Paperjam

There was precisely fuck-all special about most of the Christmas telly schedule, but my frightening and vengeful God, we were looking forward to political satire-thing The Thick Of It.

Brutal. It's the only word for it really. It's possibly the only programme on telly (apart from Channel 5's "The Girl's Guide to Sex", which would merely be revision, anyway) that makes paper-jam Jim wish that the aerial socket in his flat wasn't just connected to a pigeon's arse on the roof.

If you haven't seen the two, oddly short series 1 and 2 (3 episodes each, both out on DVD this spring) - it's from the twisted mind of Armando Iannucci, who has described it as "Yes Minister meets Goodfellas". Which is spot on. Except there's more swearing-per-square second than "Goodfellas", or almost anything. And it's quality swearing.

Don't let anyone, including my parents, tell you that there is too much swearing in it. That's titwank.

Chris Langham who plays/played the slightly rubbish junior minister is, ahem, away on gardening leave while they work out what exactly he's been up to in his spare time with those photographs and some children.

This episode was meant to focus more on the opposition, but as ever, it's all about the brilliant, scheming evil Malcolm Tucker, played by Peter Capaldi. Tucker won't use one swearword where twelve will do, and he relishes every single one of them.

In this episode it's actually Jamie, his Scots assistant, that's even more harsh, asking Peter Mannion (Roger Allam, on form) "were you the forced abortion, or the lovechild? Or the guy that asphixiated himself with a kiwi?". He also excels himself with a particularly graphic description of the unusually forceful method he would use to play a colleagues' iPod.

Everyone is either a colossal shit or twisted out of shape by the bullying and general brutality. There's a surprise ending, and hopefully it'll lead to a quick full third series (um, with 6 episodes this time, please?) including the opposition, especially Roger Allam, who plays a wonderfully confused shadow minister.

It's repeated Wednesday 10th Jan at 10pm on BBC4, and Late Review presenter person Mark Lawson interviews Iannucci afterwards.

More info over at ye old BBC, and some naughty (shh) clips of previous series over at Youtube.

Now, you'd think that TV companies would be keen to let you know what is on their channel at a given time. Here are our programmes! You should watch them, they're really great!

But Broadcasting Data Services, bless their misguided cotton socks, have decided to quote the Broadcasting Act 1990 and threatened Andrew Flegg's ace bleb.org with Bad Legal Stuff, saying that he should be paying royalties for republishing BBC and ITV listings.

Flegg pointed out that the BBC publish XML listings through their Backstage initiative for free reuse, so they've backed down on the BBC listings, and now Flegg cannot publish the ITV listings.

All seems a bit daft really. I don't know about you, but I could barely give a fuck about ITV programmes - they need all the help they can get. Having said that, it sets a precedent - and I'd encourage you all (yep, both of you) to sign the petition over at Petitiononline.

This is the first year that the BBC have put the French Open fully onto their red-button interactive service, and I've been loving what little I've seen of it.

One of the noticable differences is the occasionally dizzying French camera work, zooming and panning away skywards before a crossfade into the next shot. They're also oddly keen on this (possibly vintage 80s Quantel Paintbox?) effect, where they superimpose a black and white shot of a tennis player above the court - seen above from the Massu/Federer match. It gets slightly more disturbing when, from a high aerial shot looking down on the court, they superimpose the returner's face on the court in front of the server.

However the commentary has made me want to stab myself in the ears - with Sam Smith and John Lloyd engaging in excrutiating mid-Atlantic conversation ("Thirdee-love to Federer"), and repeatedly referring to Federer as "the best player in the world" like a broken record. Well, maybe he is, but not on clay. Wait 'til he comes up against the improbably muscular Nadal.

John Lloyd is the fool the BBC get in when Becker is at home with scaffolding round his hair being serviced by young ladies. Looking forward to Michael Stich on Radio 5, and the usual Becker bizarre-ness throughout Wimbledon.

Third time lucky for Adam and Lee's TV podcast, and we have some reviews of The Armstrongs, CSI:New York, Charlie Brooker's Screen Wipe, The Wire, and Keen Eddie on DVD, which sounds pretty good actually.

Here's the link - Adam and Lee's TV podcast.

Here's the second installment of Adam and Lee's TV podcast, full of swearing and pain.

This week they have a pop at the televisual trepanning that is Hotel Babylon and the annual joy that is Making Your Mind Up, the pre-Eurovision Wogan-fest that features various desperately grinning soon-to-be-ex-popstars dredged from yesterdays Top 40.

Also they dig through the wonder of the Armstrongs (swearaholic Coventry couple own double-glazing firm and somehow manage not to go out of business despite drowning in ineptitude) and the relative series lengths of Ally MacBeal and Boston Legal. Is it 17 episodes? Is it 22? Gawd knows!

Needless to say there's lots of swearing and full-blown Coventry accents, so watch out for that.

Over at Filth and Saving the World, our compatriot and lyrical postman Howe2 discovers Austin Stevens (...not Steve Austin), the South African photographer and renowned snake molester, currently doing roaring business on UK TV on Channel 5. Howe2 says:

> He bounds through dense, humid jungle upsetting various brands of reptiles by picking them up sometimes with tongs and almost certainly with a big stiffy...

...so what does this involve?

> All of this involves gripping the snake by the tail and using a set of litter pickers to grip the furious, highly dangerous snake behind the ears and froth to the point of explosion about it's fabulous scallyness and large pointy, serrated fangs, that i'm confident will smart if he sticks his face within striking distanced.

And it's great stuff. Less relentlessly chirpy than that other reptile-fancier, Steve Irwin, Stevens goes about his task with absurd relish, springing from on high to surprise a snake which is clearly not expecting a fondling from a crazy South African.

Emma the cynical wife looks quizzical all the way through, while I'm just grinning like a fool. She's thinking - how does the camera crew get there? Our crazy Austin is all on about being almost out of food, and being really lost - what are the camera crew doing? Are they just laughing at him inbetween mouthfuls of Kit Kat and Monster Munch?

Austin Steven's Adventures is on UK TV on Friday nights at 8pm, Channel 5. Here's a link to the Austin Stevens fansite, with the oddly homoerotic Flash animation (Austin, wet and dripping, shirt half-off, man-handling a whopping snake - I ask you...).