Engaged couples will soon be saying, if you will, 'I who' at a mass Doctor Who wedding this November. No, really, I'm not making this up. A British company is reported to be looking for one hundred love-struck - and desperate for publicity - Doctor Who fans to, as it were, tie the knot to coincide with the show's fiftieth anniversary. Guests can expect the wedding to be crashed by classic Doctor Who villains in costume. Which, makes a change from drunken in-laws, one imagines. The ceremony will take place in the Bloomsbury Ballroom in London. Willing couples must have more money than sense as they will need to be prepared to fork out two thousand smackers for the privilege. They will also need to prove their enduring love for Doctor Who (and, presumably, each other). But, it appears that even those qualifiers haven't put off some die-hard fans. Why does that not surprise me? 'We've been inundated from all over the world. We had responses yesterday from Israel and Mexico, but the most is from America' claims Selina Price from The Special Events Group. Why does that not surprise me, either? 'They send photographs of themselves in costume, stories, tales of how long they've been fans,' continued Selina who, seemingly, has a higher embarrassment threshold than some of us. 'One man was telling me that when his wife went in to labour, he was watching Doctor Who and made her wait before going to the hospital.' If I was her, I'd've divorced the chap to teach him a lesson in the value of priorities, personally but, presumably, this lady is more tolerent of prats than I. There will, apparently, be prizes for the best costumed newly-weds (dress code: long woolly scarf with a fez, obviously, from the groom - what the bride her very self wears is, seemingly, optional), and the fifty couples will say their Doctor Who-themed vows at the same time. 
The ceremony will be conducted by an ordained minister - mind you, you can become one of those on the Internet these days - and will also serve as a blessing for those who are already married. Although The Doctor his very self is over nine hundred years old, he's only ever had one on-screen wife: River Song. Although, given that he's got at least one granddaughter that we know of, we're presuming there's another Mrs Who out there somewhere in time and space. But the actors who have played him have racked up fifteen marriages in total between them, not counting Doctor-in-waiting Peter Capaldi or the mysterious 'is he or isn't he a Doctor?' John Hurt. The Time Lord has also been a frequent wedding guest. He accidentally abducted Donna Noble just as she was about to walk down the aisle, while Rory and Amy's marriage happened despite the entire universe blowing up shortly before. This mass event could prove equally destructive. The Special Events Group has previous when it comes to with geek nuptials: it once staged the UK's first Klingon wedding. The minister on that occasion had to learn chunks of the fictional alien language to recite the vows - instead of just telling them all to grow-the-fuck-up, seemingly. If any couples want to get married Time Lord-style, and suffer a lifetime of ridicule and mockery from 'normal' people, details are available at specialeventsgroup.co.uk. The deadline is 1 October.
Yer actual Keith Telly Topping must - must dear blog reader - draw your attention to this fabulously in-depth article on the making of one of his favourite movies, the wonderfully daft Clue.
Thanks in no small part to the offer of a lift from the lovely and fragrant Jeff Farrell, yer actual Ketih Telly Topping his very self managed to rise himself from his sick-bed on Monday to attend Mietek and Naomi's evening of, if you will, culture, at St Edmund's in Gatesheed. Smashing food, music from yer actual Uncle Scunthorpe and, just before Keith Telly Topping left, even top local radio personalty Alfie his very self Joey showed up. Glad yer actual Keith Telly Topping managed to get through the whole thing without wincing too much. Then, he returned to Stately Telly Topping Manor, had a cup of tea and some pain killers and settled down to watch Star Trek: Into Darkness. Because he could.
Meanwhile ...
Tuesday morning saw, by far the longest bit of proper peddle punishment around the Tour De St Anthony's on yer actual Gillian her very self. Up Wigmore, along Springwell, up Bird's Nest Road, along Wilton, up Kingston Avenue, up Staines Road, down Chatsworth Gardens, along Allendale, down Walker Road, along Monkchester, back down Wigmore, along Burnham Grove, down Sandy Crescent, along St Anthony's Road and right back up Wigmore again to Stately Telly Topping Manor. Two miles, roughly all told. If someone had told yer actual Keith Telly Topping seven weeks ago that he'd be doing that and end up, admittedly a bit leg-sore and slightly out of breath but, otherwise, undamaged he would have laughed - laughed, I say - in their very faces!
Doc Martin returned to top the ratings outside of soaps on Monday evening, according to overnight data. The popular Martin Clunes drama was watched 7.60 million at 9pm on ITV. However, this is nearly three million punters down from the overnight figure of the the last episode back in 2011. Earlier, Ben Fogle's Countrywise returned for a new series with 2.93m at 8pm. It was a thoroughly frightful night on BBC1 with Fight Back Britain gathering but 2.46m at 8.30pm, followed by Motorway Cops with 2.30m at 9pm. 
BBC2's University Challenge beat both BBC1 shows, pulling in 2.72m at 8pm, while The Incredible Spice Men was watched by 1.34m at 8.30pm. On Channel Four, Odious Risible Multi-Millionaire Jamie Oliver's Odious Risible Money Saving Meals That Taste Like Shite But Make Odious Risible Multi-Millionaire Tosser Jamie Oliver Lots And Lots Of Money appealed to 1.50m sad crushed victims of society at 8pm. Richard Ayoade's Gadget Man brought in 1.47m at 8.30pm. Channel Five's Celebrity Big Brother rose to 1.92m at 9pm. Which, on any normal day would be a tragedy but the fact that it garnered nearly half a million punters more than odious, risible multi-millionaire Jamie Oliver's wretched effing toot is, frankly, a cause to complete and total celebration with the drinking and everything. Under the Dome continued with 1.13m at 10pm.
Strictly Come Dancing has officially unveiled its 2013 line-up. Fifteen celebrities - mostly b-list or above and, to be fair, most of whom you will have actually heard of - including a former Bond girl, people from Hollyoaks, Coronation Street and Casualty and some from the world of rugby and golf are among this year's competitors. Leading the line-up of - mostly - famous faces on the dance floor are BBC Breakfast's Susanna Reid, pouty-faced singer Sophie Ellis-Bextor (murder on the dance floor, indeed) and Rugby World Cup winner Ben Cohen. Others shaking their - if you will - funky stuff down to the ground for the public will include soaps trio Natalie Gumede (from Corrie) and Patrick Robinson (Casualty) both of whom, at least, most viewers will know, and Ashley Taylor Dawson (who is in Hollyoaks, apparently.
No, me neither, I'm afraid). Waterloo Road actor Mark Benton and one half of The Hairy Bikers, Davey Myers, will also be aiming to impress with their silky moves - or, you know, provide John Sergeant-style laughs, anyway. Countdown's Rachel Riley and model and Peter Crouch's missus Abbey Clancy will be bringing some glamour to BBC1 on Saturday nights, while fashion designer Julien Macdonald (never heard of him) is also present. As are big, fat, enormous Vanessa Feltz, Dragons' Den's Deborah Meaden, ex-Bond actress Fiona Fullerton and former golfer Tony Jacklin. In the launch show this weekend, the celebrities will meet their professional partners for the first time and perform a group dance. Len Goodman, Craig Revel Horwood, Bruno Tonioli and Darcey Bussell all return to this year's judging panel. The pro dancers include five new faces - Anya Garnis, Iveta Lukosiute, Janette Manrara, Kevin Clifton and Aljaz Skorjanec, while Ola and James Jordan, Brendan Cole, Anton du Beke, Kristina Rihanoff, Robin Windsor, Karen Hauer and Aliona Vilani all return. Jessie J and Rod Stewart are the special musical guest performers, while last year's series champions Louis Smith and Flavia Cacace will also return for a special performance. Yer actual Keith Telly Topping, almost in spite of himself, does rather enjoy Strictly, dear blog reader. Make of that what you will.
