It must be nearly Valentine's Day or Mother's Day. You're being told to buy some saccharine rubbish that anyone who loves you will of course really appreciate: "the perfect gift for" (insert occasion here that really only means anything to retailers). When of course you know that really, it's the shittiest present possible. You know, this sort of thing:

http://www.tellyads.com/show_movie.php?filename=TA2507

I have to warn my children when Father's Day is approaching not to buy me that new CD of drivetime rock, or something.

....then two days later after it has sold out:
"Extra show added due to popular demand!"

I would not have bought the last remaining crappy seats to your "one and only show" if I'd known that you bastards.

Comedians (like Lenny Henry) and other non-music celebrities in the 'exclusive seating area' being 'interviewed' on 'Later...' ('who are you looking forward to seeing then' - who cares?) by Jools or being waved gaily at by him, and other general celebrity mateyness as if they all hang out together and we're privileged to watch.

Those T4 type waste of space presenters doing pointless bits between programmes that we'd be better off without - like interviewing a movie star in front of a film poster and making a supposedly irreverent, jokey and hilarious game out of the process, among other things.

Every single music radio DJ now has to have a mate or two to banter with and help present the show.

Endless trailers on BBC that make you think they might as well have ads, since that's what it feels like. Trailers for TV shows on BBC radio are pretty annoying too.

that say 'When I called you on the phone' or similar.

What else were you going to call them on?

about tv programmes from the same channel. That ain't news, it's advertising.

Listen, all I want to do is buy some underpants. This is not a joyous, celebratory experience for me, there are other things I would rather be doing. I will not buy more underpants because I have just heard Justin Timberlake playing over the tannoy. Visiting M&S is not 'party time' for me, nor shall it ever be...

But what DOES is kids' books with 'adult' covers, i.e. the new covers for the Harry Potter books. Who do these people think they're fooling? Are we supposed to think, "Oh, look, that adult is reading a book intended for children. No, wait, they clearly CAN'T be, a book for children would not have such a mature and intelligent cover illustration!"

for the kiddies.

Sorry, I was under the mistaken impression that parents are supposed to be good role models for children. But no, it seems instead that we must look to the world of entertainment for such saintly guiding lights.

But where are these paragons of virtue? That footballer just broke an opponent's cheekbone... that pop star just woke up from an all night coke orgy with 10 hookers... it's outrageous! Don't they know that children might copy their depraved behaviour?!

Actors and actresses who are deemed beautiful doing a serious part under tons of make-up so that they can show they're more than a pretty face - 'Look!' they cry, 'I can do ugly!'

Same goes for skinny actors putting on fat suits for comic effect. 'Look!' they honk, 'I'm actually horribly skinny underneath this but I'm pretending to be obese! Isn't it hilarious, 'cos, y'know, I'm actually really thin!'

Looks like DungeonMaster from the cartoon series Dungeons and Dragons and seems to be BBC TV's daytime "expert" on everything from home buying, antiques, travel and consumer ishooes....

DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE

(well, not really....just some mild pain)

Support bands who don't tell you who they are. I know this band is your whole life but I have never seen nor heard of you and if you want me to go out and buy your album after this gig you are going to have to tell me your name.

On a similar tip, DJs who don't tell you the name of the song and the artist they have just played. There are tonnes of great songs I have heard on the radio which I will never heard again because the DJ didn't tell me what they were.

* That shouty woman who advertises dance compilations on Friday nights

Since when has advertising been deemed to be "entertainment" - you need to get out more.

However...while we ARE on the subject. Lenny Henry doing his ad for Cheapo Lodge, or whoever, really gets on my tits. Especially as Dawn French insists he travels home after every gig because his previous misdemeanors hit the redtops.

The only truly dumb programme is GMTV. Everything else is as it is because TV is run by people whose average age is 12.

TV stars only granting interviews to broadsheets, and their publicists not daring to tell them that while they may feel validated by appearing in the Daily Telegraph it does not put bums on seats.

