The Next Big Eleven Year Old Thing

We've been on one of our semi-regular sessions of tidying up the teetering pile of old magazines in BrokenTV's spare bedroom. A curious flick through the August 1997 edition of Select magazine (cover stars: bloody Oasis, obviously) reveals this interesting objet d'jour (click to open the full article) :

A box for £99 that allows you to play along with Family Fortunes and Fifteen to One. Or indeed, as was the intention, all quizzes. It could also be used with sport - Ladbrokes invested £20m in trying to win back gamblers lured over to the National Lottery.

Sadly, it didn't really work out, as the fact you haven't got one under your telly will attest. An interesting little curio, nonetheless.

Coincidentally, did anyone buy one? A question not necessarily aimed at the just the readers of this blog. Did anyone at all buy one? We can't remember them ever going on sale. Quite likely the manufacturers realised Sky Digital was less than a year away from launch, while the internet was starting to become something normal people were interested in*, and it was given up as a bad job.

(*We're not being snooty when we say that, we'd already been on the glacially slow mid-90s issue internet for over a year by that point. You needed the patience of a saint - specifically Saint Francis de Sales - for it to do anything remotely interesting, and web browsers actually cost money. )

Bonus scan: a short article saying how skill Nightingales was.

Read More

BrokenTV's Infuriatingly Lacklustre Olympic Finale

And so it ends. As China, a land where practising Christians may well end up being tortured for their beliefs, hands over the Olympic flag to London's unkempt mayor, we can't help but feel a little bit cheated. We will admit to a little chuckle amongst ourselves at the nine-minute Tribute To Britain segment of the closing ceremony including a throwaway reference to The Ministry Of Silly Walks, but there are several aspects of Modern Britain that the 2012 Committee really should have included on that collapsing bus:

• A wry Radio 4 panel show involving Jeremy Hardy
  
  
• A gaggle of teenagers texting furiously
  
  
• A frothing right-wing columnist (or if wet, Tony Parsons desperately trying to shock readers of the Daily Mirror) moaning about the proportion of non-white faces representing Britain in the handover ceremony, and how the white people present were probably only there because they were gays
  
  
• A supermarket offer of car-mounted Union Flags on sale at £1.29, or two for £1.89
  
  
• A quartet of dancers dressed in outfits representing a BBC Two season on farming
  
  
• Instead of some dancers with brolleys and a footballer, thirty men in England football shirts throwing plastic chairs coloured red, white and blue into the Beijing crowd
  
  
• Eighteen overweight men in M&S suits from Hampshire doing the David Brent 'dance'
  
  
• A British stand-up comedian using the word 'fuck' in lieu of an actual joke, in front of a backdrop consisting of a gigantic ceremonial non-transferable pay-and-display ticket

Hopefully they're saving all that for the actual opening ceremony in 2012. In the meantime, here's the final rundown of our special medals table, based on the premise of medals, divided by population, marked according to a score of 800,000 per gold, 400,000 per silver and 200,000 per bronze. In case you're playing at home, we are more than prepared to show our workings.

So, Jamaica have performed exceptionally well whilst containing fewer residents than the nations of Moldova, the Congo, Liberia, Somalila, Lithuania, Panama, Uruguay, Albania, Mauritania, Armenia or Kuwait. However, if you modify the table to record only nations of more than twenty million (henceforth referred to as 'proper countries'), then Great Britain lies second in the notional table, with only Australia ahead of us. And given how they all secretly wish they were still part of the Empire, in a way, we've 'won'.

Yay us! Roll on 2012!

Read More

BrokenTV Goes To The Olympics: Live From Beijing

You know, after that last post we made concerning the Olympics and the Chinese government, we felt pretty bad. After all, they're trying their best. Keeping a nation containing over one billion people under control can't be easy. Sure, they have to put the odd citizen or autonomous region on the naughty step from time to time, but have you ever tried running the world's largest single-party socialist republic? Well, there you go.

