Pioneer recently introduced a new range of plasma TVs to its already comprehensive line-up that they have on offer. I’ve been a big fan of Pioneer products ever since I started getting into Home Cinema when DVDs first appeared and given I’m now casting my eye on potential upgrades to my 32” Samsung LCD TV, these 50” Pioneer KURO Plasma TVs look very good! These limited edition models certainly add to the exclusivity of the Pioneer KURO models, in this case they feature white and beige cases and are just 64mm in depth! This way the case frames are distinctive, but shouldn’t be too distracting given the deep black colours that these TVs’ pictures offer. You may be wondering where Pioneer have got the name KURO from to name these plasma TV models – it’s been used as it’s...

…the telly. I’m mighty sick of telly programmes that are advertised as being a celebration of a certain person or act that ends up being 1% of the individuals in question and 99% talking bloody heads wittering about how they once met them or how much they loved them. There was two in particular over the holiday period, both caught my eye in the listings and straight away I set the timer to record them. First up was on Hogmany - “Toffee in His Pocket” - was a celebration of that bizarre but exceptional Scottish comic Chic Murray, clips of who you so very rarely see these days. Great I can sit through a half hour, minus ad breaks, of Chic’s stream of unconsciousness. But no, of the half hour there must have ended up being a whole five minutes of Chic in stand...

I see that David Tennant is now back on stage after having surgery for a slipped disc, but I am not at all surprised that he had back trouble after watching the Doctor Who Confidential programme that was on after the Christmas special. In that programme we saw him being dragged along the floor of a warehouse and strapped into a harness before getting hauled up the side of a building.  At one point I think he actually said something about ‘this can’t be good for my back’.   I hope he kept a copy of the programme in case he needs it for an injury claim against the BBC… Still not sure about that special though.  Was the giant cyberman just magnificent or was it a bit of shark-jumping?   I think they got away with it because it was a Christmas special and they...

Peter Owen Jones would seem to be the BBC's preferred representative of "faith". He was discovered about five years ago by the former head of religion Alan Bookbinder, who thought his "maverick" style would make theology as fashionable as history was at the time. Owen Jones began with fairly straight programmes on Christian history, but his series have become both more personal and (paradoxically, or maybe not) less Christian with time. In "Extreme Pilgrim" he spent time in a Buddhist monastery and an Indian village before undergoing what looked uncomfortably like a nervous breakdown in the middle of the Egyptian desert. Apparently he has a parish in Sussex, but given the extent of his TV work I doubt they see much of him.An undoubtedly engaging presenter, Owen Jones's appeal is not...

Doctor No 11Yesterday’s announcement on the BBC left me a little worried. Where did they find this guy? Playschool? Apparently not. Although he is the youngest Doctor so far at 26 (three years younger than Peter Davison who took the role in 1981), he is a fairly accomplished actor: Smith’s TV debut was in the 2006 adaptation of Philip Pullman’s The Ruby in the Smoke, which starred former Doctor Who companion Billie Piper as Sally Lockhart. He has also acted opposite Piper in the follow-up, The Shadow in the North, and in ITV2’s Secret Diary of a Call Girl. In 2007, he had a leading role in BBC Two’s political drama Party Animals, in which he played a parliamentary researcher. Smith’s stage work has included stints with theatre companies such as...

…as the new Doctor is announced on a special Doctor Who...

Lots of ancient music on BBC Four over the next few days… Tonight there is Prog at the BBC (Yes, Genesis, ELP, BJH, Caravan, etc. playing in the BBC studios in the 70s) followed by Prog Britannia (documentary). Over the next few days there is also Mark Lawson talking to Phil Collins, Genesis in concert plus the tour documentary, a Time Shift episode about prog rock and a 1974 film of Mike Oldfield playing Tubular Bells.  I think the V+ box is going to be busy this weekend - lots to record and watch when Mrs Skuds, who has much more modern tastes, is not...

After four years with no new episodes, I looked forward to seeing the Jonathan Creek Christmas special The Grinning Man, shown last night, but what a letdown it was!As always, no review, but some observations - although Jonathan Creek is a fictional character, like Sherlock Holmes, he is a thinker, and comes up with original thoughts towards solving impossible problems, but it seems over the last four years, he has become a bit of a f*ckwitt.How about these simple solutions;- Remove a floorboard or even drill a hole in one.- Using a stepladder look out of the window.- Or hang a rag out of the window then go into the garden and see where the window is.Heres hoping Jonathan Creek never darkens my screen again, genius to f*ckwit in one episode!If you feel you must watch it, here it is on...