Young actresses, more often than not the offspring of someone famous, flicking the Vs at the paprazzi. Or sticking their tongue out. They'd die without the oxygen of publicity, etc.

The media wank about Heat magazine. It's not what it was.

Pop stars with beards. All pop stars except Oasis now have beards. Canned Heat live!

Pop stars/young actors in T-shirt/woolly hat combo. If you're that cold, put a jumper on.

Actors talking about their stagecraft.

Actors from The Bill shoehorning their theatre credentials into every conversation. Yes, yes, you're a proper actor, you're only doing this to pay the bills. We get it.

Fake celebrity pairings organised by agents and PRs: Ashley and Cheryl - we all know they signed an 18-month contract. Kelly and whoever. Do they really think we're that stupid?

People from long-forgetten bands in Where Are They Now? features still plugging away at music even though their last minor hit was at least 18 years ago. Give it up now, go into teaching.

... always cheap gubbins compared to the original. Jonathan Ross aint no Letterman and Tonightly wasn't a Daily Show.

Any DJ with a posse (Lamb! Wright!) even Evans gave that up.

Any autobiography with "My Story" anywhere in the title.

English football pundits especially during a world cup. I am a person with no knowledge or interest in any sport at all, but it's obvious, even to me, that the England football team are second rate at best. However because the absurd money floating around the premier league attracts some damn fine foreign players, it artificially makes the domestic game look better than it is and results in average UK talent being brutally overpaid due to its proximity to genuine foreign talent. Half witted football fans then start to think that the national team is better than it is, in spite of all of the evidence to the contrary. Football pundits should be pointing out the truths of this situation but they don't, and when I caught Ian Wright acting like a huffy child the last time England were kicked out of the world cup I actually started shouting "You are a moron!" at the television very loudly. Linekar et al are blooming cheerleaders masquerading as critics.

Newsreaders who act all chummy- just tell me the news, don't try and create some soap opera starring yourselves in my brain. This means you Peter Allen and Anita Anand from 5Live.

The Fratellis. Scottish. Why does the singer affect a mockney accent?

apparently requires a beard and a hard luck story.
You are not a unique snowflake...get over yourself.

* The use of the word "ultimately" is ultimately quite annoying.

* The directors who tell anecdotes about how they met the costume designer while the most dramatic scene is playing and then keep schtum for minutes on end when someone's very slowly making breakfast or laboriously parking a car.

* The "you're not gonna believe this" tone they employ when they let you into the secret that the mushroom cloud billowing on the horizon was in fact done by CGI. Huh? You mean you didn't really nuke Cleveland because it would have been too complex to apply for all the permits? Who knew.

* The ones who lie through their teeth about how everyone involved was "a joy to work with". Listening to Frank Oz, you conclude that the shooting of The Score was an enriching experience for all concerned, whereas anyone with sufficient interest in cinema to sit through DVD commentaries knows full well that Brando refused to come out of his trailer if Oz was on set, calling him "Miss Piggy" to his face on the rare occasions when their paths would cross on the way to the catering truck.

why does all fo california have to there name on the film.
Books don't credit the lumberjack who felled the trees, Lp's don't credit the barley farmer who supplies jack daniels, why should I care who made the tea. All I want to know is whether that policeman was in poldark and if it really is the undertones on the soundtrack.

and internet-only soap operas. They never last.

Mobile phone companies seriously believing we'll watch TV or films on our phones. I don't know aobut you, but I can barely make out a text message on my screen. I can't imagine holding a phone for hours on end and squinting over Heaven's Gate playing on a screen the size of matchbox.

Do actors appearing in rep always have their old photographs on the posters and newspaper ads, taken many years before, when they were glam darling.

At least in The Word we get the real Hepworth & Ellen, looking more like Cannon & Ball everyday...

... who wear tee-shirts with bands and/or band logos on them, that you *know* they don't listen to

e.g.:

The Ramones,
The Clash,
The Rolling Stones,
Kiss,

etc. etc. etc. etc.

