Pop Star To Opera Star...Swoon. Slightly

I have just been *reliably informed* by the 12 year old, aka the showbiz correspondent of Trashsparkle Towers, that a new series of Popstar To Opera Star is coming back next month. And Midge Ure is going to be on it. One of my top early 80s crushes, he was. I'm a bit flustered now....;)

Turner And Marmite, All On The Telly

Oh the cultural highs I encounter these days... have just seen Michael McIntyre re-created out of toast and marmite. By a 21 year old art student. Roll on the next Turner Prize nominations...

Personally, I thought it was more like Peter Mandelson, but who am I to deny MM his moment in marmite?

And that led us nicely into hitting the toaster in the ad break, but our toast and marmite was for satisfying our suggested-to tastebuds and not for the cultural puzzlement of any mass Saturday night audience. Actually on the food front today I have been unusually inspired, and made savoury pancakes with chunky houmous and olives. Washed down afterwards with walnut cake. From a shop, not my own fair hands. But there was a certain harmony in the textures of said pancake-and-cake combination.

Going back to Turner, I watched the delectable Andrew Graham-Dixon, he of the slightly-Bryan-Ferry-coiffure-with-a-twist-of-Serge-Gainsbourg, doing National Trusty things last night. Very rock'n'roll, me. Watching some posh bloke (phwoarr) hovering old carpets. And on a Friday night 'n' all - how did it get to this? Anyways, the Turner bit of the show was the fact that the dusty carpet was at Petworth House in Sussex, where the racy aristocrats of the day collected Turner's paintings of landscapes. When to do so, AGD informed us, was considered avant-garde at the time, when all the other posh families were commissioning portraits of their chubby, rosy-cheeked selves.

And seeing as I'm wittering on about tv again, I am a little intrigued about the upcoming thing about celebs having a homeless person come to stay. Noble, and both parties will surely learn something about each other, and the celebs will momentarily become humbler people. But why is it only Justin out of Colin-and-Justin hosting the homeless person? Do C & J no longer feature as the tweedle-dum-tweedle-dee kind of duo on which they have built their career - house renovating, shrieking, cushion-arranging, tantrum-throwing... oh, and dancing? Is this Justin being Grown-Up and Serious? Does Colin also get to separately sneak in a homeless person later in the series? I think they've gone for the wrong angle with this programme - much more mileage if it was People Famous Mostly Just For Tarting Up Houses On The Telly doing the social-conscience bit. Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen, are you listening?

An Inappropriate Piece Of Television

My morning has been scarred! Its all my own fault. Last night I was watching Escape To The Country. Purely for geographical research purposes*, as my distant rellies come from Ceredigion. Learning to say and spell that is very celtic indeed. OK, thats enough ooh la la; the ancestors were, allegedly, from Aberystwyth. I say allegedly as the trail goes cold in South London, with a David Jones. Haystack, needle anyone? For all I know I could share dna with Tom, Gethin and Steve. What a deeply disturbing thought...

So, back to this morning... the 12 year old kicked me off blog-perusal as his computer was doing some Important Technical Stuff, and feeling a bit screen-deprived I swanned off into the front room and switched the tv on. Totally forgetting about which channel I'd left it on last night. I got a short, sharp burst of Groundforce. With it being cable it was before the infamous hissy fit from Alan Titchmarsh which preceded his departure from the series. Which meant it was back in the days before a stylist made him and dopey-but-loveable Tommy have Big Boy Haircuts, with gel and everything; they were still sporting their pre-fame Village Idiot haircuts.

Anyhows, better pick myself up from that untasty encounter and brave the women who will pinpoint my slovenly ways as being at the root of the teenage recluse's chaotic lifestyle




* though that Jules Hudson, with his clean little face and pink cheeks, is a bit of a fitty. Not my usual type at all.