The Public Appearance of Bitter Ex-Soap Stars Who Thought They Could Do Other Things As Well!

The names of several Scum of the World journalists who ordered a private detective to hack into mobile phones belonging to six public figures will not be publicly disclosed after Scotland Yard allegedly intervened to prevent their publication. The names were passed to Steve Coogan on Friday by Glenn Mulcaire, the private investigator who worked for the paper, in compliance with a high court order the actor obtained earlier this year. The names are critical to the phone-hacking investigation because they could show how far the practice was widespread at the paper, which was closed down by Rupert Murdoch last month, despite consistent denials from its owner News Group Newspapers. Coogan is one of several celebrities suing the paper for breach of privacy. The high court order instructed Mulcaire to reveal who at the paper asked him to illegally intercept messages left on mobile belonging to former model Elle Macpherson, publicist Max Clifford and four others. Mulcaire, who was employed exclusively by the Scum of the World, was also told to reveal who at the paper ordered him to target Liberal Democrat MP Simon Hughes, PFA chief executive Gordon Taylor, his colleague Jo Armstrong and football agent Sky Andrew. He was refused leave to appeal against the order earlier this month and handed over the names on Friday, the deadline set by the high court for making the information available. Law firm Schillings was contacted by Mulcaire's solicitor Sarah Webb of Payne Hicks Beach on Friday and asked not to make the names public. Webb said: 'The issues of confidentiality are of concern to the Metropolitan police and we asked Coogan's solicitors not to disclose the information until the Met could consider the matter.' She added: 'The issue is not that my client requires to keep matters confidential but rather that the police require him to. We were concerned that our [client] did not breach orders of the court in this respect. The Met are now dealing [with this] and there is nothing more I can add.' Similar high court orders have contained restrictions on publishing the names of Scum of the World journalists on the grounds that doing so could compromise Operation Weeting, Scotland Yard's ongoing investigation into phone hacking, by tipping off potential suspects. There appears to be some confusion over whether the order obtained by Coogan allows the names to be released, however. Sources 'close to the actor' allegedly insisted they can be identified. Mulcaire himself is also taking legal action against News International after it stopped paying his legal fees in July, claiming the company is contractually obliged to do so. Meanwhile, Coogan has also won a separate high court order to force Mulcaire to name the Scum of the World executives who ordered Mulcaire to hack into his own phone. Mulcaire is appealing against that order on the grounds that he would incriminate himself by complying with it because he would be confessing to a crime he has not been charged with or admitted to. Crucially, that defence is not available to him as regards Max Clifford, Elle Macpherson and the others, because Mulcaire already pleaded guilty to illegally intercepting messages left on their mobiles in the original 2007 phone-hacking court case, which resulted in his imprisonment. Mulcaire was jailed in January of that year along with the Scum of the World's former royal editor Clive Goodman.

Channel Four has dropped Ortis Deley as main presenter of its coverage of the world athletics championships following 'hundreds of complaints from viewers.' Deley, previously best known as one of the hosts of Channel Five's The Gadget Show, has struggled in the live presenting role and was described by Giles Smith, a critic at The Times, as wearing an 'expression that brings to mind furry creatures and headlamps.' Channel Four is broadcasting the championships for the first time – after twenty seven years with the BBC – and had promised a showcase for the broadcaster's 'innovative approach to live sport.' But the coverage has not gone down well with some viewers, the number of complaints said to be in the 'low hundreds' since the championships began on 27 August. Not all of the complaints related specifically to Deley, with viewers also unhappy that the coverage is interrupted by advertising having previously been on the commercial-free BBC, a fact that the broadcaster is unable to do anything about. Deley will remain with Channel Four's presenting team in Daegu, but will no longer be the main presenter. He has been replaced by Rick Edwards, who presented the channel's world athletics highlights programmes. Channel Four will be keen to get the tone of its athletics coverage right as it prepares to broadcast next year's Paralympics. It is due to broadcast around one hundred and fifty hours of live coverage from the games which, along with the Olympics, have been the domain of the BBC. Edwards, like Deley, does not have a background steeped in athletics. A former presenter of Channel Four's teen strand, T4, he hosted a show on London radio station Xfm. He also presents Channel Four's Paralympics preview show, That Paralympic Show. A Channel Four spokeswoman confirmed that Deley would 'no longer be lead presenter of its coverage' but said that he would remain part of the broadcaster's presenting team. 'Channel Four is committed to developing new presenting talent and this extends to our coverage of sporting events,' said the spokeswoman. 'Ortis Deley's role in Korea covering the world athletics has been scaled back but he will continue to be on air for the duration of the competition. In total we have a team of ten commentators covering this event from Michael Johnson and well-loved British athletes Dean Macey, Katharine Merry and Iwan Thomas to new presenters.'

ITV's controller Peter Fincham has insisted there will be no hosting changes on flop breakfast format Daybreak and that Adrian Chiles and Christine Bleakley's 'jobs are safe.' The former ONE Show duo have been at the centre of constant speculation about their roles on the show as the GMTV replacement has suffered in the ratings since its launch. However, when asked at the Edinburgh TV Festival if Chiles and Bleakley's jobs are safe, Fincham said: 'Yes, yes, yes. No ifs, no buts.' He commented: 'I'm not sitting here and saying from programme one Daybreak hasn't got anything wrong or has been the full and finished article.' No, indeed, because that would be ludicrous. 'It is a lot better in a sense than it is sometimes characterised.' No it isn't. 'It has improved and will continue to improve.' No it hasn't, and no it won't. 'Would I like Daybreak to evolve and broaden its audience? Yes, but a lot has gone on and a lot of work has gone on.' And, none of it has worked. So ... Commenting on Chiles's criticism of the breakfast flop's production, Fincham insisted that he respected the presenter's honesty and the fact that he 'speaks his mind.'

House's Peter Jacobson has dropped some hints about the future of his character Taub. In the medical drama's seventh season finale, Taub discovered that his ex-wife and his girlfriend were both pregnant with his offspring. Jacobson told TV Guide: 'They're not shying away from where we left off. I've got two kids running around, [and] I'm going to be involved with two women to some extent.' The actor also hinted that Taub could be appointed the new Dean of Medicine, taking over from the departed Cuddy. 'Taub is obviously a candidate,' he said. 'He knows his stuff and he certainly has the ego to pull it off. I think he would like it.' New House cast member Odette Annable recently insisted that her character Dr Adams is not intended as a replacement for Cuddy. House will return to FOX on 3 October.

