Magnum

Every one I've seen has elicited a stampede of comments from mates and disgusting crawling lads saying "you look lush hun, better without makeup!". All the comments say that, and none of them are accurate. I didn't pay attention to what they were about at first, and just thought it was people building awareness for that zombie apocalypse event in Newcastle in the summer. They look fucking horrendous, and it's ruining my Facebook wanking.

I have to go on that site for my mam (she's 61 and claiming

Yeah, our Jobcentre has some big 25 stone bruiser as security. You know when you're getting your benefits stopped when they summon that King Kong Bundy-esq guy over to your table to stand beside the advisor.

Ours has a guy who looks exactly like former WCW head of security Doug Dillinger. He looks as physically well-equipped to deal with physical confrontation with an average-to-strong man as old Doug was, too.

Just posted that on the PL thread. It definitely did the rounds a few years ago. I do wish it would happen though, even though it would make it literally impossible for me to hate Newcastle anymore. If the fans think Ashley's managerial choices are bizarre, wait until Vince appoints Vickie Guerrero or Mike Adamle.

It's the presence of 'benefits' in the title that put me off watching it, that and the tidal wave of indignant rage about it on social media. TV companies seem to have a massive hard on for sticking that word in the title of things at the moment, and it generally flashes a big warning sign to me that I'm about to be preached at by muppets like Alan Sugar's sidekicks from The Apprentice, so that was enough for me to swerve it. I avoided that Benefits Row programme for the same reason. Fair play if you can sit back and enjoy it for the pantomime it is, but listening to reanimated Spitting Image puppets like Hopkins and Edwina Currie scoff at proles is too much for me.

Big thanks to anybody who voted for me in the Sports Poster event, and to Dopper for sorting the awards. I don't really deserve it because I only know about football and am massively biased to Sunderland, but then again I am pissing the UKFF fantasy league again, so it's about time I won something for it.

Joffrey's in it? As who? I watched it hoping to play 'Spot the Game of Thrones actor' like I did every week of Ripper Street, but the only ones I've found so far are Mance Rayder and Edmure Tully.

David Moyes takes a cracking part as Vorenus, too.

Having missed it the first time around, I've spent the last week blasting through Rome on TV On Demand. It's perfect for getting my teeth into while waiting for the new series of Game of Thrones, campier in parts than GoT but also really dark at times, with some great, compelling characters. I'm just sorry there's only two series to work through, but I do fancy reading up on Julius Caesar and co. once I get done with it.

Cheers, SOC! Diet has always been the thing I've struggled to get right, but that advice is a great help.

I want to get more cut this year. I'm 5"7 and, though I'm carrying about 5 extra lbs of Christmas weight at the minute, my standard weight during 2013 tended to be between 11st2 and 11st4, which I'm happy with because from past experience carrying more than 12st at my height felt bulky and awkward. I felt like I made gains in strength and definition, particularly in my arms and shoulders, after I read Hardcore Holly's book in the summer and started incorporating a lot more supersets into my routine. Now, I'm at the point where I'm happy with my training, but need to sort the nutrition out if I want to make any further progress.

And this is where I could probably use advice. The last time I even flirted with a bodybuilding diet, the consensus seemed to be to aim for 4-6 small meals a day, at least 3 of which would contain a portion of carbs and a portion of protein. Is this still the idea? What sort of foods are best? For instance, I don't mind eating a chicken breast and, say, asparagus for a meal, but how can I tart it up - what sort of sauces/dressings can I use with it that aren't massively fatty?

Am happy to sack off the booze if it makes a significant difference, I did it for the first 3 and a half months of last year but haven't noticed a massive difference in my body since going back to drinking in moderation.

Cheers for that, interesting reading. Mad to think Kennedy was on the verge of such a big push back then. Equally mad to think they eventually wasted the bastard son storyline on the dwarf, as I reckon it could've been big for the right person.

If Benoit had never gone berserk, how long do people think Vince would have stayed dead for? And who do you reckon would have ultimately got the blame for blowing him up?

I watched some old WCW from 2000 a few weeks back, and at the end of the show Goldberg's monster truck crushed a limo and the show ended. They had done a big angle where Hogan and Nash gave the New Blood a kicking or something and then quickly flashed to the back as the copyright information was on screen. It was as quick as the sheep head graphic that accompanies the Wyatts. You couldn't digest it. They just crushed an expensive limo for absolutely nothing. And never even mentioned it on Thunder or the following Nitro. WCW were by far more insane. 2000 WCW was horrendous now I think about it. I dont think TNA has ever put on something as bad as that Lance Storm vs Mike Awesome match. I've never seen a booking squad ruin a match as much as that. Its one of the worst PPV matches ever.

Ha! That sounds like exactly what they'd do around that time. I remember a similar sort of thing involving Scott Steiner in the early part of that year one week when TNT had skipped an episode over here because of the Christmas TV schedules or something. It was like trying to make sense of a David Lynch film. But aye, that was around the time Russo just took everything that seemed to grab the ratings for the WWF in the Attitude era and tried to shoehorn it haphazardly into a much poorer show, like Dirty Den's Eastenders comeback.

I had a soft spot for 2000 WCW for a while, though, because it seemed like a fun, mental complement to the really good TV the WWF were putting out at the time. By the time they got past the summer, though, the novelty had worn off and it was just too much of an effort to watch. That's TNA these days, for me - I'm just bored of it, and that's far worse than it being comedically shit, for my tastes (when it comes to the 'worst wrestling show ever' for me, it would probably be something like RAW in the guest host period or those attritional Smackdowns from 2008-10 or so when Ziggler and Kofi Kingston used to wrestle for 20 minutes every week, for that very reason). That's why I virtually never post in On Topic anymore - I haven't sat through more than about 20 minutes of wrestling for months.

