Sunday, April 21, 2013

Week Eighteen: I Went With Her Cos She Looked Like You

Let's kick off today's From The North bloggerisationisms with a righteous bit of ratings analysis, dear blog reader. Because, yer actual Keith Telly Topping his very self knows just how much you all lurv a bit of that the mostest, baby. Yer actual Britain's Got Toilets had an overnight audience of 9.66m on Saturday evening (with a five minute peak of slightly over twelve million), easily the highest of the day. The Voice, meanwhile, pulled in 7.92m (and a nine million plus audience peak) in its later, post-BGT slot. Thus, The Voice's overnight audience went up for the fourth consecutive week running (this time, by over a million punters from last week's episode) and it has clearly benefited from the later slot. Britain's Got Talent was slightly - but, only very slightly - down on last week's series opener, one hundred and fifty thousand punters week-on-week. It appears as if ITV's desire (freely stated, by odious, risible gnome Wee Shughie McFee, the sour-faced Scottish chef off Crossroads his very self) to throw a deliberate and spiteful spoke in The Voice's metaphorical works by scheduling Britain's Got Talent directly against it has, inadvertently, given The Voice an unexpected lift. Whether that will continue once the opening, 'blind' rounds are over is another matter, of course, but for the moment, once again, everyone's happy. Except, possibly The Lord Thy God Steven Moffat as, the shunting of Doctor Who to a slot directly up against BGT to accommodate The Voice's later start time meant that the BBC's popular long-running family family SF drama saw its lowest overnight figure for an episode since The Lodger in 2010; Doctor Who pulled in an overnight of five million viewers, seven hundred thousand punters down from last week's figure despite the later slot. Still a decent figure in this day and age, of course but, about five hundred thousand down on what the programme might reasonably have expected had it remained at six o'clock or 6:15. Later, Casualty was watched by 5.2 million viewers - that's the first time in, again, about three years that it has had a higher overnight rating than an episode of Doctor Who on a day when both of the BBC's long-running drama staples have been shown. Of course, when the final, consolidated figures come in a week on Monday, we'll probably find that position reversed. BBC2, meanwhile, broadcast arse-numbingly boring coverage of World Championship Snooker between 7pm and 8pm, picking up 1.01m. A vintage Some Mothers Do 'Ave 'Em was then watched by 1.04m (ooo, Betty) at 8pm and The Many Faces of Michael Crawford had 1.65m half-an-hour later.

Meanwhile, the final consolidated audience for the previous week's Doctor Who episode - Cold War - was 7.37m punters (a timeshift of 1.64m on top of the overnight figure).
Back to overnights, and the new ITV thriller The Ice Cream Girls débuted with 4.87m overnight punters on Friday. The first episode of the three-part series, based on the 2010 novel by Dorothy Koomson, featured Jodhi May and Lorraine Burroughs as former friends who are reunited seventeen years after being accused of murdering their schoolteacher as teenagers. In the same timeslot on BBC1, Have I Got News for You was watched by 4.77m, whilst Not Going Out pulled in 3.66m. Earlier, The ONE Show had an audience of 3.48m at 7pm, whilst MasterChef attracted 3.82m at 8.30pm. The Graham Norton Show ended the night for BBC1 with 3.32m at 10.45pm. On BBC2, The Genius of Josiah Wedgwood was seen by 1.61m at 9pm. Gardener's World interested 2.40m half an hour earlier. The Martin Lewis Money Show attracted 2.99m to ITV at 8pm. The movie Forgetting Sarah Marshall, starring Jason Segel, Mila Kunis and Russell Brand, was watched by six hundred and thirty thousand punters from 10.45pm. Meanwhile, Channel Four's Eight Out of Ten Cats Does Countdown mustered 1.3m at 8pm.

The BBC have released a behind-the-scenes featureon the making of Hide, featuring cast and crew interviews undertaken during the filming of the episode. There's also the thoughts of The Lord thy God Steven Moffat and an introduction to the episode by Matt Smith and Jenna-Louise Coleman, and some preview clips for those who haven't seen the episode itself yet. Which, if you were watching Britain's Got Toilets at the time, you probably haven't.

