Magnum

Conversation (well, I count it as one) I had with Nigel Havers on Twitter yesterday:

@thenigelhavers Good Morning! Who's looking forward to Corrie tonight?

@Magnum @thenigelhavers Nigel, what do you make of Dev recently? For me he's really come into his own as one of our finest living actors.

@thenigelhavers @Magnum Jimmi is honestly one of the finest actors I've ever worked with NH

Joffrey's totally in over his little pea-head with this new lass, isn't he?

Just watched the first two episodes back-to-back, and I was also far more excited than any right-thinking person has a right to be about Ser Barristan turning up to join the Targaryen gang.

Dave was in an emotional place when he wrote that.

A few years ago when the bruhaha about the poppy-burning fundamentalists kicked off, this absolute imbecile lass who was seeng a friend of mine posted something along the lines of

'My boyfriend is 1/4 arabic and my grandad is an immigrant, but I truly believe that people who weren't born here have no respect for our culture and should be sent back'.

Needless to say, I took the 'delete' route rather than make my brain hurt trying to argue with such an ignorant person on the well-known platform for intelligent, reasoned debate that is facebook.

The vapid (usually unattractive and exceedingly bitchy) women who post those fucking "If you can't deal with me at my worst, you don't deserve me at my best" style things.

And funnily enough, this same lass was one of the main proponents of the above Marilyn Monroe quote. Yeah, there were at least a few reasons why men would be willing to put up with Marilyn Monroe 'at her worst'. Some car crash of a thick racist chav with no job prospects and a brood of kids by different dads doesn't quite get the same leeway, I reckon.

I'm massively late to the party here, but I've just worked my way through to the end of season 3 of The Thick Of It on lovefilm, then immediately gone out and bought the box set so I can plough straight into series four. Absolutely fucking astonishing. I really hope the missus is up for watching some of it tonight.

The final season is a masterpiece. Mind, Langham is superb in the first series, and sometimes I wonder if it could have been even better if he'd not gone to PC World, but the strength in depth of the cast of characters and adaptability of the writers to stay scarily relevant to contemporary political developments is probably what makes the show so great.

Has anyone watched Veep yet? If so, how does it stand up to TTOI?

They missed a trick on getting Kevin Webster out of the show there. If someone would have just went "oh, Kev was having a piss when the pub went up as well". Just casually tell the audience he's dead and he wont be back. It'll save the bother of having to pretend he's not around because he's got stuff to do. There isn't enough jobbing out of characters. I remember when Emmerdale got rid of Terry, he just burned to death and we never even saw it. It was just like "oh, Terry was in there as well".

It's already turned to havoc without him. Whenever there's a fight in the middle of the street, Kev is always the one to come sprinting in and break it up. But when Gary started scrapping with that oily cunt who's having it off with Chesney's lass, it took a full half hour for Owen to turn up and intervene, and by that time Chesney had already found out and no doubt consigned months worth of storylines to the bin.

The Aces & 8s theme tune sounds much better with lyrics. That slow, trundling instrumental seemed completely at odds with the image of a rock hard biker gang causing chaos wherever they go.

Glad to hear it, if he is staying. Speaking from a purely selfish POV, he's been one of my favourite performers for a few years now, and, although he certainly has the potential to make it in WWE, more likely IMO that he'd end up pointlessly wrestling Kofi Kingston for 15 minutes on Smackdown or Superstars every week.

After a convoluted first episode, I've really enjoyed the Irish series Jack Taylor on C5. At times it seems like a self-aware piss-take of the genre, with Ian Glen and his hushed dramatic voice and a scene in every episode where the title character takes a comedy beatdown. On the whole though, the mix between silliness and dark themes has proven very watchable over the last 3 weeks, and I'm looking forward to the new series later in the year and will probably pick up some of Ken Bruen's novels in the meantime.

Our family went away to Blackpool when I was about 16. We were in a pub one night and my uncle, who's half deaf so louder than he needs to be at the best of times, had had a few jars. In what he probably thought was his discreet voiced, he boomed to the rest of us that 'the bloke on the table behind is as bent as a nine-bob note'. My mam got embarrassed, refused to turn round and look, so he reiterated: 'he is, man. He's as camp as a row of tents. Look at him, in his shorts. He looks exactly like Michael Jackson'.

When we turned round, it was a woman. Turned out my uncle is nearly as blind as he is deaf.

Also my mam, to this day, thinks that 'black' is a more offensive term than 'coloured'.

I really liked the last episode of Derek, despite everything. Even despite the Coldplay song. Kerry Godliman's very, very good.

Does she play the woman who runs the care home? If so, I agree. It was a nice ending, but the show still bemuses me (the 10-minute Coldplay bombardment seemed like a regular occurrence in the episodes I've seen). Gervais's performance is terrible. Seems modeled on Timothy Spall playing that rat bloke in Harry Potter, the way he scurries about everywhere.

Would you not have just been bored and given up if the American one had done exactly the same things though? I'm assuming they're not different enough to be able to enjoy both as separate things.

Quite possibly, but I think you've nailed it with that second sentence. It's not different enough to be able to watch without referring to the original, but the changes they have made just come off inferior by comparison. I think it was some of the casting choices for certain characters that annoyed me the most.

Cheers. Does season one not end in a cliffhanger for season two? If I get that far and it does, I'll watch season two as well and then hate it (and you) like I hate Lost.

If you're still talking about the Scandinavian one, then no - everything involving the first case and most of its cast of characters is pretty much tied up at the end of the first season.

