People are really, very very stupid. They’ve always fallen for the oldest trick in the book and, wanting to eschew the popular kids and good-looking folk, they’ve adored those who trade in false-modesty. The ‘I’m crap like you too!’ brigade.

Then, best of all, when the facade slips, the falsely modest get a hot girlfriend and have the temerity to be happy and in love. This sends fans into a jealous slump, picking holes in the work of their former fave. They’ve changed! They’re not as funny as they used to be! How dare they hang around with celebrities!

In other news, Charlie Brooker is about to become a father to a shrieking baby with Konnie Huq who he loves more than all of you goons put together. Awww!

That’s right. Your daydreams of being able to prise Brooker away from Konnie Huq (you want to steal him because you ‘understand’ him more than a Blue Peter presenter could, right? You get him don’t you? Not like the rest. You properly, properly get him) are currently being defecated on as she harvests his child inside her.

That’s right! Charlie Brooker, the person you thought lived in perpetual darkness before his television, unhappy and distrusting of the world is actually a man who has a woman he loves, a very healthy bank balance, a man who enjoys running (he even wrote about how much he likes to keep fit!), a man who bought a Mac after saying he hated them, a man SETTLING DOWN WITH A CHILD?!

HOW DARE HE!

Next you’ll be finding out that, long before you started your inner backlash, Charlie Brooker isn’t nearly as awkward as his comedic persona! What? He met Chris Morris at a dinner party… eating sushi… surrounded by other celebrities… which saw Nathan Barley hitting our screens? THAT DOESN’T MAKE SENSE! WE LIKED HIM THEN! NO! HE DIDN’T! HE WAS AT HOME… ALONE… LIKE ME… ON THE INTERNET… CRYING.

Nope. Konnie will be having a baby in Easter apparently and her agent, Jonathan Shalit says:

“Konnie is telling friends how happy she and Charlie are.”

This must be awful for you. Simply awful. Just think of it. That bloke you’re really fond of has gone and betrayed you by becoming fulfilled and contented.

Terrible. At least we’ve still got David Mitchell who totally isn’t happily in a relationship with Victoria Coren, eh?

Holidays and mini-breaks.

Folded:

• The BBC (for having the good sense to show Point Break last Sunday as a Patrick Swayze tribute. Roadhouse next please)
• Slovenia (radical)
• Free Batman: Arkham Asylum downloads (only map packs, but they are gratis so stop complaining)
• Saturday morning at the movies (just you and the rest of the loners, but an entire screen nearly all to yourself. Don’t see Fame though, people will think you’re doing stuff)
• Charlie Brooker’s Gameswipe (He’s done it again, he’s made Bad Influence ’09)

Creased:

• Cheapo post-it notes (if they don’t say ‘Post-It’ on the back and they cost £2.00 for 400 then they won’t stick to anything more challenging than a flat horizontal surface)
• Dappy (one third of N-Dubz. The one with the hat. The silliest one, in other words)
• Ghosts ‘n’ Stuff by Deadmau5 (good track, if it didn’t have that bloke from Pendulum singing all over it. Unfortunately it does)
• Il Protagonisto (what Robbie Williams was planning on calling his new album. Seems like senility comes and goes for him these days)
• Cheryl Cole (started out chavvy, went all fit, now back to chavvy again. And as for that skid mark of a new single…)

Coke and Diet Coke.

Folded:

• You Have Been Watching (Charlie Brooker funnier than ever – back on blistering form)
• Comic Con (the geeky shall inherent the earth)
• Allison Janney (hilarious in Away We Go. Hilarious in everything really)
• 40 Years since the moon landings (because astronauts are still really cool)
• Polly Scattergood (Goldfrapp-lite, as recommended by our man Matthew Laidlow)

Creased:

• Next sale (everything may be half price but unless you’re a size XS or XXL there really isn’t much on offer)
• Nachos (crisps loaded with cheese and beef…and we wonder why we get stomach ache)
• Spoilers (especially those folk who can’t resist blabbing because they think it will make people like them more)
• People who let their dogs bark endlessly (though really you shouldn’t live in such a gypo area, should you?)
• Look out your window (…it’ll be raining. This wonderful country)

Every now and then we like to catch a virus just to mix things up a bit and remind our immune system that it still has a role to play in our continuing existence.

To keep things interesting, given that it is summer; we decided to go with the common cold. As males we know how devastating this can be, with days of unrelenting torment and an extra 15 minutes added to getting up rituals spent futilely pumping enough drugs and various homeopathic remedies into our bodies until we feel we can connect with the outside world.

We decided to hold on to this condition even for the duration of the maiden episode of Charlie Brooker‘s new vehicle which broadcasts tonight on Channel 4. That’s how brave we are.

For the dwindling percentage of you who are unaware of who this burgeoning legend is, we shall spoil you with a quick biography. Charlie began as a writer for PC Zone, the best (and possibly only) PC gaming mag at the time. Via various other endeavours including a website called TVGoHome he ended up as a columnist for The Guardian with a TV review section called Screen Burn.

