‘Bring back Louis’ X-factor scenes faked

Straight after X Factor’s Simon Cowell revealed that he swallowed his pride and invited Louis Walsh back onto the panel of judges, the show’s producers have revealed that the crucial scenes leading up to this were faked.

With several leading programmes having got into trouble recently as a result of misleading their viewers, the talent show’s producers decided to confess that the scene where Simon and Sharon Osbourne talk about how much they miss the Irishman was mocked up for the cameras.

Paul Jackson, the head of entertainment at ITV, said: “There are some moments where we do not have cameras and may need to go back to capture that moment. But that does not mean we are misleading viewers.

“We are still at the rough-cut stage and may not even include this scene.”

The fourth series of the show will boast a judging panel of four, after Brian Friedman gave way to Louis Walsh, while ’singer’ Dannii Minogue will remain alongside Sharon.

Ten Years Younger: Summer Special

Ten Years Younger does exactly what it says on the tin – makes some one look at least 10 years younger than they actually appear.

In this week’s programme, we meet Ruth. She is a 34 year old mother but was judged by 100 people on a beach to be aged 49 – a major blow to her confidence. Ruth is dressed in a bikini and is a size 10. However, 2 years ago she weighed around 20 stone and had weigh loss surgery (losing at least 9 stone). This has left her with a large amount and loose skin and flesh around her stomach and back, which flopped over her bikini. Her breasts had also lost their shape and were droopy and she had very painful looking varicose veins in her legs. Thus it was easy to see why people rated her a good 15 years above her actual age.

The team set about their work. First off was surgery to remove the loose flesh and give her boobs an uplift. Although the operation meant that Ruth was unable to move or go about her daily work, she was left with a rather envious “washboard stomach”. Ruth also had her varicose veins removed and this meant that she no longer had to wear items to cover her legs.

The presenter examined Ruth’s wardrobe which mainly consisted of “comfy hoodies and cargo pants” or gypsy skirts that covered her legs. All that was salvaged was one pair of black leggings. Ruth was shown how to pep up her wardrobe to suit her new figure – with figure hugging outfits, cute dressed and leggings and brighter colours than she was used to.

Next off was a trip to the dentist. Ruth had a large gap between her two front teeth and this was widening as she got older. The dentist applied gaps to her teeth so that she had a sparkling smile. She was then treated to a new hairdo and colour. A shorter cut meant that her blue eyes were accentuated and showed off her jaw line and face-shape.

Fully made up and in a new swimsuit, Ruth went onto the beach were her family and friends were amazed with her outcome. Another 100 people were asked to guess her age and the average came out as 33! If only we all had the money to look 10 years younger!

Louis brings back X Factor for Simon

Simon Cowell has admitted that, while singers may come and go, it is fellow judge Louis Walsh who brings the X Factor to his show.

Prior to the launch of the new series this weekend, Cowell revealed how, after just a few weeks preliminary filming, he chose to replace choreographer Brian Friedman with the Irish music manager as he wasn’t happy with the way the show was going.

“I never thought in a million years I’d be saying on national TV, I miss Louis Walsh,” Cowell tells the show

“He’s always been smug. This is going to be verging on unbearable,” he adds.

Alongside the pair, whose rivalry has long been one of the highlights of the X Factor, pop singer Dannii Minogue and Sharon Osbourne will be sitting on the panel of judges as they try and find the UK’s next big thing.

However, while 2005’s winner Shayne Warde is about to release a single next month, little has been heard of Leona Lewis since she followed up her victory last year with a one-off hit.

Not surprisingly, Cowell, who is reported to have made an estimated £100 million fortune from his TV talent shows, backed Leona to be a big star over the next 20 and 25 years.

Oz and James’s Big Wine Adventures

Oz Clarke is a wine critic and James May is a motoring journalist and presenter. The idea behind “Oz and James’s Big Wine Adventures” is that James wants to learn enough information to choose a bottle of wine from a supermarket with confidence. To achieve this rather simple aim they go on a tour of France in James’s vintage Jaguar.

The pairing of May with Clarke is interesting. Oz Clarke is a pompous wine buff that speaks with passion and a not inconsiderable amount of bluff about wine. James May is an enthusiast of many things from cars to technology and it appears tea; something that he is not an enthusiast of is wine. He sees it as a nice drink that you have of an evening that will eventually get you drunk but it would be good to know nice ones. Oz postures and waffles on at length, leaving James baffled and prone to using a whistle to stop the bluff. He also manages to note “Wine Facts”.

This week they are on the road to discovery of “Terroir”. Terroir is the combination of soil, climate and the position on a hillside, or more basically, terrain. This combination of factors will affect the way that the grapes will grow and ripen and consequently affect the flavour and body of the wine.

