Three Cheers For Our Side

The eyes of the world (and, possibly, beyond) were, of course, focused on London on Friday night for the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games. You might have noticed, dear blog reader. In fact, chances are - unless you're a sour-puss-grumpy-face, you did. A peak audience of twenty seven million viewers (I'll repeat that, TWENTY SEVEN MILLION viewers) in the UK - and an estimated one billion worldwide - tuned-in to watch a celebration of British iconography, including James Bond escorting the Queen to the Games and Mr Bean in Chariots of Fire. Doctor Who was represented in a blink-and-you'll-have-missed-it moment when the TARDIS materialisation sound effect complementing Queen's dirge-like horrorshow (and drag) 'Bohemian Rhapsody' during the 1970s musical section. As widely reported before the event, a video montage from the BBC's popular, long-running family SF drama's theme-tune had originally been planned to be included but it was,seemingly, 'dropped for timing reasons.' Doctor Who's brand manager Edward Russell clarified: 'A video montage which very briefly showed all eleven Doctors was approved but we were told it may not be included which was clearly the case.' Doctor Who wasn't alone - the Clangers never even made it to rehearsal stage and a Monty Python's Flying Circus segment was, also, dropped at the last moment.

In Doctor Who, of course, one episode saw the Doctor himself light the Olympic flame (Fear Her in 2006 - not a very good one, it must be admitted). In reality, the Olympic cauldron (made up of two hundred and five petals representing every country competing at the Games) was ignited by seven aspiring young athletes chosen by British Olympic champions like Kelly Holmes, Steve Redgrave and Daley Thompson. I'd've preferred either David Tennant or Matt Smith personally (no offence to the kids who did it, of course, they were all very good). But, hey, you can't have everything. As the American satirist Steven Wright once wisely noted, 'where would you keep it?'

The Royal Mail is to release a set of stamps to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of Doctor Who next year, with the first day cover reportedly due on 8 January 2013. So, if you've ever wanted the opportunity to lick a Doctor's backside, that'll probably be your best chance. I'm here all week. Try the veal. No other details are available at present, with the Royal Mail informing the Doctor Who News website: 'Unfortunately it is too soon to have or to send out any information regarding an issue in January 2013. Probably around the end of November or start of December we should have a first publication that we can send.' It won't be the first time that Doctor Who has been officially recognised in such a prestigious way. A Dalek was chosen by Royal Mail to represent television in The Entertainers' Tale issue that was released on 1 June 1999. The set also comprised Bobby Moore (sport), Charlie Chaplin (cinema), and Freddie Mercury (popular music).

The BBC have confirmed that the first official television trailer for Doctor Who's next series will be broadcast on Thursday 2 August, around 8:00pm on BBC1, with a repeat the following week. The trailer forms part of a series of promotions for shows that form the latest British Original Drama campaign that will run throughout the London Olympics coverage over the coming seventeen days. As well as Doctor Who, the list includes Merlin, Hunted (see below), Good Cop, Accused, The Secret of Crickley Hall, The Paradise, Ripper Street, plus EastEnders (also, see below). The series of trailers kicked-off from 28 July with a special compilation. Ben Stephenson, Controller, BBC Drama Commissioning, said: 'BBC1 drama offers audiences the most vibrant and most original home-grown drama in Britain today. This upcoming range of new drama titles are the very best of British, made with ambition and scale that I hope will capture the imagination of our audiences with the same spirit as the London 2012 Olympics.'

Sharon Ricknman (Letitia Dean) is heading back to Albert Square and to mark the characters return to EastEnders a new trailer has been released by the BBC, using The Rolling Stones 'Gimme Shleter' as a soundtrack. 'There's one heck of a storm coming,' it says Hurricane Sharon heads to Albert Square. Although the trailer promoting the character’s return actually features a tornado rather than a hurricane. But that meteorological error aside ...

BBC1's coverage of day one of events at London 2012 won every single time-slot from 6am to close (unlike Britian's place on medals table), peaking with 8.7m viewers at 8.20pm according to overnight figures. BBC3 averaged a very strong eight hundred and eighty thousand punters between 9am and 11pm (and an over one million average between 6pm and 10pm). The all-day audience shares saw BBC1 against 29.9 per cent of the available audience with ITV hitting an all-time low on 6.7 per cent (and that includes ITV+1 figures). They only just beat BBC3's 6.4 per cent for the silver medal. ITV's best performing programme all day was a repeat of Midsomer Murders pulling in 2.3m viewers between 8pm and 9pm. That was their sole audience above two million. BBC1's evening Olympics 2012 show (from 7pm) average 6.3m across its three hours.

A new trailer for suspense thriller Hunted has been released by the BBC. Written and created by American writer Frank Spotnitz (probably best known for his work on The X Files) and from Kudos the producers of [spooks], Hustle and Life on Mars, Hunted is an original eight-part mini-series set in the world of international espionage. It stars Melissa George - pretty girl, can't act - as Sam, a highly skilled operative for an elite private intelligence company who survives an attempt on her life that may have been orchestrated by members of her own team. Once she returns to the firm, she is forced to perform her highly dangerous secret missions 'in the shadows' without knowing who to trust and who wants her dead. And, from the evidence of the trailer, it looks rather good - very in keeping with Kudos's record of producing good-looking, slick, testosterone-snorting British dramas that could, at a pinch, pass for American ones. Spotnitz said of the show: 'I'm incredibly excited about the ambition of this series. It's got action on a cinematic scale, huge story twists and turns, and intriguing characters who are both emotionally and morally complex. I can't imagine a better cast, director or production team to bring it all to life.' Stephen Dillane, Morven Christie, Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje, and Lex Shrapnel also appear in the show's cast.

The cast of US sitcom Modern Family have reportedly agreed new pay deals after six of them sued TV network ABC last week over their contracts. Sofia Vergara, Ed O'Neill, Julie Bowen, Ty Burrell, Eric Stonestreet and Jesse Tyler Ferguson filed legal papers, claiming their contracts were illegal. Show producer FOX promptly shat in their own pants and, in some haste, confirmed the deal and said filming for the fourth series would begin on Monday. Exact financial terms of the new deal were not disclosed. Show creator Steve Levitan told reporters on Friday he was 'very happy' the dispute was resolved. 'It's a distraction I'm happy to see end,' he added. Five of the actors sued the network on Tuesday, asking a judge to rule their contracts should be invalidated because they violated California law prohibiting deals that run longer than seven years. O'Neill joined the case later in the week. As the dispute dragged on, a first 'table read' rehearsal for the season was cancelled. According to The Hollywood Reporter, the new pay deal will see the salaries for Bowen, Burrell, Ferguson, Stonestreet and Vergara rise from about sixty five thousand dollars per episode to about one hundred and fifty thousand bucks for the fourth series. O'Neill, who as an already established star made about one hundred and five thousand dollars per episode for season three, will also receive an increase. The new deal will also see the cast receive a small percentage of the show's profits. In exchange for the pay rise, the cast have agreed to add one year to their existing seven-season contracts - which will see their salaries boosted to three hundred and fifty thousand dollars per episode for an eighth series - and will drop their legal action. The sitcom about the everyday lives of a dysfunctional family of fathers, sons, daughters and grandchildren living in suburbia is among ABC's top shows. It won the EMMY for best comedy last year, while Burrell, Bowen and Stonestreet have won individual EMMYs for their work on the show. The sitcom was also recently nominated for fourteen EMMYs for this year's awards.

Meanwhile, some - genuinely - appalling news. James Corden has said that he 'definitely' intends to make more Gavin & Stacey episodes. I'm so sorry to be the bearer of such bad news, dear blog reader, truly I am.

And speaking of unappealing arseholes, a lack of any inherent originality seems to figure strongly in the career of Paddy McGuinness. And, it would seem, he's at it again. The extremely unfunny Take Me Out presenter is reported to be starring in 'a TV Burp-style show for Channel Four.' So, the story here seems to be, if you can't afford Harry Hill, Paddy McGuinness will do instead. I wonder if Harry was up for the Gregg's adverts gig as well? McGuinness filmed a pilot called Paddy's TV Show in Manchester last week. The Sun - of course; about the only people in the world who think Paddy McGuinness is, in the least bit funny, are likely to be Sun readers - reports that ITV Studios describe the programme as 'a comic look at TV shows that might normally slip under the radar.' Or, TV Burp in other words. If picked up, it will be McGuinness's first project for Channel Four since the wretched Phoenix Nights spin-off Max and Paddy's Road To Nowhere in 2004. The hugely popular TV Burp broadcast its final episode on ITV in March after presenter and creator Harry Hill quit the show, citing the strain of the tough working schedule.

NBC co-host Meredith Vieira failed to do her homework during the broadcaster's much-criticised coverage of the Olympic opening ceremony on Friday night. 'If you haven't heard of him, we haven't either,' this ignorant odious fraction of a woman said when Tim Berners-Lee was highlighted. 'Google him,' continued her co-host - and hairdo - Matt Lauer, clearly unaware of the irony of what he just said concerning the inventor of the World Wide Web. Personally, this blogger is with LA Observed's Bob Timmerman: 'After the sixteen days of the Olympics are done, there will be plenty more things people will dislike about NBC's coverage of the games. But, this bit of willful ignorance of one of the world's most innovative minds and someone who developed a communications medium that has made it possible for NBC to show us the Olympics online, just floored me. I'm not worried about London's ability to pull together a well-run Olympics. I'm more worried about NBC's ability to find on-air talent who are not completely ignorant of any technological development. In the world of television news, it is still acceptable to laugh at one's lack of knowledge about science and technology. ' Yeah. What he said.