I set the V+ box up to record Jools Holland’s Hootenanny on New Year’s Eve, and this afternoon I watched it.  This is far better than sitting through it in real time because you can fast forward through Duffy, Adele, Annie Lennox and any other junk.  In fact I skipped so much I must have managed to get through the whole thing in about 30 minutes.  Basically, the only bits I watched in full were the Ting Tings and the Quartet of Finnish harmonica players. I must have missed the announcement at the start though.  There must have been one: there always is when an understudy is used.  I imagine it said “this year the part of Roland Rivron is being played by Lenny...

I happened to be in the room when the latest Jonathan creek programme started and there was a website mentioned. First rule of t'interweb : make sure that your server for your programme related website can stay up when everyone goes to look at it within 30 secs of it being...

I was challenged, so… Ten things on TV that aren’t wank 1. South Park 2. The Wire 3. The X Factor (Mock me. I don’t care) 4. Stephen Fry 5. Top Gear (yeah, I know it’s fake) 6. EuroNews/al Jazeera 7. Charlie Brooker’s Screenwipe 8. Graham Linehan 9. The Simpsons (still relevant) 10. The Daily Show btw. I would have found Ten things on Radio 4 that aren’t wank much easier. Also, note the volume of US content. So much for the superiority of British TV. I could have added The Shield, Arrested Development, Entourage, The Office (US) and 30...

…Chrimbo telly. Rigsby receives his only Christmas Card in “Rising Damp” Click here to view the embedded video. …and The Morecambe & Wise show…with Mr Andrew Preview… Click here to view the embedded video. …and a classic bed skit… Click here to view the embedded video. …”he’s not going to sell much ice cream going at that speed”… No gurning ham who seems to have a red hot poker shoved up his aris, making you think that Colin Baker and Sylvester McCoy weren’t that bad after all. No programmes with the word “Celebrity” in the title, you know why it’s called X-Factor, it’s because they haven’t got that far to go before they’re Z list celebs. No hour long drudge of...

Ten things on TV that are wank… 1. The One Show 2. Soaps, especially depressing ones (which is all of them) 3. Anything starting with the word “Celebrity…” 4. Mark [fucking] Lawrenson 5. Bargain Hunt 6. Antony Worrall Thompson 7. The [fucking] Tweenies 8. News 24 9. Anything with Graham Norton in it, that isn’t Father Ted 10. My Family (ever since Nick...

I don't know - you wait for months for a Doctor to arrive and then two come along at once, but neither one takes you anywhere that you want to go! Perhaps Dr Who isn't suited to that...

Not bad at all. Hat-tip: http://padawanpooh.livejournal.com/453720.html (which has some other stuff...

Someone with too much time on their hands today (ahem) has lolcatted up the Queen’s Christmas message to the......

Crooked House part three was great, again, reminded me of the Hammer House of Horror TV Series, but this was far better!Mark Gatiss's three-part ghost story for Christmas reaches its dramatic conclusion with The Knocker, tieing all stories together. Back in the present day, Ben begins to discover that, though demolished, Geap Manor still casts a shadow.Having recently left his pregnant girlfriend, Hannah, for a life of freedom over cosy domesticity, Ben is captivated by the curator's stories and screws the ancient door-knocker to his new front door. But he soon finds himself getting more excitement than he bargained for as the past intrudes with a loud knock at the door and draws him back into Geap Manor's bloody past, and a terrifying conclusion!This part made up for yesterdays weaker...

Crooked House was not quite as good as last nights story, but still a pretty good story, it reminded me of the kind of story I used to see in The Hammer House Of Horror.Lady Constance de Momery presides over a lavish, glittering costume ball, which she is hosting for her grandson. Its the 1920s, bright young things throng the old manor house, but all is not quite as it seems. When young heir to the estate Felix de Momery announces his engagement to his sweetheart, Ruth, his grandmother seems uneasy about the match. Is her disapproval really a case of snobbery, as Ruth believes, or does the old lady have a more chilling reason to fear the prospect of a wedding at Geap Manor? Has a curse been released?Part three tomorrow night, I can't wait...

I love this show, and this is true...

