Stop me and try one

I haven't regularly watched any thing on ITV since, well here's the thing, I can't actually remember the last thing I regularly watched

on ITV. It was probably the Martin Clunes series "William & Mary", which I have only remembered by searching for "Martin Clunes undertaker!". That was first broadcast in 2004 and I only watched the first series!

ITV had become the channel that my remote never stopped on, until that is the last couple of weeks when they have finally produced two series worth watching.

The first is Moving Wallpaper. This is half of a new concept from the writer of Life on Mars. MW is a comedy starring Ben Miller who starred as Bough in Jonny English and is half of the Miller & Armstrong comedy duo. WM is written around the production and writing staff of a Soap Opera called Echo Beach and it is genuinely funny. Ben Miller is great but the rest of the cast also play well rounded characters whose parts are well written. The second half of each hours programme is then the soap that they have been writing. This is not as good but then I don't do soaps, so that may be the problem.

The second programme is called "Thank God you're here" which is based on an American programme of the same name. ITV have had the genius to use Paul Merton to host it & that makes it all the funnier. In it four contestants (celebrity/comedy guests) get made up in a costume and then placed in a sketch with no prior notice of what the sketch will entail. They then have to improvise while all other actors (three or four) throw in pre scripted lines to add confusion. The results are, as they say, hilarious!

ITV rises from the ashes? Well sticks its head out and blinks a bit.

Scotland the brave?

Tonight's sports news is full of speculation that Southampton manager George Burley will tomorrow be offered the job as the Scottish team manager.

Now I have mixed feelings on the subject. On one side he is one of the best manager's that our budget can currently afford and he has done OK since he took over (after all we were a penalty shoot out away from the play off final last season). He has a good track record and he has built his team at St Mary's. So if he goes it's back to square one with a new manager with the old managers players who may or may not suit his style and no money or time to make changes.

The other argument is that actually this season we've gone backwards, mid table mediocrity is more than likely what we'll end up with and that we haven't been anywhere near a settled first 11 at all. While we're a good footballing team and play "attractive" football we're not ruthless and can't hold on to a lead to save our lives. We're also very good at playing people out of position (left footed people on the right and right footed players on the left a Burley speciality).

So maybe this is a blessing in disguise as we can get a new manager while we get compensation.

There are two things more that concern me. If he goes the replacement is rumoured to be Billy Davies, ex Derby manager who proved this season that he's not a Premier League manager in any shape or form. That's not exactly planning for promotion, but do we have to cut our cloth...?

Finally if we are going to have a rich owner buy us, won't he or she want their own manager so actually is keeping Burley until that happens a better option?

Meanwhile Pompey are still 8th in the Premier league!!!

Norm is 50

Yesterday my good friend Adrian (aka Norm) reached the milestone of 50 so last night he, his family and a gang of us went to Pezzo's in Romsey to celebrate.

Adrian is part of my "Jersey" friends from the five years I spent there in the early 80's. They are a great group and although we should be better at getting together than we are, whenever we do get together I always have a great time.

Last night was no different. I liken this group of friends to those kind of friendships made at university. We may not see each other for weeks/months/years (Smutley!) but when we do meet up we just drop back into our friendships as if we had seen each other a couple of days ago. We all have them.

Adrian lives in Ruislip, but it was only natural that he should come down to Hampshire where he grew up , to be with us all on his big night. His Mum was there, she had written a great poem about him, his sister and her husband, one of his nephew's together with Adrian's wife, Dawn and his daughter Kelly and his son Sam. One of the gang couldn't be there as he lives across the pond just outside Cincinnati, so he rang up half way through the meal, what a great touch!

The restaurant was good overall, hot food promptly served. The only small complaint was the lighting which was dim! In fact mobile phones were being used so that the menu could be read by the light from the screens!

Large amounts of wine were consumed and one or two may have woken this morning with thumping heads.

The photo shows his birthday cake, like me Adrian is a Saints fan so the cake is in the clubs colours with his name on the back and his age.

A great night...next it's "the great DA's" 50th at the end of February. That will be a curry..probably!

Late Night Gold

I've always enjoyed a "Tom Hanks" film, even Turner & Hooch! So last night I stayed up and watched him on Jonathan Ross on BBC1. He was tremendous and gave Ross more than he bargained for. He was far funnier than I expected and his attempts at English accents, while ridiculed by the host, were comedy gold, including doing Dick van Dyke in Mary Poppins.

For once Ross had a real star on the show. You can see a small clip here.

My new toy

Last week I bought one of these, a DVD recorder with a 160GB hard drive. This means that I can now record TV off of SKY on to the hard drive and burn it on to DVD if I want to keep it. It's not new technology and it's probably not as good as SKY+ but it means that I can switch to Virgin media if I want to (which I am considering).
It's marvellous and I love it! It's easy to use and it will even record while I watch a DVD. It also has the pause Live TV thingy.