Scientific studies that prove make up is XX times better..."Volumised lashes" my arse..

In small print "Based on 99 people".

If I based any survey on 99 people I would be shot down in flames.

I've just realised this was meant to be about entertainment...

Well, you see them on TV, and that's supposed to be entertaining

* Robert Peston, BBC Business Editor. He loves the misery. He loves the sound of his own voice; I hate the sound of his voice. And the fact that he is always introduced as "the man who broke the Northern Rock story" even 12 months on.

* "Funny" emails from listeners on 5Live. Bloody Hell.

* Traffic reporters on the radio given a bigger part. Sally bloody traffic.

* Jools Holland joining in with anyone.

* The angled head and pursed lips of Deborah Meedon after she has said "...and that's why I'm not going to invest. I'm out."

Seriously, what is the point of these? If they're any good, please include them with the rest of the album. If they're not, don't bother, I don't want to listen to it.

Plus, they're hardly well-hidden are they. If the last track is twenty minutes long but after three and a half you can hear your own watch ticking then you know what's coming in a mere thirteen minutes time. They're even more annoying now in this age of ripping tracks and mp3 players.

By the way, you're not 'crowdsourcing' for the best and worst lists in the mag are you, Mr H?!

I'm not railing against the 'cult' of celebrity (or rather, I could, but that's not what DH is asking about) but just the use of the word where previously it would have jarred; now it appears wholly acceptable anywhere.

As I understood the word, a person is either a Celebrity or they're not, and the word stands alone, not needing qualification, or to qualify another word.

Paul McCartney is not a 'Celebrity Pop Star', nor Jeremy Clarkson a 'Celebrity Television presenter'. Both could also be called Celebrities.

But would somebody Explain to me the notion of the 'Celebrity Chef'.

The other thing...there was an advertisement on some time ago for a cosmetic product of some ilk, and the lady fronting the advertisement was, if I recall, described as the 'Celebrity Beauty Editor' for a certain magazine. But she wasn't famous, so it dawned on me that actually it was her job to collate the assorted pictures of, I dunno, Jade Goody and the like.

To further compound matters, during that same ad, mention was made of this product being reasonably costed, except that wasn't the turn of phrase used. What was said was something along the lines of

"For something this good, you'd expect to pay Celebrity prices..."

CELEBRITY PRICES?!?!?

What in the name of Jesus is a "Celebrity Price"? And the first smart-alec to mention Jordan...I'll find you and kill you in your sleep.

Here...

Chris Moyles

George Lamb

Fat lazy people who eat bad getting TV funded makeover

Dirty lazy people who don't clean getting TV funded deep clean

The sneaky way Channel 4 have added an extra set of adverts into an hour

Stickers on books, cd's etc. that won't come off

That stuff on the free CD that rips the cover of The Word

Magazines that have four different collectors covers. I'll collect my four over a period of four months thanks very much

Sky TV guide not saying if the programme is a repeat or not on the main channels (I realise everything else is a repeat)

Q magazine (that's by way of an apology for my earlier post)

Foreign films with dubbed soundtracks (I can read subtitles)

Any competition to find someone for a crap musical

ITV comedy

Best 100 type programmes

Jools Holland if he is talking

I could go on.

Here in the US they have those sticky cellophane strips running along the top of the CD case that are impossible to remove in one piece. There is a little sign saying "pull here". You pull and a one millilmetre piece of plastic comes away in your fingers. I have yet to remove one in its entirety. Even when removed they leave behind a sticky residue that requires the attention of a scouring pad and washing up liquid. Cleaning scratches the case, leaving you in no mood for the music within. It's a frustrating shambles.

Somehow, I've managed to get through almost 40 years of life without having to worry about "pentapeptides", whatever they are, so I don't need endless adverts featuring "celebrity beauty editors" rammed down my throat.

On a similar ranting topic, is it possible to ban Heat and any other mag that does nothing but focus on women's body shapes: This week, Women So Fat They Shouldn't Be Allowed On A Beach Unless Greenpeace Are Around To Put Them Back Into The Sea; next week, The Stars Who're So Slim We're Going To Put Them On The Cover And Make Them Even More Self-Conscious And Turn Even More Teenage Girls Into Body-Obsessed Anorexics.