I think I'm one of the few who quite enjoyed season two, but it's very short and much more 'formulaic' than what we got in the first series. I can't really judge the American one because I kept making unfavourable comparisons with the Danish one and wondering why they'd made particular changes, and gave up on it after 4 or 5 episodes. It may be that I would've enjoyed it more if I hadn't already seen the superior one.

Just watched them discussing workfare on Question Time. Some Lib Dem woman called Susan Kramer, a baroness of all things, was lecturing about how, if she found herself out of work and down on her luck, she wouldn't hesitate to do the most menial of jobs for the most meagre of wages. Amazing the hypothetical work ethic some people develop when they know there's no chance they'll ever be unfortunate enough to find themselves in that position. Reminds me of those middle-aged blokes who've never seen a day of action in their lives, but think teenagers should be forced to do national service.

One thing Ive always wondered is about Test. Looking back at his career when Stone Cold got written out of the storylines why did Test never get booked in the Survivor Series to win the WWE Championship? He was obviously the most over choice how storylines had gone to feud with the game yet they gave Big Show the belt. Nothing against Show but Test was the better wrestler and very over and with Austin gone they could of easily pushed the guy into a Championship match at Wrestlemania if they wanted but just stuck him in a European title match at mania instead.

I think Test was pretty much in the wrong place at the wrong time. They seemed at a loose end with what to do with him after Russo left with the wedding storyline supposedly still up in the air, and once the plan was hatched to have Triple H marry Stephanie, there wasn't much they could do with Test except have him play the patsy (to be fair, keeping Triple H strong as a heel at that point was far more important).

Although Big Show's title run was total shite, I expect they still had pretty huge plans for him as a potential main eventer at that point, and thought the surprise title win might be the thing to get him as over as they wanted him. Didn't really work out in the short-term, but it's very hard to criticise much of the booking in that period. Plus I think Test pretty much found his natural level as a midcarder/tag-team wrestler.

I did read that they put an ad on Facebook for a 5th member to replace J though so I wonder if they will come out as 5ive or as 4our.

It will be Johnny Shentall or Andy Scott-Lee. It's ALWAYS Johnny Shentall or Andy Scott-Lee.

I loved 5ive, but I haven't got much time for a reunion without the best one. I always got told I looked like Big J when I was about 19, and even today I can do most of the raps on karaoke without looking at the screen. They made him out to be a prick on The Big Reunion, but I remember him coming across as a sound guy in the jungle a few years back. He was a bit of a misery, but in an endearing way, like Jason from the Jungle Cats.

I watched Charlie Brooker's Weekly Wipe last night, which included a section where he criticised people for beign rude about celebrities online. He didn't even include his usual self mocking. I know he hasn't done columns like that for a long time, since he suddenly entered the celebrity world and started feeling guilty, but this felt like a massive swing and a miss in presentation.

I hate all that 'I mix with celebrities now and they're all really nice people, so you should feel a right twat for anonymously pulling them apart like I used to'. He's far too self-righteous about that stuff now, which is a shame because modern 'celebrities' are more ridiculous than ever (as our very own Twatlist is testament to) and, more pointedly, it's the thing he's best at. I watched Black Mirror last year and on the whole found it pompous, pretentious and try-hard, aching to make a seminal point about society but in reality coming nowhere near close to being as incisive or entertaining as Nathan Barley.

Just seen a Youtube video of some fat mong having a fit and smashing his DVDs because The Rock beat CM Punk. Does anyone know where I can find that hilarious video from a few years ago of that kid who looked like Meatloaf shouting 'PUUUUUUUUNK!' at the camera after he beats Jeff Hardy?

Had to go for the Shoeshank Redemption. Honourable mention goes to Boydy attempting to fake his own death.

Never came across that one before. It's all the funnier because you can tell it's Boydy as he's so slow-witted that his web of lies crumbles like a shoddily-built snowman at the first hint of challenge.

I probably shouldn't be on this, because I'm pretty biased. However, I'm pretty biased, so I've voted for myself.

In my defence, I am fucking good at fantasy football.

A thread full of gentlemen and scholars, if I do say so myself, and I would personally tip my top hat to some of the people who have put a hell of a lot of work and personal time into either answering other people's questions or constructing the big participatory lists that are so much fun to contribute to, but must be a nightmare to manage - particularly ShortOrderCook and Harmonic Generator.

I've voted for Ronnie here, though, simply because of the sheer volume of knowledge he brings to the forum. His answers are always incredibly helpful and informative, and as such I'm going to try and transparently curry favour with him because I've no doubt I'll be pestering the hell out of him at some point over the next few years as I try to get into teaching languages.

The horrible post-horse bolting edit is the one reason I haven't voted for the shoe thread. It's like a horrible big gash across the Mona Lisa (and take that in any way you want to, as the analogy has the same effect).

I'm really enjoying the new (whisper it) ITV sitcom Great Night Out, starring Jez Quigley from Corrie and the bearded cop killer from Good Cop. As you'd expect from an ITV sitcom, it's not exactly reinventing the wheel, but, unexpectedly for an ITV sitcom, it's actually funny. Two episodes in and it's definitely my favourite new British comedy to appear in the last year or so.

The only kids' show I've watched since Cavegirl (which wasn't a kids' show at all, let's be honest) is Bear Behaving Badly - I don't even know if it's still going now. I'm a massive fan of the hilarious stammering caretaker/antagonist and his hapless plots to get rid of that b-b-b-bear.

I hate seeing TNA still giving potentially big angles to Anderson, but nobody makes me change the channel faster than Vickie. I can't believe she's still stinking up the place in 2013.

Cisse is fucking hopeless. You'd be better off looking for a Ba/Ameobi double.