Is it disturbing to anyone else that before Saturday night's episode of Arne Dahl started the BBC4 continuity announcer said: 'Tonight's episode contains scenes of an exceptionally violent and sexual nature, strong language and, from the start, scenes which some viewers my find upsetting or disturbing' and yer actual Keith Telly Topping's immediate reaction was 'oh, good! I'm glad I'm recording this!' Just me then ...?
And so to the latest Top Telly Tips:-

Saturday 27 April
We all know that The Doctor's TARDIS is a temperamental, unreliable old girl, not to mention being shaped lusciously like Suranne Jones on occasions. But does she really deserve the treatment meted out to her at the start of this week’s episode? Sucked into a galactic salvage vessel, the TARDIS is tossed, unceremoniously, onto a scrapheap, her systems spiralling into meltdown in the latest Doctor Who - 6:30 BBC1. Clara, of course, is in pure-made peril from the malfunctioning machine, so The Doctor tricks the salvage crew (led by Ashley Walters, who is, apparently, 'a rapper', m'lud) into a rescue operation, adding: 'Don’t touch a thing; the Tardis will get huffy.' That, actually, doesn't even begin to cover the ensuing mayhem and malarkey, with prowling beasts and head-scratching anomalies and all manner of kerfufflement and doings. Journey To The Centre Of The TARDIS does, essentially, what it says on the tin, and even if the story at times feels unsure of its ultimate aims, it's still a stimulating trip, both unravelling and prolonging the tease over Clara's back story. Despite the TARDIS occupying centre stage, however, it's Matt Smith's mercurial Time Lord that is the real joy to behold here. As The Doctor introduces himself to the motley crew of galactic rag-and-bone men, he realises Clara is still trapped deep within his malfunctioning ship, so he persuades his new acquaintances to help him find her, taking them deep into the heart of his beloved time machine. But their hopes of a straightforward rescue and salvage mission are dashed when it turns out Clara is not the only one down there - and if that weren't bad enough, they only have thirty minutes before the TARDIS self-destructs.

A robbery at an off-licence ends in violence when shop owner Danny is stabbed and his money is grabbed. But, when one of the gang arrives at the hospital nursing an injured hand, it soon turns out that the two men know more about each other than they're letting on in Casualty - 9:25 BBC1. Also, a confused old man brings his dog in for treatment, so the medics humour him while they try to work out what - if anything - is wrong with the gentleman, while student nurses Robyn, Aoife and Jamie are interviewed for the two permanent staff positions in emergency department. Richard Blackwood guest stars in the popular, long-running medical drama.

In the conclusion of the second - blood soaked - two-part adaptation of a crime novel by Arne Dahl, The A-Unit continue their attempts to stop The Kentucky Killer, an infamous American serial murderer who is now on the loose in Sweden - 9:00 BBC4. The Kentucky Killer, is picking off seemingly random members of the Swedish population. The crack team of detectives, in-between supping relaxed beers down the pub, are hot on his Yankee ass. But, when another body turns up, their boss Jenny decides to contact her FBI friend in New York to find out just what the smegging hell is going down. After a dense, grim and gritty episode last week, the story picks up a bit of speed here. But, as usual in Arne Dahl, things are slowed by soft-centred glimpses of the coppers' home lives, accompanied by plangent jazzy guitar music on the soundtrack. Niiiice. Tonight the theme is 'Dads, don't fall out with your sons. You might both live to regret it.'