The BBC is to seek assurances from the company that provides its Olympic pictures after an embarrassing technical error resulted in a frustrating lack of timing information during the men's cycling road race. As the race progressed the BBC's commentary team and viewers alike became increasingly frustrated with the lack of information on the gap between the leaders and the peloton. As they urged Mark Cavendish and his team-mates to try and close the gap as the race entered its final stages, Hugh Porter and Chris Boardman were at a loss to explain to viewers how big the gap actually was. In a statement released shortly after Kazakhstan's Alexandr Vinokourov crossed the line first on The Mall, the BBC placed the blame squarely with Olympic Broadcasting Services, which provides pictures to broadcasters around the world. OBS, embroiled in controversy last week when it emerged that it had clashed with the company hired by Danny Boyle to produce his opening ceremony, in turn passed the blame to London 2012 organisers. A BBC spokesman said: 'We have raised our concerns with OBS who have explained that there were GPS problems with the LOCOG-supplied timing graphics, which resulted in a lack of information for the commentary teams. A number of tests were run by OBS this morning on parts of the course. We've been assured that everything is being done to try and resolve this ahead of the women's road race.' The failure of the timing equipment could not have come at a worse time, with all eyes on Mark Cavendish and his team-mates in the hope they could help him to Britain's first gold of the games. With the entire race dependent on whether they could close the gap with a breakaway group in time to mount a late charge and put Cavendish into position to win a sprint finish, the lack of timing information left a massive hole in BBC coverage leading to lots of waffling. OBS is a wholly-owned subsidiary of the International Olympic Committee and hosts the broadcasting operation for several major sporting events. It employs teams from around the world to produce the coverage of the twenty six Olympic sports, with its services provided to the host city as part of the Host City Contract agreement. The template has been in place only since 2008, before which the host broadcaster was typically provided by the host city. Manolo Romero, the Spaniard who has been managing director of OBS since its creation in 2001, announced this week that he intended to stand down in 2013.

In a subsequent update, Olympic organisers blamed 'spectators using Twitter' for disrupting television coverage of the cycling road races. Viewers were left in the dark about timing and positions after electronic updates failed to reach commentators during both the men's and women's events. Poor old  Chris Boardman was left using his own watch to try and estimate timings. But the International Olympic Committee had said that fans sending updates to Twitter while watching the race had, in effect, jammed transmissions of race information. Communications director Mark Adams said: 'From my understanding, One network was oversubscribed, and OBS are trying to spread the load to other providers. We don't want to stop people engaging in this by social media but perhaps they might consider only sending urgent updates.' Okay ... Hang on. You're suggesting people should only tweet 'urgent' updates? Is there a single instance in the history of the Internet of Twitter ever being used for anything other than utter trivia? Tim Berners-Lee, you've got a lot to answer for! Jesus, I've heard everything now. Only use Twitter for 'urgent' stuff! What planet, exactly, are you from, Mark? Anyway, the timings are, apparently, sent to organisers via tiny GPS transmitters in competitors' bikes but the messages were not being received during the races. A spokeswoman for games organisers LOCOG -who are not having a very good time at the moment, what with the empty seats and all - said: 'There are fixed timing points at the start and finish line, as well as one at Box Hill which LOCOG provides. These worked well and the result and timing of the race are not in doubt.'

A Tony Hancock radio episode not heard for more than fifty years was broadcast on Sunday – to mark the start of the Olympics. The special edition of Hancock's Half Hour was originally broadcast in 1958 to coincide with that year's British Empire and Commonwealth Games. It originally went out live on the BBC Light Service from the London Coliseum as part of a variety show, designed to entertain athletes on their way home from Cardiff, where the games that year were being held. In the nine-minute sketch, Hancock along with Sid James and Bill Kerr make preparations for their varied roles in the games. It had been thought that no recording of the show existed, but an off-air recording was found in the vast archive left by the late Bob Monkhouse, when he died died in 2003.

The Daily Scum Mail went to town on last week's mix-up which saw North Korea's female footballers walk off because images of them were shown alongside the South Korean flag on the stadium screen – with characteristic restraint (that's err, irony, in case you were wondering, dear blog reader), the Scum Mail covered the one-hour row with an atypical angry, twenty two-word headline and six giant photos. Awkwardly, however, according to the Gruniad Morning Star the paper itself was guilty of a similar 'foul-up' and 'blunder': among various flags flown from the top of its Kensington offices to welcome Olympic visitors was that of the Soviet Union - a country which ceased to exist in 1991. A Russian flag had to be hastily found to replace it. The Scum Mail still mentally stuck in the Thatcher era? Who'd have thought it?

The six metre-tall puppet figure of Lady Godiva is to continue its journey around Coventry on Sunday, before departing for London. The puppet left Coventry Cathedral and made her way to Broadgate where she was dressed in her embroidered coat to cover her nakedness. The coat has been created by a team of textile and glass artists from across the West Midlands. Godiva Awakes is part of the London 2012 Cultural Olympiad. The Lady Godiva puppet will later travel to London to celebrate the 2012 Games, powered by a team of cyclists.

After the disappointment of the Men's Road Race the day before, Lizzie Armitstead won Britain's first medal of the 2012 Olympics on Sunday as Netherlands' Marianne Vos claimed gold in the women's road race. Armitstead took the silver with Russian Olga Zabelinskaya third in a thrilling rain-soaked race that ended on The Mall in front of Buckingham Palace. Zabelinskaya instigated a breakaway with twenty five kilometres to go and Armitstead and pre-race favourite Vos went with her. Armitstead attacked Vos on The Mall but the Dutch rider had too much power. Britain's Nicole Cooke, who won this race four years ago, finished in the main peloton. Britain, therefore, had the same number of medals as Kazakhstan. Which is nice. Subsequently Rebecca Adlington - remember her? Mad Frankie Boyle's mate - won a bronze. So, Britain now has more medals than Kazakhstan. Three cheers for our side.

And, there was further good news as Lewis Hamilton took his second victory of the season as he beat Lotus driver Kimi Raikkonen in the Hungarian Grand Prix. Hamilton led throughout the race but had to fend off a determined challenge from both Raikkonen and the Finn's Lotus team-mate Romain Grosjean, who was third. Red Bull's Sebastian Vettel was fourth ahead of Ferrari's Fernando Alonso and McLaren's Jenson Button. Alonso extended his title lead over Red Bull's Mark Webber to forty points. The Australian was ahead of the Spaniard after their second stops, but Webber suffered a failed differential and made a third stop for fresher tyres with thirteen laps to go, which dropped him back down to eighth place at the flag. Webber is two points ahead of Vettel in the championship, with Hamilton a further five points adrift and one ahead of Raikkonen as F1 heads into its mid-season four-week break before returning with the Belgian Grand Prix on 2 September. Jenson Button, slower and harder on his tyres than team-mate Hamilton, finished the race sixth, ahead of the Williams of Bruno Senna, Webber, Ferrari's Felipe Massa and Mercedes driver Nico Rosberg. Hamilton's win came as a result of a controlled defensive drive, not dissimilar to Alonso's victory in Germany a week ago. The McLaren driver led from pole position and measured his pace ahead of the faster Lotus cars. The 2008 world champion said: 'There is a long way to go and we have a lot of work to do, but we are going to give it everything.' Grosjean was his main opposition for the first two-thirds of the race, as Raikkonen bided his time fighting up from sixth place on the first lap, after he dropped a place to Alonso at the start after a temporary failure of his Kers power-boost system. But clever strategy by Lotus, founded on their car's excellent tyre usage, gave Raikkonen clear air in the middle of the race before his second and final stop and put in an impressive sequence of laps to make up enough ground to pass Button, Alonso, Vettel and Grosjean. The two Lotus cars were side by side rounding the first corner when Raikkonen emerged from the pits but the Finn legitimately pushed the Frenchman to the outside of the track on the exit of the corner and consolidated second place, before setting off after Hamilton. He quickly closed on to the McLaren's rear, and the question then became which driver's strategies would work out best - and would Hamilton's tyres last when he had made his final stop five laps before Raikkonen. But the extra wear generated by following another car took the edge off Raikkonen's tyres, and he had to settle for second place as Hamilton took his first win since the Canadian Grand Prix in June and became only the third driver - after Alonso and Webber - to win more than one race this season. Raikkonen said: 'We came second, it's not enough. We had some problems with the Kers in the first lap which didn't help us, but we had good speed. We keep trying the next race to win, we keep saying that but at least we are up there all the time. I take the second place, but for sure we are not happy until we win.' Grosjean was left to fend off Vettel, a problem that removed itself when the German made a third stop for tyres late in the race with ten laps of the sixty nine remaining. Vettel used his fresher tyres to try to close a fifteen-second gap on the Lotus but ran out of time. Button ran third in the early laps, but his heavier tyre wear forced him on to a three-stop strategy, one more than Hamilton's. Button's race was further hindered by coming out from his second stop behind Senna, although the Briton managed to rejoin ahead of the Brazilian after his final stop having made up ground following Senna's second and final stop.

So, I guess it's time for yer actual Keith Telly Topping's 33 of the Day, in that case. Here's a James Kirk song sung by the legend that is Edwyn Collins from one of the great debut LPs of all time.

Week Thirty Two: The World Looks True Through Our Clean Eyes

The Olympics opening ceremony on BBC1 was watched by a peak audience of twenty seven million viewers in the UK, overnight figures show. I'll just repeat that in the way that they used to on the Grandstand vidiprinter when some fourth division promotion chasers had stuck in seven (SEVEN) goals past poor old hapless Hartlepool ... or someone. So, ahem, if you will ... The Olympics opening ceremony on BBC1 was watched by a peak audience of twenty seven million viewers (TWENTY SEVEN MILLION) in the UK, overnight figures show. Not bad, eh? The star-studded - and, to be fair, really rather decent - event, which featured appearances from Rowan Atkinson, Danny Craig, Sir Paul McCartney and the Queen, had an astronomical audience high at 9.50pm on BBC1 of 26.9m, with a further one hundred thousand punters watching in 3D on BBC HD according to the industry magazine Broadcast. Nearly ninety per cent of the viewing audience stuck with the ceremony as it reached its closing stages after midnight, signalling a record audience for any TV programme at that time of night. Danny Boyle's live spectacular averaged an 23.02m between 9pm and 12.50am. It's worth noting, too, that those figures also do not account for those who watched online, on Eurosport, Sky Sports or on big screens. All this suggest that the opening ceremony may become one of the UK's most-watched broadcasts of all-time when the official BARB data - including timeshifts - is released in about a week's time. The Olympics Countdown programme immediately before the opening ceremony itself had an impressive audience 10.08m on BBC1 between 7pm and 9pm, while Olympic Breakfast had an impressive 1.71m between 6am and 9.15am. BBC1 was rewarded with a huge all-day share of 52.7 per cent - five times more than its closest competitor ITV - as well as a primetime average share of almost eighty per cent, a virtually unprecedented figure in this multi-channel age. The five-minute Weatherview straight after the opening ceremony ended at shortly before 1am averaged an insane 9.05m viewers, almost certainly the highest audience for a weather forecast since Michael Fish retired. Predictably, ratings on other channels suffered, with Big Brother falling to an all-time low of six hundred and fourteen thousand sad, crushed victims of society on Channel Five.