Graham Linehan, the creator of The IT Crowd, Father Ted and Black Books, has said that the microblogging website Twitter has 'put television back in the crowd.' What a right load of old, utter cum - and from somebody whose opinions this blogger usually greatly respects an'all. Out of the five years that Twitter has been in operation, 2011 has possibly been its most newsworthy. From the Ryan Giggs superinjunction malarkey, to the Arab Spring and the clean-up operation after the UK riots, those one hundred and forty-character tweets have reflected - yet also genuinely shaped - global society, Linehan claims. More often, however, they've reflected the utter banal trivial that is most people's lives and made journalists astonishingly lazy when collecting running stories about 'the public's' reaction to TV shows or the death of well -known people. Why bother to ring people up for a quote, the reasoning seems to go, when you can just take the thoughts of some worthless glake with a screen-name like 'Sex Machine 843' to prove whatever point it is that you want to make? Hateful. Anyway, there were previously fears that social media networks such as Twitter and Facebook would eat into demand for television programmes, but all indications show that they are actually supporting the small screen in a number of allegedly 'interesting ways.' This is, of course, according to the Gruniad so it's probably some completely new use of the word 'interesting' that only applies to people in Islington to work in advertising. Speaking in a session titled The Only Way Is Twitter at this weekend's Edinburgh International Television Festival, Linehan said that the microblogging site has 'put TV back among its consumers.' He pointed to comments made by fellow comedy writer Richard Curtis about his experience in 1983 after the first series of The Black Adder aired on BBC1. As there was no way of knowing how popular the programme was, as TV ratings were not widely available at that time, Curtis admitted to wandering the streets of Shepherd's Bush peeking in people's windows to see if they were watching the Rowan Atkinson sitcom. Linehan, who describes Twitter as 'a party going on in the other room with the door just slightly ajar,' said that the site and other social networks have created more ways than ever for TV shows to get 'back in the crowd' with their viewers and truly engage with them. Among the social networks, Twitter is growing at the most aggressive rate, with twelve per cent of its users new to the service, compared to just one per cent for Facebook - although Twitter is growing from a much smaller user base compared with Facebook's around seven hundred million members worldwide. Many of Twitter's biggest users now have the reach and influence that marketing and PR agencies pay millions of pounds to secure. Stephen Fry has to contact companies in advance to warn them that he is going to link their website on Twitter so that they can back up their servers, as previous linking has led to websites collapsing in the digital stampede. Linehan, himself, who has one hundred and twenty five thousand Twitter followers, confesses to being 'a bit of a slut' on the site, shifting between issues ranging from UK politics, to comedy, to planets made of diamonds. However, he prefers not to talk too much about his own work, or use Twitter for the purposes of marketing, as he wants to keep it a 'pure' platform for him to reach 'likeminded people.' A video played at the session featured a range of other high profile figures discussing Twitter, including Lord John Prescott describing the site as 'the voice of the people - sometimes they are right, sometimes they are wrong.' The Only Way Is Essex's Mark Wright says that it is important not to make tweets too personal, adding, somewhat ironically, that 'you don't want everyone to know details of your private life.' Prime Minister David Cameron also warned that 'too many tweets might make a twat.' Bradford-born magician Dynamo joined Twitter around one and a half years ago, before he found fame via a hit magic series on pay-TV channel Watch. Dynamo has cleverly used the site to create a groundswell of support for his close-up magic, firstly to direct traffic to a range of videos on YouTube and then to point people to TV show, Dynamo: Magician Impossible. For Dynamo, the beauty of Twitter is the opportunity to engage with his fans so as to make them more committed to his magic, meaning when he suggests they should watch a video or an episode of the show, they are more likely to do so. He also said that Twitter can ensure fan support 'constantly builds' and doesn't 'fluctuate' as with more traditional promotion methods. During the session, Dynamo did a staggering card trick which involved the selection of a Twitter name at random provided by people in the auditorium, asking them to pick a card and then retrieving the very card from a sealed pack in his pocket. Magic? No. But certainly an immensely impressive union of entertainment and social media. However, Linehan warned those wishing to jump on the Twitter bandwagon that this particular social networking site is for life, not just when it suits you. The writer criticised TV stars, celebrities and politicians who amass lots of followers but hardly follow anyone else, saying: 'Twitter is a magic mirror, but some people use it just as a mirror.' He criticised the 'arrogance' of users who have no desire to even attempt to follow anyone else or show an interest in the lives of others, as this runs counter to what Twitter is supposed to be all about. Linehan has hired extras through Twitter for The IT Crowd and other shows, as well as scouted locations with help from his followers. He also follows doctors, police and other people working in public services, because he feels that their lives are incredibly fascinating and provide golden insights for a writer. But he also noted the unique possibilities of Twitter to spread misinformation. US comedy legend Steve Martin once likened the site to radio as it is 'so easy to create false reality.' With an Orson Welles-esque flourish, Linehan embarked on an ambitious spoof in May by claiming that when Osama Bin Laden was shot dead by US Navy SEALs in his one million pound compound in Pakistan, he was actually watching an episode of The IT Crowd. So, Linehan posed the question to his followers: 'Well, he was a monster, but was he all bad?' He kept the hoax going for three days, eventually admitting that Bin Laden had actually been watching The Big Bang Theory at his time of death, and so Linehan had 'returned to hating him.'

ITV has moved to play down speculation that it is to team up with Italian broadcaster Mediaset to purchase Endemol, the debt-ridden production company behind Big Brother and Deal or No Deal. In early trading on Wednesday, ITV's share price rose by around five per cent due to excitement on the markets about the prospects of the deal, which would involve the two firms creating a joint venture to buy Endemol. However, the share price slipped back to just above its previous closing level of 57.85p by lunchtime, after the commercial broadcaster failed to make an announcement to the stock market of its rumoured bid with Mediaset, as stipulated under the regulatory framework. Asked about the takeover reports, an ITV spokesman said: 'We do not comment on speculation.' Except if it involves who going to be on the judging panel on The X Factor, of course. Endemol, which is said to have a two billion Euro debt pile, helped score a moderate ratings success recently for noted soft-core pornographer Richard Desmond's Channel Five with the relaunch of Celebrity Big Brother. The company is jointly owned by Mediaset, Dutch investment group Cyrte, and Goldman Sachs Capital Partners. Talks are ongoing about a 'debt-for-equity' scheme for Endemol involving the three shareholders handing over some of their equity to lenders in exchange for reducing Endemol's loans. The Gruniad quoted an 'unnamed City source' (Manchester, Coventry or Norwich, they didn't say) with 'knowledge of the negotiations' as allegedly saying: 'Mediaset are thinking about all options, all of the players involved with Endemol are, but at this point any story about any deals are completely speculative as no agreement has been reached between any debt owners or equity structure. There may have been some contact, but there is no way it would be anything at all advanced. As I understand it the creditors are far from agreement.' Separately, Endemol co-founder John De Mol, who has links to shareholder Cryte Investments, could return as chief executive or executive chairman of the firm as part of a new link with his Talpa Media. Endemol is currently searching for a new chief executive to replace Ynon Kreiz, who left the company in June.

Daryl Hannah has been arrested outside the White House following a sit-in protest about the construction of gas pipelines. The Kill Bill actress was participating in the protest in Washington DC against the pipeline that would stretch from Canada to the Gulf of Mexico. She initially refused to move, but later became much more cooperative after she was handcuffed and taken away, a police spokesperson told The Wrap. Hannah was released from custody after paying a one hundred dollar fine.

David Hasselhoff has allegedly been dropped from the Britain's Got Talent panel. The US actor joined the judging line-up this year, alongside Michael McIntyre and Amanda Holden. Although ratings remained strong for the ITV reality show, Hasselhoff's role came under scrutiny from the tabloids as they criticised the new-look panel for 'lacking chemistry.' Simon Cowell and ITV have apparently now decided to axe the Baywatch star because he 'lacked a connection with the acts,' reports the Sun. McIntyre and Holden are expected to remain for the 2012 series. Louis Walsh has previously been tipped to take over the Britain's Got Talent spot full-time after guest stints on the show in 2010 and earlier this year.

Doctor Who showrunner The Lord Thy God Steven Moffat (Thou Shalt Worship No Otehr Gods But He) has insisted that he has 'no immediate plans' to leave the show. Moffat replaced Russell Davies as the show's head writer and executive producer in 2010 and also co-created the BBC's award-winning drama Sherlock. 'I haven't got any kind of plans to leave,' he told AOL TV. 'I take it one [season] at a time.' He described his role on Doctor Who as 'astonishing' and 'an incredible workload. To have that and to have Sherlock, yeah, it's savage,' he admitted. 'I'd like to get out before it kills me. But it's not killing me at the moment. I'm loving doing it, so I have no immediate plans to leave.' Moffat added that he wants to ensure Doctor Who is 'looked after' once he eventually departs. 'You don't want to be the last one [who works on it],' he said. 'I want it to go on and triumph long after I stop.'

