September 2008 Archives

Sad to hear of Paul Newman's death today.

Here's a rare early screen test by Paul and James Dean.

Even back then you could see they'd be stars.

The screen test was for East of Eden in 1955.

Paul was testing for the role of Aron Trask, while Dean was testing for the role of Aron's older brother Cal Trask (even though Newman is older than Dean).

Dean won the part of Cal, while the role Newman was up for went to Richard Davalos.

I can barely contain my excitement at the return of Strictly Come Dancing, surely the best show on TV ever.

And this series is shaping up to be as brilliant as ever.

Though that doesn't mean I don't have criticisms, of course. What would the show be if we couldn't shout at the telly? Which I certainly did when lovely Phil Daniels and his infectious giggle was the first to get the boot. That proves what I was saying in my last blog about the inability of the viewing public to make the right decisions. How could they vote for hopeless chef Gary Rhodes to stay?

I think part of Phil's problem may have been the horrible dress that his partner Flavia was forced to wear.

With a sickly shade of yellow and far too many nylon frills, she looked like one of those crinoline ladies people put over toilet rolls.

But it wasn't as strange as the weird outfit sported by Camilla Dallerup. Maybe with two more couples competing, the wardrobe department has run out of fabric. Camilla's dress (?) was like three tiny outfits thrown together - a fringed belt for a skirt, an emerald shirt slashed in half and a bikini top that didn't even match the skirt. A nasty necklace completed the horrible mish-mash.

I worried that Gary Rhodes might have mistaken Karen Hardy, in her bizarre tin foil dress, as a turkey trussed up for the oven. And while male viewers might have been ogling Ola's shapely curves, I bet most female viewers thought she looked a sight in her skintight animal print shiny plastic catsuit.

The men on the show let the sartorial side down a bit as well - Craig Revel Horwood needs a haircut, while Ian Waite, James Jordan and Matt Cutler have gone overboard on the hairspray to keep their bouffant styles in check.

So what else can we complain about?
Bruce Forsyth. I know he's 80, but it's time he retired and gave someone else a go. "I'm not doddery!" he cried, then messed up the delivery of a joke and had to repeat it. Yes, you are. Sorry, but it's not so nice to see you again.

IT'S clear to me now that some viewers just can't be trusted with a phone vote.

The worst example of this was Rachel "Far Too Nice" Rice winning Big Brother.

She deserved to do quite well because she had a hard time in the house, but her win was a huge and annoying shock. Why did so many people vote for such a bland character? Her best bits were as dull as ditchwater. True, there was no clear winner, but at least someone like Mikey or Rex had a personality and didn't go completely overboard over a bunch of grapes.

Then came more mad voting in the Eurovision Dance Contest, with the added obstacle that we were also dealing with foreign viewers. That meant that, as in the Song Contest, the UK entry of Louisa Lytton and Vincent Simone were never going to win, but at least we didn't come last.

The fact that not every country voted for us came as a huge surprise to commentator Len Goodman. "I'll never set foot in Finland again," he exclaimed. "Not that I've ever actually been, but I'll never go now."

Then the brilliantly grumpy and xenophobic Strictly Come Dancing judge said: "Where is Lithuania anyway? I don't think it was a country when I was at school."

Yet again, viewers got it wrong on Monday when they went for Sue Perkins over Goldie in the Maestro contest to turn celebs into conductors. Sue was good but the Wolverhampton DJ was robbed.

Still, the voting in last night's National Movie Awards was a little better. Cinema-goers made good choices and certainly improved on last year, when Daniel Radcliffe embarrassingly scooped Best Male Performance over Johnny Depp and Daniel Craig and Emma Watson was considered a better actress than Dame Judi Dench.

Johnny got his reward this year for Sweeney Todd, with voters wisely ignoring Batman Christian Bale - why on earth wasn't Heath Ledger included in this category?
And at least too many people weren't stupid enough to vote for the dire Love Guru. Whoever put that in the Best Comedy category should have their sight and hearing tested immediately.

I HAD the pleasure of talking to Katie Price today - and it really was a pleasure.

I found her open, friendly and polite. Katie, as opposed to her alter ego, brash glamour model Jordan, is a sweetie.

The only annoyance was that her publicist cut me off just as I was getting to the juicy stuff. I'm sure Katie would have been happy to chat further, but after only 10 minutes I was informed that she had to go, "unless I had any more horsey questions".

As I'd exhausted our conversation about her forthcoming appearance at the NEC for the Horse of the Year Show, Katie was hustled away. There's only so many questions you can ask about dressage, tack and mucking out.

I guess I was lucky to get to talk to Katie at all, as these days you usually have to pay for interviews with her - partly a sad indictment of the way celebrity works now, but also an indication of her savvy business brain. She hasn't accrued a £30 million fortune without knowing how to exploit every opportunity.

You'll have to buy the Mercury on Sunday to find out what Katie had to say about having more children, how she's going to shock the horsey set, and what item of clothing Peter Andre finds sexy on his wife.

WE print (and multi-media blogging) journalists are actually fairly intelligent, honest. Not that you'd know it from watching the latest 'celeb' edition of The Weakest Link.

I was ashamed to count myself in the same profession as the likes of Andrew Neil and Toby Young. In the first, impossibly easy, round, they not only failed to bank £5,000, they failed to bank any money at all.

They couldn't tell Hansel from Gretl, or know that the sun was at the centre of the solar system and that sundae is the dessert named after a day of the week. They didn't know Napoleon's surname was Bonaparte and thought there was banana in a Pina Colada cocktail.

No wonder Anne Robinson - wearing some fab shoes - called them "borderline stupid". I'd have left off the borderline, although I'm sure that facing Anne's icy glare must make your mind go blank.

Still, the night before, TV newsreaders and weather presenters like Dermot Murnaghan banked £5,000 in each of their first two rounds and won almost twice as much money for charity.

We like to look down upon our TV rivals. As one of the hack contestants admitted, his work involved "watching television and saying its rubbish". Even more rubbish when you're on it, mate.