From The North has a vitally important message for all dear bloggerisationism fiends in the area.
And, with that vitally important message nonsense safely out of the way, let's do the show right here.
During the most recent From The North bloggerisationism update, this blogger announced that he will, sadly, not be doing an annual From The North Best and Worst TV Of 2024 essay and list this year as he has done every previous year on this blog since 2008. It's simply too much work and, for two separate-but-interlocking reasons, which will become clear later in this update, this blogger simply doesn't have the time or inclination to do one this year. This, perhaps inevitably, brought a number - well, four(!) - of disappointed reaction comments about what a great pity this was and how much those particular dear bloggerisationism fiends always look forward to Keith Telly Topping's take on a particular year's telly highlights. Once again, you have this blogger's most sincere and genuine apologies for this overwhelming disappointment. Trust Keith Telly Topping when he says he would if he could. But, he can't.
This blogger has, however, previously revealed that had there been such a list for 2024 it would have (easily) been headed by From The North favourite Slow Horses.
To that, this blogger can also revealed that the 'Best Of' list would have included (deep breath and in no particular order): Wolf Hall: The Mirror & The Light, Doctor Who, The Regime, Scoop, A Very Royal Scandal, Colin From Accounts, True Detective: Night County, Mister Jones Versus The Post Office (it's not often a TV programme has that much impact on society), Breathtaking, Insomnia, The New Look, The Bear, This Town, Feud: Capote Versus The Swans, Shōgun, Baby Reindeer, Eric, The Penguin, Inside Number Nine, The Responder, Good Girl's Guide To Murder, Mister Ripley, Joan, Sweetpea, Douglas Has Been Cancelled, Masters Of The Air, Blue Lights, Ukraine: Enemy In The Woods, D-Day: The Unheard Tapes, We Are Lady Parts, The Traitors, The Dry, Killing Sherlock: Lucy Worsley On The Case Of Conan Doyle, Stasi FC, Based On A True Story, The Big Snow Of Forty Seven, Tutankhamun's Secrets: Raiders Of The Lost Past, Eight Out Of Ten Cats Does Countdown, Fallout and Kill Zone: Inside Gaza.
And the, much shorter, 'Worst Of' list would have featured: Britain Gets Singing, Shoplifters: Caught Red-Handed, The Apprentice, Buying London, Andi Oliver’s Fabulous Feasts, Gladiators (doesn't anyone have any original ideas in television anymore or is that very passe?) and Cast Away (ditto).
It's also worth pointing out, in what is becoming an annual observation, that there are approximately three times as many 'highs' listed here as there are 'lows'. This imbalance is not, necessarily, any sort of reflection on the actual ratio of good-telly-to-bad during 2024. Not evem slightly. Rather it is because, generally speaking, we tend to remember most of the good stuff. And attempt - sometimes unsuccessfully - to forget all of the brain-numbing, laughter-free, lowest-common-denominator diarrhoea which threatens to infect the brains of everyone it comes into contact with.
Anyway, once again, this blogger apologises to all dear blog fiends who were looking forward to it; due to ... stuff this blogger was, and remains, wholly unable to get his shit together and write a lengthy, attractive article. Them's the break. As The Rolling Stones (a popular beat combo of the 1960s and beyond, you might've heard of them) once argued, you can't always get what you want. And, as has also been previously noted, you simply can't have everything. After all, where would you keep it? Isn't that right, Michael?
Moving on swiftly from all that self-indulgent malarkey ... to some different self-indulgent malarkey. God only knows how much this blogger is actually going to be using it - other than for various grandiose announcements of a self-aggrandising nature, obviously - but, if anyone's interested, Keith Telly Topping has been lurking like a big lurking lurker-type-thing on Bluesky for some time. Now, for reasons beyond his understanding, he appears to have acquired some actual followers, despite having previous said absolutely nowt on the platform in question. His writing career in a nutshell, ladies and gentlemen. Therefore, in the spirit of 'all the previously cool kids are now doing it,' this blogger has activated his account and actually posted a couple of (very brief and not particularly interesting) messages on there. If any dear blog readers or Facebook fiends wish to check out this bowel-shatteringly exciting development in social media you can do so, at your leisure, here. And, if by any chance, you've arrived here via a link of Bluesky - welcome, welcome, all are welcome. Pull up a chair and sing us song.
