This is me, sitting in a self-op studio in the bowels of Television Centre, talking about me. Well, talking about my book, which is about me. I decided to take a self-op picture of myself talking about me for posterity because it is a lonely existence, even though you are talking constantly to presenters at BBC local radio stations. I have done identical sessions to this to promote my other books. It's what you do. It's ritualistic solipsism in the name of commerce. So, yesterday morning, between 0950 and 1310, I did 18 interviews, each of them ten minutes long. BBC Radio Northampton pulled out at the last minute, and BBC Radio Gloucestershire sort of got lost in the ether, but British Forces Radio pulled in at the last minute (cue: "My brother was in the army," I always say that to get on their good side), as did BBC Radio York.

For the record, then:

0950 Newcastle
1000 Hereford & Worcester
1010 BFBS
1020 Stoke
1030 Wiltshire
1040 Three Counties
1050 Derby
1100 break
1110 Manchester
1120 Lincolnshire
1130 break (due to disappearance of Gloucestershire)
1140 Berkshire
1150 Humberside
1200 West Midlands
1210 Coventry & Warwickshire
1220 Kent
1230 Shropshire
1240 Norfolk
1250 Solent
1300 York
1310 Stop talking about myself.

It's exhausting. It's illuminating. It's like a lightning trip round England. A seemingly endless list of producers' names and presenters' names (Alfie, Mike, Nick, Olly, Lorna, Andy, Heather, James, Sarah, Lara, Trish, Bob, Dom, Clare, Karen and Graham, Charlie, Adam), and just ten minutes with each one, whether it's going well or not. Some take flight, others are a little stolid. You do you best to remain animated and if you're me, you call up the station's website first and find a photo of the presenter you're speaking to, which makes it that bit more personal. Inevitably you say the same things, and tell the same stories, but that's because they've all got the same press release and almost none have had time to read the book, so it's your job to fill in the blanks. (Some of them didn't even have a copy of the book! Well done, my publishers!) On the whole, you'd be hard pushed to find a more sparky and upbeat bunch than the footsoldiers of local radio. Since I stopped broadcasting live, regularly, last year, I find I miss the thrill of it. I'm quite jealous of Alfie, Mike, Nick etc., whereas the last time I did this, I had no need to be.

I've also discovered that summing up my book in ten minutes is pretty difficult. Maybe that's why it's been so difficult to sell.

Funnily enough I had a text from Phill Jupitus afterwards, who'd been listening to me talking about me on Radio Norfolk, on his way home from Latitude. We should be on the radio.

The Wire is back for its fifth season. It is on a small cable channel. It is very good. No, really, it's very, very good. If you haven't seen it, and don't have access to FX, the box sets await. If you haven't seen it and are sick to the back teeth of being told by the media that it is either the best or second best TV drama ever made, don't let the loud voices of the converted turn you off. Get the first season on DVD, give it a whirl. Be patient. Keep your ears open. Don't expect neat conclusions. Don't worry if you don't understand what they're saying on first listen. If me telling you this is also bringing you out in a rash ("When will they stop going on and on and on about The Wire?"), step away from the blog. For UK Wire fans, this season - the final one - is the dictionary definition of long-awaited. Unfortunately, for those latecomers among us who devoured the first three or four seasons in box-set form, bingeing on them in twos and threes and more, this season will be long-awaited while it's airing, as we're not used to having to wait seven days between episodes, and in fact, the gaps really slow down the flow. (I loved season four, but watched it in situ, week by week, and frustration really does set in.) So be it. I'm not waiting until it's over before I start watching it.

Can you sense a backlash? (I mean in the media, not in the real world.) It was inevitable. Resist it. What's great about The Wire is its confidence. A new season begins, it's a continuation of the last season. Life, in Baltimore, goes on. Police work, especially in the Major Crimes Unit, is laborious and boring and slow and frustrating. That's the point of the show. God, as one of the new characters at the Baltimore Sun (season five: the Media) notes, is in the details. This show is not about crime, it's about politics at every level: City Hall, the higher echelons of the police, the law courts, the unions, even drug dealing, which is the city's key industry. It's about how these disparate worlds bump along together. There's no central character. McNulty is the closest it comes, but entire episodes go by with no "story" for him. He's still boozing. Still coming home late. Still neglecting the kids. Still bitching and moaning. It's not about McNulty. Nor is it about Carver (who's been promoted to Sergeant), or Omar (who has yet to appear), or Marlo, or Prop Joe, or Bunk, or Greggs, or any of the other living, breathing participants in this living, breathing ecosystem.

