 million viewers, matched by Galapagos with 3.2, and beaten by Rebus (your Taggart equivalent) with 5.3. Ratings shouldn't matter. On BBC1 on Friday night, they matter.

Hey, hey. I laughed at the jokes I didn't write (I wish I could claim the "self-harms/sell farms" line, but I cannot), and I thought the cast were very good. I wish the bloody credits didn't whizz past so fast and illegibly though, not just for me, but for all the people who worked on it.

A day in the life
As part of my contract as Radio Times film editor, I help oversee The Radio Times Guide To Films, a new edition of which is published each year, with around 500 new entries. I don't edit it. That would be a near-full-time job. But I act as a contributing editor and King Solomon figure in star-rating debates. Also, I am expected to act as its mouthpiece and ambassador and promote it. Hence, I got picked up by a car at 6.15am this morning and whisked to White City, where I was installed in a basement store cupboard with an ISDN connection and supplied with fruit, salad, water and decaffienated coffee for the best part of eight solid hours while I talked to every local radio station with five, ten or fifteen minutes to fill about The Radio Times Guide To Films 2007, and in particular, the 100 Landmark Films, a confection we cooked up to help sell the book to, well, local radio stations. (As I did not tire of saying, it's not the 100 Greatest Films of All Time, it's a chronological map of movies that changed the face of cinema, from 1902 to 2005, Le Voyage dans la Lune to Brokeback Mountain, via The Jazz Singer, Snow White, Bicycle Thieves, Singin' In The Rain, A Hard Day's Night, Deep Throat, Tron and Blair Witch.) Here is my itinerary:

0708 Radio Lancashire (with Tony Livesey, the bloke off of the Daily Sport and clips shows)
0715 Radio Hereford
0722 Radio Wales
0730 Radio Manchester (with Terry Christian, ey, no, alright, ey, ey)
0738 Radio Leeds
0752 Radio Kent
0808 Radio Sheffield
0815 Radio York
0822 Radio Scotland (presented by Gary Robertson, I think, along with a seemingly very bitter film critic called Eddie Harrison, I think, from the Glasgow Metro who decided to lay into me personally over what did and didn't make the Top 100, based chiefly on films that he really likes - always a strong criteria for a list in a published film guide - that weren't in it: "One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest - not in the list; Requiem For A Dream - not in the list; Y Tu Mama Tambien - not in the list; Hidden - not in the list etc." I didn't have time to deal with each case individually, it was a very short piece, but I did get to express my astonishment that I was being so aggressively attacked at 8.30 in the morning! Maybe he was once turned down for work at Radio Times, or maybe they'd asked him to present "the opposite view" in the name of balance - after all, a list in a book is not something that should go unchallenged)
0830 Radio Suffolk
0838 Radio Stoke
0852 Radio Jersey
0900 Radio Oxford
0908 Radio Peterborough
0915 Radio Berkshire (with Henry Kelly! I suggested that Butch Cassidy And The Sundance Kid portrayed a "tender" relationship between two men years before Brokeback Mountain and he said, "Yes, but they weren't gay, were they?")
0922 Radio Coventry & Warwickshire (with my 6 Music mucker Liz Kershaw in her day job - that was nice)
0930 Break
0945 Radio Hereford & Worcester (presenter was held up in traffic and the slot had to be moved back)
0950 Break (during which I wrote my Film of the Week copy for ... Radio Times!)
1100 Radio Cleveland
1115 British Forces Radio (a nice woman called Hermina Graham, who correctly identified the lack of World War II films in our list, and suggested two excellent additions, which I can't argue with: In Which We Serve and Airplane- I liked the cut of her jib)
1130 Radio Cumbria
1150 Radio Hereford & Worcester (presenter, Tony Fisher, found a spare studio - this was a pre-record for later in the day, in common with one or two others, which tended to be longer slots)
1200 Radio Solent
1215 Lunch
1300 Radio York (presenter Adam Tomlinson running late; didn't get to me until 1310, at which we reorganised for 1330)
1315 Radio Norfolk (camp bloke, didn't catch his name, nice fella)
1330 Radio York
1345 BBC Asian Network (really nice, off-the-cuff woman called Nikki Bedi, who didn't take me to task for the lack of Bollywood films in the Landmarks list, instead sounding impressed that I'd even heard of Devdas, which is at least reviewed in the book!)
1400 Radio Northampton (with Pete Cooper - like coming home, naturally - off-air, he told me that he'd just been the launch of the Deco Theatre panto, Snow White, at which star Gillian Taylforth didn't turn up!)
1415 Radio Jersey (again? I was all over Radio Jersey today)
1430 Radio Merseyside (Linda McDermott, with whom I've chatted on many an occasion)
1450 Radio Southern Counties (with Tommy Boyd - a terrific way to end the day, on my second wind)

