Life on Mars

Sam Tyler (John Simm), a DCI from Hyde has a row with his girlfriend and is later knocked down by a car. He awakes to find himself in 1973, the time of flares, classic cars and old fashioned values and beliefs. Meanwhile in 2006, Sam is lying in a coma with his life hanging in the balance.

Back in 1973, Sam finds himself working for the Manchester and Salford CID, under the command of chauvinist and racist DCI Gene Hunt (Philip Glenister) and his old fashioned policing methods. He thinks he is experiencing “Life on Mars”. He makes friends with PC Annie Cartwright and encourages her to become a detective - much to the mirth of Gene Hunt. Sam confesses to her that he is from the future and has to stop himself from revealing historical events (but he does say that there will be a woman Prime Minister one day).

Throughout the programme, Sam has communication with people back in 2006 as he is operated on. People speak to him on the telephone and on the television in his bed-sit. He tries to teach his new team some new policing methods but is facing a constant battle against 1970s attitudes.

Although Gene Hunt is a whisky drinking, womanising and racist guy, he is a good DCI, although he is known to use violent methods to retrieve information from criminals. His favourite food is “Spaghetti Hoops” and he drives a Cortina into the ground and is surprisingly likeable. He and Sam, although poles apart do have a respect for each other.

Life on Mars is an original series with reminders of The Sweeney. It has an interesting storyline, healthy doses of comedy, great cars, reminders of 1970s fashions and décor; classic music from David Bowie and T-Rex and shows us how far life has changed since the 1970s. It is no wonder the series has won awards such as a Bafta and an Emmy. Personally, I can not wait for the spin-off series, “Ashes to Ashes”.

Vera to say ‘Ta’ra’ to the Street after 34 years

Actress Liz Dawn has announced that she is to leave Coronation Street after playing popular Vera Duckworth for 34 years.
The 68-year old star confirmed that she is leaving the hit show due to health reasons as she fights against the lung disease emphysema.
While Liz has said that she would like to be killed off with minimal fuss, as was the case with the character of Ena Sharples, the show’s producers seem keen to leave the door open for future guest appearances that will see her reunited wither on-screen husband Jack, played by the actor Bill Tarney.
“We’re indebted to her for all she has achieved during her years as Vera Duckworth,” said Kieran Roberts, the show’s executive producer.
“We will always miss this wonderful lady and first-rate actress and we are delighted that she’s agreed to return to the soap in the future.”
The mother-of-four was diagnosed with the disease in March 2004 and has since been working with oxygen on the set.
However, she now intends to spend more time with her family and enjoy her retirement between her homes in Manchester and Spain.

QI - Quite Interesting

This intellectual quiz show certainly lives up to its name with the enigmatic Stephen Fry as the host and fountain of all knowledge. Four contestants compete with each other and Alan “Jonathan Creek” Davies is a regular on the programme. He is joined by 3 others from the world of comedy and entertainment and favourites such as Jo Brand, Phil Jupitus, Rob Brydon, Arthur Smith and Clive Anderson have all appeared.

QI stands for “Quite Interesting” and is a comedy panel game to get you to think laterally and to dispel popular myths. The questions are linked to a letter of the alphabet for each series and for the latest series, it is the letter “D”. A series of questions are asked by the host with the hope that the contestants will fall into the elephant trap of giving the obvious and frequently incorrect answer. Each person is awarded points for the answers and can achieve minus points too. It is normally Alan Davies who speaks first and thinks later. He gets the flashing lights and sirens and finds out he has lost 10 points and made a fool of himself – yet again .

Contestants can also be given bonus points for making everyone aware of some obscure and unrelated fact (which may and frequently is fabricated).

Sample questions are:

“How many moons does the Earth have?”

The most popular answer would be “One”. This question was asked in an earlier series when the correct answer was “two”. However, there has been a recent discovery of 7 moons orbiting the earth.

“Where does ring-a-ring o’roses’ originate from ?”

It is thought to be about the plague in the 1660s with the roses being a word for lesions and “all fall down” meaning death. However, the popular nursery rhyme was not used until much later in 1790 about a little girl called Josie.

QI is a programme to entertain and enlighten, in equal measures.

My Name is Earl

Earl Hickey was a bad man. He would do anything to get an extra dollar or make his day just a bit better. His morals were in the gutter until the day that he won the lottery. Using a stolen dollar he bought an instant ticket and won the top prize. He was so excited that he ran out into the street and was run over.