It would appear that, if various media reports (like this one and this one and this one) are accurate - and, that's, as always, a big 'if' when it comes to media reports of this nature - many of the 'previously cool kids' are abandoning Twixter 'like rats leaving a sinking ship[*]' in favour of yer actual Bluesky. Said, of course, by no doubt perfect specimens of humanity have who have absolutely no sick agenda whatsoever smeared - an inch thick - over their disgusting, gammon-coloured faces. Oh no, very hot water. Take the Gruniad Morning Star, for a prime example. Many of these stroppy departures from Twixter - particularly in the case of the Gruniad Morning Star - have been for specific reasons related to X's extremely dodgy and odious owner and his extremely dodgy and odious political views and extremely dodgy and odious frequent outbursts of an extremely dodgy and odious kind. You get the picture? This blogger, however, is proud to be different and say that he isn't leaving Twixter in a right girly strop because he never went on Twixter in the first place, even when all the 'previously cool kids' were arse-slurping about how 'like, tod-ally great' it was back in the day. Including the Grunaid Morning Star, as it happens. That particular part of social media was always something of an anathema to this blogger, seeming to be specifically designed for the potential to cause maximum trouble; there was a period, quite early on in its existence, where barely a day seemed to go by with some - usually, wholly-manufactured - 'Twitter storm' would be widely reported. Whether it was some numbskull Championship footballer braggingly posting images of his genitalia or a comedian using the platform to tell a joke which, then, some professional offence-taker would, quite remarkably, find a reason to give a shit about. So, this blogger avoided Twixter like the sodding plague, even when From The North favourite Stephen Fry was banging its drum, big-style and when the Gruniad Morning Star's noxious Runtbudgie was describing it as 'a great reporting tool.' Specky Middle Class hippy Communist. That's yer actual Keith Telly Topping, dear bloggersiationism fiends - he didn't like Twixter before it was fashionable not to like Twixter! A necessary boast for this blogger to make, he feels (and something he is, stupidly and pointlessly, proud of). It's always nice to be ahead of the curve even if it's over something as utterly trivial as this.
[*] A brief footnote to the above. This blogger has never understood why the idiom 'like rats leaving a sinking ship' is so often used as a pejorative; it occurs to this blogger that any rat sensible enough to get off a sinking ship is a damned-sight smarter than the humans who are being all brave and stoic and going down with the vessel.
'But surely the rats that leave the sinking ship will be stranded in the middle of the ocean where they will, eventually, drown. So they are doomed either way,' this blogger's excellent - if, somewhat pedantic - fiend Nick opined. 'So the saying means a pointless act of desperation.' Au contraire, this blogger countered (only, you know, in English). 'A few of them could get together and form a kind of rat-raft and they could all take turns going on top for a bit until the rat rescue-ship, inevitably, turns up. Or, when the Galley floods and all the discarded (family size) empty tin-cans float to the surface, three or four of them could get in one and use (also floatable) plastic spoons as oars and row to safety ... How's Keith Telly Topping doing pitching this as a multi-million dollar Pixar animation, dear blog fiends?
With Return to the Vault of Horror now extremely published (and available from the publisher's website and Amazon for Kindle), this blogger was busy working on a pitch for the next Stately Telly Topping meisterwerk of alleged literary genius a couple of weeks ago. Unfortunately, what with him ending up spending five days in the hospital, that somewhat delayed the completion and submission of said pitch. However, by Friday of last week, Keith Telly Topping felt enthused enough to chance his arm and send to his publisher a five-paragraph outline complete with a mysterious opening paragraph, a list of proposed entries and a couple of (not particularly funny) jokes. More news on the outcome of all this as soon as this blogger has any to give.
