The Cellar

Merry Christmas readers, Bother’s Bar will be on minimum updates over Christmas period (which is different to when? – Everyone in the World) but I will still be around, and will certainly be on Twitter.

So here are some things for you to do and look forward to over the next week or so:

• Tonight it’s the Fort Boyard Christmas Special on France 2 at 7:35pm UK time. We’ll be watching it on Pluzz through a VPN, although on previous form it will almost certainly be up on Youtube in some capacity before the night is out. The New Year’s special is next Saturday also.
• Tonight it’s ALSO, we think, the Avanti un Altro Survived the Apocalypse special on Italy’s Canale 5, although you’ll be able to watch it online later. If it wasn’t on last year it’d almost certainly top the international section of the UKGameshows.com Poll of 2012 I reckon.
• Speaking of which that’s coming in the New Year. In the meantime I currently have a poll up re: the Bother Series of Poker. If you have an interest in playing it’d be nice if you could fill it in.
• This Monday it’s Fifty 50 Show, featuring the 21 Questions Wrong CHRISTMAS SPECIAL! And we wouldn’t call it a special if it wasn’t SPECIAL…
• Channel 5 continue to do World’s Strongest Man wrong, Thursday at 8pm.
• Next Saturday there’s a lot on – Superstars 2012 on BBC1 at 6:45 and Dale’s Great Getaway ay ITV1 at 8:30. Show discussion posts will go up for these two in due course, and you can read what we thought about Great Getaway as we went to the recording.

Also maybe you got a new iThing for Christmas. Well we will try and update our list of iThing gameshow reviews over the festive period. If you want to know if a gameshow app is good and it’s not up there then feel free to ask in the interim.

Merry Christmas!

Right, I’m busy for the next few days (although I will still be sproadically around) so here’s a Board of Excitement to tide you over:

• The Great Escape (Sunday Night, TNT in the US) – Episode two of this turned out to be slightly more interesting than episode one, so we’ll see.
• It’s my birthday (Monday, all day) – 31, in case you were wondering.
• Amazing Race Australia (Monday) – This is still a great series generally, but there have been fewer surprising challenges compared to the first one this time round I feel.
• All New Blockbusters (Challenge, 8pm) – The new series begins with a christmas celebrity special.
• Who Wants To Be A Millionaire: The People Play - Three evenings of live shows beginning Monday at 9pm with members of the public. This time round you can play along at home and the results will get announced from the studio, and there’s an “Ask the Nation” lifeline. There will be a Show Discussion post set-up for these specials.
• King of The Mountains (Thursday 8:30pm, Pokerstars) – it’s Le Tour, so it’s time for Le Tour(noi). $10 buy-in tournament. All the details here. It’s open to anybody elegible.
• Reflex (Friday) – This is filming up in Salford. We have people going so look out for a write up.
• Fort Boyard – 2011 episodes on TV5 (not being shown in the original broadcast order, in case you were wondering) on Saturday at 5:24 apparently, although it was meant to be 5:26 this week just gone and they slipped in a ten minute extra programme. Meanwhile episode 2 of the 2012 season goes out on France 2 at 7:35pm UK time, although that was about ten minutes late yesterday as well. Those pesky French and their timekeeping, eh? Discuss the 2012 season through this link.

It’s the weekend!

• Lost in TV looking for contestants for My Man Can, must be avaliable for filming in September. Here’s the logo, evidently they’ve dropped the poker chip element so it looks like there are some format changes coming. Civil partners are invited to apply also, which is nicely progressive.
• The All New Skill Based Red or Black starts filming this weekend at Elstree – if you’re going we would very much like to hear your thoughts on a) what has changed and b) what you think. According to The Sun the roulette wheel has gone to be replaced by The Vortex. a skillful game of predicting how long is takes a skillful ball to fall down a skillful funnel by the sounds of it.
• The Million Pound Drapp is basically quite good (although it does seem to crash a lot) but I’m waiting until trying it out with the live shows next week before writing a full review.
• Redneck Island hosted by Stone Cold Steve Austin premieres tonight on CMT in the US. I have to watch at least one episode of this, it sounds as though it will be hysterical.
• AND DON’T FORGET at 7:30pm on Sunday it’s the Bother Series of Poker Super Stack Super Final. It costs £22 to enter and is open to anyone who wants to play even if they can’t win the league (there could be hundreds on the table tomorrow), although you need to become a member of the Bother’s Bar Poker Club first (that bit’s free) – don’t delay, register today, because hundreds of pounds and these EXCITING TROPHIES will be given out to people:

It’s the The Voice final tonight on BBC1 at 7:20pm, so that’s exciting isn’t it? There is also a new episode of The Cube on at 8pm on ITV1

In other news, tomorrow is the grand final of Mix It Up Real Good – who will take the trophy after the big 8-game mix final? And even if you can’t win, you can still come and play for fun, 8pm on Pokerstars – make sure you’ve joined the Bother’s Bar Poker Club.

Next Sunday is the big Bother Series of Poker Grand Final, decided by a thrilling £22 entry superstack tournament – together with the league prizes being decided there will be hundreds of pounds flying around the table and YOU can try and grab a load even if you’ve never played a league game before. This is a 7:30pm start and you can register for it right now – in fact you’re positively encouraged to in case you forget the early start time and turn up too late. Again, make sure you’re signed up to Bother’s Bar’s Poker Club to play.

Have a good Jubilee weekend everyone!

8pm, BBC1
Official ESC Live Stream

It’s here! Join Graham Norton as 26 countries from around the Eurovision battle it out in the contest literally nobody is referring to “the Superbowl of Singing”. Engelbert Humperdinck represents the UK with Love Will Set You Free, other ones to watch out for include the Russian Grannies singing in sixth spot, favourites Sweden in 17th and JEDWAAAARD! in 23rd.

If you want to give marks out of ten here, feel free.

If you don’t have a party to go to but want some amusing company anyway, friend of the Bar Tom Scott, Tim Jeffries and Matt Gray are ‘doing’ an alternative commentary with The Eurovision Hangout which sounds like it’s going to be a lot of fun.

In other news, it’s Round 11 of the Bother Series of Poker tomorrow at 8pm – £5.50 entry, all welcome.

I’ve just had a lovely phone call from http://www.trophystore.co.uk enquiring about one of the medals for the upcoming Bother Series of Poker having a different year to the others, and do I want it changed. Therefore I recommend them wholeheartedly for all your trophy and medal related needs.

Pictures to come after delivery (they are different to last year’s!). And don’t forget! The first round of the Bother Series of Poker 2011 is next Sunday night (that’s the 16th) – this year, the more people who play the bigger the end of series jackpot. You don’t have to be very good, and you can play as few or as many games as you like (although if you’re serious about winning the entire thing you’ll want to be playing more). The chat is fun at least.

Plug over.