When hecklerspray do reviews, it’s usually of a national institution like the X Factor, The Apprentice or Nick Knowles Dusts The Natural History Museum. It’s very rare for us to see something on television and write about it unless it’s likely to spawn pseudo-celebrity targets for us. Why is that? We’re not a TV website.

It’s pretty much as simple as that.

Still, that brings us around neatly to Comedy Central’s brand new situation comedy Threesome which starts next week on the channel which actively encourages “Two & A Half Men”. Still, let’s not hold that against Threesome, which is the very first British sitcom to be commissioned by the channel.

Or should we? Let’s face it. A channel that bases so much of its daily programming in repeats of Two & A Half Men and the second worst sitcom ever made (Everybody Loves Raymond) surely won’t be able to make a sitcom that’s passable as anything more than a “cheap Coupling” or a “rotten Outnumbered”, so why should we provide them with any platform for their terrible programming decisions.

And yet… it was Comedy Central’s US parent that brought back Futurama.

Swings and roundabouts.

So now that the argument of bias against the network is neatly packed up into Charlie Sheen’s coke-case and dispatched to a forgotten part of the Colombian rainforest, what of Threesome? Does it stand up against the usual, painfully unfunny dross that spews forth from the urethra of British television channels like televisual kidney failure?

Yes, it does.

That is to say, it’s actually quite good. It’s sometimes easy to write off small group comedies as being a format that’s almost impossible to find new direction in but Threesome takes one night of drug-sodden lust and makes it the basis for a witty comedy which is both intelligent and utterly juvenile in equal measure.Ha

Having three 29 year olds living a life that is often the staple of this kind of comedy is a risk in the first place. The urge to switch off before even getting to five minutes is strong as you watch Richie, Alice and Mitch bounce around their lives like MDMA-riddled spinning tops, alternating between hungover and absolutely off their tits like a grown-up version of Skins. Quite literally on acid.

In saying that, the rapid characterisation of the first third of the show is a calculated risk in a show where one needs to make an almost instant connection to the characters. There’s no building up a like of the three friends. If you can’t find anything remotely likeable in them after ten minutes then turn off, go and make yourself a cup of tea and then tweet about how there aren’t any good British comedies any more while you pick flecked tissue out of your nose.

Given that the press shots ruin one of the few surprises in the show, prepare yourself for a spoiler. It’s a pregnancy story. The real question will be, after a strong first episode, will the characters fall into ‘comedy pregnancy’ stereotypes and lose their way in jokes about breastfeeding and Epidurals. The hope is that they won’t but the danger looms, omnipresent in every word of the last five minutes of the first episode and leaves the viewer praying that Threesome doesn’t end up shitting its undoubted potential up the wall.

The fact is that despite the accelerated characterisation and seeming flippancy of one of the most important events in the series, Threesome is a diverting half hour. It’s well shot, doesn’t rely on a laughter track and is well paced, not trying to cram too many jokes into a half hour and letting the situations provide the humour. Look out for Mitch going the wrong way up an escalator to see what we mean.

You can have a watch of episode one before its premiere on Comedy Central and decide for yourself. You don’t even have to have Sky. Which is nice.

Here’s some clips of the show:

No eye contact, no cock touching

Putting up flatpack furniture on drugs

Today would have been Amy Winehouse’s 28th birthday, but as you know, she passed away and joined that grotty bedsit in the sky known as the 27 Club.

Before she parted, she recorded a duet with Tony Bennett (ten times the singer Frank Sinatra could ever be, thanks to being able to sing 20 notes, rather than Blue Eyes grand total of two), which proved to be her final recording.

Now, on her birthday, the record has been released and you can have a listen to it over the jump. It’s actually very, very good (which is rubbish for us who would like nothing more than to be nasty about it).

The duet, Body and Soul, will see its profits going toward the Amy Winehouse Foundation which of course, was set up by Amy’s father Mitch.

That also launches today, and aims to help other people struggling with addiction and, naturally, Amy had her troubles with that.

Mitch is adamant that his daughter was clean at the time of her death though.

He said:

“Through her own determination, she stopped taking drugs three years ago. I’d been speaking about that for the last three. No one would listen to me. They thought she was still taking drugs. She was clean for three years. But clearly the drugs did take their toll.”

Gah. There’s not many opportunities for jokes here is there? Let us just listen to the song and swim in its loveliness.

Perhaps notice Tony Bennett’s creosoted skin too.

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You read that right – Amy Winehouse wants to solve your problems on the radio.

Even we don’t have to go in to much detail about the potential arse-up that this could bring to the innocent people of London. Granted, there are a few cockney people like the So Solid Crew and Danny Dyer who we’d like to exterminate but that’s another kettle of onions.

We have our own plans for those individuals and don’t want Amy Winehouse to jump in and spoil our fun.

Unless you only read The Financial Times and have only stumbled upon hecklerspray through mistyping something in to Google, you won’t know who Amy Winehouse is.