And that's it! 28 separate radio interviews, covering largely the same ground (how did we choose the 100?, what's Deep Throat doing in there?, what would be my personal choice as the most landmark film? etc.), spread evenly around this great nation of ours in a world-class piece of military planning by RT's press officer Neelam, all in the cause of telling people that The Radio Times Guide To Films is in the shops and also available by sending off via the magazine and saving two pounds fifty-one pence off the RRP of twenty two pounds fifty - much cheaper on Amazon, of course, but it's not my job to promote them.

Cab home at 1500. Home by 1555, totally mentally drained. I love BBC local radio. Hats off to Nikki Bedi for bringing up Not Going Out too.

Sky+ = the future
OK, so we moved into a house that already had a Sky dish and a Sky hole in the wall, so we thought, "Why not?" and after years of cable-based resistence, signed up with Mr Murdoch. Not only that - and you'll be ahead of me here - we did the sensible thing and got Sky+, and guess what, it's a revolution in the hand. I can't tell you how many times people have sworn by Sky+ and said that once you've had it, you'll never look back. (Just a few less than have told me to watch The Wire.) Well, unfortunately, getting Sky+ means the chances of me watching my Wire DVD are now much, much slimmer. Who needs DVDs when you can record 40 hours of telly digitally and watch it whenever you like without having to label up tapes and risk taping over things? You can even - and you'll be ahead of me here - record entire series!

Anyway, the long and the short of it is, I've been watching some telly programmes on different days to when they were actually on. (And, yes, I've been through the pain of accidentally deleting a programme with a hasty slip of the finger instead of selecting it for play. I'm sure everybody does that.) Let's rattle through them: Extras, episode three, easily the strongest of the otherwise slightly disappointing second series (I say disappointing not in terms of performance or pathos or jokes, merely in terms of credibility: I don't believe Andy would have his own BBC1 sitcom, not without any past form, and they certainly wouldn't let him star in it - this pulls the rug out from under the entire premise, whereas the first series made clever and profound points about the biz by being rooted in reality), and I really liked Daniel Radcliffe; The Stiff Records Story, an absolutely gripping biog of the pub rock label with strong, relevant, valid, first-hand talking heads except Jonathan Ross (did his wife's production company make it?) and lots of fabulous archive of the Stiff tours in particular - a BBC4 gem; Spooks, episode four, terrific series, as rude to the Labour government as ever, and there's romance brewing between Harry and Ruth, that may end in tears, if not grim death; Cracker, two-hour one-off, great to see Robbie Coltrane's bulk back on screen, and his family too, but even though Jimmy McGovern's desire to make broad political points is laudable, this one was just an inferior retread of the Robert Carlyle one, with Hillsborough replaced by Northern Ireland and September 11 - nevertheless, still a cut above most ITV drama, and strong performances throughout (having said that, I can never look at Fitz's son in the same way again since Nine Songs); Say No To The Knife, an appalling BBC3 makeover show that we never watched through, in which two young, attractive women with mental problems were talked out of having surgery on their non-existent physical defects by a patronising pyschologist and a patronising fashion woman.

And that's it. For now. Note to self: yellow button = delete.

Thanks to Dave for pointing out that the BBC have now launched a dedicated Not Going Out webpage, which has a reasonable amount of info, but more importantly, clips! Worth a look if you want to test the waters and see if Nicole Jackson is right or not. Of the two, the one with Megan and Tim is possibly funnier, but weird out of context. All yours.

