TV Times

I would like to start this blog post with a formal apology for my lack of attention, but I'm back.... so brace yourselves.

First off, has anyone seen Ricky Gervais' latest offering, Derek? If you haven't then you need to get involved because its brilliant. A lot of critics have slated it as Gervais plays a mentally disabled man who lives in a home, and they feel a lot of the gags poke fun at the character. Its political correctness gone mad! And no, this does not mean I agree with mocking the mentally disabled. Yes, I did once see a blind person walk into a post, and I laughed, but you would have to, and I did also help him up again (which I hope you would have done as well kids). What I am getting at is that most of the jokes in the show actually make fun of the characters who aren't disabled and the way they interact with Gervais, which just so everyone is aware is a common comedic tool used by many of the great and good of comedy. And just to clarify, I have been very careful in my language in this paragraph as someone with Downs Syndrome for example, is mentally challenged, you do not use the word retard, unless you are talking about the cast of The Only Way Is Essex.

Moving on, we recently had a letter come through the door at casa de Binman informing us we needed to pay £140 for a TV licence to be able to watch terrestrial TV. We did pay, but I have to say this seems a bit steep given what we get for it, and what the beeb actually spend the money on. I understand that the BBC have a duty to provide something for everyone, and have to dedicate so many hours to various schedule sectors, but somethings cannot be excused. Why oh why do I have to watch Chris Moyles' waistline (and ego) expand every year on comic relief, the lottery and all the other gubbins he does? And no one in their right mind will pay to see Terry Wogan go senile live on air... its just wrong, he needs a 24 hour carer, not an audience. I'm not sure if the radio gets a contribution from my TV licence, but if they do I will definitely be asking for it back, no way am I paying that much to allow Nick Grimshaw to spend it all on being sexually assaulted by Topman and their styling team. However, there is one saving grace, their new singing show The Voice. Not only do we get Holly Willabooby (thanks Keith), but we also get the crack adled ramblings of Will-I-am as he tries to convince contestants to join his team through a combination of name dropping ("I wrote that song with John, John Legend") and just telling strange stories about dreams he has had ("I had a dream once about when I was walking through a corn field and I saw Rosa Parks, and then the dream ended, and I wrote a song about it, it was called Boom Boom Pow"). I may just send the BBC a check for £14.82 next year as payment for the time I will spend watching Will talk nonsense and leave it at that.

And finally a cautionary tale. Well its been a big month for stupid things in my household, and as I am one of the main culprits for now I shall say nothing of it. Instead, I will warn to be careful when driving with old people. I love my Grandad Doug, but crikey is he a liability behind the wheel. Just this week I heard that when dropping one of my aunts off, he tried to pull away with one of her legs still inside the car, which as you can imagine didn't end well. Don't worry, she isn't badly hurt, but I'm sure he'll get her next time the wiley coyote.

And you video is courtesy of men without hats (why did they stop making music videos with midgets in!?!?!?!)