In a nutshell, she’s a girl with tattoos who sings songs by other people, has her Blaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaake locked up in prison and occasionally dabbles in drugs. Actually, the term “hunting down every dealer in London to eat up their stash of pills and powders quicker then a bear hunts down salmon” comes to mind.

So how is she getting this potential gig? Let us explain.

During the billion previous times that Amy falls over and starts dribbling up pink liquid with chunks all over herself, it’s up to her father Mitch to tell the media all about it. Was it heroin, lighter fuel, crack or some twat spiking her with ecstasy that caused this latest set back or trip to the hospital?

Whatever the case, you can rely on him – kind of like the world’s worst superhero, to deliver the news.

Obviously not immune to publicity thanks to all the speeches he’s had to give on his moronic daughter’s health, he has been offered a co-host job on BBC Radio London whilst another professional twat Danny Baker buggers off for a caravan holiday.

Frankly, we weren’t amazed to learn that he was offered the job after being a guest so many times on the show. There are other reasons, which were probably that he was a) a cheap replacement, b) someone to give live updates on Amy’s health and most likely, c) a fill in while the producers go about exploiting Barry George for airtime.

Despite being literally told to bugger off from recording studios, taking drugs or touring Amy couldn’t contain her excitement about being in our faces again. A source told Heat:

“Amy has always been nifty with the advice. Although she often gets herself into pickles, she is very honest, very caring and very perceptive when it comes to dealing with other people’s problems.”

Erm…if she’s that good then we’d like to ask a few questions on her current well-being. It’s not exactly what we’d call peachy. Skeletor-like figures and the inability to walk straight isn’t exactly the look we want to see in an agony aunt-authority.

But could you imagine the sort of advice you’d get on one of her radio spots?

Caller – “Hi, I have this small pain in my arm – what should I do about it?”

Amy – “First I’d ring Blaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaake. If he didn’t answer I’d neck a bottle of painkillers to numb the pain. If that didn’t work, I’d down about half a bottle of vodka and see the GP in the morning.”

Nothing about Amy Winehouse causes us to bat an eyelid anymore. Like an old, crippled drunk in a pub we can say “we’ve heard all the tales.” When she releases a make believe autobiography telling her story of sharing an underground prison with an elf and a talking jar of strawberry jam caused from a drug hallucination – then we’ll get curious.

To be fair, anyone can get on the radio and offer advice to messed up kids and confused adults. Kelly Osbourne manages to scrape through the Sunday Surgery on Radio One most weeks. And she used to be addicted to drugs and booze too, so with Amy on the radio, she wouldn’t really be the first.

At the moment, drug stories are a bit boring. Well apart from the one Heath Ledger and Mary-Kate Olsen.

Yesterday brought the news that Amy Winehouse had decided to take a stroll to the hospital.

It wasn’t because she finally realised she was slowly destroying her insides, it was simply down to having a crazy reaction to the medication slowly digesting in her stomach.

Many people have placed bets on her dying before the end of the year due to her body slowly fading away and her apparent ability to always be pictured with a ciggie and a can of Superbrew.

Yesterday saw a couple of people prematurely attempting to cash in that betting slip, but they were wrong to do so – those good people at the NHS managed to fix her up with some sticky tape and drinks straws.

It’s now surfaced that she’s returned to hospital and her ever-suffering father Mitch has told us what caused her freakout. It was indeed an issue with drugs, but not the good kind. Oh no!

Mitch claims that Amy’s drink had been spiked with ecstasy, causing the young crooner to react violently. It has to be said, hecklerspray loves hearing that excuse from pretty much every person who is sick after a weekends drinking (why do you think Stu is off?). Of course the seventeen pints of lager and no food didn’t make you sick. It was a little white tablet that made you look the village idiot. Again.

But did an ecstasy tablet really cause Amy Winehouse to go in to relapse and bring her a bit closer to death? We all have to remember that she eats drugs like Smarties and drinks heroin like Ribena, so surely this wouldn’t have bothered her? If anything, her body was rejecting the drug because it wasn’t up to the usual standard of getting her wasted and reducing her to walking around in her pants.

Normally when Winehouse does get off her tits on pills, crack, heroin or anything else she can wrap her lips around, she starts screeching for dear hubby Blake. It will probably turn out that this time her harpyish screams have been curbed by Blake appearing in her dreams, telling her to battle on. Or something like that. She’s sure to make up some crap, so long as it isn’t straightforward or normal.

A source told the pack of journalists permanently outside Amy Winehouse’s (wine)house:

“Mitch is furious. He’s certain someone put E in Amy’s drink – and he’s determined to get to the bottom of it. He is convinced that one of her hangers-on was responsible and he’s waiting for a toxicology report to show what caused her to have a fit.”

This is just another story in the long line of drug related problems for Winehouse. For her it’s just becoming more like real life, and if anything we want to see another celebrity from the world of music flip out like a crazy fool on drugs. Remember the moon face man from Keane? He tripped off his man tits on the old white powder, apparently, but still managed to remain totally dull.