From that bit of pure self-aggrandising, to this bit of the same: Welcome, dearest blog fiends, to the latest Stately Telly Topping Manor example of Bart Simpson-style 'I Will Not Celebrate Meaningless Milestones'-type shenanigans. Because, on 10 November 2024, From The North only went and had its fourteen millionth page-hit since yer actual Keith Telly Topping started counting them. Whether that was merely one dear blog reader popping in fourteen million times to read and enjoy Keith Telly Topping's endless crass witterings (unlikely) or fourteen million separate people stumbling in, by accident, in search of porn (you know who you are), or something in-between is, at this time, unknown. Though one can, legitimately, speculate on the matter.
This blogger promises, dear blog fiends, that this is the last time he will indulge in such banal, punchable self-aggrandisement. Until, of course, From The North gets its fifteen millionth page-hit, sometime in next year.
Incidentally, a curious thing this blogger has noticed recently is that every time Keith Telly Topping ends up in hospital for a few days, it seems as though From The North's daily traffic seems to take a face-plant, as if in sympathy with this blogger's sorry plight, for a few days before recovering once he's returned to The Stately Topping Mopping Manor with bloggerising tales of his (many) recent medical woes. It occurred, quite dramatically, in February 2022.
And, it happened again, recently, when this blogger was again briefly incapacitated.
Moving on to sport, now. Play in the Third Cricket ODI between South Africa and India at Centurion was, reportedly (well, according to Sky Sports News, if not anyone more reliable, anyway) 'suspended due to flying ants interfering with play.' They'll be developing opposable thumbs next, mark this blogger's warning ...
There has, shockingly, been a 'Great Xmas Movies Channel' up and broadcasting for since the first week of October, dear blog fiends. Recently, Channel 5 joined in with this - hideously premature - Christmas party by showing that ruddy annoying Ricki Lake Christmas TV movie. Clearly, it is just about high time for Saint Nod his very self to speak, forcefully, on this matter to the multitude. Take it away, Saint Nod.
The weekly Stately Telly Topping Manor shopping in Byker last Monday included a - necessary - cuppa in the Morrisons' café for yer actual Keith Telly Topping. Because. Ignore the Mad Hair by the way, dear blog fiends, it was more than a touch windy outside.
Meanwhile, actual live living things were alive, living and growing, once more, within The Stately Telly Topping Manor. Behold, dearest blog fiends, The Miracle Of The Resurrection.
On another day shortly after this blogger got out of the Freeman, he took a stroll along to the Welbeck Pharmacy to have his latest six-monthly Covid jab (with, once again, no discernible side-effects suffered). It was a proper 'walk-in' experience as it happens, no pre-booking just straight in and straight out (having been seen by a very cheerful young lady called Stacey). On the way back to The Stately Telly Topping Manor, this blogger bumped into Nicky, the local estate 'Mister Self-Employed' (odd-job man, window cleaner, gardener ... you name it, he'll have a go at it). We got chatting about the dreadful state of the manicured Stately Telly Topping Manor laws, which haven't been touched since God-knows-when and he, obviously looking for a bit of late-season graft, offered to do it for this blogger - for money, obviously. 'Quote me a price' this blogger said, expecting it to be, like eighty or one hundred knicker or some such. When he said forty quid this blogger var-nigh snatched his hand off. He toiled away on it for forty minutes or so and did a right damned good job, let it be noted. This blogger thought the least he could do was offer to make the lad a nice steaming hot cup of Rosie (not in a thin glass, that's just our little secret). This blogger loves watching other people work, it's so inspiring. And, you know, tiring.