A host of actors have been linked to the BBC's new series Titanic: Blood & Steel. These include Kevin Zegers and Chris Noth who are both said to be currently 'in talks' to appear in the drama, Deadline reports. The project focuses on the process of building the Titanic in Belfast. Zegers, who played Damian in Gossip Girl, is claimed to be in talks for the role of Mark Muir. Mark was a metallurgist who discovered that there may be problems in the metal being used to make the ship. Noth, whose credits include The Good Wife and Sex and the City, is expected to play the financier JP Morgan. Other stars linked to the project include Scream's Neve Campbell, who will play a reporter covering the Titanic and veteran actor Derek Jacobi, who will appear as the chairman of the company that built the vessel. ITV is also currently developing a drama about the Titanic, which is being penned by Downton Abbey scribe Lord Snooty Julian Fellowes and will star Linus Roache and Geraldine Somerville.

The Emperor penguin that ended up on a New Zealand beach is returning back to his native Antarctica. Named Happy Feet, the penguin was first found in June on the Kapiti Coast, located on the North Island of New Zealand. Happy Feet successfully underwent surgery on his stomach after he ate three kilograms of sand, apparently mistaking it for snow, reports the BBC. His recovery was complicated after falling ill, but he was eventually nursed back to health. The penguin had been staying at the Wellington Zoo, and a vet there said: 'Everyone's been really curious to see what happens. It was touch-and-go there for a while but he's doing really well now.' Happy Feet departed from New Zealand on Monday and is being carried on Tangaroa, a fisheries survey vessel, for four days. A tracking device has also been fitted on him.

The original recordings for The Beach Boys' legendary 'lost' LP SMiLE are to be released this autumn, forty four years after it was first due to come out. The SMiLE sessions were recorded over five months in 1966 and 1967, but the work was left unfinished after the group's co-founder Brian Wilson suffered a nervous breakdown. It would have been the follow-up to the group's 1966 masterpiece Pet Sounds, widely regarded as one of the greatest LPs ever made. The SMiLE sessions will be available from 31 October. The sessions were recorded in the autumn pf 1966 and early 1967. 'Cousin Brian was at his creative peak during those sessions,' said singer Mike Love, reversing decades of previous pronouncements that SMiLE was nothing but 'marijuana music' and criticised the 'meaningless' lyrics of co-writer Van Dyke Parks. 'I'm unaware of anything that comes close in pop music,' he continued. Brian Wilson's eccentricity during the recording sessions have gone down in music folklore. Four of the song were written inside an eighty-square foot sandbox in Wilson's living room, installed to 'recreate the feeling of being at the beach and the ocean.' For the song 'Vega-Tables' musicians harmonised on various foods, including a carrot munched on by - according to legend - by a visiting Paul McCartney (although Macca himself claims to have no memory of doing so). During 'Mrs O'Leary's Cow' - the 'Fire' part of a planned 'Elements' suite - Wilson set a studio bucket alight and sent out to a toy store for fire helmets for the orchestra to wear. The project was subsequently shelved amid Wilson's punishing work schedule and drug intake, inter-band bickering and friction between the group and their label. Some of the SMiLE songs - 'Good Vibrations', 'Wind Chimes', 'Cabinessence', 'Heroes and Villains', 'Surf's Up' - subsequently appeared in different forms on a variety of singles, later LPs and on bootleg recordings. In the 1990s a Beach Boys CD box-set contained approximately thirty minutes worth of SMiLE recordings and in 2004 Wilson with his backing band re-recorded the CD for a solo release and a following tour to great acclaim, but the original sessions in their entirety remained - tantalisingly - in the Capitol vaults. The forthcoming release will be 'an approximation of what was intended to be the completed SMiLE album,' EMI said. A box set will also include alternative takes, song drafts and studio snapshots.

For today's Keith Telly Topping's 33(s) - and one 45 - of the Day we have a short - but vital - tribute to the greatest living English poet, Nigel Blackwell of Half Man Half Biscuit. In any sort of ordered world, the bloke should be a household name - and probably Poet Laurette - instead of merely a cult legend to a few thousand dedicated fans, a name to be occasionally dropped by a few Gruniad journos or good old 'mega-fan' David Lloyd on Sky Sports. A band whose output has appeared on just one independent record label - Probe Plus - for over twenty five years and who, though they've never sold in anything even approaching great numbers, continue to be eagerly awaited by the cognoscenti. Here's five of their best (and trust me when I tell you dear blog reader, it could have been fifty of their best if I'd had all day!), Starting with Prag Vec at The Melkweg. yer actual Keith Telly Topping once passed through Dawlish on a train, dear blog reader. But if Nigel has asked me to go, I'd've gone.

My choice for favourite HMHB CD would probably be 1993's This Leaden Pall and, if I had to pick one desert island song from it, then it would be the stunning closer, 'Footprints.' Unfortunately, nobody's bothered to put that one up on You Tube it would seem, so we'll have to make do with Running Order Squabble Fest instead! 'You're goin' on after Crispy Ambulance!'

Actually you know, thinking about it, that desert island CD thing might be a bit more tricky when you consider the glories of Four Lads Who Shook the Wirrel - You're Hard, Turn a Blind Eye and, of course, A Country Practice.

And then, of course, there's Irk the Purists on Trouble over Bridgewater. Enough faffing, let's have Vatican Broadside!

And, we'll finish with what I think is still their only TV appearance, on Whistle Test in 1986. And, what remains their best known song. Not undeservedly either. Masterpiece.

Ah, bugger it, let's have another one! Mate of the Bloke off Achtung Bono should do.

Water Froze, In The Generations

Metro's Keith Watson, is - as previously mentioned on several occasions - a particular favourite TV reviewer of yer actual Keith Telly Topping. And, he has been on fine form this weekend. Take, for instance, his review of BBC2's superb espionage thriller Page Eight on Sunday: 'We've become so accustomed to the world of spies and special agents being glamorised in adrenalin-charged, cloak-and-dagger thrillers that the stately, almost dusty feel of Page Eight came as something of a shock. Playwright David Hare's return to the director's chair gave us a whispering-in-the-shadows throwback to the conspiratorial style of the 1970s TV version of John Le Carré's novel Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, a benchmark of simmering paranoia. Not that Hare, doubling up as writer, was harking back to the past. Although there was a timeless feel to the cut-glass accents jousting with the cut-and-thrust dialogue in murky corridors of power, Hare's focus was the shifting sands the intelligence services find themselves wading in as the world hurtles through changes – technological and political – at breakneck pace. At the centre was Bill Nighy's Johnny Worricker, a sophisticated MI5 man from the old school who still believes in the purity of intelligence. But Johnny senses the rules of the game he's been playing all his life are changing, a feeling confirmed when he unearths proof – on page eight of a secret dossier – that the government has been complicit in torture. But though it was this plot line that gave Page Eight its framework, it was the lingering sense of melancholic regret for the passing of a world where everyone knew where they stood that gave Hare's film its emotional undertow. Nighy's exchanges with his boss, Michael Gambon, a man edging near to the end of the tether, were a joy. But there were some off-key notes in this jazz-flecked tale. Johnny's involvement with neighbour Nancy (Rachel Weisz) seemed two-dimensional, more a tongue-in-cheek play on Nighy's older-man heart-throb status than a credible relationship. And the momentum of the story ebbed and flowed, dramatic impetus playing second fiddle to riddles of words laced with eloquent cynicism. Yet, as Johnny edged his way towards making peace with his own sense of integrity, Page Eight emerged as an offbeat plea for the virtue of honesty in a world where the concept has all but lost its meaning.' And, as if that wasn't perceptive enough from yer man Watson, he got Saturday's Doctor Who spot on as well: 'You know that things can only go well for The Doctor and his pals when a feisty young girl, who seems to be turned on by the TARDIS, appears on the scene. Especially when she says things like: "What the hell: I've got a gun, you've got a time machine - let's kill Hitler." Doctor Who returned for the second part of its sixth series with all guns blazing, as new character Mels entered the Timelord's life and forced him to take her, Amy and Rory back to 1938 so that they could kill the Fuhrer. Even with a new face on board, the trio were up to their same old haphazard tricks, clumsily arriving at the Reichstag to kill Hitler, but accidentally saving him from an assassination attempt by another group of futuristic do-gooders. It was a stormer of an episode, in part because it featured Hitler - who is everyone's favourite baddy - and Nazism, which is surely the most intriguing of all the hyper-evil ideologies human kind has come up with. But mostly what made Let's Kill Hitler a great episode were the same things that make most Doctor Who episodes great - the compelling narrative; the brilliant jokes hidden in throwaway bits of dialogue and the endearing incompetence of the BBC's special effects department. As The Doctor tried to teach Mels that most cardinal of all time-travel rules - that sometimes it's best not to change the course of history - Let's Kill Hitler proved to be a cracking way to reignite this series of Doctor Who.' Top man, Keith Watson, top man.

