TDS

I’ve been having a running debate with my brother over my love of The Review Show. He is of the opinion that it is pretentious, boring and altogether interminable. I agree entirely, but in a perverse way I think that it’s exactly the kind of thing BBC2 should be devoting fifty minutes of its schedule too. Admittedly I have been a keen follower of the programme throughout its various forms, and have especially fond memories of Tom Paulin being very dour and Northern Irish on the original... Read Full Story

I’ve been thoroughly enjoying the music of Giggs for some time now, having stumbled across his frankly terrifying no-budget video for Talking The Hardest whilst procrastinating on Youtube. What sets him apart from other ‘urban’ acts like Chip Monk and Dizzy Rascal is his hypnotically slow vocal delivery, and overt gangsta style that has more in common with American hip hop than UK garage or grime. It’s with some amusement that I’ve witnessed people getting their knickers in a twist over... Read Full Story

Crikey, Mock The Week has gone off the boil since Glaswegian comedian Frankie Boyle quit. I’m not a knee-jerk kind of person but after five episodes of the new season it’s time to admit that the show is desperately missing Boyle’s dark, caustic one liners that coursed through MTW like a virulent strain of off colour chuckles. Boyle has courted plenty of controversy since first appearing on the show and if reports are to be trusted his charmingly titled new Channel 4 vehicle ‘Deal With... Read Full Story

The noughties have generally been a good decade for horror films. There have been bona fide B-movie classics like Dead End and Planet Terror, alongside utter dreck like Snoop Dogg’s Hood of Horror. Yet perhaps most interesting aren’t the extreme highs and lows of the genre but the weird little movies that have popped up somewhere in the middle, having zero impact upon the public consciousness whilst doing good business on DVD and cable television. I love these kind of flicks, in fact give me... Read Full Story

I hope I’m not the only one deeply unnerved by Knorr’s recent stock pot adverts starring top chef Marco Pierre White. White made a name for himself as the youngest chef to be awarded three Michelin stars and went on to mentor bullying cunt and map faced tyrant Gordon Ramsey. Unsurprisingly these two alpha males have since fallen out, with Ramsey turning himself into a shouty mainstay of crap programming and White retiring in 1999. White’s seminal cook book White Heat has been cited by... Read Full Story

24 is back on our screens (in my case an illegally downloaded rip on my computer screen) for season eight and it’s great to see it back. As the only TV show I’m aware of that has been referenced by the torturers at Guantanamo Bay as inspirational, 24 is a thick juicy slab of right wing propaganda that is as deliciously decadent as it is devilishly delightful. The genius premise of a day in the life of CTU agent and all round hard bastard Jack Bauer played out in real time never ceases to... Read Full Story

What we have here ladies and gentlemen is an uncanny treat that manages to delight, disgust and dumbfound in equal measure. Castle Freak is the tale of, you guessed it, a freak who lives in a castle. That’s it. Yes there is a bit of plot thrown in to sustain the movie’s 90 minute running time, but to be honest it is simply a well meaning distraction from the pure grubby joy of watching a rank, withered mutant stalking around an old castle, getting up to mischief and generally fucking with... Read Full Story

Kitchen Confidential author and gastronomic rabble rouser Anthony Bourdain is our guide on a culinary voyage across the globe in search of authentic regional delicacies. Looking like a taller, thinner version of I’m Your Man era Leonard Cohen Bourdain is the antithesis of the boorish American abroad, respectfully rolling up at street side stalls, people’s houses and anywhere else he can scran what the locals scran. Although he sometimes indulges in high end dining, as on his trip to London... Read Full Story

In my time I have sat through some truly awful horror movies but feel I have to talk about a mesmerizing piece of trash I caught on the cable channel Zone Horror a week or two ago; 1994’s Lurking Fear. I was so taken by the films terrible special effects, lack of continuity, vague allusions to Lovecraftian mythology and diabolical acting that I felt compelled to give it a second viewing. The badly dubbed opening scene of two sisters squabbling in a dilapidated hotel room brings to mind... Read Full Story

Last week I had the misfortune of catching an episode of Dr Who on BBC3. Well, I was actually trying to read Truman Capote’s true crime masterpiece In Cold Blood but the intrusive soundtrack and screeching dialogue emanating from the TV kept drawing me from my book until I capitulated to the direness and sat in slack jawed amazement at what now passes as entertainment. The episode in question seemed to concern diet pills of some description that turned into little baby-like creatures made... Read Full Story