Earl had just heard about Karma and came to believe that all the bad karma he had brought upon people was now coming back to haunt him. He decides to use the lottery money to help all the people that he has wronged in his former life. He just wants to be a better person.

In his life are his simple but loveable brother, Randy; his former wife, the morally void trailer-trash Joy; Joy’s new man (actually not so new as Earl’s children are testament to) Crab-man, who is a good guy; and Catalina, the beautiful and intuitive Mexican maid at the motel where Earl and Randy live.

Earl has made a list to clear all his former bad ways and works his way through it but it is never as simple as he hopes. This week he tries to clear up his treatment of the trailer-park harridan, Millie. Millie made Earl and Joy’s life hell with a series of citations against them for everything that they did. They hatch a plan to get their own back but discover that Millie’s hearing aid picks up their walkie-talkie. Earl then acts as the voice of God to make Millie do things against her nature.

When Earl tracks Millie down, she is a Sister in a convent, looking after orphans and leading good life. Earl explains his situation and Millie realises that her calling was a con. She reverts to the harridan ways and the trailer-park as Earl sees that he made a mistake telling her the truth and has to undo the situation, eventually succeeding as Millie returns to the convent where she was happy.

My Name is Earl is a gentle, disarming comedy with charming characters and some fabulous story lines and comedy. One of the best new comedies of recent years and has the depth to be around for more series.

Rome: The Return

This is the second series of the joint HBO and BBC series, Rome, which is loosely based on the Roman Empire during the times of Gaius Julius Caesar, Marc Antony and Cleopatra. This lavish production has a British cast including James Purefoy, Lindsay Duncan and Ray Stephenson.

The first series focussed on Julius Caesar and his rise and fall from grace. The second series has been concentrating on the political turmoil since his assassination, with Marc Antony and Caesar’s grand nephew Gaius Octavian battling for supremacy, but deciding to rule Rome and the Empire together.

The series concentrates not only on the main characters of Atia (Octavian’s mother and lover of Marc Antony), Octavia (her daughter), Octavian, Marc Antony, Brutus and members of the Roman senate but has a strong side-plot concentrating on the lives of loyal soldiers Lucius Vorenus and Titus Pullo and their dedication to the state and their families. There is an insight into the fierce battles that took place and Roman civilisation including the orgies, debauchery, violence and merrymaking . The characters think nothing of ordering someone to be killed if they fall out of favour.

Tonight’s episode concentrated on the famine in Rome with grain supplies running low and people starving. After being married off to Octavia (to seal unity between the house of Caesar and Marc Antony) and the marriage being exposed as a sham, Marc Antony decides to live in Alexandria. He takes up with Cleopatra who bears him two sons. He holds back grain supplies to Rome, finally relenting to sell it at three times cost value.

Octavian decides to test out Marc Antony’s loyalty by sending Octavia (Marc Antony’s wife) and Atia (his lover) to ask for the grain. The thinking is that Marc Antony will reject either Cleopatra or his wife. He sends his wife away without seeing her and thus prompts a Civil War

Shipwrecked hotties want a date…with you!

If you missed your chance to star on Channel 4’s reality TV show for hotties, Shipwrecked, then you now have the chance to date a star.

Some consolation prize hey?

On July 24th the contestants from this year’s show will be auctioning themselves off in an attempt to raise money for the Samaritans.

Ben Lunt, Lianne Dauban, Sophia Wardman, Louis Rennocks and Naomi Millbank-Smith are all up for grabs in the celebrity auction, although they differ on their idea of a dream date.

“My dream date would be wakeboarding and surfing, anything but theatre! I like showing my sporty side to impress my dates,” Ben Lunt told the Sun.

Those of you hoping to make a lasting impression on Lianne however will need to dress (down!) to impress: “I love boys in skinny jeans, the edgy Razorlight look.

“Smooth operators need not apply!”

The dates are available on eBay and proceeds will go towards keeping the Samaritans’ phone line service up and running.

Guarding the Queen

Reality documentaries have become popular over recent years and give a fly-on-the-wall view of the work of others. There have been series about vets, airport staff, refuse collectors and even nightclub bouncers. This series follows several members of the Grenadier Guards who are responsible for guarding the Queen and members of the Royal Family. The Grenadiers are one of the oldest regiments of the British Army and had their 350^th anniversary last year.