So, the first episode has aired. We've met the staff of the Sun. There's politics there, too. They have their fingers in everything. I loved the way they were alerted to the breaking news story about a fire when they saw it out of the window. Bubbles, after finding himself in rehab in season four, is attempting to straighten himself out. Presumably you were as tense every time you saw him as I was? (Perhaps The Wire is, in fact, about Bubbles.) There's no money for the police. It's all going into education. (Season four: Education.) And Homicide are still doing everything they can to amuse themselves while the bodies pile up - including conning one corner boy with a Xerox machine. The scene is set for trouble ahead. The cops are angry. The mayor is in a cleft stick. The reporters are sniffing around a property deal that links just about everybody to everybody else. Nobody can stop swearing. And Bubbles is selling the Sun.

It really is very good.

Do not view the three animated films starring Simon's Cat unless you are a cat person. They will mean nothing to you. I saw the most recent, TV Dinner, on The Culture Show. You have to see them all. (Unless you're not a cat person.) It's not just animator Simon Tofield's keen observations of the human-cat dynamic, it's the noise the cat makes. Genius of the week.

Watch out! Posh sandwich shop Le Pain Quotidien is expanding (it began in Brussels and then went Paris, New York, Los Angeles and now London and beyond), laughing in the face of the credit crunch with its expensive organic coffee, bread and cakes. It's not exactly somewhere you'd pop into regularly, unless money was literally no object, and I wouldn't ordinarily give the nod to a chain that's selling "a lifestyle" or that has a "philosophy", but the atmosphere is nice, the furniture wooden and the cakes quality. The reason I mention it at all is that the logo's starting to bug me. What is it? I'm feeling that there is bread in there, but is the bread the almond-shaped bit bottom left, or the "grainy" looking rectangle that forms the background? And if so, what the hell is the shape in the middle? Let's have a guessing game. It's a lot cheaper than eating in a Pain Quotidien.

Q. What is the Pain Quotidien logo supposed to be?

Points scored for good suggestions, good objections and for actually cracking it.

SORRY FOR SHOUTING, BUT IT'S CELEBRITY MASTERCHEF! AND GREGG AND JOHN ARE NOTHING IF NOT PASSIONATE ABOUT SHOUTING! I LOVE CELEBRITY MASTERCHEF! I KNOW IT'S ONE OF THOSE PROGRAMMES WHERE - HA HA - YOU'VE NEVER HEARD OF THE CELEBRITIES! BUT I LIKE NON-CELEBRITY MASTERCHEF JUST AS MUCH. WHO CARES IF THEY'RE "FAMOUS" OR NOT - IT'S THE COOKING THAT MATTERS, AND I LOVE WATCHING PEOPLE MAKE FOOD! ESPECIALLY IF THEY'RE PASSIONATE ABOUT FOOD!

I can't keep this up. Let's calm down. This is an apt piece of advice, actually, since this year's Celeb Masterchef is a Liverpudlian love-in. Or was, until Louis Emerick (ie. Mick out of Brookside) was let go after a week of semi-finals, leaving just two Scousers: Mark Moraghan (ie. Greg out of Brookside) and Liz McClarnon (formerly out of Atomic Kitten). The token non-Scouser is Andi Peters, billed as the "much-loved TV presenter" rather than the "much-despised executioner of Top Of The Pops." I'd have been happier if he'd been voted out on Friday, as he's a bit soulless and technical for my liking, and way too serious and self-critical. Meanwhile, the three Liverpudlians have been fantastic telly. They really bond. I started to forget that Louis and Mark were actually competing against each other. And, as has already been pointed out, it's the most emotional Masterchef ever, with Mark actually bawling before the decision about the three finalists had been made. Liz was so happy at getting through she was inconsolable, having not actually used the downstairs bit of an oven before coming on the show, but her natural ability has got her through. A lesser commentator than I would call this a "journey." Let's not go there.