Today is Sunday. The sitcom Not Going Out is on Friday. Henceforth, it received its all-important first previews in today's newspapers. This was different to last Tuesday, the day the listings magazines came out, as apart from the editorially rigorous Radio Times, they don't devote an awful lot of energy to criticism. It's usually a picture and a precis of the plot, and we had plenty of those, thanks to a lucky roll of the dice in terms of what else is on (ie. not much that Friday night). But the ever-expanding Sunday papers fancy themselves something rotten and like to tell you what you're supposed to think in advance, with TV reviewers a particularly untrained and frustrated lot, little more than staff hacks given something to do. (As I always say, theatre critics and art critics are expected to have some kind of training or at the very least knowledge of their subject, but hey, fuck it, everybody watches telly, so how hard can reviewing telly programmes be?) Henceforth, trawling through the papers at 6 Music today in preparation for our news review was filled with a sense of trepidation. Previews can, after all, be more damaging than reviews.

To be honest, Lee and I always told ourselves this wasn't a critics' sitcom. And certainly the Observer proved that to be the case. Unfortunately, it was the first one I read this morning. Whoever Nicole Jackson is, she wrote this:

"Anyone who has experienced the genius of Seinfeld will attest to the fact that, provided you have fantastically brilliant characters who are brought to life by fantastically brilliant actors, plot in a sitcom does not need to amount to very much. But you cannot have a terrible script and terrible acting and no story. Well you can, but then you end with something like Not Going Out, a disastrous new six-part series that's calling itself a comedy but has forgotten the jokes."

I won't go on. It also "looks horrifically cheap" and has had "one pound fifty" spent per episode. That, you see, is Nicole Jackson's idea of a joke, to vastly underestimate how much has been spent on an episode to the point that it's actually so low it's mad. We must therefore take her word for what's funny and what's not funny. She is also happy to use the phrase "fantastically brilliant" twice, which rather suggests she is 12. Hey - no more low blows. She's just doing her job. She doesn't like our sitcom. Fair enough. "Remember," she adds. "You'll never get that half-hour of your life back." An original thought, and one that falls down when you remember that she was paid for the half-hour she spent watching it.

The Independent hadn't troubled themselves watching it, as their listing was just the plot. Likewise, the News Of The World's Big On TV supplement. The Mirror's Celebs spoke of "hilarioius shenanigans" but I suspect they hadn't watched it either. The Telegraph's Seven magazine made if Pick Of The Day, with a large picture of Lee, and devoted a couple of hundred words to contextualising his career and analyising the show. Though their anonymous reviewer mentioned "a few groaners" (which of course there are), it balanced that with "amusingly convoluted lines and tasty quips" and called the script "pretty solid". It also said that Lee "carries the whole thing with an effortless charm, while Dodds enjoys herself as his sparring partner." That's certainly the Not Going Out I objectively recognise. Three stars, anyway.

The Mail - or at least their Live supplement, which I wrote a column for, for three weeks last year - were also kind, noting that the main characters "are refreshingly quirk-free and seemingly more normal than the average sitcom resident." But it was the Culture magazine in the Sunday Times that gave us our best notice. Martin James said, "it is to be welcomed," which warmed the cockles. "The show looks good," he writes (hmmm, I thought it looked like one pound fifty had been spent on it), "contains slick dialogue and good gags and has potential." He is also astute enough to notice a "peculiar pervasive mid-Atlantic tone", naming Friends as a stylistic touchstone. He's bang on. Even if the stings and the big apartment set don't quite ring true, at least they echo a US sitcom, and misguided or otherwise, this was an early ambition of Lee's, even when we just writing it.

Clearly, Martin James and Nicole Jackson saw the same preview tape and felt differently about the programme. That's criticism. That's subjective opinion. That's the bear pit. On balance, we had more positive (or not-negative) previews than howlers. It's back in the lap of the gods again now. And then the day after it goes out, we're back in the bear pit.

Last word to Nicole Jackson, just to prove there are no hard feelings:

"Not Going Out should be renamed Aaagh, Immediately Leave Your House As Soon As This Comes On."

Boom boom!