The Shooting Stars night on Tuesday brought back so many brilliant memories, particularly of the genius that is George Dawes. As a bit of a tribute, I'm going to post as many George Dawes clips as I can find over the next few days.
Today's is from Tuesday night's show. As with many of these, Matt Lucas tends to lose it a bit if he looks at Bob Mortimer. Brilliant.
Following in the footsteps of Flava Flav, old skool rapper Coolio looks like he's had to resort to reality TV. Is that part of Gangsta's Paradise? Whether he'll be bringing that fat chap LV along to provide substance is not clear.
Coolio - Hats off.
Lembit Opik
Sian Lloyd-dumping, Cheeky Girl-humping, paraglider-bumping (look it up) Leicester City fan and Lib Dem MP Lembit Opik will not be bringing his crooked grin to the house according to today's Sun, but I have seen it mooted, so it's good enough for me.
The leaning lear of Lembit
Steve Strange
Celebrity Scissorhands stalwart and 80s weirdo Steve Strange is absolutely determined to have a nervous breakdown on television. I'll give him three days, which will be stretched to three weeks of piss poor jokes by Scott pissing Mills.
Strange and Mills - Funny strange or funny haha? Neither.
Bobby Brown
Whitney Houston's husband is, according to the Daily Mail a few days ago, set to grace the Big Brother house with his troubled presence. I can't really see him being bothered to be honest, but it's his prerogative.
Bobby Brown - What have I done?
Paul Michael Glaser
Face from the A-Team was in it last year, so why not Starsky? Probably because the Daily Mail has mentioned him, and look to have plucked a load of names out of the air. He has done panto though, so he must be on the skids.
Paul Michael Glaser - Doesn't own Manchester United
Verne Troyer
Mini Me! One of the stars of the short-lived Shasta McNasty, Verne Troyer will be well worth having on and it seems bolted on that he will be. Apparently they're installing smaller stairs. Superb.
Verne Troyer - Big shoes to fill
Terry Christian
Dani Behr's former co-host on The Word, meaning that Hufty will be on the next big reality show. I completely jinxed Dani Behr from winning I'm A Celebrity Get Me Out of Here, so I might back Terry Christian to win Celebrity Big Brother.
I won't be publishing saucy pictures of him. Christ no.
Terry Christian - Hopefully not the twat he's made out to be.
Ben Adams
So one of A1 gets to be on Celebrity Big Brother, but one of Northern Line had to go on the normal one? Where's the consistency?
Here's how famous Ben Adams is: When The Guardian ran their Celebrity Big Brother Preview, they labelled the wrong member of A1 as Ben Adams. Superb.
Apparently he had a go on Jo O'Meara.
Ben Adams - Centre
Tommy Sheridan
A Scottish Politician who, from what little I've read of him, sounds like a bell end.
Tommy Sheridan - May or may not be a bell end. Don't care.
Ian Wright (Wright Wright)
Speaking of bell ends, Ian Wright might be involved, although I can't see even Big Brother inflicting him on people. He'd have to talk about something other than talented footballers who aren't his son, and he'd have to put some socks on. It would be good to see him in an argument with Terry Christian though. Or trying to get into Ulrika.
I don't know, to be honest, but, if you can't wait until tonight, here's a run down of all the names I've seen linked:
The Girls
Lucy Pinder
A decent bet that she will be in. I don't read lads' mags anymore, yet I am still fairly certain that I have seen Lucy Pinder's breasts more than I have seen my own.
Lucy Pinder - I hope she'll find some clothes that fit her by tonight.
Given that she's already more successful than the likes of Chanelle Hayes and Chantelle Houghton, and that Celebrity Big Brother hasn't really boosted anyone's career in a major way (it's much more of a destroyer), I can't see a motivation beyond short term cash.
I'm fairly certain I've never heard Lucy Pinder speak.
Ulrika Jonsson
I'm having issues with Ulrika Jonsson in the last few days since I was reminded that, while she may have become celebrity comebucket extraordinaire, she was also part of Shooting Stars.
Apparently she's getting more in the way of bunce than anyone else, but that always happens and never makes any difference. We'll get to see if she has as good a sense of humour as she's supposed to, and whether Stan Collymore was particularly impatient or not.
Ulrika Jonsson - doing what she does best
Mutya Buena
The one who left Sugababes. No not the ginger one. Yeah her with the tattoos. Constantly rumoured to be a bully during her girlband career, Mutya has stalled a bit in the solo stakes despite actually having a decent track with Groove Armada. I reckon she will be in there and I reckon she might be fairly sound.
Mutya Buena - Check your wallet there's a right shifty character behind you.
Michelle Heaton
I'm not entirely sure if Liberty X have split up or not, but Michelle Heaton is clearly trying to strike out on her own.
A bit marooned as a celebrity since she unceremoniously binned Lisa Scott-Lee from Steps' brother, Andy. No stranger to reality TV, it having made her and all, I can actually add some good personal insight on Michelle Heaton. I once stood near her at a party, and she was: a) very clumsy and knocked a load of champagne glasses over, and b) appeared to be made of corned beef. I shit you not.
Michelle Heaton - clumsiness perhaps explained by corned beef composition
Paula Hamilton
Yeah, me neither. This chick apparently:
Oh right. That'll be nice. Who puts a personalised reg on a Volkswagen Golf?
Tina Malone
Mimi Maguire from Shameless. If there's a new series coming out, a good bit of cross promotion from Channel 4, if a little shameless. Sorry. Sorry about this picture too. Bloody Mika.
Tina Malone - "Big girls are...oh."
Sherrie Hewson
From Loose Women and every soap ever. She really gets on my tits and I bet she's a right neurotic oddball. Get her in there.
Sherrie Hewson - As if she ever looked like this. From a theatre programme. Probably
LaToya Jackson
Apparently one of the contestants has been pulled out because of worries over their sanity. We won't be seeing LaToya Jackson then.
When I was a lad we used to go drinking in a bar in Bolton called Bergeracs, where the beer was a quid but the lights made it look green. They used to have a tiny TV in the corner that showed LaToya Jackson porn. It was a sad day when they changed it to music videos.
I saw this place while I was doing my Christmas shopping in the Northern Quarter in Manchester. Unfortunately I didn't stick around long enough to see what was behind the shutter. Ideally someone with a massive face.
Kathy Griffin, who often features in shows like Family Guy and Seinfeld and strikes me as a fairly odious individual, features in this clip from CNN's New Year coverage.
This clip is remarkable, to me, for two things. The more cerebral part is that there are Facebook messages running across the bottom of the screen throughout CNN's coverage. Thi is way ahead of the 'text in' equivalent on the UK news networks like Sky News and BBC News.
If you think about it, increasing use of, as I am now, a laptop in front of the TV means that using a (moderated) Facebook group or Twitter thread makes much more sense. Making viewers pay to give their opinions will surely become outdated in 2009, particularly in light of the scandals surrounding phone-in votes.
I'll be keeping an eye out for early innovations of this type on British TV. I'm mildly optimistic that Celebrity Big Brother, which starts tomorrow night, could experiment with a couple of social media angles. Even I'm A Celebrity Get Me Out of Here was on Twitter, for Pete's sake!
The second, and more obvious, thing about this clip is the absolutely stonking insult Kathy Griffin throws out to a heckler when she clearly thinks her mike has gone dead. I know it probably counts as a quote of 2008, but if I hear a better insult from a ginger woman in 2009 than "I don't come to your work and knock the dicks out of your mouth.", it will have been a good year.