On a marginally related subject, Doctor Who viewers have, allegedly, 'complained to the BBC' after believing they heard a German guard swear on Saturday's episode. At least, this is according to the Sun, so that probably gives you an idea of how many viewers allegedly 'reported that one of the soldiers, an extra, shouted: "Where the fuck is he?" on the Let's Kill Hitler episode' dear blog reader. Think of a number between none and, you know, none. 'Corporation bosses', the tabloid rag - one that knows all about Nazis - went to on claim, had insisted that these mysterious and nameless (and seemingly Mutton-Jeff) viewers had 'misheard' a German phrase which was dubbed in after filming had finished. A spokesman explained that the spoken phrase was actually: 'Halt, was machen sie?' meaning, 'Stop, what are you doing?'

Mind you, if you want to see an even more disgraceful example of tabloid lies, dear blog reader, I direct you to those past masters of the dark art of 'talking total bollocks,' the Daily Lies and their quoting of 'ratings figures' for Celebrity Big Brother. 'Celebrity Big Brother has proved a massive telly hit. More than eighteen million fans have tuned in so far,' they claim. Err ... yes. If you add together the entire audiences for the first seven episodes and assume that not one those viewers watched more than one episode, then that's - technically - a truthful statement. Otherwise, we'll stick to the slightly less contentious fact that - on overnight figures anyway - the average nightly audience for CBB is about 2.8m. Not bad for Channel Five, certainly well-above slot average, but not eighteen million. Or anywhere even remotely close to it.

BBC1 comedy has become so governed by political correctness that programmes like The Two Ronnies would be unlikely to get made today, according to a leading producer. John Lloyd, creator of the panel show Qi, said that executives were so terrified of causing offence that 'saucy' banter was banished from the flagship channel before the watershed. Lloyd expressed relief that the show is leaving BBC1 and returning to its original home on BBC2 for its latest - ninth - series which begins a week on Friday. Even though that will almost certainly lead to a drop in viewing figures. 'Sauciness is no longer allowed before 9pm anywhere on the BBC - particularly not on BBC1,' said Lloyd, writing in Radio Times. 'The Commissioning, Legal, Compliance and Editorial Policy police hover over the scripts and the recordings, alert to the merest potential offence. There are blanket proscriptions, passed down from on high, which reduce everything to a bland vichyssoise that suits comedy programmes not at all. Heaven knows what they would have done to The Two Ronnies.' And, of course, the irony here is that Lloyd's comments have - inevitably - been picked up and used as a stick to beat the BBC with (in the completely non-agenda-driven away) by, for example, the Daily Torygraph and the Daily Scum Mail two of the very organs of the media that so enjoy printing critical stories about anything related to BBC content. So, no obvious and quite staggering hypocrisy there then. Qi, of course, began in 2003 and proved to be one of BBC2's biggest ratings winners with regular audiences around two and a half million. That success prompted executives to move it to BBC1 in 2008 where it proved to be even more popular - it's average audience being usually around four million with certain episodes (Christmas specials and the like) picking up nearly six million. However, Lloyd lamented: 'Our relocation to BBC1 increased ratings, but there was a cost. It had to stop being what we had become - eclectic, uncompromising, slightly saucy. It's a happy return. Qi can be itself again, instead of masquerading as something else.' Lloyd, fifty nine, began his career as a radio producer before into television. His CV boasts Not The Nine O'Clock News, Spitting Image and Blackadder. He said: 'The BBC that I joined in 1974 was very different. Focus groups were confined to the advertising industry. Producers were hired, not so much for their talent - the writers and actors did that bit - as for their judgment. If anyone complained, it was the producer - not the Complaints Department - who wrote to the enraged member of the public. Believe me, that way, you learn fast what the audience will and won't accept.'

Top Twenty programmes week ending 21 August 2011:-
1 The X Factor - ITV Sat- 11.05m
2 New Tricks - BBC1 Mon - 9.87m
3 EastEnders - BBC1 Mon - 8.60m
4 Coronation Street - ITV Mon - 8.36m
5 Who Do You Think You Are? - BBC1 Wed - 7.00m
6 Emmerdale - ITV Mon - 6.79m
7 Countryfile - BBC1 Sun - 6.23m
8 DIY SOS: The Big Build - BBC1 Tues - 5.91m
9 Ten O'Clock News - BBC1 Mon - 5.68m
10 All Star Family Fortunes - ITV Sat - 5.61m
11 Ocean Giants - BBC1 Sun - 5.56m
12 Holby City - BBC1 Tues - 5.15m
13 Casualty - BBC1 Sat - 5.13m
14 BBC News - BBC1 Sun - 4.96m
15 Torchwood: Miracle Day - BBC1 Thurs - 4.60m
16 Six O'Clock News - BBC1 Mon - 4.59m
17 Britain's Hidden Heritage - BBC1 Sun - 4.58m
18 Match Of The Day - BBC1 Sat - 4.34m
19 The ONE Show - BBC1 Mon - 4.28m
20 Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? - ITV Sun - 4.24m
According to BARB there is no data available for Channel Five for this particular week. Given that the opening episode of Celebrity Big Brother had an overnight audience of 5.1m it's likely that it would have featured in the top twenty had figures been available. (It's worth remembering that overnight ratings figures use a slightly smaller sample of the audience than the final consolidated figures. For that reason it is possible for the final ratings figure to actually be lower than the overnights. This rarely happens because any discrepancy is usually cancelled out by timeshifting. However for live events, which people are unlikely to record, the final figure can sometime be lower than the overnight figure.) The top BBC2 performers were Dragons' Den (3.72m) and The Great British Bake Off (3.10m). Channel Four's best audience came for Seven Dwarves (2.89m).

The woman who has accused the actor Matthew Fox of attacking her has revealed that she is 'definitely' pressing charges. Cleveland party bus driver Heather Bormann, who has previously claimed that Lost actor Fox assaulted her outside an Ohio bar at the weekend, said that he smelled 'like a bar' at the time of the alleged attack. Bormann told TMZ in a video interview: 'I told him several times that he was trespassing, that it was a private party. He never said a word to me, he just stood there staring at me. He was inebriated and the smell of him was like a bar. After the third time I told him to get off my bus, he just stepped in for a right hook to my pelvis area and started wailing on me like I was a man. I had no idea who he was at the time. I did not know until after he was in custody. I'm pressing charges. Assault is wrong, I really do feel violated. He was hitting me in places I didn't think anybody would hit me. My breast area, my pelvis area.' Bormann continued: 'I just started punching him back. The first hit landed on his jaw. It happened so quickly - at least I got that one good hit [but] I ended up messing up my hand. I have bruises on my arms, my legs, my hands.' Bormann has said that she will meet with lawyers this week to officially press charges.