The US broadcaster NBC is facing growing criticism after editing their delayed coverage of the London 2012 opening ceremony to replace the 'memorial wall' tribute section with a Ryan Seacrest interview with Michael Phelps. Thus making themselves, collectively, the second least popular American in the UK after Mitt Romney. Jeez, I mean, billionaire tyrant Rupert Murdoch can only make third on that list. NBC, exclusive holders of the US rights to the games, chose to broadcast the entire ceremony on a time-delay to maximise primetime advertising revenue, and were further criticised for refusing to provide a live online stream. NBC's broadcast, which began as the live ceremony was finishing in London, left out sections including the reflective moment when the Scottish singer Emeli Sandé sang 'Abide with Me'. The section included images of loved ones lost by those in the stadium, and was also widely interpreted as a tribute to the fifty two victims of the 7/7 terrorist attacks in London in 2005 the day after London was awarded the ceremony. On the BBC's coverage, commentator Hazel Irvine said: 'The excitement of that moment in Singapore seven years ago when London won the Games was tempered with great sorrow the very next day, with the events on 7 July.' However NBC instead cut away in order to show Seacrest, the host of American Idol, interview swimmer Phelps. Criticism of NBC's handling of the broadcast rights comes after it revealed its advertising income from the event has passed one billion dollars. It earned eight hundred and fifty million from the 2008 Beijing Olympics. In reaction to complaints over the lack of a live stream from the ceremony, NBC said: 'We are live streaming every sporting event, all thirty two sports and all three hundred and two medals. The opening and closing ceremonies, however, are entertainment spectacles. Our award-winning production team will present them on a medium that best demonstrates their grandeur and majesty, and at a time when friends and family are able to gather together to watch, which is in primetime.' Odious scum.

A quintessentially British spectacle that was witty, in places rather profound, in others delightfully bonkers: the foreign media appear to have given the London 2012 opening ceremony an overwhelming thumbs up – even if they did have a bit of trouble keeping up with what 'sometimes seemed like the world's biggest inside joke,' as the Washington Post put it. Christ only knows what would've happened if Danny had included a reference to Clangers as he wanted to! For Le Parisien it was 'magnificent, inventive and offbeat' – even 'majestic.' For the Süddeutsche Zeitung it was simply 'a superb British production that [paid] homage to London.' But, for the New York Times's correspondent Sarah Lyall, the spectacle was even more than that: the 'noisy, busy, witty, dizzying production' gave Britain nothing less, she wrote, than a sense of its modern self. Yeah. I kind of go along with that, I know what she means. Although, I could've probably done with a bit less JK Rowling personally. 'The most successful British author of all time,' according to Hazel Irving. I think Shakespeare might have something to say about that, Haze. And, actually, come to think about it, I could have done with a lot less Trevor Nelson and his 'Ladybird Book Of Facts' commentary. But, these are minor quibbles. Quibblettes, almost. 'With its hilariously quirky Olympic opening ceremony, a wild jumble of the celebratory and the fanciful; the conventional and the eccentric; and the frankly off-the-wall, Britain presented itself to the world Friday night as something it has often struggled to express even to itself: a nation secure in its own post-empire identity, whatever that actually is,' said Lyall in her piece. She added: 'It was neither a nostalgic sweep through the past nor a bold vision of a brave new future. Rather, it was a sometimes slightly insane portrait of a country that has changed almost beyond measure since the last time it hosted the Games, in the grim post-war summer of 1948. The country has always eagerly celebrated its past: its military victories, its kings and queens, its glorious cultural and intellectual achievements. But it has a harder time celebrating its present.' Of course, the Queen was very much part of Danny Boyle's extravaganza – and her appearance delighted many commentators. Writing for the New Yorker under a headline awarding Danny Boyle a gold medal for his work, Lauren Collins remarked that the monarch's turn was 'almost too outrageous to mention. Suffice it to say, for now, that it involved James Bond (played by Daniel Craig), the Queen (the actual Queen, as everyone kept saying), and a helicopter,' she wrote. 'If there was to be a moment of corporate bombast, it was now. And corgis,' Tim Noakes wrote on Twitter. 'I had the window open. The entire neighbourhood erupted in cheers.' But, for Collins at least, the moment was not the best. 'The Queen was the big event, but it wasn't my favourite part of the ceremony. You got the feeling that maybe it wasn't Boyle's, either, as he followed up her cameo with a sequence so wonderfully self-lacerating that you just wondered how he managed to get it past the Jacques Rogge. Rowan Atkinson – Mr Bean – sat behind a keyboard and, pecking away with one finger, mangled the theme from Chariots of Fire. Exiting the stage, he (actually, what is probably the world's most advanced whoopie cushion) made, as the British put it, "a rude noise." The trick of this was that, by deflating the national myth of stoic heroism, Boyle bolstered the national myth of the British sense of humour.' For many commentators, it was, indeed, the jokes what won it. Although the Süddeutsche also delighted in its little-noticed 'special statement' – the inclusion of Brookside's landmark lesbian kiss. Writing in Australian newspaper The Age, Greg Baum remarked: 'It was not that Boyle was taking the piss, though that is like much else he brought to life this night, a time-honoured past-time in England. It was that he got the balance and tone just right; he was able somehow always to see the wood while watching ten thousand trees. His show did not take itself too seriously, but was never trivial. It was irreverent, but never disrespectful. It was clever, but did not outsmart itself. It was at once subversive and sublime. This is a country of royals and aristocrats, but Boyle's show rejoiced in the commoner.' The Australian praised a 'glorious pandemonium devoted to London's thriving, chaotic energy, that celebrated everything from punk music to social media and the Internet, deliberately revelling in the chaos of Britain's free society and popular culture in an obvious retort to the breathtaking order and intimidating precision and scale of Beijing's ceremony in 2008.' France's Le Figaro said the display 'reminded a billion viewers of the best contributions that Britain has given to the world for over a century: its sense of humour, its music, and of course sport.' The German papers also enthused over Boyle's extravaganza. 'Fire in these Games' and 'Wow, what a show!' said headlines in Bild, while Die Welt said the evening party was 'brought alive by lighting technology, fireworks and simple British coolness.' Amid all the quirk and craziness, the politics did not go unnoticed. French news magazine Le Nouvel Observateur declared the ceremony to be 'defined by the economic crisis,' while the New York Times remarked, rather sniffily, that the show reflected the 'deeply left-leaning sensibilities' of its director. Scum. It added: 'That the Olympics come at a time of deep economic malaise, with Britain teetering on the edge of a double-dip recession, the government cutting billions of dollars from public spending, and Europe lurching from crisis to crisis, made the scene a bit surreal, even defiant in the face of so much adversity.' It was the NHS moment that the Grey Lady, in a separate TV review, decided was perhaps 'oddest of all' the night's quirks – and the Washington Post's Anthony Faiola, too, drew attention to the 'obscure references to the National Health Service and English club music' which led some, he said, to accuse the ceremony of being 'simply too British.' What, in the same way that the Beijing opening ceremony was 'too Chinese?' I thought that was the whole point of opening ceremonies. But, to be fair to this clown, he did add: 'If [the ceremony] sometimes seemed like the world's biggest inside joke, the message from Britain resonated loud and clear: we may not always be your cup of tea, but you know – and so often love – our culture nonetheless.' The Times of India called the ceremony 'dazzling.' It said: 'London presented a vibrant picture of Great Britain's rich heritage and culture as a colourful opening ceremony marked the inauguration of the thirtieth Olympic Games.' 'Kaleidoscopic pageant sets London Games rolling,' said the headline in the China Daily. 'Britain's Queen Elizabeth declared the London Olympics open after playing a cameo role in a dizzying ceremony designed to highlight the grandeur.' Touching, thoughtful, weird, quirky, baffling were just some of the words used to describe London's show. 'I think I've seen the most chaotic - but possibly greatest - entertainment event of my generation' said the Toronto Sun's correspondent, Thane Burnett. Perhaps the most accurate bit of analysis comes from Robert Lloyd in the LA Times who said the ceremony 'had at times a quality of seeming completely random. If there is a through-line to be untangled it might be something like, "Sorry for the unintended consequences, but we did give you steam engines, great pop music and comedy and the roots of social networking. It was ugly there for a while, but we're all right - and everybody dance now."' Aye, that's about right too.

Even the British media, God helps us, seemed to have parked its trademark nasty cynicism up for the night and tried to get into the swing of things. Newspapers and commentators have been giving their reaction to the opening ceremony of the London 2012 Olympic Games. The Times described director Danny Boyle's creation as 'a masterpiece. Adventurous, self-confident, playful, entertaining, and all with a sense of history,' it said. Columnist Simon Barnes said 'London turned down the option to celebrate giants and supermen and power and might and chose instead to celebrate people.' 'Brilliant, breathtaking, bonkers and utterly British,' said the Torygraph. 'Danny Boyle captured the spirit, history, humour and patriotism of an expectant nation last night as he pulled off an Olympic opening ceremony like no other.' Historian Tim Stanley also writing in the Torygraph said it 'told many stories about British history.' He said: 'The show was as complex (or confused) as British identity itself. But it was also spectacular, beautiful and funny.' The Gruniad Morning Star reckoned the film with James Bond and the Queen 'formed one of the highlights of Danny Boyle's tumultuously inventive opening ceremony to the 2012 Games.' It continued: 'Now, thanks to Boyle, we really have seen everything.' The Daily Scum Mail said the lighting of the Olympic flame by seven unheralded young athletes was 'the coolest moment of an amazing show.' The Sun in its editorial described it as a 'magic night. Master film director Danny Boyle's Olympics opening ceremony last night truly did our nation proud,' it said. 'For thrills, imagination, surprises and sheer joy it was unbeatable.' This opening ceremony best moments were some of the most surprisingly unexpected, not least when David Beckham arrived by speedboat (managing not to crash it, remarkably) to hand the flame to Sir Steve Redgrave, who with other great British Olympians came good on London 2012's promise to hand on the baton to the next generation. Nothing adorned the evening like the lighting of the Olympic cauldron, composed of individual petal-shaped torches ascending to meet in the night sky. There was no chance of even Sir Paul McCartney and a sodding hour of 'Hey Jude' topping that. It should be recorded that the most spontaneous cheers of the night, apart from for the British team entering the arena to Bowie's "Heroes" in their gold epaulets designed by Macca's daughter, Stella, was the one for the volunteers who made this happen. Hats off to all seven and a half thousand of them. And to yer actual Danny Boyle. Top geezer.