There is also a place on the same plane of Hell reserved for those who think we're interested in Jade: My Struggle; Jordan: My Marriage Misery/Joy/Apathy/Whatever Line Will Sell This Week; Posh'n'Becks: We're In Love/We Hate Each Other, etc.

Phew! Glad I got that out of my system. It's time for my medication.

...for the programme that follows, which will be starting in 30 seconds or so, anyway.

...for the next episode of the programme you've just watched, thus providing instant unwelcome spoilers.

Naked Gun 2 and a half's poster read "From the brother of the director of Ghost". Which it was.

...

...

... pause before announcing the next person to be booted off, or the winner of, pretty much any reality show contest.

"...raised in this programme, phone this number in confidence."

You've just watched a TV drama about a mildly disturbing subject. Get over it.

on the sides of uncomplicated Consumer Products

"Hello, is that the Coca Cola Customer Line?"

"Why Yes it is..."

"Right, i've got the can, i've opened it, what do i do now..."

...for the second half of the 30-minute programme you're watching, just before the commercial break. Closely followed, after the break, by a recap of what happened in the first half, and a preview of what's going to happen in the rest of the second half. And of course, the program starts by previewing highlights of itself, too, so by the time the program ends, you're in a kind of haunted, deja-vu limbo of inconsequential snippets you've heard often enough (in the space of 30 minutes) to recite by heart.

"Prequels". They never work.

you've opened a can of worms now.

One of my pet peeves. So-called newspapers that peddle filth but call it "news". I don't give a damn what Paris, Britney, Nicole, Lindsey, Madonna or bloody Pamela Anderson are doing to or with each other, IT'S NOT NEWS!

And don't get me started on Pete Doherty & Amy Winehouse. Drugs are illegal and kill people. If that's what you want to do jump off Beachy Head.

Greatest Hits Collections at full price when the previous identical Collection is in the bargain bin around the corner.

Non-entity "autobiographies" - see Chantelle, Jade Goody, etc.

but really its just wallowing in someone elses misery. And then hearing them say (yes you Ross Kemp) that we have a 'rule to not interfere'. What's sticking a camera in peoples face and getting locals to show you round drug holes and gang war zones if not interference.

that fill up entire pages with brain-fuckingly inane space filler in which it is revealed that people off the telly buy food in shops, walk their dogs or breath air.

that start and then have the titles then stop for the ads, then stop for more ads. No wonder the writings so good each epsidoes only five minutes long!
1. can i add.
car ads showing cars not stuck in jams.
the one show.
2. Music festival highlight programmes where they don't show the band playing to the crowd but have special acoustic sessions on some bales of hay.
3. The hyperbole that could announce Bolton versus Norwich as a midweek clash.
4. the use of "rennaisance" man for any actor who also writes plays and can walk and chew gum.
5. the extension of the Holby city/casualtiy brand waht next holby vets, holby plasterers.
6. the making of films take onto the end of bluie planet etc to hide the fact that to get them made 7. the bbc had to cut them to 45 mins to show in american and si left with 15 minute gap in scheduels see also Dr who and the set wales with the bloke from the musicals.
9. cookery programmes where they cook wearing sports jackets.

called Dave

that are so clever/complicated you haven't the slightest smigeon of a Danny which item is currently highlighted.

that allow their celebrity guests to promote their hugely expensive new age psuedo-science products without daring to mention the fact that they're talking complete arse for fear of upsetting the stars.

If someone from afar landed in the UK and watched TV for a while they would undoubtedly find it impossible to believe this is the country that gave birth to some of the greatest art, poetry, literature and music in history.

The country of Shakespeare, Pinter and Constable has become a place where wholly talentless non-entities like Jade Goody become multi-millionaires, where Amy Winehouse's slide towards her inevitable death earns daily newspaper coverage, and where Simon Cowell decides what is music.

Instead of children wanting to grow up to be a successful footballer, nurse, stewardess or whatever, now they just want to be famous, with all the perks and none of the pitfalls it brings.

If we had a whip-round, could we buy some prime-time advertising space on ITV and just say to people that there is more to life than reality programmes, "talent" shows and anything media-related that features the word "celebrity"? Or, to quote something from when TV used to be a little more varied: "Why don't you switch off your TV set and go and do something less boring instead?"

Currently out of work I'm stunned by the relentless numbers of commercials shown on daytime tv for car insurance comparison websites.