They go to Alsace, a region of France next to the German border and check out the area’s Riesling wines. First wine fact was that Alsace Rieslings are dry and crisp, unlike the standard perception sweet German Rieslings. James’s first priority at a chateau is to make a good cup of tea, which takes some perseverance as the Chateau owner refuses to believe that the water should be boiling. When tasting the wines he becomes caught up in his explanation of how the wine is “brittle” in the mouth, which pleases Oz, as his charge is taking a turn to the buff side.

The classic region for recognising terroir is Burgundy. They travel to the land of Meursault, Montrachet, Puilly-Fuisse, Chablis and Gevrey-Chambertin. Here, a distance between vineyards can mean hundreds of pounds difference in the price of a single bottle. This is due to minor changes in soil, the angle of the hill and protection from the wind. James May notes that driving down the middle of these vineyards are old vans spewing out diesel fumes that must make more of a difference.

However, in a taste test, James recognises which wines come from the classic, the good and the mediocre vines based on their terroir, prompting him to accept that there maybe some merits in Oz’s pontificating.

The programme is gentle and includes a bit of messing around but is, nonetheless, very informative.

Antony Cotton’s chat show a roaring success

Coronation Street star Antony Cotton is proving a surprise hit in the world of TV talk-shows, having already attracted more viewers than veteran rivals Richard and Judy.

Outside of his role as Sean Tully on the ITV soap, Anthony truly came to the nation’s attention after his performances on singing show Soapstar Superstar.

The channel then saw in the 32-year old the solution to their tea-time programming problems.

Since Paul O’Grady defected to Channel 4 last year, the station’s bosses have filled the early evening slot with repeats as well as screening the unsuccessful Sharon Osborne show earlier this year.

Around two million viewers tuned in to watch Antony’s first show, which was a mixture of celebrity interviews and audience participation games.

In comparison, Richard and Judy’s show attracted just 1.1 million viewers during the same time slot.

Speaking to the Manchester Evening News, Antony said: “I was delighted when I saw the ratings for the first programme.

“I’m really proud of all the team who are working so hard to make the show. It’s only the first day of a five-week run so we’ve got a long way to go.”

Before appearing in Coronation Street, the actor appeared in Queer as Folk and Absolutely Fabulous.

The One Show

The One Show is a daily evening programme that looks at issues that are concerning people. It has an unusual pairing of seasoned presenter and journalist, Adrian Chiles, with a heavily pregnant Myleene Klass (singer and pianist), but it is a pairing that seems to work.

The first story was concerning the fact that Health and Safety laws mean that we are becoming more protective e.g. children are not allowed to throw snowballs for fear of hurting themselves and safety glasses should be used when playing conkers (a game played using horse chestnuts). The story concentrated on a lady who contracted Polio in her twenties, but found some pleasure and relief from gardening. She liked to tend the flower beds in the central island in the road in her village. However, she was advised by her local council that she would need to place road signs around the island (something difficult for a disabled woman to do) or have someone help her. There was then a discussion regarding whether Health and Safety laws were trying to “molly coddle” people and removed all risks (and fun).

Tony Blackburn also appeared on the programme as one of the DJs on pirate radio in the 1960s . In 1964 he started working aboard a ship in the North Sea and broadcasting Radio Caroline and then later Radio London (on an old war ship). It is 40 years to the day since Radio Caroline stopped broadcasting and Tony Blackburn went on to become a DJ on Radio 1.

The One Show also had some other interesting features:

On police cars being decommissioned and sold at auction. They have high mileage, but have a good service history and can be bought at a reasonable price (with proceeds going to the Police Force).

The Beach Doctors – 4 GPs having their doctor’s surgeries in such places as Brighton and Blackpool.

A manufacturer selling protective t-shirts, jackets and hoodies (these are slash proof).

A cloud spotter highlighting the different types of clouds.

The One Show is an interesting programme for those who want a more entertaining version of the news.

Jane Beale to be shot by figure from beyond the grave?

Albert Square mum Jane Beale is to be shot and left for dead on the streets of Walford in a forthcoming Eastenders storyline.

According to an insider, the explosive scene will come after Jane, her husband Ian Beale and their daughter Lucy receive a number of e-mails from Ian’s former wife, Cindy, even though she is long dead.

A source close to the BBC show told the website Digital Spy: “The storyline will be massive. We can’t wait for everything to come out.

“Cast and crew alike have been sworn to secrecy as to who’s sending the messages - and ultimately who pulls the trigger.”

However, the producers were remaining tight-lipped over what happens once Jane – played by Laurie Brett – gets rushed to hospital, while the identity of the assassin will only be revealed once the story airs in the autumn.

For now, however, Ian will have to deal with Craig, who is looking to take his fondness for Jane a step further.