And so, on that Olympic bombshell, to your next batch of Top Telly Tips:

Saturday 4 August
Gary Lineker introduces a busy evening of events at the Olympic Stadium on BBC where the second night of the athletics takes place featuring two of the leading lights in the British squad aiming to win gold. Jessica Ennis is expected to challenge for heptathlon gold and her performance in the eight hundred metres will help to decide her fate, while Mo Farah competes in the final of the men's ten thousand metres, as he looks to build on last year's silver medal in the world championships. Dai Greene will expect to book his place in the men's four hundred metres hurdles final, and the fastest woman will be decided in the one hundred metres sprint. The full schedule also features the women's discus final, the men's long jump final, the women's four hundred metres semi-finals and, earlier, the heats of the men's one hundred metres. With commentary, as usual, from Mackem Steve Cram, Paul Dickenson, Jonathan Edwards and Wor Brendan Foster, analysis by John Inverdale, Michael Johnson, Colin Jackson and Denise Lewis, and trackside reports by Phil Jones. Plus, there'll be updates from the concluding evening of swimming at the Aquatics Centre, where the remaining four finals take place. Although, to be honest, now the athletics has started, nobody much interested in the swimming anymore. And, there's the fourth men's football quarter-final at the Millennium Stadium in Cardiff. On BBC3, Jake Humphrey introduces this evening's coverage, which features swimming, men's football and men's basketball. Clare Balding is at the Aquatics Centre, where the swimmers gather for the concluding four finals, in the women's fifty metre freestyle (that one's thankfully short), the men's fifteen hundred metres freestyle (that one, isn't!) and both the women's and men's four by one hundred metres medley relay. The concluding race is likely to be a chance to see Michael Phelps and Ryan Lochte in the USA squad together, after the pair dominated the build-up to the swimming events, and Fran Halsall will hope to be in the fifty metre freestyle. With swimming commentary by Andy Jameson and Adrian Moorhouse, analysis by Mark Foster, and poolside reports by Sharron Davies, and Mike Carlson and John Amaechi at the basketball. Earlier in the day, you can also catch up on the cycling - the women's team pursuit finals with Joanna Rowsell, Dani King and Laura Trott riding for Britian. There's also rowing (the men's coxless fours final), plus more obscure stuff like trampolining the twenty kilometre walk, fencing and the triathlon women's final. If you're up at 9:20am and have access to BBC Olympic channel fifteen, check out Team GB taking on Tunisia in the handball.

Or if you're, you know, sick, you might prefer The Million Pound Drop Live - 7:20 Channel Four. And, let's face it you'd have to be to enjoy tonight's line-up. Made in Chelsea's Hugo Taylor and Alexandra Binky Felstead (no, me neither, I'm afraid) continue from last night, followed by jockey Frankie Dettori and racing pundit and annoying loud-mouthed prat John McCririck, who get to see the categories and must decide which celebrity pair they want to answer it. As always, the contestants are trying to raise as much money as possible for Paralympic and disability-related charities, which is - to be fair - a very good cause. But they face losing piles of cash if they get a question wrong. Hosted by Davina McCall. Who ought to be ashamed of herself.

Sunday 5 August
Coverage of this evening's athletics at the Olympic Stadium, BBC1, has a definite highlight in the final race of the day, possibly the most anticipated nine and bit seconds of the entire event, the men's one hundred metres final at 9.50. The race is always one of the iconic moments of any games, and this one promises to be no exception, as world record holder and defending champion the Godlike Usain Bolt looks to retain the title under expected stiff competition from his compatriot Yohan Blake, who defeated Bolt in both the one and two hundred metres at the Jamaican trials. There's a couple of very good Americans likely to be in the final too, Tyson Gay and Justin Gatlin. Chances of British success this evening could come in the women's four hundred metres, where Christine Ohuruogu is the reigning champion, and in the women's triple jump courtesy of world indoor champion Yamile Aldama. The full schedule also features the women's four hundred metres hurdles heats, the men's high jump qualification, the women's triple jump final, the men's fifteen hundred metres semi-finals, the men's hammer final, and the men's three thousand metres steeplechase at 9.25. Meanwhile, Jake Humphrey and Ore Oduba present this evening's coverage on day nine on BBc3, featuring men's hockey and boxing, and women's basketball. The hockey at the Riverbank Arena at 7.00 is the first action of the night as Great Britain and Australia clash in their penultimate Pool A fixture, with the top two of six sides progressing to the quarter-finals. The boxing bouts follow at the ExCeL London, featuring the quarter-finals of the bantamweight division from 8.30, which may include Britain's Luke Campbell, and the heavyweight class from 9.30, and the opening stages of Great Britain versus Brazil in the final match of the women's basketball group phase is at 10.15. The commentary teams include Barry Davies, Jim Neilly and Mike Carlson. Also today, there's sailing - Ben Ainslie sailing in the Finn class and Iain Percy and Andrew Simspon in the Star, women's boxing, the women's marathon, diving, tennis, badminton and shooting. Although, obviously, not all on the same piece of land. Although, the thought of a new shooting class 'get the rich bastard in the the tennis gear right up the bum' does, undeniably, have some viewer potential. I'd watch it. Oh, and there's the synchronised drowning as well, that's usually good for a laugh.

In The Dark: Nature's Nighttime World - 9:00 BBC2 - biologists and camera crews travel to a flooded Amazon forest to film wildlife at night. James Bryson Voirin comes face to face with a curious sloth, Sophie Darlington perches high in the stormy jungle canopy hoping to see the world's only nocturnal monkey and bug expert George McGavin abseils deep into a giant cave system where he and his team discover a species new to science. Gordon Buchanan goes in search of giant anteaters and enters a strange, deserted house that has been taken over by vampire bats.

Meanwhille ITV continue their baffling strategy of appearing to be trying to appeal to the old-age-pensioners-who-don't-like-sport demographic with their scheduling opposite the Olympics. Last night it was Agatha Christie's Marple and Midsomner Murder, tonight a creaking old episode of A Touch of Frost is dragged out for a repeat - 8:00. Stick with the Olympics, dear blog reader, that's yer actual Keith Telly Topping's advice. There's marginally less chance of dying from boredom and something quite funny usually tends to happen about once a night. That's more than you'll get with ITV.

On the other hand, if you are looking for something other than sport - then, what's wrong with you? - and you missed it first time around, you could do a lot worse than check out The Road To Coronation Street - 9:00 BBC4. A joyful and loving study of the creation of a TV institution, this is a stunningly evocative dramatisation of the true story of Tony Warren's fight to get the programme he created made in the first place, against major opposition from within Granada. To cast it and to bring Warren's vision to life and to the nation. In short, Daran Little's play was a thing of beauty. The dialogue simply sang: 'I don't care what they do in St Helens, no one puts soap next to bacon in Salford,' Warren tells the director, Derek Bennett, as they race towards the set of the first episode. Even better: 'This is a woman who's buried children, watched her man beg for work and still gets down on her knees every night to pray,' Lynda Baron's Violet Carson says about the character she is to play on the show, Ena Sharples. 'There's no powder or rouge touching this face. If it's good enough for God, it's good enough for Granada.' The Road To Coronation Street was a warm and insightful piece of work. A little nostalgic masterpiece in its own right, and a worthy celebration of what, fifty years after it began, remains a British television icon and the recurring drama by which all others will ultimately be judged. With great performances from the entire cast - but, a special mention should be made for David Dawson as a camp, prissy, but highly principled Warren and Jessie Wallace as an extraordinarily good-natured Pat Phoenix - this was, like Corrie itself in those ground-breaking early days, something very special indeed. 'Edna in wardrobe thinks this could run as long as The Archers,' Carson tells Doris Speed (Celia Imrie) as they prepare for their first scene in the live opening episode. 'Ye Gods, I hope not!' Thankfully, Edna in wardrobe was right.

Monday 6 August
This evening's athletics finals at the Olympic Stadium include the men's four hundred metres hurdles and the four hundred metres. Hopes of British success are high in the hurdles, with world champion Dai Greene a major contender for gold, having also triumphed at the last Commonwealth Games. There will be focus on the field events this evening as well as on the track, especially in the women's pole vault final, for which rising star Holly Bleasdale will expect to have qualified (you know, in the same way that Mark Cavendish was 'expected' to win that bike race the other day). Having developed into a world-class athlete in the past year, Holly is the British record holder and won a bronze medal at the World Indoor Championships. The full schedule also features the women's shot put final, the early rounds of the women's two hundred metres, the women's four hundred metres hurdles semi-finals and the women's steeplechase final. Steve Cram, Jonathan Edwards, Paul Dickenson and Brendan Foster, as usual, talk a lot. Phil Jones gets the job in interviewing various out-of-breath Brits and asking either 'how did you do that?' or, more often, 'so, what's the excuse for that fiasco, then?' and hoping for a coherent answer. Olympics coverage also continues on BBC3. Jake Humphrey presents the second women's football semi-final at Old Trafford, (kick-off 7.45pm), and the women's hockey Pool A match between Great Britain and the Netherlands at the Riverbank Arena. The hockey gets under way at 7.00, with both sides playing their final pool fixture and aiming to reach the semi-finals, followed by the football last-four encounter between the winners of the second and fourth quarter-finals. Plus, action from this evening's men's boxing bouts at the ExCeL Arena, featuring the lightweight, middleweight and super heavyweight quarter-finals. Other daily highlights include the women's uneven bars final in the gymnastics (will be see a medal for Tweddle?), various dumb animals with big teeth (and, their horses, obviously) in the equestrian team jumping finals, Paul Goodison sailing in the Men's Laser, Jason Kenny going in the track cycling sprint, plus - always the bridesmaid - Greco-Roman wrestling, canoeing, volleyball (both varieties) and water polo.