With this in mind, it would be almost hypocritical to sit at home, typing sarcastic comments about how Chinese authorities have sentenced two women in their 70s to a year's "re-education through labour" after they applied to protest during the Olympic games. So instead, we've hopped on a flight to Beijing, trotted along to a likely spot where plenty of people are likely to see us, and set up a little trellis table. On this table we are displaying a scrummy array of tasty treats we've prepared especially for the Chinese authorities - egg and cress sandwiches, battenburgs, Mr Kipling apple pies with custard, two bags of Tesco Finest choc brownies, our mum's legendary lemon meringue pie, and lashings of dandelion and burdock. But we don't want the Chinese authorities thinking we're expecting some sort of renumeration for our offerings, so we've prepared a sign for them:

We weren't quite sure of the cantonese word for 'scoff', but this really friendly couple from Dagenham happened to pass by while we were colouring in the english lettering, and they were really helpful. They even helped us put the banner up there, but then had to make their apologies and leave. We think they were off to watch the three-day eventing. But anyway, while we sit by our trestle awaiting our first visitors (which might take a while - people seem to be crossing the road to get away from us! They're probably on diets or something) we'll crack on with today's update.

THE TOP TEN OLYMPIC SPORTS THAT DON'T HAPPEN ANY MORE

10. Cannon Shooting (Paris 1900, demonstration sport)

Annoyingly, there's no real information out there for this demonstration event from the second proper modern Olympics, but there it is on the GBR Athletics website, and they seem to know what they're on about. They're being used as a source on Wikipedia, so they must have some standing. Actually, so is BrokenTV, thereby devaluing that currency.

Anyway, we imagine the whole affair was pretty much the same as Scorched Earth, only with more flags.

9. Ballooning (Paris 1900, demonstration sport)

Not just one ballooning event, mind. There were races in Distance (Handicap), Distance (No Handicap), Duration (Handicap), Duration (No Handicap), Elevation (Handicap), Elevation (No Handicap), Target without Stop, Distance & Duration and Overall. Sadly, no medal for 'nicest looking balloon', so the Arkwright Industrial Laundry Co. wasted their time assembling that huge fuck-off inflatable mangle. For anyone who might be wondering, France's Comte Henry de la Vaulx kicked a goodly amount of ass in most disciplines.

8. Kite Flying (Paris 1900, demonstration sport)

We kid you not. Kite Flying. Even more remarkably, it came in three different disciplines - small, medium and large. The gongs were taken by Flecheux, Rouillard and Lecornu in their respective classes. Holding onto bits of string with fabric and wire at the other end as a competitive endeavour actually dates back a long way, with recorded instances of it happening in ancient Korea. Sadly, the sport has fallen so far from favour that for the 2008 Beijing Olympics, local residents have actually been banned from flying kites for the duration. Boo!

7. Fire Fighting (Paris 1900, demonstration sport)

Really, we're not making these up. See? As soon as someone invents time travel, we're going straight back to Paris in 1900, because all these events make it sound quite wonderfully demented. Again, there were two different disciplines - the Volunteers gold was taken by Portugal, with the doubtlessly rakish Team GB nabbing silver. The Professional medal was taken by the US team, with Italy coming second. Or 'last', as they were the only two teams competing at that level. When we go back in time to visit these Olympics, we're going to enter this event armed with just a two-litre bottle of tap water. We'll get the bronze by default, come back to 2008, display it on Antiques Roadshow, and make a mint. Excellent.

6. Cricket (Paris 1900)

A proper event, this time. With just two teams taking part, Britain and France. Britain won! Although given the French team consisted of Britons living in Paris, reportedly mostly members of the British Embassy, it's not such a massive victory. We're not sure the newspapers were furrowing their brow to think up a tortuous pun combining the word 'gold' with a cricketing term that day.

5. Korfball (Antwerp 1920, Amsterdam 1928, demonstration sport)

Mixed netball, essentially. It may well have ended up the same way the attempts at getting the boys from BrokenTV's primary school to join in netball with the girls did, with half the players attempting to turn it into a amalgam of basketball and rugby. In school, they only tried it the once. In the Olympics, twice.

4. American Football (Los Angeles 1932, demonstration sport)

Winners: West USA. Hang on, West USA?