The Real Hustle

Inspired by the popular BBC drama series of a similar name, The Real Hustle shows how easy it is to be the subject of a con. We are introduced to the three key players of:

Alex – confidence trickster
Jess - sexy swindler
Paul – scam artist

According to the programme, “all of the people in this show have been hustled for real and after being given their money back, they agreed that the footage could be shown so you can avoid being ripped off by the same scams”.

The mantra of The Real Hustle is to “find something, all you need to do is something that somebody wants.” We were shown a number of scams including:

Gadget scam – Jess meets with clients in a café and after receiving a phone call, takes them off to meet her contact in a pub. Paul is waiting with an electronic device and hidden cameras. The gadget puts £50 of credit on their Oyster travel card

The Client begins to be suspicious as to whether or not the card has been credited and he is taken to a newsagent (with a reader) to check. There is £50 on the card and the clients paid £220 for the a worthless case of electronics with LED lights . When demonstrating how the gadget could be used, Paul did a swap of the client’s original card (worth £16) with that for a £50 card. The moral of the story was not to do business in a pub or anything that does not sound legal

We are then showed a scam about a game of 3-card brag – each player is dealt three cards and each person bets on how good they think their hand is. Some people play blind (not looking at the cards) and betting. When someone plays blind, everyone else has to play double the money. Cards were then marked (with a nail nick), so that you could play blind, but have an indication what the cards are. But how does the dealer know which cards to mark? A reflective surface (a cup of black coffee) was close t the cards and enabled the dealer to see what they were.

We were also shown various other hustles including stealing a passport and selling advertising space in a fake magazine (worryingly sold by someone impersonating a Policeman. An interesting programme with a set of guides on how to avoid being scammed.

Jessie Wallace is ‘Wild At Heart’

Former Eastenders star Jessie Wallace is to join the cast of ITV’s Wild At Heart.

Jessie departed the hit soap at Christmas 2005 as her character Kat Slater left the east of London for pasture new with Alfie Moon, played by Shane Ritchie.

In a similar vein, she will join fellow stars Amanda Holden and Stephen Tompkinson on the South African-based show, playing Essex girl Amy Kriel.

“I’m so excited about filming with such a lovely cast and I can’t wait to get started,” the actress said.

“Filming in South Africa with its variety of wild animals will be a whole new experience for me and the role of Amy is like nothing I have played before.”

While she has already started filming for the show, viewers will have to wait until episode five for her to show up as the wife of the new owner of the safari park next door to the Leopard’s Den.

The news comes soon after it was announced that former stand-up comedian Bobby Davro will join the cast of Albert Square.

The Stepford Wives

The Stepford Wives is a remake of the original film released in 1975 and it would be fair to say that it has more comedy than the original (which was more of a horror film). The remake was released in 2004 and stars Nicole Kidman and Matthew Broderick in the lead roles, as well as Glenn Close, Christopher Walken and Bette Midler.

Joanna Eberhart (Nicole Kidman) is a high powered manager of a television network . During an arrogant presentation (reminding me of Tom Cruise’s portrayal of Frank T. J. Mackey in Magnolia), she is confronted by a guy whose wife rejected him on a programme called “I can do better”. He fires a gun at her andthankfully misses, but Joanna is sacked from her job.

Joanna goes on to have a nervous breakdown and her husband Walter Kresby (Matthew Broderick), who also works for the network, suggests that they take a break from Manhatten to move to Stepford in Connecticut. They arrive with their two children to their new house – a spacious mansion and are greeted by Claire Wellington - perfectly presented in 1950s style fashions, hairdo and makeup.

She gives Joanna a mini tour of Stepford and takes her to the Day Spa where the wives perform their exercises fully clothed, as though they are starring in “Breakfast at Tiffany’s”. Claire explains that the men spend their time at Stepford Men’s Club.

Joanna makes friends with Bobbie (Better Miller), a successful writer and Roger (Roger Bannister of ‘Desperate Housewives’) and they query why all of the women look so glamourous, never argue with their husbands, enjoy knitting and act as domestic goddesses. They attend a Square Dances and one of the wives dances out of control and collapses on the floor. The residents of Stepford close ranks and Joanna is horrified that no-one has called an ambulance. She becomes concerned that the wife – Sarah , has sparks flying out of her. Later the trio visit Sarah’s house and discover all is not as it seems (the Stepford Wife) is a robot.

The story continues with both Roger and Bobbie changed into being perfect Stepford citizens. Joanna, after pretending to be converted ,(Stepford wives normally have a series of microchips inserted into their brains and instructions sent to the) discovers the truth: Claire’s husband Mike (Christopher Walken) is in fact a Stepford husband and Claire was the brains behind creating the perfect community. The Stepford Wives was an enjoyable film but it did not have the same impact as the original

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