In Horizon: Eat, Fast And Live Longer - 8:00 BBC2 - Michael Mosley sets himself something of an ambitious goal. He wants to live longer, stay younger and lose weight all whilst making as few changes to his life as possible. Is such a thing doable? And, if it is, can we all try? Michael explores new research which sheds light on the benefits of fasting and believes he has found a way of doing it that still allows him to enjoy his food. He then tests the science on himself - with life-changing results.

The Hit Factory: The Stock Aitken & Waterman Story - 9:00 ITV - is, as you might except from such a title, a documentary charting the success of Mike Stock, Matt Aitken and Pete Waterman. If you don't remember them - and you should really think yourselves lucky (lucky, lucky) if you don't - they were, effectively, the collective Wee Shughie McFee, the sour-faced Scottish chef(s) off Crossroads of their day. A songwriting and record-producing trio who scored more than one hundred top forty hits in the 1980s and 1990s - most of which were absolute arse - including a string of number ones, with acts including Kylie Minogue, Jason Donovan and Rick Astley. Featuring contributions by Waterman, the actual Wee Shughie McFee, the sour-faced Scottish chef off Crossroads, Sinitta, Pete Burns, Sonia, Steps and many more. But not Kylie. Bigger fish to fry these days, y'see. Jason Donovan hasn't. Hence his appearances in risible ITV flop Superstar, one imagines. Suranne Jones narrates. Come on, Suranne, love. You're a great actress, you can do better than this.

Tuesday 7 August
The finals of the women's one hundred metres hurdles and men's fifteen hundred metres are among the highlights in the Olympic Stadium tonight. The hurdles represent a chance for Tiffany Porter to shine, as the American-born sprinter, now representing Britain, looks to build on her silver medal in this year's World Indoor Championships sixty metre hurdles. Ah, but this is forty metres further. And, there's also the little matter of Aussie Sally Pearson standing in her way. The metric mile final may feature another of Britain's track hopefuls in Andy Baddeley and the high jump could offer hope of home success through the fast-improving Robbie Grabarz, who won the gold medal at the recent European Championships in Helsinki. Colin Jackson, Michael Johnson and Denise Lewis sit about in the gantry trying to look interested in, and have some knowledge of, the men's discuss final. Plus, there's updates on the second men's football semi-final at Old Trafford and the men's boxing flyweight quarter-finals, which may feature Andrew Selby. The foobtall's covered on BBC3. This encounter features the winners of the third and fourth quarter-finals, as the quest to succeed Argentina as champions continues. Plus, there's action from the Riverbank Arena from 7.00, where Great Britain's men's hockey team play their final Pool A match against Spain, with places in the semi-finals at stake. With hockey commentary by Barry Davies and Sean Kerly. Later, Gabby Logan and guests look back on day eleven and present live coverage of the sports still taking place, which are the men's and women's beach volleyball semi-finals, and women's basketball quarter-final. Today's events also include the concluding races in the track cycling competition, then men's triathlon (with the Brownlee brothers genuine medal hopes), canoeing and the semi-final of the beach volleyball.

Twenty-one-year-old Gemma Barker is currently serving thirty months in pris for fraud and sexual assault. Over the course of several months Gemma invented and impersonated three different boys - Aaron, Luke and Connor - each of whom had their own mobile number, e-mail address and social network page. Under these three separate - and, seemingly, highly convincing - guises Barker went on to seduce two teenage girls, a story told in The Girl Who Became Three Boys - 9:00 Channel Four. This film tells the extraordinary story through the personal accounts of Gemma's victims, who speak frankly about the experience, and explores Gemma's possible motivations for such bizarre criminal behaviour.

Red Dwarf's Robert Llewellyn investigates the appeal of films set on board submarines, travelling along the River Medway to find a beached Cold War Russian nuclear vessel, and visiting abandoned Second World War German U-boat pens on the French coast in Dive, Dive, Dive! - 11:00 BBC4. He recalls the events that inspired movies including The Hunt for Red October, and reveals the role played by Walt Disney in promoting atomic submarines.

Wednesday 8 August
Life is full of hurdles, dear blog reader. And, as if to prove it on Day Twelve of the Thirtieth Olympiad, Gary Lineker introduces this evening's athletics on BBC1, which includes the finals of the women's four hundred metres hurdles and men's one hundred and ten metres hurdles. See. Told ya. Perri Shakes-Drayton was born in East London and will be a popular competitor in the women's race hurdles if she has made it through the heats and semi-finals, having been part of the winning four by four hundred metres relay squad at this year's World Indoor Championships. Britain entered three athletes in the men's high hurdles - Andy Turner, Andrew Pozzi and Lawrence Clarke - and Turner, the 2010 European and Commonwealth champion, was expected to have the best chance of being involved in the final. There's also the women's fifteen hundred metres semi-finals, the women's long jump final, the men's two hundred metres semi-finals and the women's two hundred metres final at 9.00. On BBC3, there's the bronze-medal match and final of the women's beach volleyball - always highly watchable - and the second women's hockey semi-final. The beach volleyball fixtures at Horse Guards Parade can be seen at 7.00 and 9.30 respectively, with the pairings aiming to succeed American duo Kerri Walsh and Misty May-Treanor (no, seriously, I'm not making this up!) as champions. The hockey begins at 8.00 at the Riverbank Arena, where the second place in Friday's final is at stake. With beach volleyball commentary by Matt Chilton, and Barry Davies and Mel Clewlow at the hockey. You can also see gold medals handed out in the canoeing, the equestrian individual jumping, the sailing (49ers class), table tennis and taekwondo.

The squabbling detective duo head to a university campus to investigate the death of a student, but get sidetracked by arguments about gender politics and affairs of the heart in Vexed - 9:00 BBc2. Jack is delighted that his new girlfriend Danielle seems to share a surprising amount of interests with him, while Georgina is convinced she has finally met her perfect man. Comedy drama, starring the oddly watchable duo Toby Stephens and Miranda Raison.

A repeat, but a very worthy one is Ian Hislop Goes Off The Rails - 8:00 BBC4 - in which yer man Hizza (maker of some genuinely fine, thoughtful social history documentaries) tells the story behind the 1963 Beeching Report, commissioned under Harold Macmillan's government, which led to the closure of a third of Britain's rail network. With contributions from experts, campaigners, railwaymen and passengers, Private Eye editor and Have I Got News For You regular Ian outlines the historical background to the proposals, along with the social and economic impact that followed their implementation. If you're bored with the Olympics, check this out, you might just learn something from it.

Thursday 9 August
The Olympic highlight today may well be the women's ten kilometre swimming with stone cold fox Keri-Anne Payne going for Britain. Swim, Keri, swim like a tidal wave. Later, Gary Lineker presents BBC coverage of this evening's athletics at the Olympic Stadium, which includes the finals of the men's two hundred metres and triple jump. Usain Bolt will almost certainly be the main draw in tonight's schedule as he aims to retain the two hundred metre title he won four years ago, at a canter, in Beijing. The Jamaican broke Michael Johnson's long-standing world record at the 2008 Games, and has since lowered that time even further, but could face stiff opposition from compatriot Yohan Blake, who beat Bolt in both the one and two hundred metres at the national Olympic trials. Phillips Idowu has long been tipped to win Olympic gold, and the Belgrave Harrier should be among the favourites in the triple jump final. That's if this mystery injury of his has cleared up by that time. Look on the bright side, Phil, like Paula Radcliffe if you were a race horse, you'd probably have been shot by now. There's also the dressage. Be still, my beating heart. Tonight also sees the men's eight hundred metres final, the women's four by one hundred metres relay round one, the women's javelin and the final of the decathlon to round off the night. The women's football final (kick-off 7.45pm) dominated BBC3's coverage. Plus, from 10.00, there's action from the women's ten metre platform diving final at the Aquatics Centre and men's beach volleyball final at Horse Guards Parade. With commentary by Bob Ballard, Leon Taylor and Matt Chilton. Also, basketball, hockey, cycling (the BMX competition), the bronze medal match in the women's water-polo and not forgetting, as if we could, more synchronised drowning.

In The Hotel Inspector - 9:00 Channel Five - boosy-boots, full-of-her-own-importance Alex Polizzi travels to the Meudon Hotel in Falmouth, which was once a jewel of the Cornish coast but has failed to move with the times, leading to a lack of guests and low profits. Alex soon gets to the root of the family business's problem - eighty six-year-old Harry Pilgrim's refusal to let go of the reins has left son Mark frustrated in his role as general manager. Alex also believes the old-fashioned decor and unimaginative menu only attracts elderly clientele, so she sets about bringing the hotel into the Twenty First Century. But can she persuade Mark to be more forceful as a leader and give his old man a right good slap if he won't comply? We can only pray, dear blog reader.

Si King and Dave Myers continue their dietary challenge by reinventing favourite family meals in Hairy Dieters: How to Love Food and Lose Weight - 8:00 BBC2. They come up with a cooked breakfast that delivers all the excitement of a fry-up without adding to the waistline, and a calorie-conscious roast chicken dinner. They also rework French classic the cassoulet and set it before a couple of famished rugby teams, and make the ultimate sacrifice in a bid to help shift the pounds - give up their beloved motorbikes in favour of bicycles.

Friday 10 August
Olympic highlights today include the women's takwondo, the women's BMX final (will Shanze Reade manage to stay on her bike this time round?), Oscar Pistorius running in the four by four hundred metres relay, hockey, the men's pole vault, basketball and handball semi-finals, rhythmic gymnastics and volleyball. Just two more days to go, dear blog reader, and then you can go back to living your lives normally.

And, so to the news: A new teaser trailer for forthcoming Bond movie Skyfall was broadcast on Friday night on NBC. The TV spot was shown during US coverage of the London 2012 Olympics opening ceremony and featured James Bond riding a motorcycle through the streets of Turkey. Rather than, as at least one confused Internet report suggested, riding a turkey through Street in Somerset. Which, to be honest, this blogger would've paid to see. The action-heavy clip contains much footage that has already hit the web and features only one line of dialogue, with Daniel Craig uttering the words '007, reporting for duty.' Directed by Sam Mendes, Skyfall also stars Ben Whishaw, Dame Judi Dench, Javier Bardem, Ralph Fiennes, Naomie Harris and Albert Finney. The twenty third Bond film is released in the UK on 26 October and in the US on 9 November.

