24/01/03 Bloggies: "It's time for the annual Bloggies awards, the international online January vote-fest to pick the world's best blogs in 30 categories." Blimey, the intrigue! It seems that the Bloggiesnominations were not all that they seemed... or rather that it was too easy to get nominated if you lived in Dallas. I blame Cliff Barnes myself.
16/12/02 McBurgers: "Three weeks ago a drive-in McDonalds suddenly sprang up at the bottom of my road. Today they're serving burgers to the three customers who've noticed the restaurant has just opened." I have the misfortune to live exactly one burger's distance away from our new McDonalds. The pavement outside my house is therefore now littered with Big Mac wrappers, squashed french fries and discarded brown paper bags. McDonalds have been community-minded and put litter bins right outside their restaurant, except that nobody walking home has finished their burger by that point in their journey. The council have woken up and installed another new litter bin further up the road, but that's permanently full and most people walking home don't get that far while they're still eating. So, please, could someone stick a litter bin somewhere inbetween, like outside my house, just so that I don't have to walk round a spreading pool of strawberry milk shake every morning?
16/12/02 Treasure Hunt: "Tonight, after a twelve-and-a-half year gap, Treasure Hunt is back on our TV screens." More good news! The week-long revival of this excellent show was a success, so BBC2 want to make a new series. Particularly good news if you work on the show, eh Jez? And should you want to be a contestant, or rather a pair of contestants, just send an email here.
10/01/03 Going Underground: "My local station was 100 years old last year, and is rather less glamorous. It would be good to think that one day the politicians will stop arguing about how the tube is funded and just get on with improving the whole system so it actually works." They've finally decided to spend some money on improving conditions at my local station. They could have added another four seats on the platform, doubling the number available. They could have updated the 'next train' indicator so it tells us how many fictional minutes we have to wait for the next train. They could have staffed the ticket office so it's actually open occasionally. But no. Instead they've spent our money making room for 54 posters to be put up on the stairs, and they've filled every single one of these 54 spaces with the same advert advising us to stand on the right on escalators. Which would be great except that there are no escalators at my local station, nor are there any for at least two miles in either direction. In my humble opinion it would have been rather more useful to put up a poster saying 'If you can read this you're walking down the stairs too slowly - please get out of my way, I have a train to catch'.
28/01/03 Grange Hill: "It must be Britain's most well known comprehensive school, it's 25 years old this year, and it's back on our screens tonight." Ah, it seems we do all remember Tucker and friends. You can read my review of the new series here.
