Don't get me wrong, I enjoy cooking, I even quite enjoy Masterchef, particularly the professional version.

But what's it doing on for an hour and a half on Thursday and then back on BBC1 at 9 on a Friday night?

Are the BBC really that desperate for some cheap tv to fill the schedules? Or is it just me that thinks that when the Beeb finds some reality tv that is moderately popular (Strictly, Apprentice,et.) it bleeds it to death?

There's certainly no shortage of cooking on the BBC at the moment with Short and Blanc and probably countless others on daytime. Does anyone here watch any of them?

One of greats has died aged 81

Next Saturday is Music Day. Across much of Europe it's normally a pretty fine day with bands playing for free all across town. Obviously, it varies from town to town but most towns make a good effort.

Why has it never taken off in the UK? Is it the weather? Is it because it often clashes with Glastonbury? Are there too many regulations? Can we just not be bothered? I always think it's a bit of a shame....

Following on from the consistently good thread; who or what used to be consistently good, but now turns out clunker after clunker on a consistent basis.

Doesn't have to be music. Here's a few for starters:

REM Don't think there has been a band that has gone from such great heights to such an endless rut.

Q Used to be a great magazine. A long time ago.

Robert de Niro What was the last great film he was in?

Kermode & Mayo Gone from being very entertaining to tedious in the extreme. The contrived banter has turned into panto. Every time they say "hello Stephen Fry" it's goodbye from me.

Van Morrison I think 1980 pretty much marks the turning point.

Last night I was reading Andrew Collins' website and his review of Al Murray Pub Landlord at O2 and it did occur to me that this would be pretty close to my idea of hell. I then went to bed and had a nightmare that I was actually there, and hauled up on stage by the hilarious Murray.

I can only really think of one thing worse than Al Murray at O2 and that would be Al Murray at O2 with Joanna Newsom busking at the tube, musical warm-up by The Manic Street Preachers and compering by Michael Macintyre.

What's your vision of entertainment hell?

A lot of my favourite things have been below par recently by being taken out of their natural setting. Mad Men goes to California, why? Adam and Joe go to Camden, please don't. This American Life in a theatre, disaster.

I've tried to think of any instances where people go "somewhere" and it's improved the programme. But from Tony taking Meadow to college to Eastenders getting lost in Weymouth, they always seem to fail.

Has there ever been a "special" that has been anything but?

After years of not particularly obsessive record collecting, the combined effects of ebay and the web in general have meant that most of the things I'd looked for for ages have now been found.

That's not to say there aren't things I'd still like, but nothing to really make me stop in Oxfam and rifle through a bunch of old singles.

Does anybody still yearn for anything that would get them genuinely excited if they found it in a second-hand record shop or book shop? If so, what is it?

The news that Last.fm is going to start charging users outside the UK $3/month means that I will probably stop using it. It's not that I mind paying, it's just since the advent of Spotify I hardly use it.

Currently, Last.fm say they make enough ad revenue in the UK to not charge, but how long will that continue with competition from Spotify and general ad revenue declining? How many of the Massive would pay to use Last.fm?

Apologies if this has been posted elsewhere here, but here's an article by David Simon on how he witnessed a police shooting of an unarmed 61 year-old. When he followed it up, he realised he was the only one doing so.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/02/27/AR200902...

Are there any good book websites out there? The equivalent of the Word for literature. I'm sure there are, but wouldn't know where to look.

I doubt there's anyone else in the Massive who has a bit of a thing for some of the better French stuff of recent years, but here's a playlist of the girls. Feel free to add, etc.

http://open.spotify.com/user/fordy1/playlist/5I5jCJ0mNt9cEISb7NjeGx

I was amazed when I heard on Sound Opinions that the biggest selling artist in the US last year was Taylor Swift, shifting 4m units. Who is she? I gather she is a teenage country-ish singer, but has anybody ever made it so big in the States without creating barely a ripple over here?

Wasn't tv rubbish over Christmas? No great films, no great dramas. Very lazy programming everywhere (QI and Great Big Quiz repeated at prime time in the same week). BBC3 seemed to have The Most Annoying People on every night. As ever Five had CSI/NCIS on every night. At every turn whenever they seemed to run out of ideas they trundled out another Olympian for us to witness their non-personalities. Did anyone see anything worth watching?

I'm over the channel at the moment and for the past week I have watched the most-watched news programme in Europe on TF1 at 8 and then later, the news at 10 from the UK. A few things have struck me:

- In France they like to lead the news with a "human" story as opposed to big global events. Over the past week, we have had a baby who was stolen from a hospital and then found and a house fire which killed off a few generations of the same family. The BBC rarely leads on anything like this, despite them becoming big, talked-about stories when they do (McCanns, Karen Matthews, etc.)

- Over here they tell you the bad news and then move on with it. In the UK they can't just tell you house prices have gone down or unemployment has gone up, they have to dwell on it for five minutes.

- Here they don't have to ask their business/political/security/royal/entertainment correspondent for an opinion on everything, they just tell you what's happened. Maybe they credit their viewers with an ability to form their own opinion.

Which approach do you prefer? I for one am getting a bit tired of the UK news and long for a return to the good old days when they just let you know what happened, rather than trying to make celebrities out of the reporters.

Did anyone hear Gervais on the Simon Mayo show last week? They spoke at some length about Hepworth's column in Word, but apart from that I found the whole thing rather strange. Gervais seems very keen to shove his atheism down everyone's throats at the moment and I find his brand of evangelical aetheism as annoying as anything else evangelical. He's even doing a show with Richard Dawkins. He also asked listeners to send him questions on science and the universe as if he is the font of all knowledge. It might be an idea if somebody told him to just stick to the comedy.