I try and keep the TV off but when it is on it appears to be a cavalcade of these things. That and Claims Direct-style let us screw a few quid out of anyone that gave you as much as a chinese burn in the last 15 years legal services.

I can understand that customers for claims may be lying in a Carry On Nurse attitude swathed in plaster from head-to-toe with little else to think about but it strikes me that most car owners are out and about. Having already driven them to work. Why are they on when the majority of their potential customer base aren't sat on their arses watching bloody 'Dave'?

Also, whichever ad agency came up with the Hastings Direct knight character wants to be shown a Tex Avery cartoon and then drowned in a sack. Good afternoon.

* Books packaged to look like the follow-up to a blockbuster rather than what it actually is: something written and rejected by 17 major publishers in 1994. (Hi, Dan!)

* Paying way over the odds for an imported DVD only to discover that it's NTSC/Region 1 only. (Hi, Madrid record shop who sold me Born to Boogie - may Sister Ray's fate be with you.)

* Microsoft telling me every morning that I may be a victim of software piracy (No, you're the victim, Bill - I'm pleased to report that I've come out of the experience unscathed.)

* DVDs that have only 5.1 audio and when played on a standard tele or through a regular stereo have all the dialogue as an inaudible whisper while every footstep goes BOOM!

* The word "enhanced" on any audiovisual product, since its presence guarantees that whatever it is will sound and/or look measurably crappier than it did before.

* Blog commenters whose only comment is to point out with pride that they are the first to comment.

* Now 'n' happenin' hacks who lop off the end of set phrases because they think they're being big and.

Like, like.

forward.

One male, one female, one "of colour"

TV documentaries built around "reconstructions" shot in black and white with lots of close-ups of cigarettes in ashtrays and ears listening to phone receivers.

with a cookery book to promote being paid megabucks to tell us how to cook cheap food during the "credit crunch".

According to BBC Breakfast TV this morning there are 800 books released this week. Nothing to do with Christmas you suppose? Try reviewing all them, with or without stars, Mr or Ms Word-book-wizard. Pah!

I want, at most, one for things I watch and one for things I listen to. I do not want to become a technical wizard in order to watch a film or listen to an album. The specifications of the electronics do not add utility to my enjoyment.

What? Extreme Pharoahs. . . again?

Radio stations who promise to cover "all the build-up to the big game". There is nothing to "cover". If there's any building up going on, they're doing it.

...that features the words 'Hello' and 'Goodbye' when you use it.
Any electrical equipment that beeps at you to tell you it's finished.

On so-called modern and edgy programs, it simply isn't enough to focus the camera on the subject, oh no. It has to go to close-ups, in and out of focus, unusual angles, zooming in and out etc.

Case in point, whenever that fella who presents Dragons' Den does a piece to camera, I feel dizzy.

Radio stations that promise "we'll be across that story for you".

Just from a personal point of view. We can't get Sky because we live in a tiny village surrounded by trees and rolling hills - beautiful to look at but our TV reception is buggered. So to see the lovely Kelly Brook telling us how fabulous Sky+ is, and how it can do everything you could ever want, just feels like they're taking the mickey.

Back to Freeview (and the few channels we can get) it is for us...

Perhaps its only in Spain but it now appears illegal to mention sportspeople without calling them 'our hero/es'.
Basketball players - our heroes.
Footballers - our heroes.
Tennis players - our heroes.
Athletes - our heroes.
No they're bloody not. They play sport.

TV companies plugging the next show before the one you're watching has finished - my beloved watches Coronation Street, which is probably the worst offender. Yes, OK, Mr ITV man, we're not going to turn over because we've looked at the schedule and know we'll like what's coming up, so let us watch this show in peace.

It's no wonder my TV watching has dropped to practically nil. DVD boxsets of your favourite series are one of history's greatest inventions.

Do(did?) they count as entertainment? Some small crumb of entertainment in the current economic meltdown is wondering what will happen to all those 'zany' characters who fronted them.

I really do. Because I like cooking.

So why do the BBC (and I am part of the unique way it is funded) think that showing me a recipe without telling me the measurements of the ingredients is acceptable. I know I can get them in the associated cook book but you could also tell me in the bloody programme. I can kind of accept it on commercial stations but the BBC?