The result of that may be that Labour will get most seats, but not a majority, so you'll either get a Lab-Lib coalition, or potentially a Con-Ukip coalition. or even a Con-Lib-Ukip coalition to keep Labour out!

Pretty sure that UKIP have said that under no circumstances would they form a coalition with the Conservatives.

Surely bluffing, seeing as none of the other parties would have anything to do with them and Farage would be at least as opportunistic as Clegg if presented with the chance of some power. What a fucking country this would be to live in if a UKIP/Tory coalition came into power. Would be like being run by a Partridge/Clarkson/Littlejohn axis.

Perversely, even though I cringe at the representations of the north east in things like Geordie Shore and the muppets from up here who get on Big Brother these days, I've really enjoyed this series of Bouncers. The shot of some lad last night inadvertently holding a mortal fat lass in what looked like a guillotine choke/DDT setup while trying to prop her up had me howling. Plus 'The Spectre' from Ian's thread about local tramps turned up!

Anyone ever suffer from sleep paralysis? I get it pretty much every night, multiple times, and it's fucking frightening.

I used to get it quite often when I first moved to Manchester. Anytime I came back home for the weekend to crash at my mam's house, I'd wake up in the middle of the night not having a fucking clue where I was, not able to recognise any of my surroundings, and quite often hallucinating objects and/or people at various points of the room (which I believe is one of the main points of sleep paralysis). Haven't had it for a while, now.

Look at this story in our local paper today. It's literally just an interview with a man, who may or may not be a bit simple, who once had his picture taken with Michael Le Vell about his reaction to the court verdict.

My favourite thing about it is that he's only described as 'one of Michael Le Vell's biggest fans in South Tyneside'. I'd like to know where the monthly meetings of the burgeoning South Tyneside chapter of Le Vell's Lunatics are held.

I watched WWE Superstars at the weekend, and it was the first time I'd seen Dolph Ziggler since I stopped watching regularly a couple of years ago. I couldn't get over how much he looked, dressed and acted like Billy Gunn. Not sure if that's a frequent comparision, but it's probably not great for someone aspiring to rise above midcard, I'm guessing.

There's a few people on my Facebook who've annoyed me with their simplistic 'shame on us for not helping!' statuses on Syria in the past week, but at least they meant well, I suppose. Yesterday, though, one lad - not one I'd pegged as a nasty piece of work - spectacularly tucked himself with a status bemoaning not our 'failure to help', nor our leaders' dubious motives for wanting a war, but rather the volume of Syrian asylum seekers who would no doubt flood into the gullible UK as a result of the conflict.

To be fair, he got crucified by pretty much everyone who saw it.

The advantage of Coronation Street is that characters disappear for 3-4 months at the best of times as a matter of routine. If they don't have a storyline, you just don't see them. With Ken, though, if Bill Roache goes down I think they should just go down the Nick Tilsley route and have a different actor play him. Cut to the Barlow house for a scene of Ken getting henpecked by Deirdre and Tracy, and there's Richard out of Keeping Up Appearances or someone like that. As long as Peter Barlow sells it properly, people will accept him.

I can't get away with Eastenders. Not watched it properly in years, and everytime I do turn it on it's full of annoying interchangeable mockney urchins who've just stepped out of Harry Brown. Either that, or bringing old slappers who can't get work anywhere else like Bianca and Kat Slater back - if you're going to dig up the past, why not spend some fucking money and get someone decent Big Dan Sullivan back?

Can't say I found Nana Moon as emotionally affecting as everybody else, I was just glad that I'd never have to hear her "Oooooh, Alfiiiie!" catchphrase again. It'd be the same for me when somebody finally puts a pillow over Jittery Jean Slater's face. As fucking miserable as it is, I really don't think Eastenders does 'serious' storylines well - like with Big Trev and Little Mo, it was supposed to be all Nil By Mouth, but there was too much slapstick comedy with people getting hit by irons and Christmas dinners getting drowned in gravy.

I didn't like the previous Daario, but I'm not sure how much that has to do with the fact I just don't like the character. Very pleased they've got an intimidating Mountain again after the beanpole from Season 2.

That was my quote about it 'deserving to be higher', obviously referring to my personal list where I put it about 7th. Again, that comes back to it being a 'favourite' list rather than attempting to pick the 'best' TV dramas somewhat objectively. If it had been the latter, I'd have voted this #1 comfortably - the sheer scope of the thing (as well as the research that went into it) is quite incredible by TV standards.

Game Of Thrones shouldn't be near the top 10. It's great an' all, and I love the books too, but it's not on the same level as The Wire or The Sopranos say. I always think of it as quite trashy and a bit of a soap opera but with better acting and a more violent/serious tone. It's not exactly high art is it?

Neither are Lost and 24, though. They're glossy, gimmicky network fare - enjoyable for what they are (dependant on your tastes), but neither are comparable as 'art' to those two you've mentioned, or noticably superior in critical terms to Game of Thrones. Besides, I don't think this list has really been predicated on that wanky, high falutin Guardian-esque criteria - Neighbours and Cell Block H are in, for crying out loud. Not that I'm complaining about that - I voted for fun nonsense like Sharpe and Quincy. Lists like this are always going to be subjective. Having said that, the cream has generally risen to the top in the list, as I think will be borne out by the top 3.

I voted for Quincy as well. The fact that me and Pat have the same tastes necessitates a trip to the Dignitas clinic for Ol' Handsome Butch.

That's nothing, I had Sharpe AND Quincy. Bit disappointed they didn't make the cut considering some of the guff that's made it in here, but I did also vote for a shitload of niche foreign stuff that I didn't expect the Neighbours-watching philistines to be aware of, so maybe less surprising on that score.