Jason Dohring has signed up for a recurring role in Ringer. The new CW drama stars Sarah Michelle Gellar as Bridget, a woman on the run who assumes the identity of her twin sister Siobhan. Dohring has now joined the cast as a character called Carpenter, Entertainment Weekly reports. Carpenter teaches at the school attended by Siobhan's stepdaughter Juliet (played by Zoey Deutch). Dohring is probably best known for his role as Logan in Veronica Mars. He also appeared in Moonlight and has guest starred in shows including Lie To Me, CSI, Party Down and Boston Legal. Billy Miller, Michelle Stafford, Justin Bruening, Ioan Gruffudd, Jaime Murray, Kristoffer Polaha and Nestor Carbonell are among the other stars who will appear in Ringer. Gellar recently revealed that three seasons of the show have already been planned out.

The British Film Institute is to preview the final series of The Sarah Jane Adventures with an special family exclusive screening of the first story followed by a question and answer session. The final six episodes of the series, made before the tragic death of series star Elisabeth Sladen, are due to be shown on CBBC this Autumn. In the first adventure, Sky, Sarah Jane discovers a mystery baby on her doorstep. But with explosions, power surges and reports of a metal man falling from the sky, Sarah Jane is convinced that there's more to the baby than there first seemed. The screening on 16 September at 6:30pm is a family event, so all adults must be accompanied by children. If you haven't got one of your own, try to borrow someone elses.

Jeff Stelling will leave Countdown at the end of the year, a 'show insider' has allegedly claimed. The Sky Sports broadcaster, who has hosted the long-running Channel Four game show since January 2009, was said to have had a change of heart last month. However, channel controller Jay Hunt is keen to bring in a new face following a flurry of e-mails and letters from other presenters who are interested in the job, according to the Mirra. A 'source' allegedly told the paper: 'Jeff really hoped to stay on Countdown. He loves doing the show and felt he could have made a mistake by quitting. But we felt he messed us around a bit. Jay was considering keeping him but saw the wave of e-mails from talent and agents asking to do the job. So she stood her ground and has decided it is time for a change.' The 'insider' allegedly added that Stelling was believed to be unhappy about the decision, but said: 'perhaps he should have thought about that when he originally quit, out of the blue.' It is thought, the newspaper claims, that 'channel bosses' may consider an all-female line-up for the programme. Co-host Rachel Riley, who replaced Carol Vorderman in 2009, will reportedly stay with the programme for at least another year.

Cheryl Cole is on the verge of signing a deal to front a number of ITV shows, reports claim. Which would be curious since she can barely talk English at the best of times. The singer - formerly a judge on ITV's The X Factor before her proposed move to the US show ended in spectacular failure - will 'turn to being a presenter in a primetime chat show,' according to the People. The Girls Aloud singer and Heaton Horror was, allegedly, offered deals with other major broadcasters including the BBC and Sky, but chose to stick with ITV despite her X Factor dumping experience. A 'source' - presumably a different one to the geezer telling all the tales about Jeff Stelling to the Mirra - allegedly said: 'Cheryl's been inundated with offers but knows ITV and its staff from her X Factor days so has gone with them. The exact contract details are to be thrashed out, but Cheryl is determined to take a well-deserved break until next year.' Yeah, she must be knackered what with all the work she's been doing for the last few ... oh. Cole, who is rumoured to be returning to The X Factor in 'a mentor capacity' later this year, has apparently already agreed to appear in an Evening With ... special.

Rupert Murdoch and his son James Murdoch the small are reportedly to be quizzed under oath by a judge at the High Court about the phone hacking scandal at the Scum of the World, and the session could potentially be broadcast live to the public. Hopefully, the subsequent execution will be too. Lord Justice Leveson, the judge who prosecuted serial killer Rose West, has been asked by Prime Minister David Cameron to run his investigation into phone hacking at the Royal Courts of Justice. The Murdochs are expected to be called to give evidence, as well as former Scum of the World editors Andy Coulson and well-known Crystal Tipps lookalike Rebekah Brooks. The wide-ranging probe is also likely to result in Cameron and other senior political figures being questioned about their connections to News International, publisher of the now-defunct Scum of the World. Cameron will, hopefully, face some uncomfortable questions about the decision to hire Coulson as his director of communications, particularly after details recently emerged of alleged payments made to Coulson by News International after he started working for the Conservative Party. Lord Justice Leveson is thought to want the proceedings, which will be held in the same court as the inquiry into the death of Princess Diana, to be televised live to 'ensure transparency.' Under the inquiry remit, he has the power to call witnesses to give evidence and then compel them under the Inquiries Act 2005. According to the Daily Torygraph, 'dozens of letters' have already been sent out to potential witnesses asking to them co-operate in the inquiry, with the deadline for submissions being Tuesday. 'Sources close to the inquiry' allegedly told the newspaper that Leveson would not be restricted in who he asked to testify, and 'will go where the evidence takes him.' That was a single by Tina Charles, wasn't it? Alongside his day in the High Court, James Murdoch is also 'likely' to be recalled by the Commons culture, media and sport select committee to clarify potentially misleading evidence he gave to the MPs in July.

The BBC has confirmed plans to offer coverage of the London 2012 Olympics in Super Hi-Vision, a broadcast technology sixteen-times sharper than normal high definition, while an announcement on live 3D is expected by the end of the year. The BBC's Olympics boss Roger Mosey this week announced that Super Hi-Vision coverage of the Olympics will be shown on three specialist screens during the seventeen-day Games, with the locations expected to be London, Bradford and Glasgow. The initiative is part of a partnership with Japanese public service broadcaster NHK and the available content is expected to be highlights of the opening ceremony and some live coverage of events. The six hundred-inch screens (around fifty feet) capable of showing Super Hi-Vision are being specially produced in Japan. The broadcast will not be beamed to homes as there are no TV sets in the UK that can support the 4320x7680 pixel signal, as current 'full HD' sets only display 1080x1920 pixels. The transmission will run at sixty frames per second, but Super Hi-Vision could operate at up to double that. Last September, the BBC teamed up with NHK to broadcast a gig by The Charlatans in Super Hi-Vision between London and Tokyo, the corporation's first ever live transmission using the technology. NHK has worked with the BBC to compress the massive video signals for Super Hi-Vision to three hundred and fifty Mbps using the JANET network, down from the usual transmission rate of twenty four Gbs leading to one gerjillion snots of memory. Or something. The BBC believes that Super Hi-Vision could be 'a better long-term prospect' than 3D, but that would depend on bringing down the currently massive cost of producing sets that can handle the signal, along with the heavy bandwidth requirements of the broadcasts. NHK expects to offer Super Hi-Vision to homes in Japan by 2022. Over the years, the Olympics has proved a breeding ground for new broadcast technologies, from the first televised events - by the Nazis, admittedly - at the 1936 games to the first live broadcasts by the BBC for the 1948 Games to HD captures in Los Angeles in 1984 and 3D in Barcelona in 1992. Alongside Super Hi-Vision, Mosey confirmed that the BBC has a 'long-term aspiration' to broadcast live 3D coverage of London 2012, following the 3D transmission of this year's Wimbledon Finals. He said that the BBC is aware that there is 'a trade off' between serving the mainstream need for high definition coverage of the Games and the 'minority' interest in 3D. Only one hundred and forty thousand people watched the 3D coverage of the men's Wimbledon final last month on the BBC HD channel, suggesting that the appetite for sport in 3D remains relatively small. However, Mosey expects that the BBC will offer 'some' 3D coverage of the Games next year, and further announcements are likely to come 'by the end of the year.' The Olympics in London coincide with various momentous moments for Britain in 2012, including the Diamond Jubilee and the shift from analogue to digital TV signals in the capital. For the London 2012 Games, the BBC has committed to broadcasting all the events 'from first thing in the morning to last thing at night.' This means bringing masses of content to four screens - TVs, connected TVs/Red Button, mobiles and tablet computers - to allow viewers to 'watch what they want, when they want.' There will be twenty four live streams during the Games showing a range of events online, to smartphones and tablet computers using a new carousel-style, video-rich website.

