Robert Hampton

If they ever do a new version of Catchphrase, Mr Chips could actually be a contestant:-

IBM’s supercomputer Watson has trounced its two competitors in a televised show pitting human brains against computer bytes.

After a three night marathon on the quiz show Jeopardy, Watson emerged victorious to win a $1million (£622,000) prize.

The really worrying thing here is that Jeopardy usually uses a “returning champion” format where the winner comes back the next day to play again. That computer could conceivably play indefinitely, winning thousands of dollars every day. After a few years, it would own most of the world’s wealth. And then you have all sorts of problems – can a computer open a bank account, for example?

I, for one welcome this development, and plan to enjoy the few years I have left before the inevitable day when robots overthrow human civilisation.

Obnoxious Tory-boy Jeremy Hunt has outlined proposals for new local TV stations which would serve cities and conurbations rather than the larger areas covered by the current BBC and ITV regions.

Hunt was supposedly inspired by America, where city-based TV stations are the norm. But the idea isn’t new: for a brief period in the late 90s, Liverpool was blessed with not one, but two local channels available on cable. This seemed to be a reaction to the perceived Manchester bias of BBC North West and Granada Television, with the Scouse chip-on-shoulder exploited to maximum effect.

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July brought big changes to the newspaper industry, as The Times started charging for access to its web site. This was supposed to ensure a steady income stream for the newspaper, putting it on a secure financial footing for the future. However, it also resulted in the Times being completely removed from the online chatter of the blogosphere, as its news coverage and columnists were no longer accessible to the internet hoi-polloi. Still, I’m sure this decision made sense to someone somewhere.

The Supreme Court ruled that gay people facing persecution are entitled to claim asylum in the UK. I welcomed the decision, although my blog post is curiously vague about precisely why I welcomed it. Hmm…

In other gay-related news, I reviewed, with sadness, a booklet from the US Military discussing its anti-gay don’t ask, don’t tell policy.

Elsewhere, health and safety went mad as one person suggested banning rugby scrums. I felt uncomfortable on a train full of Orange Lodge marchers and I defended the traditional sitcom from an onslaught of criticism from trendy TV reviewers.

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What a year 2010 was! It had twelve months, each consisting of at least 28 days. On some of those days I made blog entries. Here are the highlights.

I began the year in January fretting about an alleged Crystal Maze remake starring Amanda Holden. This story fortunately turned out to be utter bollocks. Ginger people again proved that (yours truly excepted) they have no sense of humour or perspective. Britain experienced a deluge of snow, and Merseyrail impressed everyone by soldiering on throughout, a feat which they would surely repeat next time we experienced awful weather… right?

I finally joined the Wii owners’ club, just as the console stopped being cool. My rekindled love for video games did not result in me getting rickets. I also celebrated my first Twitterversary and cautiously welcomed the iPad.

I also took time to blog at length about a US comedian no-one has heard of over here, illustrating my post with YouTube clips which have now been removed for copyright infringement.

In more serious matters, the Haiti earthquake occupied people’s thoughts as a humanitarian catastrophe unfolded in the devastated country.

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I love the BBC, but when it comes to gay people (and news about gay people in particular) they still have issues.

In a news story about Sir Elton John and David Furnish becoming parents, the BBC included a comment from Stephen Green of Christian Voice criticising the move.

The BBC presumably included Green for the purpose of “balance”, to avoid giving the Daily Mail and Jeremy Hunt more evidence that it is pursuing a left-wing agenda. But why give airtime to someone whose views are far outside the mainstream? Stephen Green has supported a proposed Ugandan law mandating the death penalty for gay people and compared H from Steps to Jeffrey Dahmer.

Would the BBC interview Nick Griffin if a Pakistani couple adopted a baby? Good grief.

In the early hours of New Year’s Day, the plug will be pulled on Bravo, a TV channel deemed surplus to requirements in the new bountiful Sky-dominated future.

These days, channels come and go with regularity (did anyone shed a tear or even notice when UKTV Bright Ideas disappeared?) and a closure usually gets little attention beyond three paragraphs on Digitalspy. Bravo is slightly different, however, as it is one of the few channels to survive from the very early days of cable TV.

Bravo launched in 1985, predating even Sky by about four years. The channel was very different to the Bravo we know and “love” in 2010. My family got cable installed around 1991, so I can just about remember the first incarnation of the channel, which showed nothing but old black and white movies and TV shows. Several relaunches later and all that is long gone, but perhaps for old times’ sake they could get out the tapes of Torchy the Battery Boy to fill the gap between Sexcetera episodes?