Sunday 28 April
'A gambler' is how the world's most powerful media mogul is repeatedly described in Steve Hewlett's film Rupert Murdoch: Battle With Britain - 9:00 BBC2 - charting the billionaire tyrant's impact on Britain over the past forty years. How the 'Oxford graduate with a touch of Billingsgate' bought and transformed four British newspapers, smashed the print unions at Wapping, launched Sky TV and was then humiliated by the phone-hacking disgrace are all covered with illuminating comments, most notably from former Sunday Times editor Andrew Neil. He describes Murdoch and the happily late Margaret Thatcher as 'soulmates' and sums up his ex-boss as at his most dangerous 'when he sees a lazy, self-satisfied established interest like the print unions or the BBC/ITV duopoly.' Hewlett investigates whether the media mogul can be seen as an agent of change who has been a vital part of the transformation of Britain over the last forty years. Or not. He explores the theory that billionaire tyrant Murdoch's part in this cultural, political and industrial revolution also brought Murdoch into delicious - and, eventually, disastrous - conflict with The Establishment and may ultimately have cost him his life's ambition - to see the business he has built carried on by one of his children. Which would be so sad.

Yer man Bill Bailey makes his Indonesian journey in the footsteps of Victorian naturalist Alfred Russel Wallace, the 'forgotten hero of natural history', an enjoyable jaunt in the second part of Bill Bailey's Jungle Hero - 8:00 BBC2. Bill describes a leaping tarsier as being 'like a little gremlin shot out of a cannon', and is the first to acknowledge his own astounding resemblance to the Sulawesi macacques who treat him as one of their own. But Bill is also superb at the meaty stuff, explaining the progress of Wallace's research towards grasping how species evolved. It's a story of heroic perseverance by a man who was so unassuming that when the idea of natural selection burst upon him, he simply popped it in the post to his friend Charles Darwin. Heading to the Indonesian archipelago the Moluccas, formerly known by the nickname of the Spice Islands, Bill encounters boggle-eyed tarsiers, monkeys with Mohican hairstyles and spectacular birds of paradise on his mission to understand how Wallace devised the theory of evolution independently from Darwin.

A royal visit to a family-owned munitions factory puts a spring in the step of Chief Superintendent Bright, but Morse is still stuck on general duties and excluded from the event in Endeavour - 8:00 ITV. However, when an unpopular worker is found murdered in a secluded area of the shop floor, the detective finds himself drawn into the affairs of the company and its dysfunctional owners. The prime suspect is a colleague who had fallen out with the victim over an industrial accident, and Bright is eager for the investigation to be carried out as quickly and quietly as possible, but Endeavour is not convinced the case can be solved so easily. With guest stars Martin Jarvis, Jenny Seagrove and Craig Parkinson joining Shaun Evans and Roger Allam.

Monday 28 April
University Challenge - 8:00 BBC2 - that most educated of quiz shows, operates on a sliding scale. In the early rounds, the players are all strangers but the questions often seem easy enough to keep the viewer involved. On finals night, however, there's not a hope for the average punter of scoring more than a starter for ten from the armchair, but we're - by that stage - far more invested in the teams, their little peccadilloes and often dodgy hairdos. Tonight's final is between the (very impressive) team from University College London (Tyszczuk Smith, Papaphilippopoulos, Parton and their über-casual captain, Dennis) and the University of Manchester (starring Brown, who gets all the biology questions and floppy-fringed Gilbert). Manchester are the reigning champions, but these two teams have already met – and last time, University College won. Place your bets now. And, sadly, expect the winners to be bombarded with abuse on social media for being 'swots'. Christ, this country doesn't have breed some pond scum.
Dave Allen: God's Own Comedian - 9:00 BBC2 - is, as the name might suggest, a celebration of the life, work and legacy of the Irish comedy writer and performer Dave Allen, who started his career in entertainment as a Butlin's Redcoat. Having tours as The Beatles compare, Dave first found fame as a chat-show host in Australia in the 1960s, before he returned to Britain and began a career that took in films, plays and documentaries alongside his award-winning comedy series Dave Allen At Large. Featuring interviews with family and friends including Steven Berkoff, Stephen Frears and Maggie Smith, as well as rare archive material. And, may his God go with him.