3. Roque (St. Louis, 1904)

A confusing mash-up of croquet, crown green bowls and billiards, played on sand. The USA won all the medals, because they were the only country to understand the rules.

2. Rackets (London, 1908)

But the Americans aren't the only nation to win all the medals because it's their Olympics, so they get to pick the sports, and yah boo to everyone else if they don't know how to play. No, you're doing it wrong, you lose. 1908 saw the only appearance of rackets, which was pretty much squash for people with no chins. Don't believe us? Here's a picture from Wikipedia entitled "A Toff playing with the rabble in Prison":

That's the likes of us told!

Seven people entered. All of them were British. As such, we romped home in both the singles and doubles events. Yes, doubles. Fingers crossed for being allowed to nominate darts, shove ha'penny and complaining in supermarkets about your town of 80,000 residents going to pot because a few dozen East Europeans have moved in as events in 2012.

1. 200m Men's Obstacle Swimming (Paris 1900)

Brilliant. You could have guessed Paris 1900 would be making it back into the list in time for the top spot, couldn't you? And we didn't even mention the equestrian long and high jump, equestrian mail coach, pigeon racing, motor cycling, angling, basque pelota, rugby union, life saving or long paume, which all took place. Instead we've got a swimming event where "swimmers had to climb over the first two (a pole and a row of boats), and swim under the third (another row of boats)".

Twelve swimmers from five nations took part. Australian Fred Lane, representing Great Britain, won the only Olympic gold medal ever to be awarded for this event, which he won just forty-five minutes after winning the more reasonable 200m freestyle swimming gold. A certain level of respect due for that, but by the time Fred finally passed on in 1969, the event in which he took a unique Olympic gold was about to be relived by children all over his adopted country. Sadly, these tributes were to take place in hundreds of different municipal baths and being commentated on by a chuckling Ron Pickering, as a sport originally envisioned as an Olympic ideal was relegated to the level of Something To Put At The End Of Episodes Of We Are The Champions on Children's BBC. Worse yet, by 2008 it would be at a level where it's beneath even the Sky One reimagining of Gladiators.

Not much of a tribute to an Olympian pioneer, is it?

MEANWHILE, BACK AT BROKENtv'S FREE CHINESE BUFFET...

Ah, here are some strapping Chinese law enforcers now. Hello, gents. Would you like some cake? No, would you like some cake? What are you shouting for? WOULD YOU LIKE SOME CAKE? APPLE PIE? No, it says 'Free scoff'. No, we're not reporters. No, we don't have any hidden cameras recording this. What a silly question! Now, would you like a cup of dandelion and burd... ow! Ow! Ow! Why are you hitting us? Ow! Where are you taking us? What are you bundling us into? Ow!

Read More

BrokenTV's Infuriatingly Right-On Olympic Update

We weren't going to be doing anything about the Olympics. Partly because we're either sleeping or at work when most of it is happening, partly because we're pathetically liberal and the whole event is taking place in an oppressive regime. But then again, the eighty billionth Olympiad does present an exciting array of numbers for us to turn into tables and graphs, and if we use arithmetic to calculate once and for all which country is the best (with a handicap system in place, obv), then maybe, just maybe, we'll end all wars forever.

Tricky one. But! We can always assuage our guilt by preceding each set of figures with a fun fact or three about the Chinese Government, courtesy of Amnesty International. Here goes:

FUN FACTS ABOUT THE CHINESE GOVERNMENT!

• The death penalty and the conditions on death row in China are an affront to human dignity! No PlayStations and trips to the theatre for rascals over there!
  
  
• No one sentenced to death receives a fair trial in accordance with international human rights standards! But hey, what if you had to give a retrial to someone already executed - just imagine what damage a zombie Barry George would do, then multiply it by several million!
  
  
• Around 68 crimes can be punishable by death in China, including non-violent offences like tax fraud, embezzling, taking bribes and some drug crimes! We'll bet Lester Piggott is glad he never took part in the Hebai Province Derby in the 1980s and then decided to live there!
  

