Start of episode: "We really need to pick up the pace and not spend so much money."
One minute later: "We've treated ourselves to a luxury trip to the middle of nowhere."
End of episode: "We're gutted we finished so far behind the others."
#RaceAcrossTheWorld
"Hi Mr Q!" I'd pick The Whyte House as accompaniment for doing household chores and Q's Trick for celebrating the moment the chores are done.
This is fantastic news. It's easily my favourite of John Barry's Bond scores and it's the only one where he gets to be both witty and sophisticated. Put a glass against the side of my head and most days at some point you'd hear the opening bars of 'The Whyte House' circling round and round.
Un. Bear. Able.
I've got the Radio Times for the week The Serpent Son began. It gets the cover and four pages. The director Bill Hays gushes about the costume and make-up being a "breakthrough" for the production. "That was when we began to relate better to these people - they are us, but primitive."
I’m sorry but the Cheltenham Festival has a long way to go before I think of it as anything but that massive super-spreader event in 2020.
The bar has not been cleared this year.
As regards #EurovisionSongContest entries entitled One Two Three, there's a very high bar to clear.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=3zSK...
Probably the best version of Lal's "all down this side" routine.
Thanks Jack!
David Benson, Sheila Hancock, Gyles Brandreth and Helen Melody at the British Library, talking about Kenneth Williams.
And it was lovely - fantabulosa, in fact - to be in the audience this afternoon at the British Library, to celebrate Ken's life and hear from a brilliant line-up of guests. Sheila Hancock is 93 years old today!
Thank you for all the kind responses to my piece on #KennethWilliams. I'm glad it struck a chord and it's heartening to hear the man is still so appreciated and loved after all this time.
Thank you! His diaries mention him turning down The Avengers in the 1960s and Kenny Everett in the 1980s - fascinating to imagine what those would have been like!
Ah, bless you Steve, that's very kind - thanks!
I've started a new site where I'll be writing periodically about TV, films, music and the like.
To begin with, ahead of the 100th anniversary of his birth: Kenneth Williams and 1980s television - a story of commitment, triumph and upholstery.
nearertotheend.co.uk/2026/02/15/k...
I've been 50 less than two weeks and I've already been invited to join a bowel cancer screening programme and attend a webinar on planning for retirement.
A message displayed on TV monitors inside Shepherd's Bush Theatre after the recording of every edition of Wogan, encouraging the - usually elderly - audience to purchase 'Wogan souvenirs' on their way out.
It's what he would have wanted.
My favourite moments are when it starts raining and then 30 seconds later it's stopped but they all look utterly bedraggled.
The endgame will take place in the grounds of our glorious castle.
(If wet, indoors)
#thetraitorsuk
Hugo A-Go-Go #TheTraitors
Although some of the versions on the original Immaculate Collection are not the "right" versions, I would say. The remixed versions of Like a Prayer and Express Yourself always sounded so puny compared with the originals.
I didn't watch it at all. I was more excited by the premiere of Clockwise at 10.20pm.
I can't remember, but I presume this is because it was cut quite heavily for the timeslot. It was watched by an average of 21.8 million people.
Some of the Radio Times billings for Christmas Day 1989, including ‘Crocodile’ Dundee with the inverted commas missing.
The BBC treated us to a “special presentation” of ‘Crocodile’ Dundee in 1989 - presumably cut to ribbons.
Bought myself the 1989 Christmas Radio Times as a present for myself, and spotted the premiere of ‘Crocodile’ Dundee (which still holds the record for the UK’s single biggest TV audience on any Christmas Day since Barb began reporting in 1981) was billed as a “special presentation”.
Even now I find him terribly hard work to watch. He does about half an hour with Parky and it's too much. The studio audience laps it up, however.
Watching Tommy Cooper on the 1979 Parkinson Christmas special reminds me of how much I was terrified by him (Cooper, not Parky) as a young child. There was something quite brutish about his huge frame, gruff patter and missing teeth. I flinched every time he loomed at the camera.
He’ll finally get to see “those faces”.
Might Michael Palin also have appeared on all four?
An article in The Times foolishly suggesting Strictly Come Dancing is "doomed" because its presenters are leaving.
An article in The Guardian foolishly suggesting Strictly Come Dancing is doomed because its presenters are leaving.
No. And no.
...George Melly
Janet Suzman
David Essex
David Wilkie (if unavailable, another David, so the host keeps having to qualify which David is being talked about)
Denise Coffey
James Burke
Mary Hopkin (if unavailable, Dana)
Host: Cliff Michelmore