ITV is pushing to invest in primetime comedy again by the look of things, with loads more Benidorm in the pipeline, as well as two brand-new sitcoms which begin tonight. And they couldn't be more different from each other in style. Vicious - 9:00 - is the more old-fashioned of the two, with a studio audience, huge sitting-room with front door, left, and swing-door to kitchen, right (it's The Golden Girls' format); except that, in a très moderne move, the central figures are a right pair of old queens in their sixties played by a pair of knights. Actorly ham Freddie (yer actual Sir Ian McKellen) and swishy Stuart (Sir Derek Jacobi his very self) have been cattily in love for forty eight years. While activists might cavil over stereotyping, there's no denying that the spectacle of two of our finest actors of the theatre camping it up is absolutely hilarious. Along with Frances De La Tour as their voracious mate, Violet, they make every line a zinger. Creators Gary Janetti (Will & Grace) and Mark Ravenhill (author of various fruity West End plays) have a sure-fire hit on their hands.

Meanwhile, the second new sitcom shovelled into the Broadchurch slot, The Job Lot - 9:30 ITV - is a rather amiably looking comedy set in a West Midlands job centre and starring Sarah Hadland, Russell Tovey and Jo Enright. Office manager Trish is struggling to keep things running smoothly. She has a world-of-work seminar to run, the latest temp is late and difficult employee Angela returns to work, fresh from winning an industrial tribunal. Karl is the only member of staff that Trish can rely on, but now even he's reached the end of his tether. As someone who worked for nineteen years in a Job Centre, this blogger is - a) thoroughly pissed off that he didn't think of writing something like this! and - b) expecting great things from it.

Tuesday 30 April
Archaeology isn't a new, rigidly scientific discipline as we discover in Archaeology: A Secret History - 9:00 BBC4. According to Doctor Richard Miles (presenter of 2010's superb documentary series Ancient Worlds), the first person to set out to dig up the past was the Emperor Constantine's mother, Helena, who searched the Near East in the early Fourth Century for physical evidence of the life and death of Christ. The fascination with human history continued through the Renaissance and into the Enlightenment and the pioneers who developed fieldwork and surveying. But in a world where the Bible is gospel, what do you do when you find objects which clearly tell a very different story and go much further back than Genesis?

After seven weeks of tough competition, the remaining MasterChef contestants enter the final week - 9:00 BBC1 - three consecutive nights of culinary challenges, after which one of them will be crowned as the MasterChef Champion. To begin, they are sent on a culinary odyssey of Italy, to learn from two of the country's most highly regarded food experts - legendary rustic cook Mamma Agata and Italo Bassi, one of two 'first chefs' at Florence's Enoteca Pinchiorri restaurant, which has held three Michelin stars for almost a decade. The contestants take masterclasses with both, and then put their new skills into practice, cooking an elite lunch for luminaries of the Florentine art world.

The CSI team is called in to investigate when a chartered light aircraft narrowly misses a casino and crashes into a park a mile from the Las Vegas strip, with Doug Wilson from the National Transportation Safety Board also being assigned to the case - 9:00 Channel Five. This disconcerts Sara Sidle as she had a fling with Wilson when they worked together in San Francisco and his reappearance in her life adds an unwelcome complication to her long-distance marriage to Gil Grissom. You don't need forensics to see there's a rift opening up in Sara and Grissom's marriage. But just in case you've missed the vital clues, old flame Wilson (played by Josh Randall), joins the investigation into the crash — and the electricity between the pair could power all of the neon in Vegas and most of the rest of Nevada. The case is a maddeningly complex one, not least because Russell and his team can't work out how many passengers were actually on board, let alone whether this was a hijack, an accident or sabotage and murder. Watch out for a blink-and-you'll-miss-it cameo from Mark Moses (from Desperate Housewives).