("Curses! We were hoping no-one was going to mention that! Grr!" - The Chinese Government)

So, morality footprint offset, on we go with the figures. We've taken the medal table as it stands, and considered the relative populations of each competing nation (or pretend nation, in the case of 'Chinese Taipei'). Each medal collected is then given a score as follows:

Gold: Each gold medal divided by the total population, then multiplied by 800,000.
Silver: Each silver medal divided by the total population, then multiplied by 400,000.
Bronze: Each bronze medal divided by the total population, then multiplied by 200,000.

Each multiplication introduced to make the figures at least show up on our notional scoring radar. With this in mind, which is the best country? Great Britain is doing very well (though not for some reason, the UK - are Northern Irish athletes banned or something?) with a relatively small population, will they be near the top or our seasonally adjusted table? The Aussies always do remarkably well for a people who like to sit back, drink beer and scoff flame-grilled sausages in large amounts, how will they fare? Have the Pitcairn Islands picked up a jammy bronze that will propel them to the summit of our sporting league? Well, Photoshop has just loaded, so let's take a look at the figures. The second set of figures from the left are each country's standing in the proper medal table.

And there you go. Thanks to the fastest man in the history of the world ever, Jamaica sit atop the pile at the moment, with a population less than that of Wales* and still getting two golds and a brace of silvers. Slovenia can consider itself the sporting kings of Europe, with the Aussies in third. Great Britain is still doing pretty well, being above other major nations such as France, Italy, Germany, the USA and China. Indeed, the Chinese are languishing in 51st place in our table.

(*Idle curiosity has caused us to work out where Wales - population 3,004,600 - would be in this table after the golds for Nicole Cook and Tom James, and Tom Lucy's silver. The answer is: third best in the entire world, with a score of 0.666. Cymru am byth, indeed.)

But, we can tell you're asking, what does all that look like in graph form? Oh, you. Taking the top forty nations, it looks like the following .png file -

And there you go. No, we're not putting the correct flag colours on each bar. Tsk. More Olympic number crunching and fun facts about disgraceful human rights records next time, chums!

Read More

The Inevitably Disappointing Sequel To Really Popular Update Awards 1980

Given that our posting about Panini's Football '80 Sticker Album has proved surprisingly popular, attracting the attention of several popular internet forums (and just the one stupid racist prick - way to debunk that assumption that Everton fans are likely to be bigots, 'MarkEFC'*), here's a not-as-good follow up. Hey, the Football '80 sticker album is not the comedy goldmine you might expect it is.

(*And, just in case he subsequently edits that post, proof in .gif form.)

EARL HICKEY AWARD FOR SERVICES TO POSING WHEN A PHOTOGRAPH IS BEING TAKEN OF YOU

Joint winners: Mike Lyons (Everton) and Donato Nardiello (Coventry City)

Maybe they're both re-enacting the title sequence to Imagine..., twenty-two years before Alan Yentob thought of it.

THE SEE YOU NEXT WEDNESDAY AWARD FOR LOOKING UNCANNILY LIKE THE MALE LEAD OF A SPUFF FLICK: Brian Roberts (Coventry City)

Ooh, bad luck Yorath. Maybe next year. Providing we find an almost-complete copy of Football '81 at the next car boot sale we visit, and it's on sale for less than £2.

DAVID WALLIAMS AWARD FOR LOOKING A BIT LIKE DAVID WALLIAMS IN A SKETCH FROM THE NEXT SERIES OF LITTLE BRITAIN: Ally Donaldson (Dundee)

The character's catchphrase would be... actually, it doesn't matter what the character's catchphrase would be, only that by it's third outing you'd be sick of it and would just wish they'd get on with doing proper jokes, like when they were Mash and Peas. If the last series of Little Britain is any indication, he'd probably just take a shit against the goalpost each week, and subsequently be lauded for being "refreshingly politically incorrect" by fuckwits.

THE BORIS JOHNSON/MICKY DOLENZ AWARD FOR LOOKING LIKE YOU'RE STARING IMCOMPREHENSIVELY AT AN AUTOCUE WHILST LOOKING A LITTLE BIT LIKE MICKY DOLENZ FROM THE MONKEES: Shaun Elliott (Sunderland)

Maybe the photographer has written "Shaun Elliott's mum is a..." and then something moderately illegible on a little sticker above the lens of his camera, in order to attract the attention of the easily-distracted Eilliott. In which case, it hasn't quite worked. This was the best shot he got of him all afternoon.

