Friday Night

I'm in on a Friday night in January. For the first time in ages I got home before 7pm and turned on the TV. I thought that January was when the TV channels started showing their ratings winning "shows of the year". Turns out I was wrong.

After watching the end of the BBC News and the beginning of The One Show (I turned over as soon as they announced some sort of local hero award about 30 seconds in) I found on ITV2 last week's Dancing on Ice. It was the last 25 mins and the Simpsons was coming on at 7.30 so I thought I'd watch it to see what was happening. I didn't see anything that made me think I'll watch it "live" this week - though I did think Heather Mills skating with her prosthetic leg was quite an achievement. Anyway then the Simpsons - which was as ever brilliant.

Next up was part 2 of Kevin McCloud:Slumming it on Channel 4. This was a really interesting and thought provoking programme about the slums in Mumbai. All credit to Kevin for going there and experiencing it. It was the sort of programme that really makes you appreciate your comfortable lifestyle. So that took me to 9pm.

You'd think that I would be able to find a good prime time show at this time -but no. From 9pm till 11pm instead of settling down to a proper TV drama or string of comedy shows I have channel hopped between the major (and not so major) TV channels barely finding anything to watch.

I am not a Big Brother fan. I watched in the early days but went off it about 5 years ago. Plus now I'm on Twitter I don't actually need to watch it as a lot of the people I follow tweet about it. I dropped in on Popstar to Operastar - which was OK - more in keeping with they type of reality show I do like (i.e. Strictly Come Dancing) however I'm not sure the title is accurate. Former Popstar to Operastar may be more appropriate. I must say though that the show is lent creditability by the mentors Katherine Jenkins and Ronaldo Villazon who are excellent singers, however, I can't see myself tuning in week after week as none of the "popstars" really did it for me and the one off Busted (or McFly) is gonna win because all his fans will vote for him (if audience reaction is anything to go by).

I even watched a bit of "How London Was Built" on the History Channel - mainly because it had been filmed close to where I used to work and I am a London geek. But that's not really that's not really what I want to be watching on a Friday night.

So we turned to Apple TV and husb played some random 80s tracks before at 11pm BBC 2 came up trumps with "...sings the Beatles". Really ace and entertaining and interesting to see how in the 60s and 70s a lot of the singers of the day had their own shows. In 40 years time there won't be anything like this for contemporary bands because our channels are putting our wall to wall reality instead of proper entertainment. I can't imagine "...sings McFly" can you? (well actually i don't even want to imagine that)