Some sad news to end, Geoffrey Hughes has died aged sixty eight, it has been confirmed. The actor, who was well known for his roles in a number of British dramas, lost his long battle with cancer on Friday night. Geoff, of course, played the great Eddie Yeats in Coronation Street and went on to star as Onslow in Keeping Up Appearances, Twiggy in The Royle Family, Uncle Keith in the teen drama Skins and Vernon Scripps in Heartbeat. Born in Wallasey in 1944, he worked as a car salesman and he performed with Merseyside Unity theatre company, where he was spotted by the actor Tom Bell, who introduced him to an agent. Geoff begun his career in repertory at the Victoria Theatre in Stoke-on-Trent. This was followed by his West End debut, the Lionel Bart and Alun Owen Liverpool musical, Maggie May. His other West End productions include the stage version of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, Say Goodnight to Grandma and several seasons of Run for your Wife. In 1966, Hughes made his screen debut in an episode of The Likely Lads and was soon working regularly on television. His first appearance in Coronation Street was in 1967, playing a character called Phil Ferguson, a thug who beat up Albert Tatlock. Geoff's big break came as a twenty three year old when he was cast to voice the Paul McCartney character in The Beatles cartoon Yellow Submarine. Among his many other appearances on television were An Arrow for Little Audrey, The Saint, Shadows of Fear, Z-Cars, Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased), Making Out, Doctor Who, Spender and Boon. He played Trinculo in a filmed version of The Tempest for the BBC and Squire Clodpoll in Good Friday 1663, one of Channel Four's avant-garde operas. His comedy appearances on TV included Please Sir!, Dad's Army, Curry and Chips and The Upper Hand. In The Bright Side (1985) he played the mild-mannered prison warden Mr Lithgow, constantly being wound up by an inmate's wife played by Paula Wilcox. Geoffrey's film credits included Smashing Time, Till Death Us Do Part, The Bofors Gun, The Virgin Soldiers, Adolf Hitler: My Part in His Downfall and Carry On at Your Convenience. In 1974 he was cast as the ex-convict Eddie Yeats in the long-running soap opera Coronation Street. Over the next nine years he became a hugely popular cult character, with his best mate Stan Ogden (Bernard Youens), a constant foil to Stan's long-suffering wife Hilda (Jean Alexander) with whom Eddie lodged. Hughes contributed enormously to the comedy that Youens and Alexander brought to Corrie. His character, a former Walton Prison inmate, the cell-mate of the legendary Jed Stone (Kenneth Cope), he helped Stan on his window-cleaning round and was forever involved in money-making schemes – hiring out a timid guard dog and selling Albert Tatlock's allotment vegetables, dodgy watches and curtains run up by Hilda – before finding work as a refuse collector. 'He was always a softy,' Hughes told the writer Daran Little in 1995. 'His villainy had been opportunist nicking, or thinking of a good idea. It didn't matter if it was actually legal or not.' Eddie was also responsible for the mountain mural in the Ogdens' living room – at one time graced with three ornamental flying ducks. He left Corrie in 1983 after one of the show's most memorable storylines, his whirlwind CB radio romance with and marriage to Marion (Veronica Doran). The couple were subsequently said to have moved to Bury. Geoff made a brief return four years later for a hospital visit by Eddie to Hilda as part of Jean Alexander's departure from the series. In recent years he was reportedly offered a return to the show but declined. His friend and colleague Ricky Tomlinson told ITV: 'Geoff wasn't just an actor. He was my mate. I used to call him every few weeks but hadn't spoken to him in about a fortnight. It's such a loss.' A Coronation Street spokesperson added: 'We are very sad to hear of the death of Geoffrey Hughes. He created a legendary and iconic character in Eddie Yates who will always be part of Coronation Street. Everyone connected with the programme sends our sincerest condolences to his family and friends.' Geoffrey had radiotherapy in August 2010 after collapsing at his home on the Isle of Wight where he had lived for many years. In 2009, he was appointed Deputy Lord Lieutenant of the island. He is survived by his wife, Sue.

For today's Keith Telly Topping's 45 of the Day, I decide not to go with Spandau Ballet's 'Gold'. Because it's shit, basically. I have no problem with coming second, however. Second is good. It comes right after first. Just ask Buzz Aldrin. Tell 'em all about it, Mac.

Now War Is Declared, And Battle Come Down

The Queen has declared the 2012 London Olympics officially open, before seven young athletes were given the honour of lighting the ceremonial flame. The show featured British celebrities and sportspeople, including David Beckham and Bradley Wiggins, and screen characters Mr Bean (Rowan Atkinson) and James Bond (yer actual Daniel Craig). In a speech watched around the world, games chief Jacques Rogge said: 'The Olympic Games are coming home tonight.' Then Sir Paul McCartney ended proceedings with a fifty seven minute version of 'Hey Jude.' The BBC's coverage of the event reached an estimated worldwide audience of over one billion people. Or, roughly,  one seventh of the entire population of the planet. Though, most of those had probably gone to bed by the time Sir Paul and his band were into the two hundred and nineteenth chorus of 'Nah's! Flag-bearer Sir Chris Hoy his very self had earlier led out the British team. The identity of whom had been chosen to light the symbolic flame was shrouded in secrecy ahead of the ceremony. The group of seven, picked by previous British Olympic champions, each lit a single tiny flame on the ground, igniting two hundred and five copper petals, one for each competing nation or territory. Long stems then rose towards each other to form a cauldron, signifying unity. The flame made a dramatic arrival via the Thames on a speedboat carrying Beckham, who handed the torch to Sir Steve Redgrave. The show, billed as 'a quirky take on UK life,' started with iconic images of London - and Britain generally - beamed to the world, and all four countries of the UK being represented in song. The field at the stadium in Stratford, was turned into a green meadow, with sheep, horses, chickens, ducks and geese among the cast. The show took the watching world through 'great revolutions in British society,' from an agricultural setting through to the Industrial Revolution. Sir Kenneth Branagh, dressed as yer actual Isambard Kingdom Brunel, recited Caliban's speech from Shakespeare's The Tempest ('be not a'feared, the Isle is full of noises. Sounds and sweet airs that give delight and hurt not') as Danny Boyle's spectacular Isles of Wonder carnival was unveiled. Steelworkers began forging material that transformed into golden Olympic rings, which appeared to float into the air to be suspended above the performers. There were cheers too as the crowd saw a film featuring an unlikely meeting between the Queen and James Bond. 'Good evening Mr Bond,' the Queen said in the short film - Happy & Glorious - made specially by the BBC, before they left together, apparently heading towards the Olympic Stadium in a helicopter. The aircraft then flew over the stadium as two figures parachuted down, one dressed as the monarch. As if by magic, the Queen appeared in the stands - part of a crowd of about eighty thousand punters. The difference being, of course, most of those had paid an arm and a leg for their tickets whilst Her Maj was there on a freebie. Bond (played, impeccably, as always by Danny Craig his very self) was not the only much-loved British character to take part. Mr Bean (yer actual Rowan Atkinson) prompted laughter when he appeared as part of the orchestra playing the Chariots of Fire theme. A segment celebrating the British film industry. playing a song written by a Greek. Yeah, I thought it was amusing as well. The ceremony also celebrated the National Health Service by featuring a cast of more than one thousand volunteers recruited from hospitals across the country, including Great Ormond Street children's hospital in London. All the action was played out to a soundtrack of some of Britain's most iconic bands - including The Clash, The Rolling Stones, The Jam, The Who, The Sex Pistols and David Bowie - with Sir Paul McCartney performing live at the show's close. Eventually. The athletes taking part in the Games - led by Greece, the Olympics' spiritual home - made laps of the stadium bearing their nations' flags. A Red Arrows fly-past marked the start of the pre-show at the symbolic time of 20:12. Bradley Wiggins, wearing his Tour De France yellow jersey, rang the world's largest harmonically-tuned bell to launch the opening ceremony. As the Isles of Wonder show began, artistic director Danny Boyle pledged a ceremony with a theme of 'this is for everyone.' And, it certainly seems to have gone down well with the majority of those who've expressed an opinion (although, as ever, there are a few sour-faced malcontent lice who prove to be exceptions to the rule - see below). The Oscar-winning film director later tweeted: 'Thank you, everyone, for your kind words! Means the world to me.' Earlier, crowds of people, many of them dressed in their nation's colours, streamed into the Olympic Park for the show. The day of celebration began at 8.12am with a mass bell clanging. Big Ben rang for three minutes for the first time since King George VI's funeral in 1952.