THE RICHARD WILSON IN THAT EPISODE OF SOME MOTHER'S DO 'AVE 'EM AWARD FOR BEING UNABLE TO KEEP A STRAIGHT FACE, THEREBY CAUSING SLIGHTLY MORE AMUSEMENT FOR THE VIEWER: Keith Hicks (Oldham Athletic)

Maybe he's reading the message about Shaun Elliott's mum.

THE INAUGURAL JIMMY BONE AWARD FOR RESTORING HOPE TO ALL SLIGHTLY UNFIT AND OVERWEIGHT MEN ON THE WRONG SIDE OF 30 THAT MAYBE, JUST MAYBE, WITH THE RIGHT SCOUT TURNING UP TO THE RIGHT PUB LEAGUE MATCH, THEY COULD STILL MAKE IT INTO PROFESSIONAL FOOTBALL, BUT ONLY IF IT WAS STILL 1980: Jimmy Bone (St. Mirren)

This very logic was applied to the world of cinema in 1996, you know.

Read More

Pretend Provocative Things Low-Ranking Talking Heads Say But Don't Really Believe On Clip Shows In Order To Momentarily Seem Interesting

Part one of a 2,697 part series

Clip Show: Call The Cops, a look back at police drama series on British television
Channel: BBC Four
Date: 12th August 2008
Talking Head: Sam Delaney, "Writer" and "Broadcaster"
Actual Link With Subject Covered By Programme: None

Pretend Provocative Comment: "We all suspect that they are bent, at least on some small level. At least you'd hope so. Well, why are you a policeman? Just to boss people around? If you're on the make, I might have little bit of respect for you!"

Gobshite Ranking: Hoping to be a Miff Daniels for the ABC1 demographic.

Read More

The New Season Starts Here*

(*Or started yesterday, and not really 'here' at all.)

But never mind all that. We've bought an almost complete copy of Panini's Football '80 sticker album from a car boot sale. So, what better time to fire up our scanner and prepare a list of

THE TOP TEN FOOTBALLERS FROM 1980 WHO ARE SURELY A LOT OLDER THAN THEY ARE CLAIMING TO BE

10. David Armstrong (Middlesbrough)

Age: 25. When exactly was it that footballers - and indeed, all men - who are going bald in their twenties moved away from "quick, grow as much hair as possible in the non-bald spots, while I still can" to "cut the rest of it as short as possible, as that actually looks a lot better"? We're guessing... ooh, 1991?

9. Malcolm Poskett (Brighton and Hove Albion)

Age: 24. Twenty-four? At that age, you're experimenting with stupidly trendy hairstyles just because it's your last realistic change to get away with a bleached shark-fin without looking daft. Not thinking "hmm. I'm going a bit bald. I know, I'll comb my hair with a side parting in a place which makes my male pattern baldness as visible as possible".

8. Mick McGuire (Norwich City)

Age: 26. Perhaps there has been a mix-up here, and a passing geography teacher in a replica shirt had his photo taken instead.

7. Brendan O'Callaghan (Stoke City)

Age: 24. He looks like the dad from the Oxo family in an unconvincing wig, for flip's sake!

6. Mick Ferguson (Coventry City)

Age: 25. Twenty-five? That beard looks like it took at least fifteen years of grooming. We didn't even think it would be possible to have that much hair sprouting from the entire circumferance of your head.

5. Paul Clarke (Brighton and Hove Albion)

Age: 20. Twenty! Not only does he sport mutton chops that would put Amos Brierly to shame, but he wears the weary expression of a man who has seen everything the world has to offer in his time, and he's tired of it all. Not someone who has only been legally entitled to do things with girls for a few years.

4. Tommy Hutchison (Coventry City)

Age: 32. Maybe the real Tommy Hutchison had sloped off to the bookies, and had got the groundsman to cover for him.