This and his similarly named BBC4 show Screenwipe sees him scouring the airwaves for poor television and pulling it apart with his incisive and merciless wit. However, unlike us lowlifes, he precludes himself from the “oh it’s easy to criticise but not so easy to do” whiny bollocks because he does actually craft TV programmes too. He co-wrote Nathan Barley with Chris Morris, and was the creator of E4′s Big-Brother-zombie-horror-mini-series Dead Set.

His new show, You Have Been Watching, is somewhat of a departure from the norm for him then as it’s a quiz/panel type show. Not entirely. As the title might suggest, Charlie and his guests watch clips from current television programmes and critique them, and occasionally they might answer questions on them. Charlie provides his trademark polemic voiceovers during the clips which are very much in the style of Screenwipe, so you can rest assured that he hasn’t strayed too far from home.

His guests on tonight’s show are Richard Herring, Jamelia, and Rufus Hound. Funnily enough, the show was originally scheduled to be pre-watershed, but unfortunately the low cut of Jamelia’s top pushed it right back to 10pm. She may strike one as an odd choice for a panel otherwise occupied by comedians, but the girl done good (she did ok).

Tonight’s episode is worth watching for the clips of Deadliest Warrior if nothing else, that and so you can find out what a ‘one show face’ is.

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Thumbs up and down.

Folded:

• Body of Lies on DVD (unfairly panned during its theatrical run, this is an engrossing, if occasionally silly spy movie with a standout turn from Mark Strong)
• Dolce Gusto (if you like coffee you should have one of these already. Only sixty quid on Amazon)
• Buy up old Tin-Tin crap on eBay (because it’ll probably be worth a packet soon)
• Ladyhawke (the band, not the film. Definitely not the film)
• ‘Clunge’ (thank you Jay from The Inbetweeners)

Creased:

• Britain’s Got Talent (surely there must be one sane person left who doesn’t watch this tripe? Don’t give us that irony crap either, ‘cos rubbish is rubbish)
• Tassimo (£100 and loads of messing about)
• Pepsi Raw (‘Pepsi Rip-Off’ presumably never made it past the brainstorming stage)
• Charlie Brooker’s News Wipe (they’ve given him a bit too much leeway this time and he’s lost it)
• Compare the Meerkat (yet another example of advertisers trying to be all trendy and clever and instead having their clients come off like desperate buttcracks)

Michael Barrymore, Les Dennis, Shane Richie, Keith Chegwin, Bobby Davro, Bradley Walsh. What do they all have in common?

Their very mention triggers a feeling of drowning in depression? They’re cheap, tacky, polyester-suited, out dated Bognor Regis seafront entertainers? They are people who should never appear on television unless they are being pumped full of dry rice then offered a glass of water? Yes. Those things are all true.

Now, Law & Order: UK. The British (read low budget) version of the US hit drama on ITV1.

Charlie Brooker once said that appearing on BBC4 is like appearing behind a shed. By that same token, appearing on ITV must be like appearing from within a skip, viewed only by Wayne and Waynetta Slob, occasionally being interrupted by Mephistopheles who wants to help consolidate your loans into one forever insurmountable, endless, crippling loan.

L&O: UK (pronounced ‘low-uk’) stars Ben Daniels from Cutting It and Freema Agyeman who ably played Doctor Who’s assistant. In L&O: UK she plays an assistant to Ben Daniels’ CPS barrister. Every so often she trundles off to dig out a piece of evidence which was previously impossible to retrieve. She does this several times during the programme, suspiciously so. She must be a damn fine assistant, that’s all we can say.

Ben Daniels plays senior CPS barrister James Steel, a cool, shiny, hard man who melts at 1600°C. His character is overly compassionate for someone who would in all realism be dealing with many cases at any one time. In fact, the interest he shows for the victims which he will no doubt become noted for is very uncharacteristic for someone who would have become anaesthetised to all of the harrowing stories which amass in his to-do pile.

LO-UK also stars everyone’s favourite 1950’s window cleaner, Bradley Walsh. Bradley plays one half of a slightly hapless pair of detectives from the law enforcement group, the Metropolitan Police. The nice thing about DS Ronnie Brooks (Walsh) and DS Matt Devlin (Jamie Bamber) is that there is always time for a joke. Don’t let the fact that you’re investigating the circumstances around a dead baby being found in a bag get in the way of a good chuckle, is basically the message they want to convey.

Our favourite Walsh quote in reference to his children was “Other days, I’d have happily shook ‘em till they rattled.” We love casual references to child abuse here. We also detected a strange message that it is OK to leave a nine-month-old baby on its own. Kids grow up faster these days after all.

The huge lag between a police investigation and it finally getting to court are skipped without a mention in LO-UK, as is any sort of realistic time scale whatsoever – we can only assume this is an interpretation of US-style editing. Not a particularly good interpretation.

While it sustains a certain charm – which is most likely borrowed from the Beeb’s Judge John Deed – Law & Order: UK plays out more like a lighthearted version of The Bill than gripping crime/legal thriller. Not a particularly good interpretation.

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