The Guards are a major tourist attraction with ceremonies such as “The Changing of the Guard” and the “Trooping of the Colour” all performed with military precision and full pomp and ceremony. They are known for standing outside the sentry boxes at

Buckingham Palace and St. James Palace, dressed in bright red military tunics topped with bearskin caps (the cap is also known as a busby).

Guarding the Queen, the new three-part documentary, on ITV1 focuses on new recruits having a drill and taking up sentry duties after only 7 days. One of the recruits – Stephen Cooper was reprimanded for not having braces to hold up his tweeds (trousers). A button on the £2000 suit split just before the Changing of the Guard ceremony in which he was participating. His mother and sister attended the ceremony and went to see him standing at St James Palace. As he was on guard, he stood motionless and expressionless as his young sister held his hand. The only emotion he showed was a squeeze of her hand.

The first episode also showed the Grenadier Guards band being assessed on their performing of military marches, swing and jazz, classical music and even a song by The Scissor Sisters. They were considered “fit for duty”. It also followed military training for those who had returned from

Iraq on front-line duties and were due to serve in

Afghanistan in 7 short weeks. The series is a fascinating insight into the work and expectations of the Guards.

Chantelle to star in new reality show

If you’ve ever wanted to see an MP try to learn your trade, or simply watch an ‘airhead celeb’ learn anything at all, then ITV1 may just have the show for you.

Don’t Call Me Stupid is a new celebrity-reality TV show beginning in the autumn which sees unlikely pairs of celebrities team up to teach each other a skill or hobby.

Famous already for impersonating a cat on Channel 4’s Celebrity Big Brother, fame-hungry MP George Galloway stars in the first episode which will see him attempt to learn to ride horses from Lady Victoria Harvey.

In return he will coach her on the history of the Labour movement, with no doubt hilarious consequences.

Perhaps one of the hardest jobs on the list though is MP Ed Vaizey’s, who has been charged with the task of teaching Chantelle the British political system!

Empire’s Children

By 1921, the British Empire was in charge of around a quarter of the World’s population (458 million people). It started during the 15^th century when Britain was discovering new countries and the influences are seen in the military systems, government, educational systems and sports such as football and cricket. The Empire included Canada; manly islands in the Caribbean, such as Jamaica and St. Kitts; Australia and New Zealand, India, Pakistan, South Africa. After the Second World War, the colonies and provinces became independent and the 54 countries now form the Commonwealth.

The Channel 4 Programme Empire’s Children looks at the effect of the British Empire on the lives of 6 celebrities – each with links to the former colonies. Tonight’s episode follows former Liberal Party Leader David Steele and his journey back to Kenya after 50 years. Although born in Scotland, his father, Church of Scotland Minister – Rev. David Steel moved the family to Kenya when the former MP was 11.

In the early 1950s, there was violence and assassination in the name of an organisation called “Mau Mau”. A state of emergency was declared in 1953 and many people were detained in military camps. Rev. Steel made sermons that were published live on national radio on a regular basis. He lobbied for the release of the detainees and frequently wrote to colleagues in the Church about his frustrations with the Government and the unrest. He wrote to the Governor urging him to take control of law and order and used one of his sermons to call for change.

David Steel managed to meet one of the detainees that his father had campaigned to release and was moved to tears as he heard of his father’s work. In April 1957, Rev. Steel made his last sermon and the family returned to Scotland. It was an emotional journey for David Steel to revisit Kenya and hear of his father.

Ramsey ‘F Word’ show f’s up

The producers of Gordon Ramsey’s TV show The F Word appear to have f’d up themselves, prompting an explanation from Channel 4.

In one episode of the hit food show, chef Gordon Ramsey is seen walking into the sea off a Devon coast in order to catch sea bass with a spear.

He then returns with several fish in his hand, giving the impression he had caught them all, although this was not the case.

In an interview with the Sunday Times, Dave O’Callaghan, the professional spearfisher working with Gordon on the episode, said: “I caught about four and then Gordon got in and we spent about an hour in the water.

“When we came back in we threaded the fish onto a stringer and he carried them. Put it like this: Gordon Ramsay caught f all.”

A red-faced Channel 4 - which is becoming used to complaints due to accusations of failing to halt racism and homophobic remarks in Big Brother - admitted the scenes were less than accurate.

A Channel 4 spokeswoman said: “The production company Optomen has informed us that, after investigation, regrettably it appears that one part of the sea bass VT gave viewers an inaccurate impression about Gordon’s involvement.

“We are working with Optomen to ensure this does not happen again.”

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