BRONZE: Gerry Gow (Bristol City)

Age: 27. Are those highlights in his hair, or just grey hairs? And even for 1980, surely to only people who still had handlebar moustaches by that point were ex-Spitfire pilots?

SILVER: Mick Mills (Ipswich Town)

Age: 30. Thirty! He could have two kids older than thirty at the time this photo was taken, by the looks of him. Providing his ageing process hadn't accelerated wildly in the previous eight years, we bet he had to take two forms of ID with him every time he turned up for England Under-23 duty.

GOLD: Peter Noble (Burnley)

Good god. There are no words. Sadly, the player photos for League Division Two don't carry the players' ages, but unless the words "remarkably still playing professionally at the age of 53" were going to be applied to this photo, we have our winner.


However, because of the quite bewildering quantity of hirsute sportsmen from the era, we've had more trouble compiling a list of

THE TOP TWO FOOTBALLERS FROM 1980 WHO ARE SURELY A LOT YOUNGER THAN THEY ARE CLAIMING TO BE

Silver: Alan Hansen (Liverpool)

Twenty-four? He looks a lot more like he has bunked off from school, and is now trying to sneak his way onto the team photo. That would explain why he looks a little apprehensive when asked forward for his solo portrait. Go on, check his pockets for Hubba Bubba.

Gold: Adrian Heath (Stoke City)

More famously known for his time at Everton, it's fair to say that he never really looked his age. Bet he had a hell of a time getting served in pubs. Regardless, the footballer known as 'Inchey' (which might not have an 'e' in it, Wikipedia doesn't know) looks about twelve years old here.


Here are some other spurious awards:

BEST COVER UP FOR A MANAGER WHO CLEARLY DIDN'T TURN UP FOR THE PHOTO SESSION: Brian Clough (Nottingham Forest)

Cloughie was clearly away from the City Ground on the morning all the photos were taken, probably appearing in the prime centre square on a recording of Celebrity Squares. Subsequently, the first shot the Panini work experience lad could find in their press archive was used. Where could Cloughie be here? Giving an interview to the press? On punditry duty for an England qualifying match? In a photo booth? And is he speaking, yawning, or left open mouthed at a witty retort from Zsa Zsa Gabor, because he was actually appearing on the Russell Harty Show when this photo was taken? We may never know.

BEST FACIAL EXPRESSION THAT MIRRORS A PANEL FROM A 1950s EDITION OF ACTION COMICS: Sandy Jardine (Rangers)

"Grr. How dare Lex Luther grab Lois like that, just when I'm unable to change into Superman. I must think of a way to get out of this photo shoot."

BEST KIT: Wrexham

Being right in the middle of their five year stint in the second tier, 1980 saw Wrexham wearing a brilliant Adidas outfit very similar to the Wales shirt of the time, replete with the classic trefoil. You can't go wrong with a classy red with white trim like this. Why can't football shirts be anywhere near as good these days? Aberdeen came close to taking the award, but on their outfit the three stripes were on the collars as opposed to the shoulders, which is all wrong.

BEST ATTEMPT AT MAKING THE MOST OF HAVING THEIR PHOTO TAKEN BY THE PHOTOGRAPHER'S IDIOT ASSISTANT: Billy Gilbert (Crystal Palace)

"No, Jimmy. You need to use a light meter for a very good reason. Can you see what you've done wrong here? Now, ask Mister Gilbert to come back, and I'll take his photo this time. What's that? He's gone home? Tsk. We'll have to make do with this one."

HARDEST LOOKING GINGE: Lindsay Smith (Cambridge United)

We certainly don't fancy telling him he might be overcompensating for having a girl's name.

GREATEST AMOUNT OF HAIR LOST BETWEEN THEN AND NOW: Steve Coppell (Manchester United)

Aside from the hair, he doesn't look that different now. The fact-box makes mention of his degree from Liverpool University, which according to Wikipedia, is in economic history, so fair dues. Are there any current top-level footballers with a degree? We can't think of any, and unless the John Moores begins to offer a course in looking miserable in post-match interviews even though you've just won four-nil in a Champions League quarter-final, that situation isn't likely to improve soon.

