Scott’s Porridge Oats

By | January 25, 2010
58 Comments

I’ve just discovered that coding wizard, Bother’s Bar ex-regular and star of both internet Star Wars weather forecasts and Treasure Hunt a while ago Tom Scott is one of the contestants on Only Connect this evening, as one of the Hitchhikers. 

This is great, because it gives us something to update with on a slow day. Let us hope he knows who Vivienne Westwood is by now.

In other news, I’m definitely not going to see The Cube US because they’re full up, but I may very well try to go and see ITV1’s The Whole 19 Yards, which Applause Store are currently taking interest for. I didn’t think all that  much to the Spanish version I’ve seen, but we’ll see.

Specials

By | January 24, 2010
5 Comments

I’ve put up a few more old special features for you, Wipeout seemed aposite, 20Q is quite modern, and Cresus because we love The La’Gaf, and also because I saw some clips very recently of Neil Fox hosting an English language pilot for a show called The Guillotine, which as you can read in the old comments is what the Italian version of the format eventually became. Hmm.

Board of Excitement 24-30th Jan ’10

By | January 24, 2010
4 Comments

Hmm, I wonder if anything will be joining the usual suspects this week?

  • Only Connect (BBC4, Monday 8:30pm) Record ratings for the show last week, this week it’s Philosophers vs Hitchhikers. I noticed this week that this show has the honour of being series stacked on iPlayer, which is pretty rare for a quiz. So if you’ve missed an episode, you’ve got until the end of the series to catch-up with it, so it seems.
  • The Krypton Factor (ITV, Tuesday 7:30pm) Despite deciding it had got away with dropping the Intelligence test previously, last week was the first time I felt it needs… something more. We’ll see, though.
  • Total Wipeout (BBC1, Saturday 5:30pm) It’s the first episode of series three, although it’s probably not going to be advertised as such! It’s apparently the only episode on for the next four weeks!  Well done the BBC.
  • Solitary 4.0 (Fox Reality, Saturday) A welcome return for VAL in what will doubtlessly be the most brutal (and fingers crossed not final) series yet. And when we say Saturday, it’s probably not going to be “available” until Sunday, if you see where I’m coming from. Edit: Actually ep 1 is apparently going out on Friday night after the season three marathon and repeatred on Saturday. So there we are.

For obvious reasons…

By | January 23, 2010
17 Comments

… the third series of Total Wipeout begins next week, just two weeks after they started repeating series two on Saturday nights. Good.

Meanwhile more Twitpics regarding the third US season which seems to be filming now. Now Wipeout USA fans, what’s missing from this picture?

Let the games… BEGIN!

By | January 22, 2010
14 Comments

The Bother Series of Poker 2010 details are all up for your perusal, the first game is Sunday February 7th ay 8pm (that’s 1500hrs on the Full Tilt server), will cost $10 + $1 (that’s $10 stake and $1 FT rake) and I’ve added $25 to the prizepool to make it a bit more exciting.

You don’t have to be a regular contributor to play, although it’s nice if you do actually visit us from time to time.

Fun Thing Found on Youtube Thursday: Friday Edition

By | January 22, 2010
3 Comments

I watched a little bit of Take Me Out over the week and whilst not completely awful or anything, it did seem to lack a certain something. Substance, I think it was.

But over ten years ago ITV were doing a sort of similar thing on Saturday nights based on a popular European format of the time: Man O Man. “Girls,” the theme tune rhetorically asks, “what are we looking for?” before ending with “they don’t have to be cool they just have to be fun, a perfect body doesn’t matter just a cute little bum!” In Man O Man, a group of confident guys attempt to impress a large group of women across a number of different disciplines (talent, chat-up lines, swimming trunks, that sort of thing) in order to win a motorbike. And if they fail, Nell McAndrew pushes them into a swimming pool.

The show did alright – it only got one series but was bought back for several one-off specials over the next few years with a more modern looking set.

Of course loads of people said “yeah, but you couldn’t do it the other way round could you?” and the answer is “no, of course not, and that is because of history and gender differences which aren’t just going to go away just because it’s suddenly the 1990s.” Besides anything else, Man o Man was basically immensely silly and hence entertaining.