Masterchef is such a sound format (originally invented by Franc Roddam, who directed Quadrophenia, trivia fans): it's always been amateur cooks cooking - never mind the change of set, or the introduction of stunt cookery rounds. If anything, they've improved it by adding SHOUTY JUDGES. You can't not love John Torrode and Gregg Wallace and their catchphrases: "It just need a bit of HEAT." "Mate, THAT is what I call a dessert." "It's well-SEASONED, it's well-FLAVOURED." "This is a guy who LOVES to cook!" "It's GOOD, HONEST, home-cooked food." "It's like two different dishes on one PLATE." "I could fall in LOVE with that dessert." "STOP OPENING THE OVEN!" (That's a new one.)

I hope - and predict - that Liz will win. And in the montage accompanying her victory they'll show her cracking the glass with the dessert in it. And Mark will cry all over his GOOD, HONEST, home-cooked food until it is runny and over-seasoned.

On a side note: did anyone read Michael Buerk's account of his failure in the early rounds in the Radio Times? What a miserable, moaning, ungrateful twat. He agreed to do it even though he'd never seen the programme. What a waste of a place. I could have had that place.

Whilst doing some errands in the car today I alighted briefly upon the indie rock radio station xfm. I don't know who the DJ was, but it was the afternoon and he may have been filling in for someone else, but he is obviously the type of DJ who does "prank phonecalls." I bring this to your attention only because it was the worst prank phonecall I have ever heard. I don't know if it was live or not. If it was, then everybody involved must have been shamefaced at its failure. If it was pre-recorded, I have no idea why they put it out. The DJ called the Government Passports and Immigration office and asked this question:

"If somebody is born on a plane that is flying between two countries, what nationality would they be?"

First up, this is not a promising start to a prank phonecall. The DJ wasn't pretending to be somebody else, he was just asking a question. It's not even a stupid question. It's a fair question. And guess what? The nice woman on the other end of the phone answered the DJ's question patiently and informatively. She covered all variables (if the baby was born to two parents and they weren't married, the child would take the nationality of the mother, and so on) and presented the information eloquently and clearly. When she had finished, the DJ, with seemingly nothing more to add to the merriment, said thanks and put the phone down. What a wag! What satire! That'll show the Government Passports and Immigration department! Ask them a reasonable question and they'll ... answer it.

Honestly. The quality of satire in this country. I turned over to Smooth.

In the 22nd Collings & Herrin Podcast, we bring perhaps the most important news story of the year to wider notice, unfathomably buried at the bottom of Page 6 in this week's Sun, and ignored by all the other papers. We also start a campaign to make necrophilia illegal and review the 1983 TV drama Reilly Ace Of Spies. You don't get reviews of 1983 TV dramas on the Cobra Pubcast with Danny Wallace and Dom Joly.

And here is a nice picture that a person called Jonah very kindly made of me and a much less insulting and disrespectful comedy partner:

I shall be deputising for Mr Mark Kermode for three weeks in August, on both Five Live and News 24 (which I think might now be called BBC News - whatever). This means I am now seeing a lot of film screenings. It's always fun to be back in the film critic's saddle, but mainly because I don't have to see all the films every week. That would be a living hell, obviously. Anyway, I'm working my way through the 18 or so I have to see and this week, by chance, I have only seen films with Ben Kingsley in them.

Alright, the film I saw on Monday night had Ben Kingsley in it, and the film I saw last night had Ben Kingsley in it, but that's a 100% record so far. The two films could not have been more different, and stand as testament to the sheer breadth of work "Sir Ben" now does. Monday night's was The Love Guru, already heavily advertised on London buses (and, presumably, other buses in other places) and out on August 1. This is a Mike Myers vehicle, which I daresay I must not review yet due to embargoes, but I will say is not a classic Mike Myers (to the point where I'm finding it hard to remember what was a classic Mike Myers?). Anyway, Ben Kingsley cameos as a cross-eyed Indian guru. It is, to say the least, broad.