MOST PLEASED TO BE HAVING HIS PHOTO TAKEN:

Bronze: Michael Robinson (Man City)

Then going by the name 'Mick', we bet the future Liverpool striker's mum was so pleased with this photo, it's still on her mantlepiece now. Fun fact: Everyone knows Robinson went on to become a television presenter in Spain, but did you know he's actually so famous over there his latex visage was chosen to front the Spanish version of Spitting Image?

Silver: Mickey Thomas

The man, the legend. He could have bothered combing his hair first, though.

Gold: Barry Silkman (Manchester City)

This is quite possibly the most pleased we've even seen anyone get about anything, ever.

LEAST PLEASED TO BE HAVING HIS PHOTO TAKEN: Kenny Burns (Nottingham Forest)

At the other end of the scale, this is almost upsetting. We could genuinely believe he had just seen his grandmother, holding his pet dog, being crushed beneath the remorseless metal wheels of a steamroller, which is being driven by the kid who used to bully him at school, who is running away with his wife. And then being told, no, he can't have the day off work, because it's photo day.

LONGEST NECK: Roger Palmer (Manchester City)

Cripes. He makes Plug from the Bash Street Kids look like Sandi Toksvig.

MOST SURPRISED TO BE HAVING HIS PHOTO TAKEN: Ray Wilkins (Manchester United)

"My god, where did you spring from?"

MOST ILL-CONSIDERED MOUSTACHE BY A WELL-REMEMBERED BRITISH INTERNATIONAL MIDFIELDER

Bronze: Bryan Robson (West Bromwich Albion)

Yikes. If there's any consolation here, it is that there's still time to shave it off painlessly. If it weren't for the trademark Robbo lopsided smirk, you wouldn't know it's him. If he'd made the decision to keep the soup-strainer to this very day, we doubt he'd ever had got the gig advertising condos on Dubai television with Peter Reid, which you might have seen on a Saturday afternoon in Sky-circumventing pubs -

Peter Reid: "You bought two? I only bought one!"

Bryan Robson: "That's why I was captain!"

Look out Mitchell and Webb!

Silver: Terry Yorath (Tottenham Hotspur)

A porn moustache, offset with flowing golden locks that we're sure were a hit in the swinging 'night spots' of London at the turn of the decade. Politeness and a fear of litigation prevent us from wondering aloud just how many half-brothers and -sisters Gaby Logan is innocently unaware of, but well... y'know.

Gold: Glenn Hoddle (Tottenham Hotspur)

That's just wrong. If you keep that look, you'll never make up 50% of a chart-plundering pop combo. A Remington Micro Screen and a home perm kit, stat!

FOOTBALLER WHO MOST CLEARLY SEEMS TO HAVE MISSED OUT ON THEIR TRUE CALLING IN LIFE, AS AN AVUNCULAR TOBACCONIST: Arthur Duncan (Hibernian)

Say no more.

WORST HAIR DAY: Tony Higgins (Hibernian)

You're having your photo taken, man. At least this puts Mickey Thomas' unkempt barnet into some sort of perspective.


[Update] More of this kind of thing: here

Read More

Logo Police

The new channel identities for Skys One, Two and Three have been unveiled. And here they are.

Oh dear. Admittedly, we spend a bit too long on this blog doing little more than just slagging off new 'developments' in television, but when it comes to these they'd better do something pretty bloody impressive 'on-screen'. Luckily, going by the press release, there will be distinctive "elements" making up each channel's respective 'brand' 'identities'. Going from the article on Digital Spy -

Sky 1 will adopt "solids", where shards of blue come together to make up the "1", Sky 2 will look liquid, and Sky 3 will take on a "particles" motif. The channels' idents will be powered by a new live presentation system, with the various motifs highlighting content exclusive to Sky.

Mm. Given Sky's mixed history when it comes to on-screen presentation, we're going to embargo our opinions for now, as these could turn out to be surprisingly non-rubbish. We can't help but feel however, if someone had uploaded the above images to the TV Forum Mock Designs forum*, they'd be roundly vilified for being done in MS Paint.