Smiths even has a section entitled 'Real Life Tragedy', something I suspected was a joke when I first heard it (maybe on a Word podcast), but which I later corroborated with my own eyes.

'Emotional Pornography' more like.

Who the hell is so bloody happy they feel the need for vicarious abuse?

And while we're on the subject of emotional pornography, those horrible programmes which invite the public to sneer at the misfortunes of those in a lower social class.

on ANY entertainment program designed for the BBC 3 demographic. Are The Kids so loaded on E-numbers - and E come to that - that they can't sit down and watch anything that isn't wizzy without reaching for the remote?

There are interesting consequences to this phenomenon. For example, yesterday night I was watching a fine example of a popular genre at the moment: the documentary that postulates that all our kids are turning into feral uncontrollable brats. This particular example was on BBC 3; it's called something like The World's Strictest Parents and put two English middle class 16-17 year olds into a Hindu family in India. Of course - just as inevitably as Jo Lumley received her Northern Lights epiphany - there were the obligatory emotional fireworks and learning experience. In other words, the usual Super Nanny story arc but applied to teenagers.

However, what I found striking was when the lad was put into a Indian school he complained that the teacher just stood there and told the pupils (useful) things and they just listened. He wanted activities, he wanted demonstrations...what it seemed he didn't want was to concentrate and participate in simple and efficient knowledge transfer.

This is interesting, is this behaviour a cause OR effect of "addressing young people in their own verbal and visual language" as I am sure Yoof programmers and educators would have it?

... who insist on a whole paragraph of drivel being included word for word for kindly allowing a picture of said celeb's crappy calendar/weight-loss video/whatever else, to be used in your magazine, with the threat of legal action if their instructions aren't followed to the letter. (As happened here at work yesterday!)

Self imposed challenging timescales in reality programmes - "We've got just 48 hours to do this thing". Why? - is it because the producers know how dull the show would be otherwise?

People talking about their "journey" when they mean living their life.

Any situation where people have experienced two different emotions being described as a roller-coaster ride. Find another expression - maybe a see-saw?

"Why should you go through to the next round?", "Because I really, really want this".
Yeah, obviously, but could you try and answer the question please. No? Okay you're through.

Seeing a major character getting into an "R" reg. or older car on UK cop shows signifies that it'll crash in the next scene - at least put on some false plates.

Virtually nobody on TV has a personalised ringtone (not sure if this is a good or bad thing to be honest)

Anybody with a bit of a cough in Act 1 will be terminally ill by Act 3.

They do that thing whereby there is general applause going on at the end of what they have done and are waving to the crowd. Then - to break up the waving a bit - they point to a ficticious person in the crowd and :

a)pull a face,
b)effect a comic "it's a living" shrug,
c)effect a comic "oh stop it, you!" gesture.

It's to let us know that they DO have friends and that they DO share warm in-jokes and private moments with real people, thereby we can connect with them too. Piss off Hillary. Piss off Val. You don't fool me.

PS - they are not on stage together. This is something I have noticed they both do.

The annoying habit of (almost always American) bands of playing a UK tour that consists of 4 gigs. It's not just the number of dates that's the problem, it's the geography. The amount of times I've seen a UK tour advertised as London, Birmingham (or perhaps Wolverhampton), Manchester & Glasgow. I don't know if the promoters of these tours are regular users of the West Coast mainline or something, but there is actually an eastern side of the country above the capital! Worst offenders, for me, are Wilco who almost redeemed themselves with a London/Birmingham/Manchester/Newcastle variation last year but then cancelled at the last minute, and The Jayhawks who regularly used to do the London + 3 tour, then split up and as solo acts played all over the UK, now back together as Olson/Louris have announced a tour that consists of London + 3 again - WTF?!?! I'm on a roll now so have to mention the 'UK' tour that Lambchop are currently due to play which I believe consists of London/Reading/Brighton/Glasgow. That's not the UK, it's a cab ride round the south east of England plus a nod to Scotland.