ITV's crime drama Midsomer Murders will get a Nordic noir twist to mark its one hundredth episode later this year, shooting a special episode in Denmark alongside the producers of The Killing. DCI Barnaby (Neil Dudgeon) and DS Nelson (Gwilym Lee) will travel to Denmark in The Killings at Copenhagen after a body is discovered which links back to a family in Midsomer. ITV is teaming up with DR, the Danish state broadcaster, for the episode. Stars of hit Danish series The Killing (Ann Eleonora Jorgensen) and Borgen (the brilliant Birgitte Hjort Sorensen) will guest in the episode. Midsomer is massive popular in Denmark, where it is known as Barnaby and has been running for twelve years with big viewing figures.
Jo Wright, Midsomer's executive producer, said: 'The idea to shoot in Denmark came about because we wanted to do something special to mark the one hundredth episode, and it's great to be working with DR, producer of the award-winning series The Killing.' Producer Louise Sutton added: 'This is very exciting for us as it is the first time that Bentley Productions have taken Midsomer Murders out of the UK to film.' Well, you know, the town does have a murder-ate higher than Baltimore, it's never really been necessary before. Presumably, they're reaching the point now where there are no more people left in Midsomer to kill. 'It is also fantastic to work with Danish actors from The Killing and Borgen,' Louise added. DR's acquisitions executive Kaare Schmidt said: 'Midsomer Murders is a benchmark in television entertainment and Danish viewers' favourite programme for more than a decade. It's an honour and a thrill for us to be able to contribute to the series' distinguished line of murder victims and police detectives.' It's odd, isn't it, in this country, The Killing, Borgen, The Bridge et al are regarded as quality products with a cult following whilst Midsomer, though popular, is seen as somewhat generic hack-work - albeit, often quite entertaining hack-work. Seemingly, in Denmark it's the other way around!
Grand Designs chap Kevin McCloud had to have a little help from the RNLI recently after a raft he helped to build proved less than a grand design. McCloud was taking part in a charity race when he started to sink and go backwards, according to the Sun. But McCloud, who took part with a TV crew in a five-mile race to Minehead in Somerset, was insistent that he did not actually go down withe ship. 'We did not sink,' he said. 'We did finish. We do owe a lot of thanks to the lovely RNLI for the tow.'
Filming has started on the Mrs Brown's Boys movie in Dublin. Brendan O'Carroll and his co-stars are set to spend five weeks shooting in Ireland before moving to the UK.
The first scenes of Mrs Brown's Boys: D'Movie were shot in a street market in Moore Street on Monday, with Irish comedian June Rodgers making a brief appearance as a stall holder. All the regular cast of the hit TV series are expected to return, including many members of O'Carroll's real-life family: his wife Jennifer Gibney, his daughter Fiona, his son Danny and his sister Eilish. The film is directed by Ben Kellett, who worked on the TV series as well as the BBC3 sitcoms Badults, We Are Klang and Al Murray's Multiple Personality Disorder. By hell, that's a CV you really want to have, isn't it? The movie is due out next summer, and O'Carroll has said a fourth BBC series may follow once work on the production is complete.
The Prime Minister's, if you will, former 'chum', Andy Coulson, the ex-Downing Street director of communications, has stuck his head above the political parapet for the first time in some months. According to a report in The Times, Coulson says that his former boss is failing to address the Conservatives' 'vulnerability' to Nigel Farage's UkiP. The Prime Minister has not done enough to reassure the public on Europe, Coulson argues in the latest issue of GQ magazine, which goes on sale this week. Coulson, editor of the Scum of the World for four years from 2003, is currently awaiting trial on charges of conspiracy to hack phones and conspiracy to commit misconduct in a public office. He has also been charged with perjury in connection with the evidence he gave in the trial of Tommy Sheridan. In the GQ article - for which, we must assume, Coulson was paid - Coulson writes that the Conservatives' post election in/out referendum promise took the wind out of UkiP sails but more work will need to be done as next year's European elections approach. 
He urges the Tory leadership to realise that the party is mishandling the UkiP threat, and are wrong to cast its members as 'fruitcakes, loonies and closet racists' as Cameron did in 2006. This plays to the advantage of 'Mister Mirage', Coulson's tabloid-style nickname for Farage. He writes: 'UkiP has become a club for disgruntled, invariably older Tories fed up with the leadership's attitude mostly, although not entirely, towards Europe.' And Coulson warns that should UkiP do well in the European election next May then Farage may push to take part in the televised leadership debates for the general election twelve months later. He writes: 'The Conservatives should meet the Ukip debating challenge sooner and have Farage boxed off long before the first TV debate.' He wants the party to produce a You Tube-friendly package of Farage's 'less pleasant and stranger utterances', especially on the economy. Coulson is due to face trial at the Old Bailey next month along with well-known Crystal Tipps lookalike Rebekah Brooks, the former chief executive of News International, over allegations that they were involved in a conspiracy to intercept voicemails at the disgraced and disgraceful Scum of the World. Both Coulson and Brooks have denied any wrongdoing. Last November, appeal court judges ruled that News International should pay Coulson's legal fees in the case.
Former Scum of the World journalist Dan Evans is to be charged with four alleged offences under the criminal investigations arising out of the phone-hacking scandal. Evans is accused of two counts of conspiring to intercept the voicemail messages of 'well-known people and their associates' between 2003 and 2010, the Crown Prosecution Service said on Tuesday. Prosecutors said that he is also charged with allegedly attempting to pervert the course of justice by making a false witness statement between 2009 and 2010. The fourth charge facing Evans relates to the Operation Elveden investigation into alleged illicit payments by journalists to police and public officials. Gregor McGill, a senior lawyer with the CPS, said: 'The CPS has concluded there is sufficient evidence and it is in the public interest to charge Daniel Evans with four offences in connection with the phone hacking investigations. All of these matters were considered carefully in accordance with the code for crown prosecutors and the DPP's guidelines on the public interest in cases affecting the media. These guidelines ask prosecutors to consider whether the public interest served by the conduct in question outweighs the overall criminality before bringing criminal proceedings. May I remind all concerned that proceedings for criminal offences involving this individual will now be commenced and he has a right to a fair trial. It is very important that nothing is said, or reported, which could prejudice this. For these reasons it would be inappropriate for me to comment further.' The former Scum of the World journalist – who was the twelfth arrest under Operation Weeting in August 2011 – has been instructed to appear before Westminster Magistrates' Court on Wednesday 4 September. The CPS said that Evans is accused of conspiring to intercept telephone communications between 28 February 2003 and 1 January 2005 and, in a separate charge, between 30 April 2004 and 1 June 2010. The charge arising out of Operation Elveden alleges that Evans conspired with others to commit misconduct in public office between 1 January 2008 and 1 June 2010. In the fourth charge, the CPS said Evans is accused of committing an act which had 'a tendency to pervert the course of justice' – namely making a false witness statement in connection with proceedings before the high court – between 21 June 2009 and 30 April 2010.
