Yes, me too. Sad isn't it.

There was an episode of Dr Who (I think it was the dreadful xmas episode where Catherine Tate was introduced), where they went from being in West London, to clearly driving along the Leckwith bypass in Cardiff.

Just pure laziness from BBC Wales...

Rabbitoh wrote:

QUOTE:
Much as I'm enjoying Gavin and Stacey, I'm finding 'Pulling' even funnier.

Pulling was excellent. I watched Gavin & Stacey because Mrs Max likes it but christ it was dull as. Referencing The Big Lebowski and other films might be great if you get it but if not the whole thing is a whoosh. The last few episodes I was willing them to split up for good and even the mrs agreed. Some of the characters were like inferior versions of the oddballs on Kath & Kim (Aussie show that's Okay-ish).

But Then I thought the Office was unfunny too and this plods along at a similar pace.

Thank god Peep Show is back May 2nd. It better not jump the shark....

This latest series of Who is the sort of dribble that sent it on a spiral of doom in the 80's and 90's. Tate has the looks of Alex ferguson's ugly sister and the screen persona of tepid lard. Mrs Max is a huge fan but reckons that Who and Torchwood have been drivel this year. I blame that overrated ego Russell Davies. Clearly jumped his own personal shark a long time ago but the myopics at BBC can't see it.

a) Kath & Kim is not OKish. It's superb.

b) Big Lebowski references are always great, and it's not like G&S was doing a Veronica Mars and referencing the film every single episode.

Of all the criticisms you could level at G&S, being too full of film references is, er, quite an eccentric one. Apart from Nessa polishing her bowling ball I can't actually think of any others. That sort of clever-clever comedy is exactly what G&S is the antidote to.

I met Smiffy on Saturday! Backstage at the Radio 1 Big Weekend in Maidstone. Had a good old chat about Barry (he was blown away that I used to work in the same cash kiosk as Nessa), and confirmed that they're doing a Christmas special. Oh, and he was wearing a very faded Duran Duran t-shirt from 1981, to make a point about all the bands on the bill not being as good as them. Which endeared him to me (or me to him, I always get that the wrong way around).

Gavin was there too, but he had girls queuing up to talk to him.

Did all of this start by you marching over to him and demanding vengeance for his NME Awards comment? Then you brawled for a while before realising "Hey, the differences between us also make us a crack but unconventional "Odd Couple" detective duo that doesn't play by the rules but gets results?"

Hah! Similar, but a little more civilised.

"You may remember me..."
"...from the NME Awards? How could I forget?"

(Then we started mud-wrestling etc.)

I saw Horne and Corden live the week before last, trying out early versions of sketches for Horne And Corden Have Come, their 2009 BBC3 series. It was a bit worrying. It was all very, very broad stuff, often revolving around the inherent hilarity of homosexuality (a terrible sketch where Horne played a very camp war reporter; another where Horne played a man giving a speech at a corporate conference who's interrupted by a drunk who went to public school with him; and a running gag where Corden forgets himself and kisses Horne, although to be fair this was just in their between-sketch banter). For a lot of it, Horne was doing his exasperated straight-man schtick while Corden frantically overacted around him. Weirdly, a couple of times Corden started doing the same sort of thing, so it was like watching The Two Martin Freemans.

Harsh to judge a work in progress, but there we go. Mind you, the entire endeavour will be worthwhile if the TV series includes the sketch where Corden plays Ricky Gervais attempting to act in a serious film. Gervais discusses the role earnestly and intelligently with the director, but as soon as he hears "action!" he just does all his normal tics, catchphrases and dances. An old gag, but Corden's impersonation was incredible.