How to become a TV chat show host...

...Austrian style.

OK, I know Austria has been taking some stick in the international press for the past month or so for being a haven for psychopaths and other assorted wackos, but OK, I think I've seen it all now.

Not long ago, to be able to front any sort of show on television or radio one had to have certain qualifications. You had to be a journalist, author, a recognised critic, or an expert in a certain field. Think of Brian Walden, the Dimblebys, Frost, Parkinson, Aspel. And Gordon Ramsay, lol.

These days you can get on TV on the back of any alleged claim to fame. You can be a "Wag" like Coleen McLoughlin. You could get your tits out, like Jordan. You can even have a sordid affair with a footballer, like Rebecca Loos.

But all of these examples pale into insignificance when one hears that Natascha Kampusch, the Austrian girl who was kidnapped at the age of ten and held in a cellar for eight years by a psychopath, is to front her own new show, Natascha Kampusch meets...

What next? "Abductee" Shannon Matthews to host her own show on bedroom furniture? Kate and Gerry McCann to host their own show on modern parenting skills?

What a bunch of Donuts

USA - News from the USA, Dunkin' Donuts have pulled an online advert because of a scarf incident. A new online advert which featured a celebrity chef sporting a scarf that has certain similarities to a Palestinian Keffiyeh has been removed from the site. Apparently they have received numerous complaints that the advert offers symbolic support for terrorism.

Just a few points about this:

1. OK who is visiting the Dunkin' Donuts site, OK I get that corporations need an online presence (I'm a web developer and if they didn't I'd be screwed) but who actually visits the site. Do people go on there to check the latest donut flavours, or pre-order their donuts so that they don't have to get out of their cars once they get there. In fact this kinda makes sense, the same morons who would frequent Dunkin' Donut's website are probably the same people who would think this was supporting terrorism.
2. OK I've never hear of Rachel Ray (I'm in the UK) but apparently she is an award winning TV chef...that's where the problem lies, what the hell is a chef doing endorsing a fast food chain. It would be like Gordon Ramsey doing an advert for McDonald's (sporting a full on Osama beard no less), while Jamie Oliver is down the street filming an advery for burgerking in a kaftan.
   
3. Finally, what the hell! Who is stupid enough to think this is supporting terrorism, it is a commercial for an American capitalist corporation get over yourselves. The scarf in question only bears a few minor similarities:

• It is black print on white fabric...so is my table cloth
  
• It has frills...so has my table cloth
• It can be worn around the neck...so can my table cloth (if you wanted to)
• It's a SCARF!...OK my table cloth isn't a scarf but please, please, please America get some common sense.
  

The thing that really gets me about articles like this isn't the people who made the advert, or even reported the news of it being taken down. It's the politically correct people who have a terrorism radar that goes off on the slightest hint of anything related to the Middle East. In fact poor Rachel Ray is probably in Guantanamo as we speak being played really loud music, and having her photo taken with some American service men and women. They will only let her go once she tells them where she got the scarf, where Osama is hiding, and what she was doing on September 11th.

Free The Donut One!!!!


Oh and by the way it is spelt Doughnut

The Cats Out of The Bag George

The Sun reports that George Galloway is set to sue The Bill (yes you heard right the TV Show). This is all to do with a corrupt politician that he believes was based on him. Hang on, is it me or by saying this, is he saying he is a corrupt politician.

This will surely get laughed out of court, although good old George must be used to the laughter following him ever since his brief stint as a cat in Celebrity Big Brother. Although he is such a muppet that he probably thinks people are laughing at his jokes rather than at him.

So a quick similarity check between George and this character in The Bill:

• One has connections to Iraq, so does George.
• One represents an East London borough, so does George.
• One is a corrupt politician, the other is....a TV character who was supposedly corrupt (I didn't see the show in question).
• One dressed as a cat on a high profile reality television series, the other one probably has more common sense.
  

I take my hat off to them, oh I can't...ah well better leave it on then

OK the Metro reports today that graduate hat throwing has been ruled 'dangerous'. For those of you that don't know, when graduating from University in the UK you wear ceremonial robes, these include a Mortar Board, a hat that has a hard flat top . It is a semi-tradition to throw this hat high in the air to celebrate graduating (I believe a similar tradition is performed in the sUeSA the home of the lawsuit, either that or films and television been deluding me all this time...hell according to US television it is even done when graduating High School.).

This is health and safety gone mad someone has clearly been over thinking things if they think that 'the corner of the mortar board may hit someone as it falls'. Yes it may hit someone but the worst it will do is give them a reason to go ouch, or maybe humorously over dramatize their injury a la Peter Griffin. Which makes me think, perhaps the person who thought up the rule was a victim of mortar board abuse as a child. Did they once walk past a dangerous graduate gang, who while brandishing their diplomas subjected this rule maker to a mortar board barrage, that left them crippled and bitter........probably not, most likely they are just lacking any common sense.