It's not too late for Simon Cowell's latest victim
As Sir Thomas Beecham once said, you should try everything once, except incest, Morris dancing and an evening in with Britain’s Got Talent. OK, perhaps he didn’t put it quite like that, but I like to...
View ArticleBrains matter more than looks on telly
Cor! Check out David Attenborough's pecs. And what about the buns on that Lord Clark of Civilisation! This is the AA Gill Approach to TV Presenters, as witnessed in his attack on Mary Beard, the...
View ArticleThe BBC is more conservative than the Right admits
Boris Johnson was absolutely right to criticise the statist and defeatist attitude of the BBC. But although the newsrooms might be biased to the Left, that is not true of the wider organisation. In...
View ArticleWinston Churchill shows us why hero-worship is healthy
As a young man, Winston Churchill was a hero-worshipper. Great Contemporaries, his essays on Victorian statesmen and wartime leaders, can be embarrassingly gushing – at least, when not skewering his...
View ArticleThere's nothing posh about being a Tory, whatever Oxbridge Conservative...
How sound are you? More importantly, are you sound enough? The term "sound" will no doubt be familiar to many readers of Telegraph Blogs, but just in case, it means "Right-wing". The sounder you are,...
View ArticleI’m Spazticus isn’t offensive and it isn’t ground-breaking. It’s just awful
I pity the able-bodied people who stumble across I’m Spazticus, Channel 4’s hidden camera comedy show in which disabled people play pranks on the public. I’ve followed their reactions on Twitter two...
View ArticleWhy Parade's End is deeper and more truthful than Downton Abbey
We have become familiar with the fragile decadence, pomp and ceremony of the Edwardian era. Downton Abbey sated the national appetite for carefully enunciated accents, stiff attire and over-the-top...
View ArticleThe old order changeth, yielding place to new: and alas, John McCririck, you...
So John McCririck, the flamboyant Old Harrovian, who for so many years has been calling the odds for Channel 4’s racing – and for ITV before that – has been put out to grass. The BBC has feebly given...
View ArticleEntwistle isn't the only BBC employee who doesn't read the papers
The two most staggering things about his interview with John Humphrys were that he hadn't seen the Newsnight episode in question, and hadn't read the Guardian front page story about the incident. It's...
View ArticlePaxo's job on University Challenge is to mock stupid answers
Good on Paxo for teasing the UCL student, Tom Tyszczuk Smith, for not knowing the answer to the question, "'The liberties of England and the Protestant religion I will maintain.' Which royal figure...
View ArticleThe asbestos of publicity? Not everyone sees the vicious nonsense of people...
In a spirited piece in The Independent, Matthew Norman argues that those who call for the likes of the “radical/extremist preacher”, Anjem Choudary, to be banned from the airwaves have got it all...
View ArticleWhy is the BBC babysitting me? I want as much sex as the Americans
If HBO's Game of Thrones is a sexed-up, knifed-up, midget-infused take on the War of the Roses, the BBC’s White Queen is its geeky girl-shy-but-not-terribly-bright younger brother. The Sunday night...
View ArticleThe moaning Daleks of Netmums declare war on the new Doctor Who
Netmums – no, not the same as Mumsnet but its near-identical deadly rivals – don’t like the new Doctor Who. Siobhan Freegard, co-founder of the self-righteous network for parents, has criticised the...
View ArticleLaurence Olivier was a really bad film actor
Even one of his greatest fans, Simon Callow, admits it in today's Telegraph, where he says, “Sir Laurence was a terrible film actor because he tried to dictate to the camera. He had to impose himself...
View ArticleBreaking Bad puts Downton Abbey to shame
And, thank God, the Emmy judges handed out their awards accordingly. That Downton Abbey was even nominated is extraordinary. Yes, it's done very well here and in America. And, I must admit, I'm gripped...
View ArticleThe BBC has betrayed its historic mission by killing The Review Show
The Review Show has been cancelled after 20 years as the pre-eminent, and often the only, serious panel discussion of the arts on television. The axe didn’t fall while the programme was still on BBC2;...
View ArticleBreaking news: BBC Proms about to march into Ukraine
Perhaps it was my imagination, but I thought there was something downbeat about yesterday’s tea-party at which Roger Wright presented the new Proms season to the press before the grander gathering of...
View ArticleYou stupid boys! Don't remake Dad's Army
Is nothing sacred? What on earth has possessed film producers to make a new big screen version of Dad's Army? The actors – Bill Nighy as Sergeant Wilson, Toby Jones as Captain Mainwaring – are both...
View ArticleRik Mayall – a much underestimated talent
What a horrible shock to hear of the death of Rik Mayall at only 56. Any death at such a young age is upsetting. But, as is often the case, it's only with death that you really consider a talent in...
View ArticleGreat British Bake Off smut: Ooh, Matron! Why innuendo comes so easily for...
The Great British Bake-Off has been attacked for its use of innuendo – endless talk of soggy bottoms and popping Mary Berry's cherry. It's not very funny, it's true. But that's because the choice of...
View Article
More Pages to Explore .....