Rat-faced loathsome wretched odious nasty slavver-merchant and George Formby lookalike Gove has admitted getting 'heated' with Labour MPs after last week's Commons vote on Syria. Rat-faced loathsome wretched odious nasty slavver-merchant and George Formby lookalike Gove claimed that the sight of the MPs 'celebrating' while children were being killed in Syria by 'a ruthless dictator' 'got' to him. Rat-faced loathsome wretched odious nasty slavver-merchant and George Formby lookalike Gove is reported to have had 'a foul-mouthed row' with the shadow defence secretary Jim Murphy after the surprise defeat for the government. Rat-faced loathsome wretched odious nasty slavver-merchant and George Formby lookalike Gove said he still felt 'incredibly emotional' about the subject. Rat-faced loathsome wretched odious nasty slavver-merchant and George Formby lookalike Gove, who had been a strong advocate of joining US-led strikes on the Assad regime in response to chemical attacks, is reported to have 'lost his cool' with Labour MPs who had voted the motion down. Which would, dear blog reader, have been a sight worth seeing as, frankly, anything which caused rat-faced loathsome wretched odious nasty slavver-merchant and George Formby lookalike Gove to lose whatever 'cool' rat-faced loathsome wretched odious nasty slavver-merchant and George Formby lookalike Gove has ever possessed must have been brilliant.
Rat-faced loathsome wretched odious nasty slavver-merchant and George Formby lookalike Gove shouted 'disgrace, disgrace' across the Commons chamber and accused Murphy of 'appeasing' President Assad, according to MPs who were there at the time. Labour backbencher Dai Havard also accused Rat-faced loathsome wretched odious nasty slavver-merchant and George Formby lookalike Gove of calling him 'a Nazi', something denied by Rat-faced loathsome wretched odious nasty slavver-merchant and George Formby lookalike Gove's aides, who said he had been comparing President Assad to a National Socialist. Quizzed on the BBC News Channel about his reaction to the vote, Rat-faced loathsome wretched odious nasty slavver-merchant and George Formby lookalike Gove said: 'I did become heated last week at the moment that the government lost the vote on the motion there were Labour MPs cheering as though it were a football match and they had just won.' On Sunday, Jim Murphy admitted that he had used 'industrial language' in his row with Rat-faced loathsome wretched odious nasty slavver-merchant and George Formby lookalike Gove. 'Yes, on a Sunday morning, with children watching, you can't repeat what Michael Gove and I said to each other,' he told the BBC's The Andrew Marr Show. 'I used industrial language that my priest would not be proud of.' Dai Havard is reported to have been furious with Rat-faced loathsome wretched odious nasty slavver-merchant and George Formby lookalike Gove's alleged Nazi jibe, telling colleagues: 'If he does it again, I'll deck him.' It is reported that a queue a mile long soon formed of people offering to hold Havard's coat.
The broadcaster and presenter David Jacobs, whose career spanned seven decades, has died aged eighty seven. Jacobs, who stepped down from his Radio 2 programme last month because of ill-health, died at home 'surrounded by his family', the BBC said in a statement. For more than seven decades, David Jacobs' urbane charm made him a much loved figure on radio and television. On radio, he presented a number of music programmes, including Melodies For You, Music Through Midnight and Housewives' Choice. And he proved he could also handle current affairs, hosting the BBC's Any Questions for seventeen years. His TV work included being one of the founding presenters of the corporation's Top Of The Pops, hosting Juke Box Jury between 1957 and 1969, and doing a stint as the voice of The Eurovision Song Contest. In between all this he managed to fit in some acting. BBC Director General Tony Hall described David as 'one of the great broadcast personalities. As a young and avid viewer of Juke Box Jury, I remember him every week scoring the hits and misses,' Hall said. 'And I was still listening to him just last month as he fronted his show The David Jacobs Collection on Radio 2.' He added: 'We shall all miss him tremendously.' Announcing in July that he was stepping down from his Radio 2 show, Jacobs said: 'Over the past two years Radio 2 has given me time to be treated for liver cancer and Parkinson's Disease.' David Lewis Jacobs was born in Streatham Hill in May 1926. He left school at fourteen and had various jobs, including working as a groom in a riding stables and a role as a salesman at a men's outfitters. His broadcasting voice was honed from an early age. 'My mother and father were very keen on people speaking properly and politeness,' he later recalled.
'In search of that, we had what was then called a governess, who was really specifically there to give us the right words to say at the right time and bring us up properly.' Jacobs started his broadcasting career in the Royal Navy in 1944, where he was made an announcer on wartime radio station Radio SEAC. An officer, Commander Kim Peacock, heard Jacobs and suggested he become an announcer on the forces-run radio station broadcasting to South East Asia from Ceylon. 'He said he didn't think much of my impersonations,' Jacobs remembered, 'but he thought the way I announced them was very good.' David moved on to the BBC Overseas Service but he was later sacked, he said, for laughing while reading the news. He also did a stint on Radio Luxembourg, where he recalled hosting a programme where they brought newly married couples onto the programme to answer innuendo-filled questions. The programme was sponsored by a fruit importer and at unsuitable points Jacobs would call out 'one, two, three, four' and the audience had to shout back 'Fyffes bananas'. He took up acting, appearing as Laurie in the first BBC TV adaptation of Little Women in 1951. In 1964, he became one of the original Top Of The Pops presenters and he also worked as the BBC's Eurovision Song Contest commentator before he was succeeded by Terry Wogan. He also introduced all fifty three episodes of radio SF serial Journey Into Space, as well as playing twenty two characters. David had always been a music lover and in 1959 he was asked to present Juke Box Jury, in those days one of BBC TV's rare acknowledgements of the increasing dominance of pop music. A panel of four jurors, usually drawn from the world of light entertainment, listened to recently released singles and than voted them either a 'Hit' or a 'Miss', the cue for Jacobs to hit a bell for the former and a hooter for the latter. The show quickly drew audiences of more than twelve million, a figure which nearly doubled when The Beatles appeared as the panel in December 1963. 