One last thing, in Mr Hepworth's original post on this subject he mentioned the anti-piracy infomercials on DVDs. How insane is it that any half-decent piece of DVD copying software can remove the infomercial for you? So a pirated copy of the DVD will probably not feature the message and the only people who HAVE to sit through it are those watching a legitimate copy. AAARRRGGHHH!!

that's all I have "Dave Pierce's Dance floor anthems"

oh and when did he stop being "Dangerous"

the act/star being applauded by the audience in a given situation then applauding the audience back. Joan Rivers was the first I recall doing this on a chat show back in the eighties.

Agree with the previous post on interminable film credits, however on those occasions watching a film on TV where I want to check the name of a particular actor or whatever, the credits get squashed into a wee box just below the limits of legibility, so that the rest of the screen can be used to tell us about the next instalment of Celebrity Wife Beater coming up next. Hate that.

...because the assumption is that we all have the attention spans of senile gnats and need a summary of what happened before those important sponsors messages or in the previous episode or two minutes ago! If you take away the recapping of what was previously 'documented' from what was actually documented (if you see what I mean) then what is left amounts to little more than a hill of beans. And while I am ranting ... does Strictly Come Dancing ever get round to making a decision and is it on for ever?!?

Followed by

...and before the break we showed you this and this

This has always mystified me. Seinfeld was usually referred to as the 90's most successful sitcom. The beeb bought it and put it on at around midnight whilst occasionally just not bothering if darts or snooker was on. The Larry Sanders Show also suffered from this treatment. Then, when David reappears with Curb Your Enthusiasm the whole comedy world goes crazy in its praise. Channel 4 buy it up and don't even bother to show it on terrestrial TV! It goes to E4 and stays there.
Now I know most people here probably have all the channels etc etc but it seems very suspicious to me that these programmes were treated like that. The Sopranos suffered a bit like that at the end too. I mean - Frasier and Friends are so popular here why couldn't they have given these shows a chance? Bizarre.

... to make then sound 'edgy' - Dr. Fox being the prime example (and he isn't even a real fox...), and as ChrisG stated - 'Dangerous' Dave Pierce.

On that question, Chris - was he ever 'dangerous'?

The judging of what is "newsworthy" purely by the quality/shock value of the footage.

For example, there is an earthquake in Tokyo. No-one is hurt and nothing is damaged however a TV program was going live at the time and the footage shot ends up being broadcast all over the world as news. "Look, the set is shaking!"

Why don't they judge news on the basis of "If there were no footage would we mention this?" If the answer is "no" they shouldn't show it. They've turned the news into a freakshow.

It's pornography. From my understanding of it porn is anything that's sole purpose is to titilate or arouse the viewer. Thats what the news is becoming.

before the programme has properly started, ie right after the credits. Thanks for this, America. We owe you one.

Why do them? Is your ego so fragile? Do you have to seek the adulation of the crowd by going off stage for 30 seconds so audience can then beg you to do more? Thus fulfilling your misconception that you are worthy?

I pay to see you play. Do your set and then fuck off down the pub and let us go home.

Dylan at a push. Perhaps the Beatles in retrospect... but on which bad day did God decide that it was now okay for the universe's reject hod carriers and check-out girls to start calling themselves artists? And journalists are just as bad, they encourage this heracy by referring to all and sundry as 'artists', to boot.

A prance in trousers so baggy they show your g-string, and the ability to mime in unison does not an artist make.

A clever device, employed by numerous companies to try to humanize and soften their public image.

Banks hope that the aforementioned whistling will make people think "Aww, they're not so bad, maybe they do have my best interests at heart and won't fleece me dry."

Fast food chains, meanwhile, combine whistling with images of healthy looking children running about, trying to disguise the reality that burger munching kids are more likely to be lard arses sat immobile on the sofa.

It is a vile tactic and one which deserves our contempt...

When BBC and ITV have very similar rival shows going head to head in ratings war, yet would do better if were shown at separate times since same audience would probably then watch both. Yes I know you can use Sky+ or i-player or whatever but I like to watch things when they are scheduled mostly, like when you want to watch with your partner - and we don't have Sky+.