"The Government is expected to announce today...", etc.

Whose idea is it to put all that junk mail crap in magazines? The Word aside that is.

Modern books are absolutely stuffed with typing errors which are not detected prior to publication for the simple reason that the publisher finds it cheaper to run the text through a spell-checker than to pay a human to proof-read the thing. The give-away is that said typing errors are invariably valid words, just not the intended words.

in Development Hell perhaps?

It's good to rant...

Tho' my original choice of blogs that produce 75 responses in seconds comes a close second. How can anyone read all that and be at work? I'm struggling with my deadline, Heppo, give us all a break!

Is it just me, or is there something enormously satisfying about airing pet hates?

Nothing can come of it - it's not as if the world will improve once The Powers That Be read this thread - but it's a lot of fun nonetheless. Witness the success of the Grumpy Old Men shows - people DO love a good moan, don't they?

Maybe it's just a British thing. I can't imagine a list of rants like this coming out of a more positive, success-led country like the USA, for example.

That footage of the hippies in a chain running through some park in sanfisco folowed by the girl having her face painted with a flower that equals the 60's.
that footage of the cow staggering about with "BSE"

on any tv trail

And while we are on the subject of the USA...

Why oh why (points of view) do we have to send over scores of reporters to cover the Democrat/Republican conventions. It always gets priority over our own UK news. Then there is the forthcoming November election...AAAARRRGGGHHH!

In particular those going on about "Sustainable Energy" and why we should plant more Rapeseed to make the cars and buses go.

At the same time accidentally conspiring to reduce the actual amount of wheat grown in the world,reduce dairy farming and create food shortage.

Still the world will be cleaner and the cars and buses will leave a very reduced Carbon Footprint. There will just be nobody left to drive them. Oh job done then.

Rant over.

I'm continually shocked by people, often on messageboards, who make vicious attacks on people they have never met. I often read comments from people who say they hope Jade Goody/Justin Hawkins/James Blunt etc, dies. If they'de said something funny I could take it as a joke but when it's just vicious it really is apalling.
So Wayne Rooney is no oil painting? Who cares? He's a footballer. So Jade Goody has limited social skills? So do plenty of people, but who should we be critcising, her or the people who put on a pedestal so we could all sneer at her for our own amusement?
It's horrible.

You're watching a movie on TV, it's been a moving experience, you're just getting over it while the credits roll past and you are enjoying the music when it's all squashed up to one side of the screen and a clip from the next show appears and an announcer talks over the music and ruins the moment.

There's a show you watched 'cos a band you like is on it and they finally get to play over the credits and get faded out or talked over (as above) after about 1 minute.

Everyone connected with this show, and everybody who watches it for more than a minute, should be thoroughly ashamed of themselves.
It takes years to get work in TV production, and what do you do once you've learned your craft: you film a rude, cretinous jumped-up little nobody hurling abuse and trying to be holier-than-thou with chavs barely able to pick their knuckles up from the floor and people too dull to realise they are only on TV to be mocked by a baying mob of imbeciles. DNA tests? Who's the daddy? Is this what TV was invented for?

..."have to hurry you."

Why? You people invited them. You people run the programme. You wouldn't run a dinner party like that, would you?

Crap. And Alan Brazil's ability to go from grave, caring voice talking about some former stars battle with cancer/drink/gambling to excited upbeat giggles to talk about the racing card for the day is crassness to behold.

The person in every Pop-X-Stars-Maria-Dancing-Ice programme who has a tragic past and cries during their post-perfomance interview to garner votes. Just stop it!

David Pleat & Clive Tyldesley doing ITV football commentaries togther. Has there ever been a more annoying combination of voices?

"The next Doctor Who" whatever it is: Robin Hood, Merlin, whatever.

Most autumn Sunday night bonnet-and-boots dramas on the BBC (though Bleak House and Oliver Twist were enjoyable).

Autobiographies "written" by "celebrities" just out of school.

News stories that try to tell us how global events will affect us directly: i.e. what the credit crunch means to a 35 year old married father of three, living in Croydon, earning £25k a year and who enjoys a pint with his mates after a game of 5-a-side on Thursdays and has a take-away with the missus on a Saturday night while watching a DVD.

Oh god, you've got me started...