(*Where, somewhat surprisingly given how it annoys us when it happens in other fora, the TVFMD people's short shrift of rubbish n00b contributions is refreshingly even-handed. For one thing, they always show their workings out when slagging off someone's stab at 'reinventing' ITV1's continuity, and there are a few talented individuals there who would be right at home working for Red Bee.)

Read More

I'm In Ur Teevee, Stealing Half An Hour Ov Ur Life

A couple of consequences of BrokenTV's (three frigging month old) PC deciding to go tits up. ONE. We've had to resort to using the ropey old laptop that we've just had back from the friend we'd borrowed it to. It's quite slow, it has a small screen, we've got to try and remember all of our internet passwords again, and the keyboard annoys us. TWO. We've been unable to bring you all of the marvellously insightful and inventive opinions we've had about television over the last seven days. And they've been really good ones, like we used to have about fifteen months ago, and not rubbish like what we've done since then.

But now we're back. And we've seen an episode of Tonightly, this years attempt at copying The Daily Show. And while The 11 O'Clock Show, Gash, Not Tonight With John Sargeant, News Knight, The Live Edition and What Is The Problem? With Anne Robinson might have failed, they've not tried shoving Jason Manford behind a desk until now. That's sure to make a half-arsed format work!

Now, there are a number of things we could be saying about Tonightly.

We could say that we think Manford gets a bit of a bad press - while he clearly tries to crowbar a lot of material from his stand-up act into his pretend ad-libs on 8 Out Of 10 Cats, he does come up with some genuinely amusing comments. He was quite entertaining on Would I Lie To You the other week, too. Sadly, he isn't at all suited to this kind of format. Adding suffixes of "-yeah?", "-right?" and "-eh?" to the end of every sodding sentence was a device ignored by noted satirists such as Swift, Cook, and (*tries to think of comically implausible third example of Great Satirist*) Bremner for a very good reason. It's annoying.

We could say that there was one gag that made us emit an audible chuckle - a throwaway comment about the number of TV shows being remade these days, such as Doctor Who, Minder, The Prisoner and... The Eleven O'clock Show. Sadly, this self-depreciating nod was roundly ignored by the audience, and the gag died on it's arse. Don't worry, the audience were soon exercising their chuckle-muscles a minute later, when the reason for this set up was played out. A sketch pretending that a fondly-remembered 1970s sitcom was to be updated for the 21st century. "Some Motherfuckers Do 'Ave 'Em". You can guess the rest, and just how many comedic barriers were shattered by it.

We could say that the makers of the programme weren't just content to ape The Daily Show. There were also several minutes wasted on getting The Tonight Show With Jay Leno wrong as well, with a look at some clippings from local newspapers. Clippings where marriage announcements resulted in some vaguely rude couplings of surnames. Never mind that the writers had needed to go back to local newspapers from the last century to fill a couple of minutes, with some of the wedding photos practically being in sepia FOR CHRIST'S SAKE THIS IS THE COUNTRY THAT USED TO BROADCAST YES MINISTER YOU FUCKING FUCKS. But, hey. 'Beaver-Wetter'. LULZOR.

We could wax lyrical about how many chances the Television Creatives actually need at making a "regular satirical swipe at the events of the day" before realising that without a popular and affable presenter capable of carrying less than great material, it's not worth bothering. As getting someone like, say, Frank Skinner, Sean Lock or David Mitchell to do something like this would cost a lot more than Channel Four would be willing to pay, it's not going to happen. The Creatives could at least move on to copying The Colbert Report instead. Why have millions of people ignoring Tonightly when they could just as well be ignoring "Michael McIntyre's The Daily Mail Show" instead?

So, yes. We could do doing all of those things. But instead, the thing we have elected to do is to fight fire with fire. Or more accurately, fight 'half-arsed tenth-rate news-based television humour' with 'half-arsed tenth-rate internet-meme based humour'. The fact that none of the pictures is funny actually makes for a laser-targetted strike against unfunny television comedy, actually. We can keep doing this until TV companies stop commissioning this rubbish, you know . Or at the very least, until they take the sensible option and just show Newstopia over here.

Read More