'We were doing the show live, and the noise beforehand was unbelievable,' Jacobs recalled. 'So I simply addressed the audience before the boys came on, and said, "Look, we'd all much rather hear what The Beatles have to say rather than a lot of screaming." And you know what? They were perfectly behaved.' It was perhaps natural that Jacobs would be asked to be one of the four original presenters of Top Of The Pops when it launched in 1964 - along with Alan Freeman, Peter Murray and naughty old scallywag and rotter Jimmy Savile. David stayed with the programme for just two years, although he made two return appearances, in 1983 and 1988. 'I became too square for the pop scene,' he said. Jacobs also commentated on a number of Eurovision Song Contests for the BBC, including a five-year run in the early 1960s. He was. perhaps. a surprise choice to succeed Freddie Grisewood in 1967 as chairman of Any Questions?, BBC Radio's topical debate programme, but he quickly established himself as a fixture. He sometimes had difficult situations to deal with. At Basingstoke in 1976 the programme, which was always broadcast live, was stopped for ten minutes by people demonstrating against despicable old racist Enoch Powell's presence on the panel. Jacobs appeared briefly on Radio 1 when the station began in 1967, when some of its output was also broadcast on Radio 2. He continued to appear on TV, making a cameo appearance in a 1975 episode of Some Mothers Do 'Ave 'Em and hosting Come Dancing, the original ballroom competition. But for most of the rest of his broadcasting career he was a Radio 2 stalwart, presenting a series of programmes in his own unmistakable style. His secret, as he revealed in a 1994 interview, was one that had been passed on from the great cricket commentator John Arlott. 'In order to convey the impression of one-to-one intimacy, always speak while holding, and fingering, a pencil.' Jacobs only quit presenting regular shows on the station in July 2013 when, at the age of eighty seven, poor health forced him to give up. He won a Sony Gold Award for outstanding contribution to radio in 1984 and was admitted to the Sony Hall of Fame in 1995. Radio 2 controller Bob Shennan paid tribute to 'a true giant of the BBC. David was a legend in broadcasting, not only for the Radio 2 audience, but for the whole population,' he added. David's broadcast hallmarks were 'great taste, authority and warmth', Shennan said. 
'I am sure his audience will feel they have lost a friend, as we all do here at Radio 2.' Radio 2 colleague Whispering Bob Harris wrote on Twitter: 'So very sad to hear the news about David Jacobs, my friend and mentor. He gave me my first ever mention on the radio on my fifteenth birthday.' And veteran radio DJ Tony Blackburn said on Twitter that he had been to his friend's eighty fifth birthday party 'and he did the most brilliant speech which I'll never forget - he will be sadly missed by all of us.' Helen Boaden, controller of BBC Radio, said: 'From Juke Box Jury to Melodies For You on Radio 2, David's effortless presenting style belied his consummate professionalism.' In a career retrospective broadcast on Radio 2 last year, broadcaster Chris Evans described Jacobs as 'the gentleman's broadcaster. David Jacobs [is] one of the cornerstones of British broadcasting,' he said. 'A man who always has time for you, who always has something worth listening to.' The BBC said Radio 2 would be paying tribute to the broadcaster with a number of special programmes. There was tragedy in David's personal life. He married Patricia Bradlaw in 1949 and they had three daughters and a son, Jeremy, who died aged nineteen after being hit by a lorry in Israel in 1973. The marriage had been dissolved in 1972. David's second wife, Caroline, was killed in a road accident in Spain while pregnant, just weeks after their marriage. David wrote a best-selling book, Caroline, about her which was published in 1978. Jacobs married for a third time, to Lindsay Stuart-Hutcheson in 1979. He is survived by his three daughters from his first marriage. Behind the suave persona Jacobs was known to his colleagues as a bit of a rebel, a mischief-maker and, according to former Radio 2 controller James Moir, never one to toe the establishment line. Immaculately turned-out, Jacobs was completely unflappable on-air, treating everyone with the charm and old-world courtesy for which he will be remembered.
The iconic Teletubbies set has been flooded and turned into a pond because its owner was 'fed up with trespassing tourists.' Yer actual Tinky Winky, Dipsy, Laa-Laa and Po their very selves were filmed at the hill house on a farm in Wimpstone, Warwickshire for the BBC show between 1997 and 2001. After the BAFTA-winning show was cancelled, the magic windmill, windows and flowers were removed from the house, leaving a bare grassy slope. Despite this, Teletubbies fans continued to trespass onto the hill, until the land owner, one Rosemary Harding, was left with no choice, she claimed, but to remove it. 'People were jumping fences and crossing cattle fields,' the sixty three year old whinged to the Sunday People. 'We're glad to see the back of it.' The BBC filmed three hundred and sixty five episodes of Teletubbies during its four year run and the popular children's show is still being shown on CBeebies.
Premier League clubs spent a record six hundred and thirty million quid in the summer transfer window, according to Deloitte's Sports Business Group. The previous record of five hundred million notes was set in 2008. The transfer window closed at 23:00 on Monday. Among the big signings on Monday was Mesut Özil who is going from Real Madrid to The Arse for just over fort two million smackers. The Scum left it late in the day to sign Marouane Fellaini for twenty seven and a half million knicker from Everton. 'The story of this summer transfer window is of new records: a new record for Premier League spending as well as a new world transfer record fee,' said Dan Jones at Deloitte. 
The record transfer fee was for Gareth Bale, who was sold to Real Madrid by Stottingtot Hotshots for eighty five million wonga. Premier League clubs are flush with cash from their latest domestic three-year TV deal. BT has spent seven hundred and thirty eight million quid over three years for the rights to thirty eight live matches a season, while Sky paid £2.3bn for one hundred and sixteen matches a season. 'Testament to the impact this is having is in the scale of Premier League gross spending, as well as the gulf in net spending between the Premier League and other European leagues,' said Alex Thorpe at Deloitte. 'Whereas many clubs around Europe have been reliant on selling players in order to spend, the financial advantages Premier League clubs enjoy has enabled net spending of four hundred million smackers across the league.' Although they have not matched the Premier League, spending in other major European leagues has also been up. La Liga and Serie A each had gross spending of three hundred and thirty five million notes, followed by Ligue 1 in France with three hundred and fifteen million and Germany's Bundesliga with two hundred and thirty million.
Meanwhile, yer actual Keith Telly Topping's beloved (though unsellable) Magpies sent not a penny. Nada. Zilch. Nowt. Not a sausage. Bugger all. The club's director of sod-all, risible Joe Kinnear, was the main target for supporters' incandescent fury following a summer in which he had lots to say for himself and his own abilities in 'opening doors' for the club but has appeared utterly incapable of doing the job for which he was appointed to carry out by owner greedy lard-bucket Mike Ashley in June. Risible Kinnear's main responsibility is, allegedly, player recruitment, but despite ending last season looking for two strikers, a centre-back and a winger, manager Alan Pardew has been given just one new player, the forward Loïc Rémy, who has signed on loan at St James’ Park from Queens Park Strangers and who is currently on police bail regarding allegations of rape (allegaions which, it is important to note, he denies). Despite reported interest in Lyon forward Bafétimbi Gomis, Moscow Chelski's Demba Ba, Blackpool's Tom Ince, Lille's Florian Thauvin and Wigan Not-Very-Athletic's James McCarthy, Newcastle have not signed any of them. Or anybody else for that matter. Pardew his very self was careful not to publicly criticise Kinnear's efforts as deadline day approached - keeping his powder dry for a potential forthcoming constructive dismissal industrial tribunal hearing, no doubt - but he steadfastly maintained that he wanted to add at least 'one or two offensive players' to his paper-thin squad. The failure to do that means Newcastle are short of cover and competition for places, a weakness which contributed to the club's dangerous brush with relegation at the back end of the very disappointing last season.