The film I saw last night with Ben Kingsley in it was The Wackness, which is released on August 29. This has already been praised at festivals and is one of those much-talked-about indie sleeper hits. (Which has nothing to do with the band Sleeper having a hit.) Again, I won't review it, but it's as good as they are already saying it is: low-key, low-budget, no explosions, no cross-eyed gurus. When I arrived at the screening - which was at the relatively new, and very nice, screening room in the Soho Hotel, tucked away down a cul-de-sac you'd never ordinarily walk down - someone from the film company ushered me into the bar and asked if I'd like to "chat with Ben?" Because it's a small film, my first thought was: oh no, the director, called Ben, is here, and I have to chat to him at a screening of his own film! However, Ben turned out to be ... you're way ahead of me, here ... Ben Kingsley, who was just stood there, near the bar, having a glass of wine with his wife, and son, and son's friend/girlfriend. I didn't even notice him at first. Then the person from the film company took me out of the conversation I was having and introduced me to Ben. (The director's name is Jonathan. He wasn't there.)

Hey, I'm an old hand at meeting film stars. They're actually not film stars, despite all the hoo-ha. They're actors. And actors are insecure, and need a lot of loving. The "star" part is no help when it comes to alleviating an actor's insecurity. I learned this during my two and a half years' service on Radio 4's Back Row, when I must have interviewed at least one, if not two actors a week, some hugely famous (Hanks, Costner, Thurman, Depp, Hopkins, Allen), some less famous and more approachable and off-guard (Morton, Hawke, McGregor, Walters, Seymour Hoffman). However, you at least get the chance to acclimatise when you're interviewing someone. To prepare. Here I was, well, just meeting Ben Kingsley. Chatting to him. In the event, I chatted to him for about five minutes, standing near the bar, me with my shoulder bag on my shoulder and a Marks & Spencer reusable plastic carrier bag in my hand. It was quite surreal. I weighed straight in with the fact that I'd seen him the night before in The Love Guru, and I remarked that mainstream American comedies these days seem to be aimed specifically at an imagined 14-year-old boy. (This was my way of getting out of the fact that I didn't like it - and a very slick way, I think.) He agreed, and said that he'd loved working with Myers, something I don't doubt. It didn't change my opinion of the film, but chatting to him made me remember that actors have no idea what they're getting into - whether the film will work or not work, whether it will be a success or not, whether it will be released at the cinema or not - so their choices are made in the dark. Ben felt like doing a broad comedy, and working with Mike Myers: he succeeded in both. He actually compared Myers to Chaplin, which, in terms of the power he seemingly wields, is not as daft as it first seems. I chatted to Ben about Sexy Beast, which I loved him in, like the rest of the world, and told him that his turn as Don Logan had opened to door for other "serious" actors to be cast as Cockney gangsters in thrillers, such as Ralph Fiennes in In Bruges. He's very proud of Don Logan. And I chatted to him about the film we were about to see, which I'd heard good things about. It was time to go into the screening room before I had chance to compliment him on his performance in The Sopranaos.

He came on to introduce the film, humbly and briefly. He hoped we'd like it. He's clearly very proud of it, in that I don't see him introducing a screening of The Love Guru. (Mind you, if I was Mike Myers I'd not be super-keen to introduce it either. You'll note that Ben does not appear on the poster.) It must surely be agony to watch a film you're in with a roomful of London critics. But he did. He sat it out to the end. And then went back to the bar, with his wife and family and friends, and where I was too humble to follow him and renew our new friendship. (I am, by the way, fully aware of what happened in the bar. But I still enjoyed chatting to Ben Kingsley, for fun. It's possible that he's on a charm offensive, to fend off these rumours that he's a diva and demands to be called "Sir Ben". He certainly succeeded there. Maybe they're out of date rumours and he's cheered up.)