Crooked House is a trilogy of haunting tales written by, and starring, Mark Gatiss.It opens in the present day. Ben, a school teacher, has recently moved into a new house and found a door-knocker in his garden. The local museum curator identifies it as having once belonged to Geap Manor, a now-demolished Tudor mansion with a ghostly reputation. Intrigued, Ben asks if there are any juicy stories to be told, and the curator obliges. He begins to recount stories of the manor's curious past.It's 1786, and Joseph Bloxham Esq is a self-made man and something of a star in fashionable coffee-house society. But Bloxham has used his ill-gotten gains to buy Geap Manor, paying no heed to the warnings of Noakes and his friend, Duncalfe. When Bloxham starts to hear ghastly sounds in the newly installed...

No, not the show or the result, but the reaction. The Strictly Come Dancing voting system for the final was made perfectly clear, and is perfectly simple. And the way in which the show works is that it is in the end down to the viewers - and the viewers wanted Tom Chambers (that guy from Holby City) to win, rather than Rachel Stevens (that girl who used to be in S Club 7) or Lisa Snowdon (that model who does that breakfast radio show). That is the very reason that John Sergeant managed to stay in for so long even though his dancing was so bad that it almost came out the other side. The final was decided entirely by votes - if Tom hadn’t been top choice of the viewers, he wouldn’t have got through to the final two; it was democracy in action. And if you watched the three show...

I’ve taken to watching classic comedies such as The Good Life (on now) and On the Buses, for two reasons: First, they are better than the rubbish ‘edgy’ comedy that the BBC pumps out these days. Second, the UK was in a much better state, and had better Governments then. Yes, even during the dark days of the Heath/Wilson/Callahan socialist/Europhile governments. Even they were better than Brown’s joke government. At least nostalgia (if that is the right word as I was born in ‘75) can cheer us up this Christmas.       ...

Well according to Barclays out in the States - Ad decline is twice as bad as we thought. Whilst the dreaded slowdown/recession is certainly worse than people first feared back in the early parts of this year (2008), bank behemoth Barclays announced advertising in the US is likely to decrease 10%, this is 5% up...

A lot of YouTube users don't seem to be aware of this video site veoh.com, I have found they have loads of Doctor Who Videos, plus loads of others.Doctor Who Search.Torchwood Search.Sarah Jane Adventures Search.Survivors Search.They seem to have a lot of TV programs!...

This from BBC News...Actress Majel Barrett Roddenberry, the widow of Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry, has died aged 76.She died of leukaemia on Thursday at her home in Los Angeles, her family said in a statement.The actress, who featured in nearly every Star Trek TV show and film, nurtured the legacy of the sci-fi series after her husband died in 1991.Full story here...Another version...

It’s not long since the Lost season 5 trailer was released which gave us some quick flashes of hints as to what direction the penultimate season of this infamously mysterious TV show, however you can now watch an extended Lost season 5 preview of a conversation that takes place between Jack and Ben about the island and John Locke. Given that the running time is around 1 min 42 seconds, it’s the kind of snippet teaser that we desperately want to see, but at the same time, absolutely hate once we come to the end of the 102 second clip of this Lost season 5 preview. From the preview, we can clearly see that Jack and Ben are now definitely ‘on the same page’ in terms of what they need to do, no doubt Ben will have his own reasons for helping and wanting to get back to...

Lists, lists, lists. Everyone doing ‘em, so why not me? The 2007 list is here. Best Record Kings of Leon - Only by the Night Well I can’t say I’ve been blown away by any one record this year, but Kings of Leon are making very good music. I actually think - shock, horror! - that there are some good pop records in the charts at the moment, too. Best Film The Dark Knight Well it was the year of the comic book movie. We had Iron Man, Hulk, Hell Boy II and Wanted (and those are just the ones off the top of my head. I’d say that Dark Knight wins out with Iron Man a close second. I also enjoyed Burn After Reading. Best TV Show The Wire - Series 5 The Wire is simply the best television programme ever made. Period. Best Book N/A I’ve read no new fiction this year. I...

…running this smug advert on the telly? Click here to view the embedded video. Because when you claim to have a common sense approach and a low risk profile and then have fun slagging off the competition while picking up your “Bank of the Year” award it might help not handing over 2 billion quid of your client’s money to some alleged Yank spiv running a pyramid scheme © Toxic Web Learn to play CLASSIC guitar leads ShareThis...

For those who saw Charlie Brooker’s Screenwipe a few weeks ago, this Amazon review for a print of Paul Ross should delight: I can’t recommend this picture of entertainer Paul Ross enough. I, like you, am an ardent fan of his effortless presenting style - the way he reads the autocue like a poet reading Wordsworth;...