Since then, three of the first team squad (Danny Simpson, Steve Harper and James Perch) have left, along with a number of younger fringe players on loan and none have been replaced. At the very least, Newcastle's failure to sign some new players reeks of a crass lack of ambition. Many are asking just what, exactly, risible Kinnear is doing at Newcastle to justify his salary. And, indeed, his continued existence. A slow but effective conveyor belt of players had been brought in over the last three seasons, all spotted by the club's acclaimed chief scout Graham Carr with former chairman Derek Llambias the man to get the financials signed and sealed only to be closed down and mothballed by the risible Kinnear. Pardew will certainly not be happy, but he has been here before and as the public face of the Ashley regime he will be expected to offer the usual excuses designed to appease disgruntled Newcastle supporters. Given the club boasted of a record - and quite disgraceful - shirt sponsorship deal with Internet loan company Wonga this season, and with an extra thirty million smackers in television revenue, Newcastle fans are perhaps justified in wondered where, exactly, all of the money has gone. Many fear that Ashley is more interested in taking coin out of the club to pay back the interest-fee loans – totalling more than one hundred million quid – which he provided during his first three years as owner to cover debts and the cost of relegation to the Championship in 2009. Pardew will also have to work hard to ensure that Yohan Cabaye is fully committed to the Newcastle cause. The French midfielder had been angling for a move for several months, but with three years left on his contract and with the Tyneside club asking for twenty million knicker to part with him, he has not got his wish, despite effectively going on strike last week to try to force a way out.
Classic Beatles LPs including Revolver have finally gone platinum after the British Phonographic Industry changed its sales award rules. Gold or platinum status has become synonymous with record success but the system has only been in place since 1973, after The Beatles broke up. Until last month, the BPI relied on a record company to request an award.
Under the new system, sales figures are automatically recognised as soon as a record passes the relevant threshold. This means that thirteen Beatles LPs will now be recognised for the first time, although the number of sales can only be counted from 1994, when the Official Charts Company began keeping records. Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club band is now a triple-platinum LP, having sold more than nine hundred thousand copies since 1994. In total, the LP is estimated to have sold five million units in the UK since its 1967 release. Revolver, Help, Rubber Soul, The White Album and Abbey Road now also have platinum status. Classic LPs from the likes of Bob Dylan, The Beach Boys and Marvin Gaye will also receive awards.
Which, as if by osmosis, bring us to yer actual Keith Telly Topping's 45 of the Day. This would seem to be appropriate.
The ceremony will be conducted by an ordained minister - mind you, you can become one of those on the Internet these days - and will also serve as a blessing for those who are already married. Although The Doctor his very self is over nine hundred years old, he's only ever had one on-screen wife: River Song. Although, given that he's got at least one granddaughter that we know of, we're presuming there's another Mrs Who out there somewhere in time and space. But the actors who have played him have racked up fifteen marriages in total between them, not counting Doctor-in-waiting Peter Capaldi or the mysterious 'is he or isn't he a Doctor?' John Hurt. The Time Lord has also been a frequent wedding guest. He accidentally abducted Donna Noble just as she was about to walk down the aisle, while Rory and Amy's marriage happened despite the entire universe blowing up shortly before. This mass event could prove equally destructive. The Special Events Group has previous when it comes to with geek nuptials: it once staged the UK's first Klingon wedding. The minister on that occasion had to learn chunks of the fictional alien language to recite the vows - instead of just telling them all to grow-the-fuck-up, seemingly. If any couples want to get married Time Lord-style, and suffer a lifetime of ridicule and mockery from 'normal' people, details are available at specialeventsgroup.co.uk. The deadline is 1 October.
BBC2's University Challenge beat both BBC1 shows, pulling in 2.72m at 8pm, while The Incredible Spice Men was watched by 1.34m at 8.30pm. On Channel Four, Odious Risible Multi-Millionaire Jamie Oliver's Odious Risible Money Saving Meals That Taste Like Shite But Make Odious Risible Multi-Millionaire Tosser Jamie Oliver Lots And Lots Of Money appealed to 1.50m sad crushed victims of society at 8pm. Richard Ayoade's Gadget Man brought in 1.47m at 8.30pm. Channel Five's Celebrity Big Brother rose to 1.92m at 9pm. Which, on any normal day would be a tragedy but the fact that it garnered nearly half a million punters more than odious, risible multi-millionaire Jamie Oliver's wretched effing toot is, frankly, a cause to complete and total celebration with the drinking and everything. Under the Dome continued with 1.13m at 10pm. Strictly Come Dancing has officially unveiled its 2013 line-up. Fifteen celebrities - mostly b-list or above and, to be fair, most of whom you will have actually heard of - including a former Bond girl, people from Hollyoaks, Coronation Street and Casualty and some from the world of rugby and golf are among this year's competitors. Leading the line-up of - mostly - famous faces on the dance floor are BBC Breakfast's Susanna Reid, pouty-faced singer Sophie Ellis-Bextor (murder on the dance floor, indeed) and Rugby World Cup winner Ben Cohen. Others shaking their - if you will - funky stuff down to the ground for the public will include soaps trio Natalie Gumede (from Corrie) and Patrick Robinson (Casualty) both of whom, at least, most viewers will know, and Ashley Taylor Dawson (who is in Hollyoaks, apparently.
No, me neither, I'm afraid). Waterloo Road actor Mark Benton and one half of The Hairy Bikers, Davey Myers, will also be aiming to impress with their silky moves - or, you know, provide John Sergeant-style laughs, anyway. Countdown's Rachel Riley and model and Peter Crouch's missus Abbey Clancy will be bringing some glamour to BBC1 on Saturday nights, while fashion designer Julien Macdonald (never heard of him) is also present. As are big, fat, enormous Vanessa Feltz, Dragons' Den's Deborah Meaden, ex-Bond actress Fiona Fullerton and former golfer Tony Jacklin. In the launch show this weekend, the celebrities will meet their professional partners for the first time and perform a group dance. Len Goodman, Craig Revel Horwood, Bruno Tonioli and Darcey Bussell all return to this year's judging panel. The pro dancers include five new faces - Anya Garnis, Iveta Lukosiute, Janette Manrara, Kevin Clifton and Aljaz Skorjanec, while Ola and James Jordan, Brendan Cole, Anton du Beke, Kristina Rihanoff, Robin Windsor, Karen Hauer and Aliona Vilani all return. Jessie J and Rod Stewart are the special musical guest performers, while last year's series champions Louis Smith and Flavia Cacace will also return for a special performance. Yer actual Keith Telly Topping, almost in spite of himself, does rather enjoy Strictly, dear blog reader. Make of that what you will. ITV's crime drama Midsomer Murders will get a Nordic noir twist to mark its one hundredth episode later this year, shooting a special episode in Denmark alongside the producers of The Killing. DCI Barnaby (Neil Dudgeon) and DS Nelson (Gwilym Lee) will travel to Denmark in The Killings at Copenhagen after a body is discovered which links back to a family in Midsomer. ITV is teaming up with DR, the Danish state broadcaster, for the episode. Stars of hit Danish series The Killing (Ann Eleonora Jorgensen) and Borgen (the brilliant Birgitte Hjort Sorensen) will guest in the episode. Midsomer is massive popular in Denmark, where it is known as Barnaby and has been running for twelve years with big viewing figures.