A glance at the recent history books suggests two things about the BBC's coverage of the Olympics. First, that at least one aspect of its output will be controversial to somebody. Usually, somebody with an agenda - indeed, see below - whether it is allegedly 'inappropriate' presenters, allegedly 'inadequate' highlights, or a pair of shorts that are, allegedly, 'too short.' Second, in ratings terms the BBC's Olympics programming will do to other broadcasters what Usain Bolt tends to do to the other competitors in the one hundred metres. This year's games are likely to be no different, with two thousand five hundred hours of coverage across its various channels (including twenty four dedicated Olympics services) and the corporation's usual critics lined-up to seize anything as inappropriate as an 2012-themed sickbag. (To be fair, the only slight hint of scourge of the bullies, thin-skinned Fearne Cotton being allowed within a thousand miles of the BBC's Olympic opening night was her very brief appearance in that trailer which uses The Beatles' 'All Together Now' to suggest the concept of family viewing. Other than that, it was - mercifully - a Cotton-free zone.) The London games, it can be reasonably assumed, will be the most popular ever with UK viewers, with BBC schedulers unhindered by the time difference that meant in 2008 (Beijing) and 2000 (Sydney) the biggest events were often happening when many potential viewers were tucked up in in bed. The BBC's biggest live audience in 2008 was the closing ceremony, which had a peak overnight audience of 6.8 million viewers, marginally fewer than the most popular highlights programme, which peaked with seven million. In 2000, when the time difference with Australia was even more unhelpful, it didn't stop nearly seven million people – a seventy five per cent share of the available viewing audience – staying up until the early hours of the morning to watch Steve Redgrave win his fifth Olympic gold medal in the coxless fours. No jokes, please. The evening highlights programme for the Sydney Olympics had an average audience of five million viewers, boosting BBC1 and BBC2's peaktime share by twenty per cent, with audiences up a third on Atlanta four years earlier. The Athens Olympics in 2004, with only a two-hour time difference, may offer the most illuminating comparisons. Paula Radcliffe's early exit from the women's ten thousand metres was watched by a peak of 12.8 million viewers, a fifty seven per cent audience share, at 8pm on a Friday night, ahead of the 11.7 million people who watched the four by four hundred metres men's relay final and the ten million viewers who saw Kelly Holmes' historic second gold in the women's fifteen hundred metres at 6.45pm on a Saturday night. Amir Khan's silver medal win at the same Games peaked with 7.9 million viewers between 12.45pm and 1pm on a Sunday lunchtime. This combined to give BBC1 its best monthly ratings since March the previous year, when it showed continuous news coverage of the Iraq war. But what of the complaints? Well, they're usually predictably tedious (and, indeed, tediously predictable). Four years ago the BBC was accused - by some Daily Scum Mail reading louse of no importance - of not showing enough evening highlights of the spectacular Beijing opening ceremony, and hastily scheduled an extended two-hour retrospective as a result. When it came to Sharron Davies's shorts, it was a case of showing too much, not too little, according to one agenda-driven shit-scum critic who, perhaps, should have had something more important to do with his or her time. But, predictably, didn't. In Athens it came under fire for the choice of some its presenters, accused of putting looks before sporting knowledge. Craig Doyle, presenter of BBC1's Holiday among many other things, came in for particular flak, Labour MP Chris Bryant asking: 'Why Craig Doyle? Is this just because he is the best-looking man the BBC could come up with?' Wind the clock back to 2000 and you'll find criticism (almost four hundred glakes with, definitely, nothing better to do with their time) over the amount of staff and resources the BBC sent to Sydney to cover the games, almost as much as an Olympic tradition as a Steve Redgrave gold. All eyes will be on the overnights for Danny Boyle's twenty seven million quid opening ceremony. The Olympics curtain-raiser was watched by 3.2 million viewers (with a peak of four million) in 2008, 8.6 million (a 10.2 million peak) in 2004 and five million viewers (5.9 million peak) four years ago. However, BBC executives will also probably be hoping to match – or exceed – the ratings for a more recent major event, the Diamond Jubilee Concert, which is the second most-watched TV show of the year to date, after England's Euro 2012 defeat by Italy.

Speaking of the BBC, it was nice to see them making plenty of use of The Clash's 'London Calling' during the lead-up to the opening ceremony in news programmes and the like. But, err ... you do realise that it's actually about the aftermath of a nuclear meltdown disaster, don't you guys? Come to mention it, in the Opening Ceremony itself they used at least three songs about, if you will, nuclear terrors and nuclear errors ('London Calling', 'Enola Gay', and 'Going Underground'). Anyone think Danny Boyle was trying to tell us something about North Korea's likely reaction to that flag incident at the football the other night?

The BBC will, as mentioned, broadcast two thousand five hundred hours of live Olympics footage across the sixteen days of the London games – but its commercial rivals will be limited to just six minutes coverage a day. News access rules laid down by the International Olympic Committee strictly prescribe how much Olympics action can be used by non-rights holders such as ITV and Sky in their news programmes. Restrictions on the footage that can be broadcast from the Olympic Park and associated Olympic venues include, for example, prohibiting radio broadcasters from using mobile telephone interviews with athletes and team officials from the Olympic Park. Non-rights holders are allowed to use a maximum of six minutes of Olympic video material a day. Rules also prescribe what proportion of each event they can screen, and how much time has to elapse between bulletins before they can show more sporting action. Olympic footage can appear in no more than three news programmes a day, according to IOC rules, with no more than two minutes of Olympic material in any one bulletin. The programmes must be at least three hours apart. The rules also deem that no more than one third of any individual event may be used in any one news programme. Fans of Usain Bolt who fear they may not be able to rewatch the whole of the one hundred metres final can rest easy, however - an individual Olympic event which lasts less than fifteen seconds can be shown in its entirety. The rules for dedicated news and sports channels are marginally more relaxed, but no Olympic material can be put on interactive services and must be used only as part of a regularly scheduled news programme. There are also restrictions on material posted on broadcasters' official Twitter feeds and other social media sites from the Olympic Park and venues. Although it is the rights holder in the UK, the BBC does not have the international rights to the games and there are restrictions on the amount of footage it can broadcast overseas from the Olympic Park and associated Olympic venues. The restrictions will affect both the BBC's radio services online - with a number of news programmes facing an overseas blackout during the course of the games, and the BBC's international news service, BBC World News. Alleged 'sources' allegedly claimed that BBC Breakfast's interview with David Cameron was switched from the Olympic Park to the back garden of Downing Street because of 'rights issues' which meant that it could not have been shown overseas. However, a BBC spokeswoman claimed that the interview was done in Downing Street for 'logistical reasons' and was never intended to take place in the Olympic Park. 'It is a particular challenge for BBC World News because it isn't a rights holder and is under the same restrictions as Sky News, for example. It is not allowed to use much stuff shot on Olympics premises,' an alleged BBC 'source' allegedly snitched to the Gruniad Morning Star.

It was genuinely nice to see the great Michael Johnson using the BBC's coverage of the Olympic Opening Ceremony to crack an anti-Mitt Romney joke, dear blog reader. I knew I liked that bloke for some reason other than the fact that he was, you know, The Fastest Man On Two Legs for a decade and a bit before yer man Bolt came along. Yer actual Keith Telly Topping, almost in spite of himself, really rather enjoyed the opening ceremony's depiction of the industrial revolution accompanied by a load of drummers - seemingly - playing a variant of Cozy Powell's 'Dance With The Devil'. The only problem was that, ever since seeing Electric Six's video for 'Gay Bar', I've been wholly unable to take the sight of men in a top hats seriously any longer. Not that I ever did, of course. That aside ... I did think the first two minutes - Elgar, followed by The Shipping Forecast then The Who - was about as good a summation of Britain, for all its faults, as you're ever going to get. There were lots of children singing, people playing cricket. Everything was green and there was, Gary Lineker assured us, the smell of horseshit lingering above the Olympic stadium. The Daily Scum Mail are sure to have enjoyed that. And then Danny Craig and Queen parachuted into the stadium and it all got a bit surreal.

As the nation came together to ring in the London Olympics on Friday,the lack of culture secretary the vile and odious rascal Hunt dropped an unfortunate clanger when the end of his bell fell off live on his beloved Sky News (lick, lick, lick). Is it too early to start calling this 'Bellendgate'? Fortunately for the vile and odious rascal Hunt it narrowly missed hitting a woman standing nearby. 'My goodness me are you all right?' asked the Olympics minister, putting the 'camp' into campanology with an impeccable Kenneth Williams impression. 'Health and safety!' he then bellowed. As the vile and odious rascal Hunt said himself on Twitter, it was 'a classic 2012 moment.' Yes, nearly braining an old dear with your bell end. Very classic. Yet again the fictional calamities of a BBC sitcom are put in the shade by the unpredictabilities of the real life of the vile and odious rascal Hunt. Where's Adam Smith when you need him?

BBC1 will use its blanket Olympics coverage as a springboard to launch its autumn drama slate, with a series of cinema-style ninety-second trailers at the same time every night for the sixteen-day duration of the games. The marketing campaign, the first of its kind undertaken by the channel, will focus on six new dramas under the heading Made in Britain. It will also highlight several long-running shows including Doctor Who, Merlin, and EastEnders, the latter of which will switch to BBC2 during the Olympics. BBC1 controller Danny Cohen said the Olympics would provide a 'rare and unique opportunity' to showcase its upcoming drama. With a nightly ninety-second slot at 8pm the trails will be guaranteed a big peaktime audience. They will begin on Saturday with an overview of six BBC1 dramas which will be broadcast in the autumn this year: Hunted, Good Cop, The Secret of Crickley Hall, Shetland, Ripper Street and Accused. BBC controller of drama commissioning Ben Stephenson said these represented 'the very best of British, made with ambition and scale that I hope will capture the imagination of our audiences with the same spirit as the London 2012 Olympics.' A Doctor Who trailer will premiere next Thursday (2 August), followed by Merlin the following day.

The first group game of Britain's Olympic football team attracted a solid overnight audience on Thursday night. Some 6.2m punters watched at the match's peak as Stuart Pearce's men - captained by Ryan Giggs - draw 1-1 with Senegal at Old Trafford, after Craig Bellamy's early strike was cancelled out late on. And that was definitely a penalty, by the way! BBC1's coverage, fronted by Gary Lineker, averaged 4.77m between 7pm and 10pm - a marked improvement on the squad's warm-up game last Friday. Live coverage of the final stages of the Olympic torch relay secured 1.03m in the 5pm hour, while BBC2's showing of the other games in the Men's Football interested nine hundred and twenty thousand punters between 2.30pm and 7pm. Meanwhile, ITV's Olympics-themed Big Sports Quiz very satisfyingly flopped big-style opposite the football, being watched by just 1.73m from 9pm. The Big Sports Quiz, hosted by full-of-his-own-importance Stephen Mulhern, was beaten by Obsessive Compulsive Hoarder: The Big Clear Out, which delivered 2.04m to Channel Four. Overall, BBC1 topped primetime with 23.8 per cent of the audience share, ahead of ITV's 17.2 per cent. On the multichannels, Dynamo: Magician Impossible was watched by seven hundred and thirty three thousand viewers on Watch at 9pm. It remained the night's second most-watched digital shows - a Family Guy repeat had nine hundred and thirty one thousand viewers on BBC3 at 11.05pm.

Back to the opening ceremony and, as yer actual Keith Telly Topping's good mate Mietek noted around the time they did the section about the National Health Service 'everything the Tories hate is being glorified here!' And, that's a bad thing? Well, to be fair, the Tories were big fans of The Industrial Revolution. And, probably of Mr Bean as well. And, speaking of Tories, Mike Oldfield came on the global jukebox at around that point.