Wednesday 1 May
In tonight's episode of Coast - 8:00 BBC2 - the team explores stories linked to sea cliffs around the UK, with Nick Crane visiting East and North Yorkshire coasts to join sea fishermen who have constructed a remarkable ropeway to make the perilous descent to fishing grounds, and examines an ingenious water-powered mechanism that operates Britain's oldest funicular railway at Saltburn-by-the-Sea. Tessa Dunlop meets a woman who witnessed the American Rangers practising for the D-Day landings in Normandy, while biologist Sarah Beynon hunts for dung beetles at Ramsey Island off the coast of Pembrokeshire. Archaeologist Cassie Newland rummages through a cliff-top dump at Lyme Regis, Dorset, to look at artefacts of everyday life from the past hundred years, and adventurer Andy Torbet takes part in a night-time exercise with commando recruits.

Having realised that her marriage is a mistake, Rachel is still staying at Janet's and making excuses for her absence. But Sean isn't prepared to accept that things have gone so wrong, so quickly in Scott & Bailey - 9:00 ITV. Meanwhile, the investigation into the Joe Bevan case continues as the body count rises and the team faces the mammoth task of identifying all the victims and determining the order in which they were murdered. With the Bevans' house of horrors finally giving up its secrets, patriarch Joe undergoes prolonged interrogation. For the viewer, this gives us plenty of opportunities to see actor George Costigan do what he does best, which is to disconcert generally with his bug-eyed stares and off-kilter vocal delivery. The result is that we find ourselves obsessing over two questions: just how guilty is Joe of the increasing catalogue of grizzly crimes? And to what extent is his troubled daughter Helen (the always great Nicola Walker) complicit? Away from the station, Rachel makes time to dissect her failing marriage to the well-meaning Sean (Sean Maguire) after he confronts her about the lack of time they spend together, while the criminally underused Tracie Bennett makes a further appearance as Sharon. Yes, she's drunk. Again. Yes, she has another uncomfortable (but mercifully less graphic) scene with police officer Pete. Again. Detective drama, starring Suranne Jones, Lesley Sharp and Amelia Bullmore.

A new recruit joins the Jeffersonian lab - Doctor Oliver Wells - an eccentric, highly-intelligent and often slightly arrogant scientist, who clashes with Brennan in the latest Bones, The Fact In The Fiction - 9:00 Sky Living. Their first case together is looking into the murder of a man who was fascinated with time travel. Sweets suspects that the man wanted to alter the course of his life - but the investigation is complicated when Booth discovers another body, which appears to be the victim's older self.

You've been offered a job in Antigua, the paradise island in the West Indies. Fantastic news, you'd think. But, not if you were an Eighteenth Century British sailor, a rough, tough tar tossing about in one of the twenty warships moored in English Harbour whose story is told in Nelson's Caribbean Hell-Hole: An Eighteenth Century Navy Graveyard Uncovered - 9:00 BBC4. 'I detest this country,' Horatio Nelson wrote while on duty there, and judging by the archaeological evidence, he had damned good reason to be so inclined. Warfare and tropical diseases were the least of the Admiral and his men's worries: the naval rum rations were distilled in poisonous lead vessels and with each man drinking a pint a day, the British forces were tormented by their own deadly grog. After the discovery of human bones on a beach in Antigua, historian Sam Willis investigates one of the darkest chapters of Britain's imperial past. As archaeologists excavate a mass grave of British soldiers, he explores the island's ruins and discovers how the sugar islands of the Caribbean were rife with sun, sea and tropical diseases. Not to mention the nasty rum.

Thursday 2 May
After eight weeks of challenges, the search for the country's best amateur cook reaches its climax in MasterChef - 9:00 BBC1. The would-be chefs pull out all the stops as they produce their final three courses, the likes of which they have never cooked before. Then it's over to judges John Torode and Gregg Wallace to decide which of the trio deserves to succeed last year's victor Shelina Permalloo and be crowned MasterChef Champion 2013.