Jo Wright, Midsomer's executive producer, said: 'The idea to shoot in Denmark came about because we wanted to do something special to mark the one hundredth episode, and it's great to be working with DR, producer of the award-winning series The Killing.' Producer Louise Sutton added: 'This is very exciting for us as it is the first time that Bentley Productions have taken Midsomer Murders out of the UK to film.' Well, you know, the town does have a murder-ate higher than Baltimore, it's never really been necessary before. Presumably, they're reaching the point now where there are no more people left in Midsomer to kill. 'It is also fantastic to work with Danish actors from The Killing and Borgen,' Louise added. DR's acquisitions executive Kaare Schmidt said: 'Midsomer Murders is a benchmark in television entertainment and Danish viewers' favourite programme for more than a decade. It's an honour and a thrill for us to be able to contribute to the series' distinguished line of murder victims and police detectives.' It's odd, isn't it, in this country, The Killing, Borgen, The Bridge et al are regarded as quality products with a cult following whilst Midsomer, though popular, is seen as somewhat generic hack-work - albeit, often quite entertaining hack-work. Seemingly, in Denmark it's the other way around!Grand Designs chap Kevin McCloud had to have a little help from the RNLI recently after a raft he helped to build proved less than a grand design. McCloud was taking part in a charity race when he started to sink and go backwards, according to the Sun. But McCloud, who took part with a TV crew in a five-mile race to Minehead in Somerset, was insistent that he did not actually go down withe ship. 'We did not sink,' he said. 'We did finish. We do owe a lot of thanks to the lovely RNLI for the tow.'
Filming has started on the Mrs Brown's Boys movie in Dublin. Brendan O'Carroll and his co-stars are set to spend five weeks shooting in Ireland before moving to the UK.
The first scenes of Mrs Brown's Boys: D'Movie were shot in a street market in Moore Street on Monday, with Irish comedian June Rodgers making a brief appearance as a stall holder. All the regular cast of the hit TV series are expected to return, including many members of O'Carroll's real-life family: his wife Jennifer Gibney, his daughter Fiona, his son Danny and his sister Eilish. The film is directed by Ben Kellett, who worked on the TV series as well as the BBC3 sitcoms Badults, We Are Klang and Al Murray's Multiple Personality Disorder. By hell, that's a CV you really want to have, isn't it? The movie is due out next summer, and O'Carroll has said a fourth BBC series may follow once work on the production is complete.
He urges the Tory leadership to realise that the party is mishandling the UkiP threat, and are wrong to cast its members as 'fruitcakes, loonies and closet racists' as Cameron did in 2006. This plays to the advantage of 'Mister Mirage', Coulson's tabloid-style nickname for Farage. He writes: 'UkiP has become a club for disgruntled, invariably older Tories fed up with the leadership's attitude mostly, although not entirely, towards Europe.' And Coulson warns that should UkiP do well in the European election next May then Farage may push to take part in the televised leadership debates for the general election twelve months later. He writes: 'The Conservatives should meet the Ukip debating challenge sooner and have Farage boxed off long before the first TV debate.' He wants the party to produce a You Tube-friendly package of Farage's 'less pleasant and stranger utterances', especially on the economy. Coulson is due to face trial at the Old Bailey next month along with well-known Crystal Tipps lookalike Rebekah Brooks, the former chief executive of News International, over allegations that they were involved in a conspiracy to intercept voicemails at the disgraced and disgraceful Scum of the World. Both Coulson and Brooks have denied any wrongdoing. Last November, appeal court judges ruled that News International should pay Coulson's legal fees in the case. Former Scum of the World journalist Dan Evans is to be charged with four alleged offences under the criminal investigations arising out of the phone-hacking scandal. Evans is accused of two counts of conspiring to intercept the voicemail messages of 'well-known people and their associates' between 2003 and 2010, the Crown Prosecution Service said on Tuesday. Prosecutors said that he is also charged with allegedly attempting to pervert the course of justice by making a false witness statement between 2009 and 2010. The fourth charge facing Evans relates to the Operation Elveden investigation into alleged illicit payments by journalists to police and public officials. Gregor McGill, a senior lawyer with the CPS, said: 'The CPS has concluded there is sufficient evidence and it is in the public interest to charge Daniel Evans with four offences in connection with the phone hacking investigations. All of these matters were considered carefully in accordance with the code for crown prosecutors and the DPP's guidelines on the public interest in cases affecting the media. These guidelines ask prosecutors to consider whether the public interest served by the conduct in question outweighs the overall criminality before bringing criminal proceedings. May I remind all concerned that proceedings for criminal offences involving this individual will now be commenced and he has a right to a fair trial. It is very important that nothing is said, or reported, which could prejudice this. For these reasons it would be inappropriate for me to comment further.' The former Scum of the World journalist – who was the twelfth arrest under Operation Weeting in August 2011 – has been instructed to appear before Westminster Magistrates' Court on Wednesday 4 September. The CPS said that Evans is accused of conspiring to intercept telephone communications between 28 February 2003 and 1 January 2005 and, in a separate charge, between 30 April 2004 and 1 June 2010. The charge arising out of Operation Elveden alleges that Evans conspired with others to commit misconduct in public office between 1 January 2008 and 1 June 2010. In the fourth charge, the CPS said Evans is accused of committing an act which had 'a tendency to pervert the course of justice' – namely making a false witness statement in connection with proceedings before the high court – between 21 June 2009 and 30 April 2010.
Rat-faced loathsome wretched odious nasty slavver-merchant and George Formby lookalike Gove has admitted getting 'heated' with Labour MPs after last week's Commons vote on Syria. Rat-faced loathsome wretched odious nasty slavver-merchant and George Formby lookalike Gove claimed that the sight of the MPs 'celebrating' while children were being killed in Syria by 'a ruthless dictator' 'got' to him. Rat-faced loathsome wretched odious nasty slavver-merchant and George Formby lookalike Gove is reported to have had 'a foul-mouthed row' with the shadow defence secretary Jim Murphy after the surprise defeat for the government. Rat-faced loathsome wretched odious nasty slavver-merchant and George Formby lookalike Gove said he still felt 'incredibly emotional' about the subject. Rat-faced loathsome wretched odious nasty slavver-merchant and George Formby lookalike Gove, who had been a strong advocate of joining US-led strikes on the Assad regime in response to chemical attacks, is reported to have 'lost his cool' with Labour MPs who had voted the motion down. Which would, dear blog reader, have been a sight worth seeing as, frankly, anything which caused rat-faced loathsome wretched odious nasty slavver-merchant and George Formby lookalike Gove to lose whatever 'cool' rat-faced loathsome wretched odious nasty slavver-merchant and George Formby lookalike Gove has ever possessed must have been brilliant.