For today's Keith Telly Topping's 45 of the Day here's a topical state of the national address from Mssrs Strummer, Jones, Simonen and Headon (or, Crimes on this performance. Or, indeed, Pete Howard on this one!)

Describe An Arc Of Your Own

After the high of Saturday night's ten million plus audience for The X Factor it was back down to earth with an undignified muffled crunch for ITV twenty four hours later. Their Sunday evening schedule of Joanna Lumley's Nile (1.7m), David Jason's Great Escape (2.1m) and the final episode of Penn & Teller: Fool Us (1.9m) gave the channel an overnight primetime audience share of just 8.2 per cent, their lowest ever. (The channel's previous lowest was 9.5 per cent in August 2009.) Ironically, crowned earlier that day as 'Channel of the Year' at the Edinburgh International TV Festival, the brighter side had the fourth highest primetime audience share for the night out of the five main channels, only managing to beat Channel Five and being outperformed by both BBC2 and Channel Four. Frankly, the forthcoming Red Or Black?, Sunday night X Factor episodes, and the returns of Downton Abbey and Doc Martin can't come quickly enough for ITV. By contrast, it was a terrific night for BBC2 - even with Top Gear having finished its summer run. Dragons' Den pulled in 2.83m and the much-trailed - and excellent - David Hare drama Page Eight getting a whopping 3.9m. The channel's total primetime audience share was just over twelve per cent. Channel Four also scored well in the nine o'clock slot with their premier of the movie Rush Hour III getting 1.86m. Their primetime audience share was 10.2 per cent. BBC1 won the night easily with Britain's Hidden Heritage (4.28m), Countryfile (5.62m the highest audience of the night), Ocean Giants (4.08m) and Match of the Day (4.1m, with an audience peak of 5.1m in the first half-hour watching The Scum being The Shit 8-2). On Channel Five, Celebrity Big Brother was the only programme to top two million viewers (2.08m). Given that Countryfile's five and a half million was the highest rated show of the night, that certainly puts The X Factor and Doctor Who's overnights from the evening before into sharp perspective.

Doctor Who's Matt Smith hopes that a future episode will be filmed in 3D. The actor said that the fiftieth anniversary of the popular family SF drama, which he previously emphasised should be 'an event,' could be the perfect opportunity. Speaking to Bang Showbiz, Smith revealed: 'I'm interested in all the 3D stuff. If it could be filmed for 3D TV that would be fun, especially with Doctor Who. 'I love making Doctor Who and I get to be part of that fiftieth year which they'll do something mental for. You know it will be brilliant.' However, Smith admitted that the BBC may not have the budget to screen a 3D special, cautiously adding: 'But it's very expensive. I don't know how they'd do it.' The twenty eight-year-old actor also admitted that he is unaware of how the next series of Doctor Who will be scheduled. Smith explained: 'For me, it's just that I know that I'm going to shoot fourteen episodes, of which I'll be in all of them. How they'll actually schedule it, I don't know. But all I know is that we start in February.' Showrunner The Lord Thy God Steven Moffat recently attempted to clear up confusion sparked by BBC1 controller Danny Cohen in June over whether or the drama will be broadcast next year. Last week, Moffat revealed that Doctor Who would be shown 'later' in 2012, and insisted that rumours of a reduction in the number of episodes per series were untrue.

The football pundit Tony Cascarino has, reportedly, sparked 'outrage' by describing a player as having 'a holocaust' of a game. At least, on Twitter if not actually anywhere that actually matters. Cascarino made the comment on Sky Sports News during Manchester United's game against Arsenal, which saw the North London team soundly beaten 8-2. Which was, of course, funny. Discussing the defender Armand Traoré's performance on the pitch, Cascarino said: 'Poor Traoré at right-back is having a holocaust because he's finding himself against Nani, who's literally running him from everywhere and Arshavin's just not tracking his runners.' Angry fans immediately responded to his comment on Twitter. because, of course, as we all know, Twitter is now the arbiter of the worth or otherwise of all things. At least, according to some pondscum newspaper reporters who seemingly can't be bothered to get off their arses and actually do some real reporting but rather sit in their office scanning the Internet for stuff that makes half-a-dozen cretins irate to create their next 'Shock! Horror! Pictures!' story. One Twatterer - or whatever it is that these people are called - wrote: 'Tony Cascarino should be sacked on the spot. He said an Arsenal defender was having a "holocaust." Appallingly ignorant.' Another social networker added: 'I can't believe he said that!' A third observed: 'Looks like Tony Cascarino could be the next ex-pro on the persona non-gratis [sic] list after that on air comment.' Err, I think you mean non-grata there, matey. Never use Latin on the Internet unless you know what you're doing, or it'll just end in tears. A clip of the incident, broadcast during the Old Trafford match, of course, quickly appeared on YouTube. Another micro-blogger branded the comment 'horrendous,' adding: 'I hope Tony Cascarino is dealt with appropriately.' But, what is 'appropriate' in this case, young man? Having his 'nads smeared in pear juice and then let loose the bees? Sky Sports News said that the presenter Natalie Sawyer - who can, apparently, walk in a straight line and talk at the same time - had apologised straightaway for Cascarino's remarks. Which she did indeed, although with a look on her face like she'd just shat herself. It added in a statement: 'Tony Cascarino made his comments in the heat of the moment. An immediate apology on behalf of Tony and Sky Sports was made on air as soon as possible for any offence caused.' As well as being a Sky Sports pundit the forty eight-year-old former Chelsea and Republic of Ireland striker has written for The Times and presented for talksport radio.

Game of Thrones showrunners David Benioff and DB Weiss have claimed that they do not worry about upsetting fans. Expect someone to start whinging about that on a Twitter near you anytime soon, dear blog reader. In a joint interview with Deadline, the pair insisted that they are 'more concerned with making a good show' than satisfying fans of George RR Martin's original novels. 'As far as pressure goes, we put our careers on the line with this series,' they said. 'After nearly six years invested, if the show had failed we would have thrown away a hefty portion of our working lives.' Benioff and Weiss also suggested that Game of Thrones appeals to viewers who were not previously interested in fantasy. 'You meet and hear about people who haven't engaged with the genre in the past who love the show,' they said. 'That is hugely gratifying.' Asked to pitch the HBO drama's upcoming second season, they spoke of: 'More characters. More locations. More dragons. Less sleep. Less Ned. Less frequent bowel movements.' Game of Thrones will add a number of new actors to its cast next season, including Natalie Dormer, Gwendoline Christie, Carice van Houten, Stephen Dillane, Liam Cunningham, Gemma Whelan, Ben Crompton and Nonso Anozie. Tom Wlaschiha, Roy Dotrice, Hannah Murray, Robert Pugh, Michael McElhatton, Patrick Malahide and Salladhor Saan are among the other actors confirmed to appear on the show.

Sky News foreign correspondent Alex Crawford has fiercely defended the organisation's editorial independence while recounting her experiences of reporting from Libya. During a session at the Edinburgh International Television Festival, chair Jon Sopel appeared to suggest that Crawford and her colleagues were 'Murdoch reporters' as he prefaced a question on the phone-hacking scandal. But the Sky correspondent, speaking via a live satellite link from Tripoli, rejected the idea out of hand. She responded robustly: 'We do not consider ourselves Murdoch journalists. We are an independent news organisation, there is no Murdoch influence.' Which is a very interesting thing to say about the people who pay your wages. Crawford added that she had only met Rupert Murdoch once and she 'accused him of nepotism' for appointing his son James as the chairman of BSkyB. The correspondent spoke candidly about her experiences of reporting from the frontline in Libya and, particularly, on her rival-beating account of the rebel assault on Tripoli last week. Asked why Sky News sometimes trumps competitors - including the BBC and ITN - to the punch, she said that the organisation is 'very small' with a 'flat hierarchy' meaning that decisions are made quickly. 'We started off as rebels in the industry. We have a "we'll prove them all wrong" approach to our work,' Crawford explained. But she also opined the values of securing a story that 'can change lives' and revealed that sometimes 'the normal rules of engagement' are dropped and the 'fiercely competitive' news organisations help each other out. Crawford gave the example of how ITV News' international editor Bill Neely helped her 'smuggle' tapes out of Zawiya by texting the location of tanks on the route out of the city. She also spoke about being a woman and a mother in the industry and admitted this had been a disadvantage when trying to become a foreign reporter. 'I got a lot of comment and a lot of criticism when I went to meet the Taliban and it's insulting. There are dangers everywhere,' she said.

Absolutely Fabulous will celebrate its twentieth anniversary with three specials on BBC1, it has been announced. Jennifer Saunders and Joanna Lumley will return to their roles as international PR guru Edina Monsoon and sex-crazed magazine editor Patsy Stone in the award-winning sitcom. Original cast members Julia Sawalha, June Whitfield and Jane Horrocks will also star in the three thirty minute episodes. Absolutely Fabulous was first broadcast in 1991 and finished with a special episode entitled White Box in 2004. The new specials will be set in the present day, where Eddy and Patsy are still working in the PR and magazine businesses. In the first episode, fans will 'rejoin the beloved ensemble in the midst of a life-changing experience for one,' while the final third episode will feature Eddy and Patsy's own special influence on the London 2012 Olympics. 'It's great that we are able to celebrate our twentieth birthday with all the original cast. Like a good bottle of champagne we hope that we have got better with time without losing any of our sparkle,' said Saunders. 'Last week when we started filming in dear old West London, it was as if nothing had changed. It was raining. Nevertheless, we are so happy to be working for an audience that has grown just a tiny bit older like us, but is still willing to let us fall over on TV in the name of PR.' BBC Comedy executive producer Jon Plowman added: 'Viewers have been fantastically loyal in their devotion to our show, so we're really thrilled to say that it's coming back for three new shows to celebrate our twentieth anniversary. All of the originals who are back together again are still truly absolutely fabulous and the new adventures of Edina, Patsy, Saffy, Bubble and Mother, plus a few surprising guests, will be a real treat for viewers.'

More Comic Strip Presents… episodes are in the pipeline following the revival of the comedy brand for a new Tony Blair spoof. Delegates at the Edinburgh International Television Festival this weekend were given a sneak peak at the new Channel Four film The Hunt For Tony Blair, which reunites the team for the first time in six years. But writer Peter Richardson revealed that other films were in the pipeline, saying: 'I think we're already planning more stuff for Channel Four.' The next will see a return to the Enid Blyton spoof which launched the series on Channel Four's opening night in 1982. Richardson said: 'I think we're already planning more stuff for Channel Four. Five Go To Rehab, we've already started working on. The Famous Five thirty years later. They all bump into each other and think it's a hotel. That will just be a one-off.' The sixty-minute Hunt For Tony Blair will star Stephen Mangan as the former Prime Minster, a deranged serial killer on the run who is seduced by Lady Thatcher. A host of Comic Strip regulars play political figures including Jennifer Saunders as Thatcher in the style of Bette Davies in Whatever Happened to Baby Jane. Nigel Planer is said to steal the film as a vampiric Peter Mandelson while the cast also includes Harry Enfield as Alistair Campbell, Still Game's Ford Kiernan as Gordon Brown and Morgana Robinson as Carol Caplin. An important last-minute edit to The Hunt for Tony Blair, is rumoured to be nothing to do with any legal issues – at least 'not yet,' according to Richardson – but rather the spelling of Gordon Brown's Scottish constituency of Kirkcaldy, which appears in the comedy's joke postscript. 'You've spelt it wrong,' Newsnight presenter Kirsty Wark told Richardson on the way out of its world premiere in Edinburgh. Other than that, it was entirely accurate.

Malcolm McDowall has reportedly joined the cast of Syfy's upcoming remake of the science fiction classic The Philadelphia Experiment. The network have ordered a remake of the 1984 original film, about the mythical World War II-era US Navy experiment which rendered an entire ship invisible. Entertainment Weekly reports that the Clockwork Orange star has been cast in the role of the scientist who originated the experiment. McDowall will be joined by Kyle XY actor Nicolas Lea, Sanctuary stars Ryan Robbins and Emilie Ullerup and veteran actor Michael Paré. The remake will move the film's setting into the modern day, as a team of scientists attempt to replicate the original experiment with disastrous consequences. McDowall recently confirmed that he will reprise his role as cult leader Brett Stiles on the fourth season of The Mentalist.

DB Woodside has reportedly signed up for a recurring role on NBC family drama Parenthood. The Hollywood Reporter has claimed that Woodside will portray Joseph Prestige, an Ivy League graduate and potential love interest for Joy Bryant's character Jasmine. Woodside's character will appear for five episodes over the show's upcoming third season, causing problems in Jasmine's relationship with Crosby, played by Dax Shepard. The actor is best known for his recurring role in 24 (as the second president Palmer), as well as playing Principal Wood on season seven of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Woodside most recently appeared on The CW's cheerleader series Hellcats, which was cancelled back in May. The new season of Parenthood will also feature guest appearances from Rosa Salazar, Brittany Belt and John Corbett.

How not to pitch to BBC2 controller Janice Hadlow: 'I was once pitched to when I was standing naked in the shower at Highbury baths - by a very keen female indie I might add. It wasn't my favourite experience,' Hadlow told a session at the Edinburgh International TV festival. A fully clothed Peter York made his own pitch. The broadcaster and co-author of The Sloane Ranger Handbook had a new take on class diversity, asking the BBC2 controller: 'Why aren't there more programmes about rich people for rich people?' Cue chuckles.

Channel Four chief executive David Abraham has said that the next decade in broadcasting will be all about programme makers getting 'connected' with viewers, as broadcasters search for ways to turn convergence into cash. Speaking at Edinburgh this weekend, Abraham said that the last ten years had been about broadcasters 'dealing with the fragmentation' of the digital multi-channels, video on-demand and personal video recorders. But he now feels that the supposed 'death of the TV' has proved a misnomer, as linear viewing has grown to record levels and most on-demand consumption is for catching up on the live TV schedule. Abraham said that the next ten years will be about making more 'connections' with viewers around programming, utilising the possibilities of social media, digital platforms and rich audience data. He said that the goal is getting more 'connected' with viewers, pointing to the recent series of Embarrassing Bodies, which used Skype for a remote diagnosis of medical problems, resulting in three to four hundred thousand people using the Microsoft-owned IP telephony service to contact the show. For The Inbetweeners Movie premiere, Channel Four asked a fan of the E4 show to produce red carpet reports for streaming online. Then there was The Million Pound Drop, which has won awards and plaudits for its accompanying online game enabling viewers to play along and engage. Abraham was speaking at a session discussing one of the hot topics at this year's festival - 'convergence.' Broadcasters are increasingly courting social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter - because it's the arbiter of all things, remember - to 'gain new revenue streams around TV shows.' In other words, to wallow in their own crapulence whilst making vast wads of wonga. From glakes. The panel also included Christian Hernandez, the head of international business development at social networking giant Facebook, the lack of culture minister the vile and odious rascal Vaizey and Fru Hazlitt, ITV's managing director of commercial and online. Hazlitt said that people like to share programming experiences, usually the big live moments such as The X Factor final, and now they can follow the conversation in more ways than ever via social networks and forums. However, she said the 'biggest threat' in the converged world 'is to assume consumers will just take what you give them,' meaning there has to be intelligence in the way ideas are delivered. Hazlitt said that UK broadcasters have failed to fully bring together the traditional and digital strains of their business, whereas companies in the US have embraced digital convergence, meaning subscription entertainment firm Netflix is now able to compete alongside the cable TV giants. She said that it is vital for broadcasters to 'create a format relationship that goes way beyond the legacy,' which means bringing together the commercial, the digital and the social to create campaigns that strike a chord with viewers. But the biggest hurdle facing broadcasters is how to turn the growing trend for convergence into hard cash, and Hazlitt admitted that it is still unclear 'just what content people are willing to pay for,' including micro-payment transactions for video on-demand content and mobile applications for hit shows. Broadcasters have instead made more progress in securing sponsorship deals that tap into the converged world. ITV plans to launch a multiplatform promotion for new game show Red Or Black? involving a play-along game on the Jackpot Joy website that is designed to increase integration with the show, while also featuring Red Or Black? sponsor Domino's. The commercial broadcaster recently ran a campaign with Argos for Emmerdale, in which the drama featured a particular item available in the Argos catalogue. Argos then ran adverts asking viewers to find the item in their catalogue and enter online to win ten thousand smackers worth of credit at the store. Hazlitt said that she never thought anyone would enter, but forty thousand people did, showing the potential reach of campaigns such as these. The recent series of Britain's Got Talent also featured a tie-in with Marks & Spencer, involving parents sending in videos of their gifted youngsters to appear in a new advertising campaign for the retail chain. Facebook's Christian Hernandez said that the social network is increasingly becoming a platform to bring together TV shows and brands. He claimed that during Champions League games there was an upsurge in 'Likes' on the Facebook page of sponsor Heineken. Endemol has introduced social voting with broadcaster RTL for the series of Big Brother in Germany, involving fans purchasing Facebook credits to vote on the eliminations (with Facebook taking thirty per cent and the content owner getting the remainder). Hernandez said that ten per cent of the voting on the show now comes through Facebook, suggesting a growing demand and potential revenue stream from 'social voting' on popular programmes. Discussing future developers in the TV industry, the vile and odious rascal Vaizey said that it is 'not the government's job to predict shifts or trends.' Which is true. it's also not the government's job to tell judges what sentences they should be handing out but they've been doing plenty of that recently. Is there anything else that isn't the government's job? What it can do, the vile and odious rascal Vaizey claimed, was to 'give more freedom to those who do.' He said that the proposed new Communications Bill will include measures to free up some of the regulation around the industry, but admitted that the government is 'stuck in an analogue world trying to push forward legislation in a world that is changing week by week.' Abraham said that one area where regulation should be changed is in the access to data on the viewing habits of consumers. The Channel Four chief executive has set aside a multi-million pound investment fund for compiling a database that can 'defend the power of TV' against the threat of the Internet and other competing entertainment sources. Abraham, who joined the broadcaster last year from UKTV, also repeated calls for platform holders, such as Sky - who put free-to-air content behind paywalls - to make their viewing data more widely available. In a recent Royal Television Society speech, Abraham expressed concern that pay-TV firms could be gaining commercial benefit from the audience data drawn from content that is free-to-air, or even public funded, rather than sharing the information with other broadcasters. The vile and odious rascal Vaizey said that the government is willing to 'talk about' the issue, while media regulator Ofcom is also said to be monitoring the situation.

Speaking of Abraham, he was rather more settled in his role with the broadcaster at this year's festival than he was last year, when he had been in the job for just a matter of months. 'This time last year I was shitting myself,' revealed the former UKTV man with admirable candour. Perhaps we will have to wait until next year's festival to find out what he was really thinking at this one.

Belfast-born comedian Frank Carson - it's the way he tells 'em - has had an operation for stomach cancer. He is said to be feeling 'fine' and is waiting for the all-clear, a spokesman for the comic said. Carson, eighty four, cancelled dates across the UK after he was diagnosed earlier this year. 'He had an operation which was a great success and he will be back working again,' the spokesman added. 'They have removed it and he had a test on Friday and he is waiting for the all-clear.' Carson should have been appearing in Blackpool this week for a stage version of his 1970s hit The Comedians. His place in the show was taken by former Catchphrase presenter and fellow Irishman, Roy Walker. When, at the first gig, somebody shouted 'you're not Frank Carson,' Walker replied 'say what y'see now, say what y'see.' Carson became a popular performer on Irish television before moving to England to work as a stand-up club comedian. He had success on shows such as The Good Old Days and Opportunity Knocks but is perhaps best known for The Comedians.

Rowan Atkinson's older brother has tried to take some of the credit for the Mr Bean character. Rodney Atkinson, whose famous sibling Rowan created the comedy character with writer Richard Curtis, said that he used to encourage his brother to create a 'nerd' character, but Rowan wasn't interested. Rodney told the Daily Torygraph: 'I tried for years to get Rowan to take the "nerd on a park bench eating his lunch" character, which he used in his one-man show, and expand it into a series which would "go international." This was the early seventies and I was at the time experimenting with British comedy as a teaching aid for German students at the University of Mainz. I noted that comic action - without the sound - was a good vehicle to get German students to give a [recorded] English running commentary on the action. It proved an excellent analytical teaching aid. The universal nature of silent comedy and its international appeal was obvious and Rowan had created the basic character already.' Rodney said that when he made the suggestion, his sibling responded with 'a grunt.' He said: 'Whether he took my persistent advice or made his own mind up I can't say. I received no royalty.'

A diner in Cambridge threatened to attack the staff of a local pub after they served him what he considered to be a 'below par' beef and onion sandwich. Fifty four-year-old Clive Davies vented his frustration with the food on offer at the White Horse to employees at a nearby grocery store, showing them a seven-inch blade that he claimed he would use on those responsible for his disappointing dish. Staff then contacted police and Davies was apprehended at another local tavern, the Cambridge News reports. Davies this week appeared in Cambridge Crown Court to plead guilty to threatening and abusive language, possessing a bladed article in a public place and possession of cannabis. His lawyer claimed that he had been struggling to cope with the death of his girlfriend in a road accident last year and had entered the grocers 'mumbling under his breath about how he was angry at the landlord at the pub after being served a below par sandwich.' He was sentenced to a twelve-month community order with supervision and alcohol treatment requirements, a four-month curfew and a concurrent twenty eight-day curfew for cannabis possession for the incident in May.

A signed copy of the Beatles single 'Please Please Me' has sold for nine thousand smackers at auction in Liverpool. The 'very, very rare' 1963 Parlophone red label 45 was sold by a local lady who had asked all four members of the group to sign it after watching them at the city's Cavern club as a teenager. The Beatles were a popular beat combo of the 1960s, you might have heard of them. They can be seen, right, captured during an intimate moment in London as they raced off in search of the hooligan who had just cut off the end of George Harrison's tie. Other items to be sold at the annual Beatles memorabilia auction included a cap once owned by alcoholic Scouse wife-beating junkie John Lennon - during his 'trying to look and sound like Bob Dylan' phase - which fetched three thousand two hundred quid, and the door of number thirty eight Kensington - where the band first recorded in 1958 - which went for two thousand three hundred pounds. Two grand for a frigging front door? Some people really do have more money than sense. Speaking of the moment the seller of the single brought it to him, Stephen Bailey, manager of the Liverpool Beatles Shop, told the BBC: 'It was just a local lady with a signed record asking: "Is this worth anything?" I said: "Yes, that's worth several thousands of pounds." And here we are, nine thousand pounds later. People often wander into the shop asking: "Is this worth anything?" There is still massive attraction for Beatles memorabilia. There are still people willing to pay fantastic prices.'

It's fascinating to speculate how much a signed copy of today's actual Keith Telly Topping's 45 of the Day will fetch in a couple of decades. I doubt The Blue Aeroplanes will command those sort of prices (although, you never know). Either for the original, or the - superior - remix for that matter.