We hope Dougie from McFly is a secret glue sniffer, or at least a fan of poppers. He’s in a band, so they must have done something extreme apart from give their album away in the Sunday Mail. Or is that classed as hard for them?

Amy Winehouse used to be a healthy, fit women, whose only ghastly features were the tattoos that made her look like some sort of burly transvestite sailor.

However, heavy drinking and smoking have alarmingly made her thinner, sicker and a bit more violent. Oh, and there’s the drugs. You can’t forget about the drugs.

Anyway, all of this combined might be about to kill her, her Dad says. Who’d have guessed?

It’s been fairly well documented that Amy Winehouse has dabbled in the occasional drug. Despite the pleas of her family, friends and her record label, she still manages to flop around aimlessly and collapse in a heap for photographers.

After attempting to play Glastonbury and partaking in a bout of bare-knuckle boxing, Amy Winehouse’s health is reportedly in sharp decline. She was diagnosed with chronic lung disease emphysema last month and her long-suffering dad and messenger boy Mitch has warned that she could face a long and painful death.

Digital Spy reports:

“I want people to understand; even if they give her one cigarette they’re causing her harm. We would be talking about a very slow and painful death, gasping for air. I would like to say to anybody who would supply her with substances to think about that.”

Uh-oh, sales of Benson & Hedges are set to rapidly plummet following this announcement. Surely, Amy will take this advice seriously and not partake in the occasional smoke.

But, then again, that’s like trying to convince Manchester Utd that we’d be a suitable replacement for Ronaldo.

Of course, this story would be nothing without an appearance from Amy’s Blaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaake. We know that’s not how you spell it, but we think ‘Blake’ is just a cover name. Anyway, Mitch Winehouse must be dreading the day that Blake is released from prison, because he’s thought to be the one who got Amy in all this trouble to begin with, right?

Nope. Mitch claims that once Blake is released from prison, he will go straight to rehab, clean up his act and become a scout leader and sell cookies to old women. Once again, he said:

“I’m quite old-fashioned and I believe that love can conquer anything. I believe they can have a happy ending, I really do believe that.”

Maybe Amy and Blake can become a modern day Romeo And Juliet? Picture the scene! In their scabby Camden flat amongst the used needles, vomit and spewed-up blood, the loving couple can lie together in each others arms as one slowly dies from a smokers cough. Shakespeare would be proud.

Believe what you read and you'll think that Amy Winehouse's lungs are nothing more than gunk-filled peanut-sized husks that barely work at all.

But that's all nonsense – even though her father Mitch spent the weekend telling anyone who'll listen that Amy Winehouse has been struck down with emphysema, it actually turns out that Amy hasn't so much got emphysema as might get it one day in the future if she doesn't stop smoking – something that could probably be said for all smokers everywhere.

Curses! Now our Amy Winehouse Disease Bingo card is all messed up. Quickly, we'll need a bucket of monkeypox and a dirt-resistant syringe. Stat!

We know it's half a year away, but we're going to save up and get Mitch Winehouse some celebrity parenting lessons for Christmas. Lord knows he needs the help.

Take Dina Lohan or Joe Simpson – they know that the way to get your daughter to the top of the pile is to mercilessly promote them to within an inch of their lives, to blame the media for every single one of their failings and to occasionally tell the world how delicious their boobies look. Mitch Winehouse does the exact opposite of this.

You see, whenever some weird new fate befalls Amy Winehouse, it's always Mitch who winds up blabbing to the press first. And not with standard-issue denials, either – Mitch somehow usually manages to sneak in a reference or two about how utterly effed Amy is. For example, not so long ago Mitch wanted Amy Winehouse to go to a mental hospital – which is obviously either a giant overreaction or something any parent would do upon learning that their child had deliberately befriended Pete Doherty.

And then there's the emphysema. Yesterday everyone was all 'oh no, Amy Winehouse has got emphysema ' thanks to a frantic, dry-mouthed interview about oxygen masks and 70% lung capacity that Mitch Winehouse gave to the Sunday Mirror this weekend. Now, however, it's a completely different story.

Turns out that Amy Winehouse doesn't have emphysema after all – she's got the easily-reversible first traces of something that could potentially lead to something like emphysema. The sniffles, basically. E! Online has more:

The singer's rep is saying that the 24-year-old Brit does not have emphysema, as her father told Britain's Sunday Mirror over the weekend. Rather, she has "early signs of what could lead to emphysema," rep Tracey Miller said Monday. "Amy really hasn't got emphysema" … Mitch told BBC Radio 1 today.

Thank heavens for that – for all of Amy Winehouse's tabloid notoriety, it'd be tragic to think that one of this country's brightest musical talents could no longer perform because she suffered from a degenerative lung disease. Not being able to perform because she's constantly spazzed off her chump on weapons-grade narcotics is fine, but not lung disease. Heavens, no.