Rat-faced loathsome wretched odious nasty slavver-merchant and George Formby lookalike Gove shouted 'disgrace, disgrace' across the Commons chamber and accused Murphy of 'appeasing' President Assad, according to MPs who were there at the time. Labour backbencher Dai Havard also accused Rat-faced loathsome wretched odious nasty slavver-merchant and George Formby lookalike Gove of calling him 'a Nazi', something denied by Rat-faced loathsome wretched odious nasty slavver-merchant and George Formby lookalike Gove's aides, who said he had been comparing President Assad to a National Socialist. Quizzed on the BBC News Channel about his reaction to the vote, Rat-faced loathsome wretched odious nasty slavver-merchant and George Formby lookalike Gove said: 'I did become heated last week at the moment that the government lost the vote on the motion there were Labour MPs cheering as though it were a football match and they had just won.' On Sunday, Jim Murphy admitted that he had used 'industrial language' in his row with Rat-faced loathsome wretched odious nasty slavver-merchant and George Formby lookalike Gove. 'Yes, on a Sunday morning, with children watching, you can't repeat what Michael Gove and I said to each other,' he told the BBC's The Andrew Marr Show. 'I used industrial language that my priest would not be proud of.' Dai Havard is reported to have been furious with Rat-faced loathsome wretched odious nasty slavver-merchant and George Formby lookalike Gove's alleged Nazi jibe, telling colleagues: 'If he does it again, I'll deck him.' It is reported that a queue a mile long soon formed of people offering to hold Havard's coat. The broadcaster and presenter David Jacobs, whose career spanned seven decades, has died aged eighty seven. Jacobs, who stepped down from his Radio 2 programme last month because of ill-health, died at home 'surrounded by his family', the BBC said in a statement. For more than seven decades, David Jacobs' urbane charm made him a much loved figure on radio and television. On radio, he presented a number of music programmes, including Melodies For You, Music Through Midnight and Housewives' Choice. And he proved he could also handle current affairs, hosting the BBC's Any Questions for seventeen years. His TV work included being one of the founding presenters of the corporation's Top Of The Pops, hosting Juke Box Jury between 1957 and 1969, and doing a stint as the voice of The Eurovision Song Contest. In between all this he managed to fit in some acting. BBC Director General Tony Hall described David as 'one of the great broadcast personalities. As a young and avid viewer of Juke Box Jury, I remember him every week scoring the hits and misses,' Hall said. 'And I was still listening to him just last month as he fronted his show The David Jacobs Collection on Radio 2.' He added: 'We shall all miss him tremendously.' Announcing in July that he was stepping down from his Radio 2 show, Jacobs said: 'Over the past two years Radio 2 has given me time to be treated for liver cancer and Parkinson's Disease.' David Lewis Jacobs was born in Streatham Hill in May 1926. He left school at fourteen and had various jobs, including working as a groom in a riding stables and a role as a salesman at a men's outfitters. His broadcasting voice was honed from an early age. 'My mother and father were very keen on people speaking properly and politeness,' he later recalled.
'In search of that, we had what was then called a governess, who was really specifically there to give us the right words to say at the right time and bring us up properly.' Jacobs started his broadcasting career in the Royal Navy in 1944, where he was made an announcer on wartime radio station Radio SEAC. An officer, Commander Kim Peacock, heard Jacobs and suggested he become an announcer on the forces-run radio station broadcasting to South East Asia from Ceylon. 'He said he didn't think much of my impersonations,' Jacobs remembered, 'but he thought the way I announced them was very good.' David moved on to the BBC Overseas Service but he was later sacked, he said, for laughing while reading the news. He also did a stint on Radio Luxembourg, where he recalled hosting a programme where they brought newly married couples onto the programme to answer innuendo-filled questions. The programme was sponsored by a fruit importer and at unsuitable points Jacobs would call out 'one, two, three, four' and the audience had to shout back 'Fyffes bananas'. He took up acting, appearing as Laurie in the first BBC TV adaptation of Little Women in 1951. In 1964, he became one of the original Top Of The Pops presenters and he also worked as the BBC's Eurovision Song Contest commentator before he was succeeded by Terry Wogan. He also introduced all fifty three episodes of radio SF serial Journey Into Space, as well as playing twenty two characters. David had always been a music lover and in 1959 he was asked to present Juke Box Jury, in those days one of BBC TV's rare acknowledgements of the increasing dominance of pop music. A panel of four jurors, usually drawn from the world of light entertainment, listened to recently released singles and than voted them either a 'Hit' or a 'Miss', the cue for Jacobs to hit a bell for the former and a hooter for the latter. The show quickly drew audiences of more than twelve million, a figure which nearly doubled when The Beatles appeared as the panel in December 1963. 
'We were doing the show live, and the noise beforehand was unbelievable,' Jacobs recalled. 'So I simply addressed the audience before the boys came on, and said, "Look, we'd all much rather hear what The Beatles have to say rather than a lot of screaming." And you know what? They were perfectly behaved.' It was perhaps natural that Jacobs would be asked to be one of the four original presenters of Top Of The Pops when it launched in 1964 - along with Alan Freeman, Peter Murray and naughty old scallywag and rotter Jimmy Savile. David stayed with the programme for just two years, although he made two return appearances, in 1983 and 1988. 'I became too square for the pop scene,' he said. Jacobs also commentated on a number of Eurovision Song Contests for the BBC, including a five-year run in the early 1960s. He was. perhaps. a surprise choice to succeed Freddie Grisewood in 1967 as chairman of Any Questions?, BBC Radio's topical debate programme, but he quickly established himself as a fixture. He sometimes had difficult situations to deal with. At Basingstoke in 1976 the programme, which was always broadcast live, was stopped for ten minutes by people demonstrating against despicable old racist Enoch Powell's presence on the panel. Jacobs appeared briefly on Radio 1 when the station began in 1967, when some of its output was also broadcast on Radio 2. He continued to appear on TV, making a cameo appearance in a 1975 episode of Some Mothers Do 'Ave 'Em and hosting Come Dancing, the original ballroom competition. But for most of the rest of his broadcasting career he was a Radio 2 stalwart, presenting a series of programmes in his own unmistakable style. His secret, as he revealed in a 1994 interview, was one that had been passed on from the great cricket commentator John Arlott. 'In order to convey the impression of one-to-one intimacy, always speak while holding, and fingering, a pencil.' Jacobs only quit presenting regular shows on the station in July 2013 when, at the age of eighty seven, poor health forced him to give up. He won a Sony Gold Award for outstanding contribution to radio in 1984 and was admitted to the Sony Hall of Fame in 1995. Radio 2 controller Bob Shennan paid tribute to 'a true giant of the BBC. David was a legend in broadcasting, not only for the Radio 2 audience, but for the whole population,' he added. David's broadcast hallmarks were 'great taste, authority and warmth', Shennan said. 