A deeply unpleasant scene early in the second episode of Paula Milne's drama The Politician's Husband - 9:00 BBC2 - is indicative of the decay seeping into thwarted politician Aiden Hoynes's soul. After his fall from grace, Aiden is spending more time at home looking after the children and becomes increasingly consumed with jealousy and paranoia as he sits on the sidelines watching his wife Freya's rise to prominence. Stewing in jealousy, he brutally asserts control over his wife (Emily Watson). She is now the shining sun of Westminster politics, eclipsing her husband (David Tennant). He's left at home with their troubled son, where he's bored by constituency affairs. His resentments can only fester and, unable to accept his wife's new-found success or forgive her betrayal, he begins to plot her downfall as well as that of his old friend, Bruce. Though Milne is really good at the tormented emotional stuff, the politics of The Politician’s Husband are unsubtle and feel both clichéd and dull. The dialogue, too, is often awkward ('You're a man, you have needs', which this blogger doesn't believe anyone has said since the 1930s). But Tennant and Watson are excellent, and make the whole thing work.

Britain's greatest living .... anything, yer actual Danny Baker, uses archive footage and his own research to look at towers in Britain which can loom large in cities and the countryside, but about which little is often known in Brushing Up On - 8:30 BBC4. This is another bag full of diamonds, as Baker looks in the archive for tall carbuncles. Stooge of the week is The ONE Show's Phil Tufnell (as Baker wittily notes: 'Tuffers on towers. Tuffers on the causes of towers'), whose weak bits to camera and unconvincing 'nodders' become hysterical with a little cruel editing. No such trickery is needed for the astronomer whose pride and joy is useless white noise received from Sputnik, or the 1970s Tower of London toilet attendant: 'The French? They run in, do what they got to do, run out. Then you've got to go and clean up behind 'em.' Plus there's truly astounding footage of Lesley Judd almost cacking it whilst being winched onto the Bishop Rock lighthouse, then being winched off and almost cacking it again. Thigh-slappingly hilarious.

David Jensen presents an edition of Top of the Pops - 7:30 BBC4 - from 4 May 1978, with music by The Dooleys, Manhattan Transfer, John Paul Young, Ruby Winters, Tonight, Hi Tension, Darts and The Boomtown Rats. With a dance sequence by Legs & Co.

Friday 3 May
Host Rob Brydon returns with a new series of Would I Lie To You? - 8:30 BBC1 - the comedy panel show, in which team captains David Mitchell and Lee Mack are joined by guests Dara O Briain, Denise Van Outen, Rhod Gilbert and Vernon Kay, who try to hoodwink their opponents with absurd facts and plausible lies about themselves.
Mel Giedroyc bakes up another half-hour of headline-related fun as guest host of Have I Got News For You - 9:00 BBC1 - the long-running topical quiz, with regulars Paul Merton and Ian Hislop doing their best to scrape together a few laughs from the past seven days' events. One of Britain's finest comedians, yer actual Ross Noble, is on the panel. Which is always worthwhile.
Polish physicist and chemist Marie Curie became a celebrity during her lifetime, attracting media attention for being the first woman to win a Nobel Prize. The Genius of Marie Curie: The Woman Who Lit Up the World - 9:00 BBC2 - is a docudrama looks at the woman behind the science, revealing a tenacious mother who had to survive the pain of the loss of husband and collaborator Pierre and the public humiliation of a doomed love affair, but who also discovered two elements and coined the term radioactivity. Starring Geraldine James and David Malone.