Ads that use cloying, twee, annoying, fey nu-folk type songs - typically for mobile phones. The kind of tunes you that are far too sweet and coy for their own good.

1. The fact that pretty much all prime-time TV is created for the lowest common denominator. Would a terrestrial station ever fund something as high-brow and expensive as Kenneth Clark's classic Civilisation, or The World At War?
2. The little channel idents on digital TV. I know I'm watching Five US, thanks, because I'm the one who switched it on. I don't need a logo burning its way into the corner of the screen to remind me, ta.
3. The lack of funny adverts. Where's this generation's Hamlet ads? We want a new Baldy Man-type thing, I say!
4. In a world where practically any programme you could want is available somewhere on the internet or on digital, how do the main channels think they can compete with Saturday night schedules that are so unremittingly awful?
5. People who moan on the internet. Oh, hang on...

Possibly a little too specific for this thread but I need to say it!

Who else can't abide the current set of idents Channel 4 are running? Those long drawn out optical illusion style things where, eventually, the '4' appears out of either the New York skyline or a rock formation or a gig p.a. stack etc.

How pretentious and smug. And how annyoyingly long they are? 9 times out of 10 the forthcoming programme has been announced ,but no, we can't go straight to it because we have to wait until the bloody '4' has been revealed in a drawn out silence. Arrrghhh!

A small complaint in a world full of much larger issues certainly, and yes, I can spare these few seconds in my life - but I hate having to.

Oh, and the god-awful 'Primetime on Dave sponsored by Cobra beer' animated links are crass in the extreme.

There. I've got it out now. Calm.

When news breaks on Sky and they have just the one line from the news agency, they always wheel in the same reporter who then waffles expertly for as long as 30 minutes. We call him Bullshit Man in our office and often turn up the sound to laugh at his increasingly desperate inventions. If the news is confirmed as bogus, which is often, BM is wheeled off as quickly as he was wheeled in. When Sky covered the return of English nanny accused and acquitted of the murder of a baby in the US. the reporter resorted to reading out her seat number and full flight number to fill. The cliche the 'soundbite culture' does not apply.

Sky are also the main culprits in over reporting news from America - just because Fox have pictures. How many small plane crashes in Europe, India or China get the coverage US ones do?

I would also nominate the BBC and its relationship with the National Lottery. I worked for the BBC in the 90s and things may have changed since, but the agreement with the National Lottery included the running of 'trails' for the National Lottery show on local radio. These were commercials that money couldn't buy on a public service network - pushing gambling.

I would also put forward as dumb the use of the word 'finest' to describe a band from, say, Ipswich or Newcastle and during any music festival coverage excited discussions about wellies - especially 'designer' pairs.

... on websites. When ever you accidentally more the cursor over an advert on a web-page - the whole screen then is filled for a few seconds with a large version of said advert.

Stop. It. Now.

'Bands who come on stage without being introduced'

This annoyed many people at John Cale's tribute to Nico last night at the Festival Hall. Hardly anyone said a word onstage and no intros to who anyone was. So sometimes you thought. 'Wow, great version of that and top voice.....i wonder who they are?'

Ok Manic Bradfield, Bauhaus Murphy and Mark Lanegan were familiar to many but people resorted to shouting 'Who are you?' not in a mocking way but in a genuine interest in what they'd liked and heard. A little context of why they chose to sing that particular song (or why Cale chose it for them maybe!)wouldn't have been a bad thing.

Still an interesting, unpredictable and eclectic night of great songs it was in any case

As the final coup de grace in an alarmist documentary about something alarming:
"Is there any way we can stem the tide? Or are we becoming a nation of (insert alarming thing here)"

Calling anyone within a 100 yard radius of a petri dish a "boffin".

TV and radio presenters thanking me for my company.

TV ads in another language but dubbed very, very badly into english.

... you have to count down the list of songs to find the track number you are looking for.

Gggrrr...

in fact that goes for sports people too. Great: you and a member of the opposite sex had a shag, and roughly nine months later offspring appeared.