All of which brings us, dearest bloggerisationism fiends, to that extra-special (increasingly lengthy) part of From The North dedicated to this blogger's horribly on-going medical malarkey. Or, strictly speaking, malarkeys as there have been - and continue to be - several of them. For those dear blog fiends who haven't been following this epic adventure, almost three years in the making, it goes like this: Keith Telly Topping spent some weeks around Christmas 2021 and into the New Year of 2022 feeling pure dead rotten; he experienced an alarming five day in the RVI; was discharged; received some B12 injections; then more of them; somewhat recovered his missing appetite; got an initial diagnosis; had a consultant's meeting; continued to suffer from fatigue and insomnia; endured a (second) endoscopy; had another consultation; got (unrelated) toothache; had an extraction; which then took ages to heal; had another consultation; spent a week where nothing remotely health-related occurred; received further B-12 injections; had an echocardiogram; was subject to more blood extractions; made another hospital visit; saw the unwelcome insomnia and torpor continue; received yet more blood tests; had a rearranged appointment; suffered his worst period yet with fatigue. Until the following week. And then, the week after that. Oh, the fatigue, dear blog reader. The depressing, ceaseless fatigue. He then had a go on the Blood-Letting Machine; got another sick note; had an assessment; was given his fourth COVID jab; got some surprising-but-welcome news about his assessment; had the results of his annual diabetes check-up; had another really bad week with the fatigue; followed by one with the sciatica; then one with the chronic insomnia; and, one with a plethora of general cold-related grottiness. Which continued over the 2022 Christmas period and into 2023. There was that whole 'slipping in The Stately Telly Topping Manor Plague House bath and putting his knee through the side' thing; a period of painful night-time leg and foot cramps; getting some new spectacles; returning to the East End pool; only to discover that he remained as weak of a kitten in the water. Or, indeed, out of it; felt genuinely wretched; experienced a nasty bout of gastroenteritis; had a visit from an occupational therapist; did the 'accidentally going out of the gaff in his slippers' malarkey; saw the return of the dreaded insomnia and the dreaded return of the fatigue. Had the latest tri-monthly prickage; plus, yet more sleep disturbances; a further bout of day-time retinology; a bout of extreme exhaustion; picked up a cold virus in the week that he got his latest Covid and influenza inoculations; got through the entire Department Of Baths malarkey (and then, its sequel) whilst suffering from significant, on-going, back spasms. Received the welcome news that his latest test for cancer of the colon had come back negative. Got scheduled for yet more blood tests. And, during one of those, suffered 'a nasty turn' and ended up spending two days and a night back in the RVI.
October, then, as previously discussed, turned into a complete and total horrorshow (and drag) in relation to yer actual Keith Telly Topping's general well-being. September had been bad enough with the whole 'fainting and spending a night in hospital' malarkey. That experience, however, subsequently seemed like but a mild summer breeze in comparison to the Force Twelve Tempest that was October in this blogger's life which ended with him spending another five days in (two) hospitals.
Since getting out, however, this blogger has - he's sure you'll all be delighted to know - been feeling much more like his old self. Firstly, he's eating properly again. Last Saturday, for example, for Us Tea at The Stately Telly Topping Manor, was a selection of grilled Blini's (Russian mini pancakes with a fluffy middle) with various of this blogger's favourite preserves (peanut butter and strawberry jam, lemon curd and honey and, on its own, Roses Lemon & Lime Marmalade). Plus a glass of fresh orange juice. God, Keith Telly Topping loves being able to actual enjoy food again after more than three weeks thinking he'd sooner cut his own earlobes than even contemplate eating anything.
The following day's Us Sunday Dinner at The Stately Telly Topping Manor, was Mushroom Oasis Soup. So called because ... et cetera. You've got to take your time.
Twice postponed (due to hospitalisationisms and other 'unforeseen circumstances'), this blogger finally got together with his most excellent fiend Young Malcolm (who, himself, had been a bit under the weather) at the legend that is The Little Asia on Stowell Street last Thursday. And, lo, it was geet lush in Keith Telly Topping's sight, dear blog fiends. Starter: Chicken and Sweetcorn soup with Prawn Crackers.