Presenter:
There’s reports of shooting in Highbury locals report that 2 shots where heard in Manning road area police have cordoned off the area. Over to Manuella on the scene.
Thanks you Jo.
I am at the end manning road where police have cordoned off the other end after reports of two shots being fired. A Local resident I talked to said he heard two loud bangs and though it was car back firing. Back to you Jo.
Now over to our Arts correspondent Maddy who is talking to Danni off of Holby City who is going to be in “Chicago” in the west end

1. People who use hands free attachments for mobile phones (the ones on a wire with an earpiece), whilst holding said mobile phone in one hand and using the other hand to position the small mic in front of their mouth. Hands-free indeed.

2. "IF YOU LIKED (...), YOU'LL LOVE (...)!!!" Shouldn't that always be the other way around ie. If you loved this particular thing, you might like our new thing as it's essentially ripped-off.

3. "Topslicing" and other made up words that litter the media. Especially when they are used in every sentence and, if you missed yesterday's issue, are utterly meaningless to you.

4. Over-use of the word "Cerebral", which is quickly becoming one of the most annoying contemporary journalistic cliches. It shows the creators intelligence does it? I would hope so!

5. Stickers on cd cases that leave a mark and ruin the card-board kind. See also stickers on books.

6. A good novel having it's tasteful cover replaced with an image/advertisement from the new "major motion picture" of said book.

7. Music Presenters (tv/radio) who aren't allowed to criticise anything.

8. Radio playlists.

9. Composite names (Channelle & Ziggy as "Chiggy", Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes as "TomKat")

10. Articles / Shows etc that consist entirely of lists.

I'll stop at ten.

Celebrity leg waxing

No, not THE Tears with Bernard and Brett from Suede...but all the constant crying and blubbering from contestants, even the ones that have got through! Hate it...we are now more schmaltzy than America. The manipulation of viewers through sob stories and tragedy...surviving cancer, happening to live in the town with the highest rate of teenage suicides (original one I'll give them that).
Spouse dying young with last gasp dying wish "Johnny, please apply for the X-Factor, then I can really rest in peace..." - really sick!

every bulletin and newspaper supplement thus ensuring its success and therefore allowing the cycle to repeat next time.

The phrase “it started out as a face book group”

Nuff said. 10 "celebrity" contestants - I only recognise 2.

Watch how they pick up dog shit. Oh I wish I was joking but it's true. I've seen the trailers. That was enough.

http://www.livingtv.co.uk/shows/underdog/

If you can bloody find it...Setanta, Sky Sports 1, Sky Sports 2, Sky Sports 4 Interactive 10 games behind the red button, CH5, ITV 1, ITV2, ITV3, ITV4...jesus christ, can't we just go back to Saint & Greavsie on a Saturday!

Adverts which feature a sarcastic one liner from one actor to another, followed by a close up shot of the recipient's face with an exaggerated furrow of his or her eyebrows or a similar quizzical expression. This technique is featured incessantly in McDonalds ads, which is reason enough in itself to loathe it.

The weather on TV. I do not need to see a computer simulation of the storm that is about to devastate some coastal town. Just stick a piece of grey card in the shape of a cloud on a map like you used to.

Am I the only one who wishes it was called Holmes Under The Hammer and it was hosted (at least at the start) by Eamon Holmes. And it would be a one off special.

..reading out texts and emails from members of the public.

Weather presenters doing a happy face when its going to be a bit sunny, and a sad face when its going to be a bit wet or a bit chilly.

Presenting news from site of the big story - like Beijing or Iraq or wherever. It's usually Mark Austin. Is this necessary? No. It's just a costly gimmick. Sorry, getting away from entertainment brief.

that come out on a thursday.....

who try to sound terribly hip whilst saying that Eastenders is on at 10pm, but sound instead as if their feeble brains have seeped into their Ugg boots.

Will Young appearing on Question Time??

Rich

I'd just finishing reading this, clicked back and there were 14 new comments. I'm stuck in a perpetual cycle on this thread....

Supermarkets that have already started stocking shelves with so called Christmas essentials.

Russell Brand

Movies on tv that have only 40 minutes left to run getting interupted by a 30 minute news slot.

Russell Brand

George Lamb

The sycophantic laughter of Jonathan Ross's sidekick on Radio 2

Russell Brand

Advertising the show as 'Radcliffe and Maconie' and in reality only being the two of them about 50% of the time as they seem to be the BBC equivalent of substitute teachers and the show is only about half as good when there's just one of them.