I will still review both films honestly on Five Live and News 24, but it was cool to meet Ben Kingsley. I always used to say on Back Row that the day I wasn't excited about meeting a famous actor was the day I should throw in the towel. I have yet to stop being excited about meeting famous actors. Spare me from ever becoming jaded.

Can you feel the furore? My favourite magazine in the world, the New Yorker, has raised some hackles with its latest cover image: a cartoon of the Obamas in the White House, depicted as, from left to right, a tooled-up Black Power activist and a practising Muslim, with a burning Stars and Stripes in the fireplace and Osama above the mantel. It is a satire upon the various smear campaigns directed at the Democrats' golden couple - directed at them from the right. Thus, the right have been the first to kick up a stink.

For the record, the illustration is by regular cover artist Barry Blitt. It's very good. Well drawn and, to me, funny - in that it makes flesh the right's worst nightmares. And it's called The Politics Of Fear (the title appears on the contents page, as with all cover illustrations). Like all good cartoons, its meaning is clear, without the need to have a newspaper strewn casually on the floor with a headline that helps explain it. David Remnick, editor of the New Yorker, has already put in an early rebuttal, explaining to an outraged world that the readers of his magazine are smart enough to understand what's going on. Imagine running a magazine where you could realistically use that as a defence!

Newsday quotes some Long Island residents. Eileen Hafner, 55, a Republican from Bay Shore, said, "I'm really offended by it. I plan on voting for McCain, but even still, I can't believe they would go there." Another resident, Valeire Melhado, 47, said, "There is nothing funny about it. And the Osama bin Laden painting on the wall in the corner - that just gave me chills."

Gosh, how easily offended Republicans are! "I think the picture depicted them the way they really are," said Denise Demichele, also of Bay Shore, who also plans to vote for McCain. "They're way too militant." Advantage, Remnick! Then, just when you think it's safe to go back in the political water, the Democrats also sling mud. "Oh, lordy," said Jon Cooper, Obama's campaign chairman in Long Island. "I think I have a pretty good sense of humour and I think I'm pretty fair-minded, but this is just beyond the pale ... It's not funny." Bill Burton, an Obama spokesman said, "The New Yorker may think, as one of their staff explained to us, that their cover is a satirical lampoon of the caricature Senator Obama's right-wing critics have tried to create, but most readers will see it as tasteless and offensive. And we agree."

Yes, the smear campaign against Barack and Michelle Obama is certainly tasteless and offensive. (They're black, ergo: they must be dangerous.) For an artist to satirise that does not make his picture tasteless and offensive. The New Yorker is a liberal magazine. Its illustrations and cover images are famous. They are often esoteric and even psychedelic. There is something touchingly old-fashioned and soft-sell about them - after all, this is a weekly magazine that doesn't even bother to advertise what's inside it on its own cover. (Overseas editions have a menu on the flap.) But the content is avowedly Democrat, albeit never slow to criticise the left. They certainly won't let Obama get away with his current shift to the right before polling day.

Once again, we see the power of the image.

One Islamic civil rights and advocacy organisation has called the cartoon "inflammatory". The Washington-based Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) said: "Unfortunately, the New Yorker's front cover cartoon failed to achieve its stated goal of exposing and lampooning right-wing caricatures of the Obamas. These inflammatory images and spurious associations will only serve to reinforce the racism and anti-Muslim stereotypes that the magazine says it is out to challenge." Bollocks.

Oh, lordy. Here's Remnick on the defensive. Apparently some people who posted comments on the Huffington Post have already threatened to cancel their New Yorker subscription. Don't they realise how stupid that makes them look? (I hope Remnick is saying, good riddance.)

Meanwhile, here's MSNBC's Mika Brzezinski (whoever she is) being offended, but not very eloquently:



Enjoy that cool breeze as it all blows over.

This is this week's London listings magazine Time Out. It made me laugh to see it there, a little red circle of positivity in among all the Andrew Ridegley digs. Sorry for all these short, picture-heavy posts but I really am terribly busy and don't have time for long, discursive entries about telly programmes at the moment. I'll be back.