Second course: Cantonese-Style Spare Ribs.
Main course: King Prawn Curry with Egg-Fried Rice, followed by Chinese Tea. Lush.
Then, Saturday for Us Dinner at The Stately Telly Topping Manor, Masman King Prawn Curry with Yung Chow Fried Rice from the recently reopened Royal Sky. On a scale of one-to-ten with one being 'Keith Telly Topping' sort-of deserved it and ten being 'Keith Telly Topping really really deserved it', this was an eleven. Definitively.
Having complained about his 'mad hair' a week previously, Monday saw this blogging happily singing 'Why do you come here? And wha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-high, why do you hang around?' as he walked down Shields Road. Cheers.
Speaking of whom ... that'll be Morrissey on the right-wing, presumably?
This extremely memorable image popped up in this blogger's Facebook 'memories' section one day last week. It remains, to this day, the greatest single photograph ever taken in the history of the world. Bar none.
Here's a rather fun photo: Monty Python Flying Circus's Graham Chapman being sent off during a charity football match for 'being totally pissed whilst on the pitch.' Meanwhile, a - quite possibly equally pissed - Peter Cook looks on, sniggering at the manifest ludicrousness of existence. 'I don't want to go to the theatre to see plays about rape, sodomy and drug addiction. I can get all that at home.'
Meanwhile ... This blogger urges all dear fiends to consider, wisely, before eating anything here.
No kidding.
So, is this a massive cock-and-balls or, merely, an enormous banana hovering, menacingly, over the Gulf of Mexico, dear blog fiends? Either way, clearly, we are living in The End Of Days. It'll be The Seven Trumpets of the Revelation blowing The Horn next.
Whatever it is, it appears to have spread to Northern Scotland.
Remember, dear blog fiends, there is always an exception to every rule. Even the nice ones.
So many questions. Particularly for all us non-Michaels.
Now, we move onto the latest From The North Headline of the Week contenders, beginning with the good old, reliable, Daily Lies and Gran Hauled Off Plane By Armed Cops After 'Refusing To Pay For Nine Pound Tuna Sandwich. Let it be observed, you sometimes do have to pay for food on flights, that's how budget airlines make their money. They're not going to push you out at thirty six thousand feet if you say 'no' to the offer of a tuna sandwich. Not even Ryanair do that. This week, anyway.
Next, the Manchester Evening News's Fed-Up Motorist Got His Son To Stand In Pothole To Show How Huge It Is. Thus demonstrating that one man's 'pothole' is another man's shallow grave.
That's no a 'pothole', dear blog fiends, that's something The Mole from Thunderbirds must've created when International Rescue wished to free a group of trapped miners.
According to that one hundred per cent bastion of accurate and truthful reportage the Daily Scum Mail, sandwich fillings are now 'woke'.
Yes, you despicable, louse-scum Tory twats, of course they are.
Then, we have the BBC News website (which used to be run by adults) and their breathless reporting of Man Finds Smooth Mars Bar Without Signature Ripple. 'Goddammit, we're gonna stay on this story all night if we have to.'
The Southampton Daily Echo was kind enough to give us Hampshire Police 'Cowboys' Catch Runaway Cow In Totton.
Then, there's the Basingstoke Gazette's Woman's Fears After Hole In Car Park Is Boarded-Up With Wood.
And, lastly, Kent Online making an impressive late bid for the title with the glorious Outrage As Kent County Council Padlocks Church Street Playing Field In Whitstable Citing Risk Of Assaults. 'A popular playing field controversially earmarked for a new school by Kent County Council has been shut off in a move it claims is to protect the public from potential attackers "hiding in bushes."' Well, it was either that, cut down the bushes or hire someone to patrol the field and make sure no one was hiding in the bushes. When you put it like that, a padlock was, probably, the cheaper option of the three.
'You know your trouble, Keith Telly Topping? You always want The Moon on a stick!'
And, on that bombshell, dear bloggerisationism fiends, it's that time again.