A quarter of a century later and it disappears with a whimper at 4am on January 1st. It’s a shame, but still not as sad as when TCC closed down in 1998. I still miss that channel.

The BBC’s daytime soap Doctors has been around for over a decade, but I can’t say I ever noticed it, until yesterday.

Tipped off by a post on *ahem* Famousmales, I scurried over to iPlayer to download the latest episode of the show. I strongly recommend you do too — and if you do, please confirm to me that this blog post is accurate, because I had a couple of drinks after work last night, and am therefore not 100% sure that what I saw on screen actually happened.

Let’s start with the programme synopsis itself, shall we? It’s shrunk in the wash slightly – click to enlarge it.

No, seriously – that IS what it says on the BBC web site, I have not doctored it (hoho!) in any way.

The show starts normally enough, with the regular title sequence showing what I assume is the regular cast doing various medical soapy things. 25 seconds later, that’s over and done with, and any pretence of decorum is abandoned. Strap yourselves in, it’s going to be a very strange ride.

(Seriously, I do suggest you go and watch it yourself before reading on. SPOILER ALERT and all that)

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I’m not sure what to make of the news that “Simples!” has made it into the Collins dictionary.

Some people are speaking about this as if it marks another step in the decline and fall of our civilisation. Really though, it’s just another example of the power of advertising to infect the public consciousness. Aleksandr Orlov could soon in the same league as the Milkybar Kid and the Smash Martians.

To anyone who is offended by the ads (especially that Guardian columnist who claimed they were racist) I say: relax, it’s just a 30 second clip that you can fast forward through on Sky Plus anyway. Just resist the urge to punch those annoying people who say “Simples!” in real life, and everything will be fine.

Having said all that, releasing a book for Christmas might be taking things a bit too far…

I successfully resisted the urge to use the phrase, “calm down dear, it’s a commercial!” — oh…

In 2007 the BBC announced plans to up sticks and move a large number of departments and staff to MediaCityUK in Salford. The Sport and Children’s departments are moving en masse, along with Radio 5 Live. It was recently announced that BBC Breakfast will follow suit.

I think it’s a great idea. I love the BBC but the corporation does have a bit of a blind spot with the north of England, and relocating to Salford could go a long way towards redressing the balance and ensuring that the corporation better reflects all of Britain. Also, I went past MediaCity last year and even in its half-completed state it looked absolutely incredible. I can tell it’s going to be a great place to work.

The move has not been without its critics and the corporation has been accused of wasting money. The Daily Mail — with their long-standing antipathy for the BBC and scorn for anywhere outside the Home Counties — have delighted in stories about presenters who dislike the move and executives who won’t relocate.

The latest person who is reportedly not moving is Breakfast‘s Sian Williams, although she told the Manchester Evening News that for her it is because she does not want to uproot her family, rather than any perceived problems with working in the North (in fact she worked on North West Tonight for five years).

I’m not too upset about Londoners refusing to relocate: it would be preferable for there to be a real infusion of local talent. What’s the point in spending millions building expensive new facilities in Salford, only to fill them with people from down South?

I appreciate that people do not want to uproot their families, but it appears that some people are genuinely concerned about lack of quality of life. Well, it’s their loss — “The North” is not some depressing hellhole of flat caps and whippets. There is no sign across the M6 as you head up from Birmingham, reading “Abandon Hope All Ye Who Enter Here” (although if you have to go as far as Morecambe you may see one). Our cities are smaller than London, but they are every bit as civilised and cosmopolitan. We have sushi bars and gay people up here too, you know!

Also, the wonderful Gordon Burns should be main presenter on Breakfast after the move.

I like sitcoms with live studio audiences. There, I said it.

In some quarters, this admission will land me with Cliff Richard fans and bus-spotters in the credibility stakes. However, I think that those who automatically dismiss studio sitcoms as a relic from the past are missing out on a treat, and I shall try to explain why.

The mainstay of television comedy, from the fuzzy black and white era right up to the late 90s, was the studio sitcom. Shows such as Hancock’s Half Hour, Dad’s Army, Fawlty Towers, The Young Ones, One Foot in the Grave and Father Ted are fondly remembered by successive generations.

The audience sitcom has gone rather out of fashion in the 21st century, however, with the arrival of the “realistic” comedy in the shape of shows like The Royle Family and (of course) The Office, with a rather more subtle style of humour than the larger-than-life characters and farcical situations favoured by most traditional sitcoms.

In Extras a key plot point was the crap sitcom When The Whistle Blows, a show whose success seems to entirely revolve around the lead character’s spouting of a lame catchphrase week in, week out. By the way, is it a coincidence that this show-within-a-show seems quite similar to Dinnerladies?

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