One chap who, seemingly, wasn't happy with the opening ceremony was Conservative MP rat-faced loathsome wretched odious nasty slavver-merchant Aidan Burley (no, me neither and, actually, I'm jolly glad about that). He has claimed that a tweet in which he referred to 'leftie multi-cultural rubbish' in the Olympic opening ceremony was 'misunderstood.' Ah, the old 'I've said something thoroughly offensive but it's your fault for not being on my wavelength' defence. Yes. That usually works. After the tweet had provoked a flurry of criticism on Twitter, rat-faced loathsome wretched odious nasty slavver-merchant Burley said: 'I was talking about the way it was handled in the show, not multiculturalism itself.' In an earlier tweet, Burley had said the ceremony was 'the most leftie opening ceremony I have ever seen.' Oh, I dunno, Moscow 1980 was fairly leftie. An alleged Downing Street 'source' allegedly said: 'We do not agree with him.' In his initial post on Twitter referring to the ceremony, rat-faced loathsome wretched odious nasty slavver-merchant Burley wrote: 'The most leftie opening ceremony I have ever seen - more than Beijing, the capital of a Communist state! Welfare tribute next?' And, again, the problem with that would have been, exactly, you shit-scum louse? He followed that with: 'Thank God the athletes have arrived! Now we can move on from leftie multi-cultural crap. Bring back Red Arrows, Shakespeare and The Stones!' Before adding: 'Seems my tweet has been misunderstood. I was talking about the way it was handled in the show, not multiculturalism itself.' David Cameron last year sacked rat-faced loathsome wretched odious nasty slavver-merchant Burley as parliamentary private secretary to Transport Secretary Justine Greening for 'offensive and foolish' behaviour during a Nazi-themed stag party.

Ticketing delays at St James' Park which meant some fans missed an Olympic football game were 'unacceptable', a senior 2012 official has said. Some people missed the Mexico versus South Korea game on Thursday due to long queues for tickets. Geoff Hodgson, the North East board member for LOCOG, said: 'We cannot allow this to happen again.' Queues had already formed on Thursday before the ticket offices opened at 09:30. Soon hundreds were waiting, both people hoping to buy tickets and those picking up pre-booked ones. To be fair, they didn't miss much, in the first game Mexico and South Korea produced a thoroughly dreary goalless draw. The second match between Gabon and Switzerland was a bit better and ended 1-1. LOCOG said that the box office had opened five hours before kick-off and those collecting tickets to the day's matches were prioritised. Speaking on BBC Newcastle, Hodgson offered his apologies. He said: 'Last night was totally and completely one hundred per cent unacceptable. It had the potential to be an outstanding night, and I think for many people it was, but for those outside queuing it was unacceptable. There were a series of conversations and meetings last night at the ground, and I was back in harness at 6.30 this morning. We cannot allow this to happen again.' He added that it had involved a global ticketing system. 'The procedures that they have appear to be a one size fits all,' he said. 'Unlike every other sport there was not a test event for football at a football ground that was being used.' In a separate incident, the UK Border Agency said it had arrested three people due to work at the stadium in Newcastle after accreditation checks were carried out on private security staff. Two remain in custody and one was released without charge. It was announced on Monday that more than five hundred staff from other companies were replacing G4S at St James' Park.

Humax and Freesat have acknowledged that 'a technical problem' means that owners of certain satellite digital TV boxes cannot record any of the BBC's special Olympic channels. What? You mean, they won't be able to record the handball? Well, that's just not frigging good enough. The corporation is running twenty four live video streams throughout the duration of the Games as part of plans to cover every sport from every venue at London 2012. Humax only sells one Freesat+ set top box in the UK with a personal video recorder functionality - the Foxsat-HDR - but it is understood to be one of the biggest sellers on the market. In a statement on its Facebook page, Freesat - which has heavily promoted its 'summer of subscription-free sport' - admitted that owners of Humax Freesat+ boxes currently cannot record the BBC's live streams. The company said that users can still record Olympic action on the BBC1 and BBC3 channels, and claimed that no Freesat+ boxes made by other manufacturers are affected by the problems. 'We're sorry to say that Humax can't currently fix the bug that prevents recording of the twenty four Olympic channels on their freesat+ box. We've tried really hard with Humax to sort out,' said Freesat. 'You can record from BBC1 and BBC3. All other freesat+ boxes can record twenty four streams. It's been an Olympic feat in itself to get the twenty four streams working and we really hope this doesn't stop you enjoying London 2012. Sorry guys.' Speaking to the BBC, Humax's UK service manager Michael Caughey: 'Humax were made aware of the issue when the problem was identified on Tuesday. Unfortunately nothing could be done at the broadcast encoder end to resolve the issue so on Thursday we started working on the fix and are hopeful that it is imminent. However, we will not rush it out until we are sure it will not cause more issues and problems as customers will still be able to view all twenty four channels - although they can't record them - and will be able to record the Olympic coverage shown on BBC1 HD, BBC HD and the other standard definition channels as normal.' In a post on Freesat's Facebook page, Humax UK said that a software update for affected Freesat+ boxes is on the way. 'For all those with a Humax box. It's looking positive that we can fix this bug for you,' said the firm. 'We've already developed a software update and early tests indicate this is working correctly. Testing continues this afternoon and we will post on our Facebook page when we have confirmed dates/timings for release.'

At the Olympic opening ceremony, meanwhile, during the march of the athletes Fiji entered the stadium to the sound of The Bee Gees. Sadly, whoever was arranging the music then missed a trick by failing to accompanying Chad's entrance with a bit of Gay Dad.

Matt Smith has said that he would love James Corden to return for another episode of Doctor Who. Oh Christ, no. Spare us that, please. Odious, unfunny lardy buffoon Corden first guest-starred in Doctor Who's series five episode The Lodger and later helped defeat the Cybermen in last year's Closing Time. In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, Smudger opined that he is 'keen' to have Corden back for a third adventure. You're too nice a chap, Smitty, mate. You've got to be ruthless in this game. Especially with regard to having James Corden on your show. Don't do it. Think of the children. 'We'd love him to [return], but he's pretty busy being a Tony award-winning actor on Broadway and having a baby. But we'd love to get James back,' Matt said. The actor also previewed Doctor Who's series opener Asylum of the Daleks, which sees the TARDIS crew come up against several variations of his oldest foes. '[It's] wonderful, because I got to meet my favourite Daleks, which are actually from Troughton's era, I think,' he revealed. 'They're the sort of pale blue and whitey ones. They're a bit smaller actually. I think they're groovy! I mean, we've got every Dalek that exists in the world.' He added of the Daleks: 'They are frightening. But you can't help but go, "God, there's twenty Daleks in a room moving around me!"' Last week, Matt touted The Doctor's new companion (Jenna-Louise Coleman) by hinting that she is 'different' from Amy Pond (Karen Gillan). Which sounds like a cue for a trailer.

He plays an emotionally repressed, highly intelligent gentleman with complicated female relationships. But Benedict Cumberbatch is swapping modern-day sleuthing to play 'the last Tory' Christopher Tietjens in a new adaptation of Parade's End by Tom Stoppard. BBC2's five-part drama based on Ford Madox Ford's tetralogy, set in 1914, marks Stoppard's return to television, with his first project for the corporation in decades. Stoppard, although familiar with Ford's earlier novel The Good Soldier, only started reading the quartet of books after it was suggested he might adapt them. The writer, who watches television 'sporadically', said he realised 'damn quickly I really wanted the job.' But it was not without challenges. 'The structure of the books is not linear, nor does it fall into five equal parts, it's a modernist novel with a thought towards experimentalism, and most of all, as with many adaptations, you have the problem that there's a lot of interesting stuff going on in the novel, without necessarily having the dramatic momentum or even the physical concrete dimension to it,' he said at a screening of the drama. Stoppard's involvement, and that of BAFTA award-winning director Susanna White, has helped attract a cast which includes Rufus Sewell, Rupert Everett, Stephen Graham and Rebecca Hall – who plays Tietjens's socialite wife Sylvia. Cumberbatch – much in demand in both the UK and the US following his role as Sherlock Holmes in the BBC1 drama – was one of only 'a tiny handful' of actors who could have played Tietjens, a highly principled, brilliant government statistician, said White. But, with Parade's End cast before Sherlock hit the screens, the director and Stoppard first had to convince American broadcaster HBO, which has produced the drama with the BBC. 'HBO said "Who is this Benedict?" and we said: "Trust us, he's truly a great actor and by the time Parade's End comes out everyone will have heard of him,"' said White. 'Of course now, everybody in America has heard of him and he's playing the villain in Star Trek.' Parade's End, due to broadcast later this summer, transports audiences to the end of the Edwardian era and the time of the Great War, as also have BBC1's recent adaptation of Sebastian Faulks' Birdsong, and the hugely popular second series of Downton Abbey. 'Everything changed afterwards,' said Stoppard, explaining the period's importance. 'It was the last period of social history among the top half of the English class system. People of a later generation might say that of 1939 – but in the case of 1914 there really is a sense of an important page being turned, never to be turned back again.' There is also a certain resonance between Tietjen's moral view of the world – central to the plot is the relationship between Tietjen and his wife, and the young suffragette Valentine Wannop – and the questions currently preoccupying society, said White. 'People are asking a lot of moral questions about how we behave as a society. About our values, the environment, money and how politicians behave. It might not be immediately obvious what an old-fashioned Tory has to say to us now, but actually I think there's a lot that chimes.'

Warwickshire-based television antiques expert David Darby has died after a short illness. Barby, sixty three, suffered a stroke last week and died in hospital in Coventry on Wednesday. He was best known for appearances on BBC shows like Bargain Hunt, Flog It and Antiques Road Trip. Auctioneer Charles Hanson called him a 'great friend' and said 'no other expert could rival his great human touch.' A former television colleague of Barby, he added: 'He built up the great passion the public had for these antiques programmes. More importantly he was a man of the people. Anybody could speak to him and he had time for so many members of the public to share their stories, memories, nostalgia and passion for old things.' Barby first became interested in antiques as boy growing up in Rugby. He qualified aged twenty one and began working for a local firm. After a brief stint in London, Barby returned to Warwickshire in 1978 to work at a Leamington auction house where he would eventually become a partner in the business. He also founded a valuation company, David J Barby and Associates, in Rugby. Barby appeared in the first episode of Flog It in 2002. A statement from the programme's team read: 'His sense of fun, gentle personality and great knowledge of and passion for antiques, endeared him to the hundreds of people he worked with and millions of viewers at home. David was an ambassador for antiques TV and loved every minute spent making the many, many episodes of Bargain Hunt, Flog It, Antiques Road Trip and more. We all remember David with great fondness, and send our condolences to his family and many friends in the antique trade and beyond.'

And so, dear blog reader, to yer actual Keith Telly Topping's 45 of the Day. And, it's this. 'Come out of the cupboard, you boys and girls.'