This is not a significant achievement - anyone can do it.

And at what point does this constitute some level of child abuse.

And while I'm at it, so-called stars that sell photos of their new-born to glossy mags. Yes, i'm sure it's wonderful and you're blissfully happy (being able to pay someone to wake up in the middle of the night unlike most parents) but has it occurred to anyone that at some point the kid might grow up and get a bit pissed at being prostituted before they could even talk. "Why did you wave me in front of a camera? Am I just a source of $$ for you? Where's my cut?" etc. Have a fun adolescence.

Manufacturers who don't shell out to make different language versions of things, and just lump them all together for different 'territories'. So you get instruction manuals that are bigger than telephone directories when you only actually need about 10 pages, and DVDs with warnings not to broadcast them on oil rigs and the like in 14 different languages THAT YOU CAN'T FORWARD PAST.

Different variations of the iPlayer from certain other broadcasters that are, a) full of processor-sapping Flash adverts, b) are tiny and non-expandable, c) require you to register, log on and certify you will buy all their products at a later date, d) also require you to download the latest software that mysteriously is not needed whenever you watch anything else, and most of all, e) are virtually unwatchable because the presence of all the above renders the whole thing so jerky that you're lucky to watch one frame in 200. I've already given up on the online 4od.

The sheer gumption of people who rip stuff off the TV to put on YouTube then put 'credits' for themselves on it, as if they had anything whatsoever with making the programme in the first place. "This clip from Lost brought to you by ObamaHater386."

This is my first post folks...

... 'former rock star' Pearl Lowe.

... for his opinion on.....anything.

I know we are supposed to be moaning about the modern world but....can I just speak up for adverts on the Tube in London. Saw one yesterday, and have beeny dying to share it with someone so I am shoe-horning it in here just to make the World a better place.

Advert for an historical detective novel called "The Ottoman Detective" with the strap line "He may be a eunuch, but he's missing nothing". Genius.

If you stream or download anything from Channel 4 On Demand, a woman announces the service in a posh, 'sexy' voice, but when it comes to the word 'demand' she says demAnd, in a northern accent.

It's really incongruous and annoys me immensely. You can TELL she's been asked to soften the poshness and to proletariatise the hard A.
Conversely, if she is actually from the north, then you can TELL Channel 4 have asked he to 'posh-up'. You can't have it both ways 4OD...

... on YouTube. Why? Please, put me out of your misery.

...or products advertised on the strength of things you can't possibly be expected to know anything about - as in "I must get some of that as it contains Lipopeptides/Xylitol/Action Liposomes/Actizol. It must be good."

And products using ridiculous scientific terminology e.g. Quantum Shampoo (in two places at once?), or those Gilette Stealth razors. Bought one the other day and now can't find it anywhere.

More YouTube naffery: tribute videos. You know, those things that are edited from Doctor Who/ Buffy/ whatever clips by 14 year olds on their parents' computer with a soundtrack by "my current favourite band". Who on EARTH would want to watch them? (Apart from dodgy independent TV production companies on the lookout for sweatshop editing manpower.)

(Bleedin' American teccy Imperialism, such as a website that couldn't be more British underlining the word 'favourite' in red to tell you you've spelt it wrong. And the word 'spelt' too, apparently.)

Has there ever been a good celebrity endorsement, with the possible exception of Viv Stanshall's Ruddles adverts? Anything featuring David Beckham or Tiger Woods just causes involuntary shrieks of, "like you haven't got enough bleedin' money!"

Podcasts that really want to be radio shows, and feature lots of interviews and soundtrack music and clever crossfades and editing and balanced reporting, when really you just want people sitting in a room and having opinions on things. Hmm...

I'll stop soon.

I saw it on the tube, but there's also one at the bus stop opposite Oakwood station. Shockingly, it spells "surprisingly" without the first 'r'. Someone should lose their job. How is this possible?

EDIT: Someone's changed the one at Oakwood; but here's one I caught on the tube today: