And Hylda Baker's Nellie Pledge owed much to Hylda Baker's stage act.
Yes, I'm that old.

But let's not split hairs, I like it, you don't.

Khan was great tonight.

Imran,,Chaka or Genghis?

I watched the first episode over the weekend, won't be watching anymore.

I don't go in for the proxy-guilt stuff, if a particular sector of society wants to make a comedy program about their own racial stereotypes then so be it, there is enough badly written and badly acted English stereotyping in sit-coms and so Citizen Khan has a go at the Pakistani family stereotype, fair enough.

Problem is that its not funny, which is probably the first requirement of a sit com, thats where it fails for me, its just not funny.

Coleridge's opium influenced dream.
A Boltonian boxer.
A fictional tiger even.

Had the whole family round on Friday. How we laughed. Pure comic genius.

There's still a few decent ones, just none on the BBC. The American ones like Modern Family, Curb Your Enthusiasm, Arrested Development are better.

Yeah, yeah, no-one believes you.

I found all those American series utterly tedious. They follow a similar style a kind of pseudo reality / pretend documentary structure that leaves me cold. I detest reality TV and even shows that parody it just remind me of why I hate it and I don't need reminding.

Modern Family maybe fits that description, what with the pieces straight to camera and what not. No idea how you came to that conclusion with the other two though.

Well Curb Your Enthusiasm is the guy playing a version of himself and the improvisation and the subject matter seemed to result rather boring pseudo reality TV take on things. Maybe that is the point and like Seinfeld which he worked on/wrote the style did nothing for me. As to Arrested Development I thought the whole point of the way that was shot was to make it look like reality TV.

Watched the poignant [iThe Disappeared[/i on BBC4 last night.
The search for the bodies of people the IRA deemed as traitors within their own communities and who were taken away to be executed.
Ruthless stuff.
No winners in war.

Watched Werner Herzog's [iCave of Forgotten Dreams[/i last night.

32,000 year old paintings.

Wow.

Don't forget - Citizen Khan at 9.30 tonight. It's the last in the series. Only 6 episodes. Like all great comedy, short series so as not to dilute the creative brilliance and quality, like Fawlty Towers, The Mertons, etc.

A new seRies of Storyville has kicked off on BBC 4.
Last nights episode 'Hotel Folly - Folie a Deux' made for excellent watching.
The female involved was barking!

After staying clear of Masterchef for a couple of years I've been pleasantly enjoying the current series of Masterchef:The Professionals.
Greg Wallace is still a bit of a tool but always enjoy Michel Roux Jr cooking a classic.

I've missed the Sky Arts Portrait Competition so far



However have just caught the fact that episode 2 is repeated tonight and have set the series record for it - just need to patch episode 1 together from YouTube clips

I see a fourth series of 24 Hours in A&E commenced last night JC.
Thoroughly enjoyed the first couple of series but overkill fatigue has began to set in.

Yep, watched it last night, I'd still loved to have worked in A&E but my life skills won't be much use to them



After spending literally the whole of one Friday night in the LGI A&E department a year ago this month (11pm to 5am) I can only sympathise with the staff and hope that the TV program shows more of the crap they have to put up with in the waiting area, including the police officers who are now based there permanently.

Has that big hard man had his comeuppance yet?

I saw quite a few who thought they were big and hard by being handcuffed to a police officer, sometimes two police officers, then again I got to go home afterwards and they didn't

Suppose I will have to give [iBlack Swan[/i a whirl on C4+1 after the England game seeing as I aint seen it as yet.

Not for the faint hearted but the moving human story of a sufferer of Motor Neurone Disease is covered in the documentary [iI Am Breathing[/i on Film4 tonight.

Tough topic but not worth missing.

[urlhttp://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/i-am-breathing-2013[/url

Might be a bit of an obvious one, but if you've got Sky you can get The Wire on demand. I missed it when it first came out and have only just started watching it. I say started, I've got into it that much I've been watching 2 or 3 episodes a night so am up to Series 3 already!

For a bit of wireless (wireless in the old fashioned sense) listening I keep returning time and again to [urlhttp://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/features/desert-island-discs[/url the online archive of 1500+ episodes of Desert Island Discs not in the least because they offer an insight into how far Radio 4 has come since just a few decades ago - Roy Plomley's very snooty treatment of Daley Thompson for instance compared to how he fawned over Princess Grace of Monaco or Frank Muir (who in turn isn't at all like you'd expect him to be).

Yesterday I randomly picked out Nigel Slater and Nigella Lawson (pre marital split) who both had tragedies to speak of, Nigel Slater in particular offered a lot of personal information to Sue Lawley and sounds like he is quite a complicated character still, 'twas a very good 45 minutes or so.