'I am sure his audience will feel they have lost a friend, as we all do here at Radio 2.' Radio 2 colleague Whispering Bob Harris wrote on Twitter: 'So very sad to hear the news about David Jacobs, my friend and mentor. He gave me my first ever mention on the radio on my fifteenth birthday.' And veteran radio DJ Tony Blackburn said on Twitter that he had been to his friend's eighty fifth birthday party 'and he did the most brilliant speech which I'll never forget - he will be sadly missed by all of us.' Helen Boaden, controller of BBC Radio, said: 'From Juke Box Jury to Melodies For You on Radio 2, David's effortless presenting style belied his consummate professionalism.' In a career retrospective broadcast on Radio 2 last year, broadcaster Chris Evans described Jacobs as 'the gentleman's broadcaster. David Jacobs [is] one of the cornerstones of British broadcasting,' he said. 'A man who always has time for you, who always has something worth listening to.' The BBC said Radio 2 would be paying tribute to the broadcaster with a number of special programmes. There was tragedy in David's personal life. He married Patricia Bradlaw in 1949 and they had three daughters and a son, Jeremy, who died aged nineteen after being hit by a lorry in Israel in 1973. The marriage had been dissolved in 1972. David's second wife, Caroline, was killed in a road accident in Spain while pregnant, just weeks after their marriage. David wrote a best-selling book, Caroline, about her which was published in 1978. Jacobs married for a third time, to Lindsay Stuart-Hutcheson in 1979. He is survived by his three daughters from his first marriage. Behind the suave persona Jacobs was known to his colleagues as a bit of a rebel, a mischief-maker and, according to former Radio 2 controller James Moir, never one to toe the establishment line. Immaculately turned-out, Jacobs was completely unflappable on-air, treating everyone with the charm and old-world courtesy for which he will be remembered. The iconic Teletubbies set has been flooded and turned into a pond because its owner was 'fed up with trespassing tourists.' Yer actual Tinky Winky, Dipsy, Laa-Laa and Po their very selves were filmed at the hill house on a farm in Wimpstone, Warwickshire for the BBC show between 1997 and 2001. After the BAFTA-winning show was cancelled, the magic windmill, windows and flowers were removed from the house, leaving a bare grassy slope. Despite this, Teletubbies fans continued to trespass onto the hill, until the land owner, one Rosemary Harding, was left with no choice, she claimed, but to remove it. 'People were jumping fences and crossing cattle fields,' the sixty three year old whinged to the Sunday People. 'We're glad to see the back of it.' The BBC filmed three hundred and sixty five episodes of Teletubbies during its four year run and the popular children's show is still being shown on CBeebies.
The record transfer fee was for Gareth Bale, who was sold to Real Madrid by Stottingtot Hotshots for eighty five million wonga. Premier League clubs are flush with cash from their latest domestic three-year TV deal. BT has spent seven hundred and thirty eight million quid over three years for the rights to thirty eight live matches a season, while Sky paid £2.3bn for one hundred and sixteen matches a season. 'Testament to the impact this is having is in the scale of Premier League gross spending, as well as the gulf in net spending between the Premier League and other European leagues,' said Alex Thorpe at Deloitte. 'Whereas many clubs around Europe have been reliant on selling players in order to spend, the financial advantages Premier League clubs enjoy has enabled net spending of four hundred million smackers across the league.' Although they have not matched the Premier League, spending in other major European leagues has also been up. La Liga and Serie A each had gross spending of three hundred and thirty five million notes, followed by Ligue 1 in France with three hundred and fifteen million and Germany's Bundesliga with two hundred and thirty million.Meanwhile, yer actual Keith Telly Topping's beloved (though unsellable) Magpies sent not a penny. Nada. Zilch. Nowt. Not a sausage. Bugger all. The club's director of sod-all, risible Joe Kinnear, was the main target for supporters' incandescent fury following a summer in which he had lots to say for himself and his own abilities in 'opening doors' for the club but has appeared utterly incapable of doing the job for which he was appointed to carry out by owner greedy lard-bucket Mike Ashley in June. Risible Kinnear's main responsibility is, allegedly, player recruitment, but despite ending last season looking for two strikers, a centre-back and a winger, manager Alan Pardew has been given just one new player, the forward Loïc Rémy, who has signed on loan at St James’ Park from Queens Park Strangers and who is currently on police bail regarding allegations of rape (allegaions which, it is important to note, he denies). Despite reported interest in Lyon forward Bafétimbi Gomis, Moscow Chelski's Demba Ba, Blackpool's Tom Ince, Lille's Florian Thauvin and Wigan Not-Very-Athletic's James McCarthy, Newcastle have not signed any of them. Or anybody else for that matter. Pardew his very self was careful not to publicly criticise Kinnear's efforts as deadline day approached - keeping his powder dry for a potential forthcoming constructive dismissal industrial tribunal hearing, no doubt - but he steadfastly maintained that he wanted to add at least 'one or two offensive players' to his paper-thin squad. The failure to do that means Newcastle are short of cover and competition for places, a weakness which contributed to the club's dangerous brush with relegation at the back end of the very disappointing last season.
Since then, three of the first team squad (Danny Simpson, Steve Harper and James Perch) have left, along with a number of younger fringe players on loan and none have been replaced. At the very least, Newcastle's failure to sign some new players reeks of a crass lack of ambition. Many are asking just what, exactly, risible Kinnear is doing at Newcastle to justify his salary. And, indeed, his continued existence. A slow but effective conveyor belt of players had been brought in over the last three seasons, all spotted by the club's acclaimed chief scout Graham Carr with former chairman Derek Llambias the man to get the financials signed and sealed only to be closed down and mothballed by the risible Kinnear. Pardew will certainly not be happy, but he has been here before and as the public face of the Ashley regime he will be expected to offer the usual excuses designed to appease disgruntled Newcastle supporters. Given the club boasted of a record - and quite disgraceful - shirt sponsorship deal with Internet loan company Wonga this season, and with an extra thirty million smackers in television revenue, Newcastle fans are perhaps justified in wondered where, exactly, all of the money has gone. Many fear that Ashley is more interested in taking coin out of the club to pay back the interest-fee loans – totalling more than one hundred million quid – which he provided during his first three years as owner to cover debts and the cost of relegation to the Championship in 2009. Pardew will also have to work hard to ensure that Yohan Cabaye is fully committed to the Newcastle cause. The French midfielder had been angling for a move for several months, but with three years left on his contract and with the Tyneside club asking for twenty million knicker to part with him, he has not got his wish, despite effectively going on strike last week to try to force a way out.Classic Beatles LPs including Revolver have finally gone platinum after the British Phonographic Industry changed its sales award rules. Gold or platinum status has become synonymous with record success but the system has only been in place since 1973, after The Beatles broke up. Until last month, the BPI relied on a record company to request an award.
Under the new system, sales figures are automatically recognised as soon as a record passes the relevant threshold. This means that thirteen Beatles LPs will now be recognised for the first time, although the number of sales can only be counted from 1994, when the Official Charts Company began keeping records. Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club band is now a triple-platinum LP, having sold more than nine hundred thousand copies since 1994. In total, the LP is estimated to have sold five million units in the UK since its 1967 release. Revolver, Help, Rubber Soul, The White Album and Abbey Road now also have platinum status. Classic LPs from the likes of Bob Dylan, The Beach Boys and Marvin Gaye will also receive awards.Which, as if by osmosis, bring us to yer actual Keith Telly Topping's 45 of the Day. This would seem to be appropriate.