Rich

Radcliffe Or Maconie?

... the new Bob Dylan.

Or a band that "will be bigger than The Beatles"

Gggrrrr!!!!

Sports or music on TV disproportionately occupied by presenters chatting inanely and analysing endlessly (well analysing in the case of sport not music). I wanted to watch some sport and music, not you. And with sport, we'll also see extra clips when they weren't meant to be on camera, reacting to a win by their favourite. Yes you are really the stars of the show.

And with sport, like athletics, dwelling on the 'team GB' member even though he/she came last but let's see them running their race again, just them in slow motion and we'll talk to them too while they watch their race and talk about it. 'Yeah I'm really pleased with that. A personal best.' But you were last!

TV commercials that are much louder than the TV programmes that they appear in the middle of. It is supposed to be illegal. Who the bloody hell enforces it?

Cellophane wrappers on cd's.

Newspaper headlines on the first hot day of the year that proclaim ' hotter than Majorca' or other such drivel. Likewise 'shopping frenzy' on the last weekend before Christmas or 'Fear for pensions as shares tumble' - reactionary crap.

The 'Manion' guy on News AT Ten (can't remember his Christian name) who has an unfortunately nasal voice that makes him sound like he is crying every time he reports from a war zone.

Book/Cd/Film reviews that proclaim 'if you buy one cd/book/film this year make sure it's this one'.Load of tosh.

Use of Americanisms where they are not required for example getgo (sorry Leedsboy), ballpark, vacation,24/7,ketchup (its Tomato sauce for Gods sake!!),Elevators and countless more.

Do americans say "phew"? and if they do, do they say "foo"?

We are all turning into my father.

I hate it when the band I discovered 4 years ago is now widely accepted for the great music they create, and everyone has a slice of them - leave Elbow alone; they're mine!

You guys are angry. You should all calm down. And you know if there's something you find irritating on TV, turn it off. If everyone did that then they'de change it.
Celebrities? Who makes 'em? We do. Why do newspapers/magazines/advertisers/supermarkets/tv presenters/record execs do all the irritating stuff they do? Because we buy it. It makes them a quick buck, and we've allowed them to do it.
What we should really start getting annoyed about is people complaining about how everything is everyone else's fault.

Oh yeah and maybe those I'm a PC/I'm a Mac ads as well - whoever came up with them should be, like, deep fried.

Simon Amstell. Did I miss him in earlier posts?

And by extension anyone who thinks humiliating soft targets is funny or anything other than squirmingly unpleasant.

BBC news slavish adherence to the American line - see Georgia for one of many examples. Also their inability to explain any industrial dispute.

The new rabid reactionary rhetoric of the right, which we are going to be hearing a lot more of from our new etonian lords and masters for some years to come.

Don't try to tell me politics isn't part of the entertainment industry.

On TV, before a programme started, they used to tell you what was on next: "In half an hour (something), but first (this)". Now, at let's say 11am, they'll say "Tune in tonight at 9 for the new series of (something)". That annoys me. Why can't they wait until later? As the average teenager would say: that's so, like, random?

… to a bloke standing outside a building where some people had a meeting or something hours ago/will be having one in hours to come.

didn't see page 2

.

Like tonight - ITV1 9pm "Natural Born Sellers" - so obviously a rip-off of The Apprentice.

1. Who over analyse a childrens programme like Dr who

2. Once they become home workers talk about podcasters as if they are personal friends

3. Can't accept they are in their 40/50s and have started developing weird crushes on young actresses

Text messages. Entertainment? Well then why have them rolling across a screen behind a performing band playing in a whopping big stadium or arena stage? So you've paid vast sums to txt ur mates and you would rather look out for it instead of concentrating on the act. Get a life. Oh look, my claim to fame...bugger, gone now.

A still chuckle at the the tale of a former colleague who was on a very wet holiday with his young family. His kids requested a record from Uncle Tony Blackburn on wunnerful Radio 1 for their dad's birthday so the poor soul had to sit in his car for several hours, waving to his kiddiwinks in adjacent caravan, waiting for his moment of fame. It never got read out. It's that sort of jollity from where the idea for I'm A Celebrity emerged.