And so to the news: Football Association's risible arse of chairman, David Bernstein, has - shamefully - defended the decision to give this year's FA Cup final a 5:15pm kick-off time. The decision, announced earlier this week, has caused outrage among fans of the two finalists, Sheikh Yer Man City and Wigan Not Very Athletic (and their irksome, dreary little chairman), who face long journeys back to Lancashire following the game at massively inconvenient mid-evening times, the Gruniad Morning Star reports. Once again proving that whatever they may try to claim, in terms of the FA's priorities, the poor bloody supporters rank lower than rattlesnake piss. Bernstein insisted that the decision is 'for the benefit of TV viewers.' Or, actually, for the benefit of TV schedulers and, more specifically, TV advertisers. Last year's final between Moscow Chelski and Liverpool Alabama Yee-Haws was also scheduled at 5:15 and the broadcast attracted higher ratings than in previous years. The risible Bernstein explained: 'There will be a number of millions more watching at 5:15 than 3pm and that is an important factor. This is not money-driven.' Except that, of course, it is since ITV will be paying more for a broadcast that crosses into primetime than one that will be finished by 5:30 at the latest. So, the suggestion that it isn't - wholly - money orientated is, in fact, an utter, disgraceful nonsense and an indefensible one, at that. Shame on you, FA. Shame on you. 'Always remember that any additional money raised by the FA goes to the wider football world - we are not a profit-making organisation. If we do raise more money it is going to the national game, to the grass roots,' this odious louse continued. Yeah, yeah. if the wind changes, pal, your nose'll stay that size. Of course, what would now really shag - and amusingly - up the FA's carefully laid greed-as-fek plans for the acquisition of mucho lovely wonga would be if supporters from both clubs completely boycotted the game and ITV were left covering a match with an empty stadium. It'd be interesting to see what ITV's reaction (and, more specifically, ITV's advertisers reaction) to such a scenario would be. Sadly, it'll never happen because, as previously noted, football supporters' fandom always counts against them. The fact remains, however, that once upon a time - and not very long ago, either - the single most important people to the game were those paying through the turnstiles. Now, apparently, they're very low down on the list. Alex Horne, general secretary of the FA, weaselled that the FA wants to 'persist' with the early evening kick-off time in the coming years. 'I'm not surprised that fans want to be able to support their teams and travel but on balance we have said clearly that we think 5:15 is the right kick-off time for the final and we want to persist with that,' he said. 'We think it is right for the vast number of supporters who can watch the game on TV. We think it is right and reasonable for travelling supporters.' Odious, dear blog reader. Utterly and disgustingly odious.

The estate of self-confessed racist, the late Jade Goody is reportedly 'facing bankruptcy' after receiving a one million smackers tax bill. HMRC officials have raised the late reality TV regular's bill from five hundred and sixty six thousand smackers to one million thirty five thousand, nine hundred and two knicker in the past month, leaving her Goody's two sons with nothing. It had been thought that they would inherit mucho wonga in cash and properties from Goody's £2.2 million earnings from, you know, achieving not a single worthwhile bastard thing in her sadly short life. The rest had already been used to settle outstanding debts including years of unpaid income tax. However, it is now likely that the boys will never see a penny of the money as the Inland Revenue has ruled that business expenses and losses made on her Ugly's beauty salon in Harlow, do not qualify for tax relief, the Sun reports. And hard working people who pay their taxes on time are supposed to, what? Feel sorry for them? Forty eight thousand smackers that Goody gave to charity is also taxable because the donations were made at auction, while an attempt by her estate to claim 'expenses' from her wedding to Jack Tweed (you know, the one for which she was paid, massively, by Hello magazine to cover) have been disallowed as deductible by the HMRC as they was 'a personal matter.' The tax bill is said to include one hundred and nineteen thousand quid in interest alone, meaning trustees must now sell Goody's three homes to find funds to pay the latest bill. Trustee Danny Hayward who has spent the past four years trying to get Goody's complicated finances in order, said: 'Jade was determined to give the boys the education she never had. We've paid their private school fees to the end of the year but we can't after that. Jade would be heartbroken.' So, not what she would have wanted, then?

The actress Zooey Deschanel was mistakenly reported as one of the Boston bombers in a closed captioning gaffe. FOX 4 News was covering the manhunt for Dzhokhar Tsarnaev on Friday when the subtitles stated next to the picture of the suspect: 'He is nineteen-year-old Zooey Deschanel.' The mistake was noticed and posted on Twitter. Deschanel herself retweeted the image, shortly before being arrested by the FBI.
And finally for today, dear blog reader, check out Chris Barron's excellent review of Thursday night's (also excellent) Record Player here. Aye. What he said!

And, speaking of Pulp, since the last couple of Keith Telly Topping's 45 of the Day entries featuring yer actual Jarvis and his chums went down so well, here's another one, from a slightly older vintage. Alright.