James Delingpole reviews television for The Spectator.
Before I get on to TV, can I tell you about my horrible health-scare thing, oh, can I, can I? Right, well I’ve been having this horrible health-scare thing and I’ve been out of my mind with worry — to the point where I’ve been saying, ‘Oh, please, God, let it just be cancer…’ Very
One of my ambitions this summer is to try not to see even the tiniest glimpse of Olympics coverage on TV. This isn’t mainly a protest about how boring athletics are generally; or about China’s human rights record. It’s more that my hatred of the modern world has risen to such a pitch that I’m
Have you ever noticed how the Islamist terror threat has been ridiculously overplayed by the government? I have. I’ll be standing with my kids on a crowded Tube, looking at the 20-year-old with the beard, the knitted cap and the classic Bin-Laden-style salwar kameez/combat jacket combo and thinking, ‘Well, he’s a lovely devout bloke from
My favourite part of Banged Up (Channel 4, Monday) — the new reality show in which juvenile delinquents get to spend ten days in fake prison so they’re never tempted to end up in a real one — was the bit where the other inmates discovered Barry was a nonce. ‘Oi, Bazza. Just dropped me
When I was up at Oxford, as I’m sure I’ve mentioned before, my deepest wish was to find a letter one day in my pigeonhole informing me that a distant relative had died and that henceforward I was entitled to style myself the Marquess of Wessex (or wherever), until eventually I inherited my dukedom. That
Bjørn Lomborg, the controversial Danish economist, tells James Delingpole that it is better to spend our limited funds on saving lives than on saving the planet Gosh, I do hope Bjørn Lomborg doesn’t think I was trying to pick him up. I’ve only just learned from his Wikipedia entry that he’s ‘openly gay’ which, with
Margaret Thatcher – the Long Walk to Finchley (BBC4) You don’t have to look very hard for signs that the Tories are going to romp home in the next general election. There was another one on TV this week: a drama showing Margaret Thatcher as an achingly sexy young woman who made fantastic speeches and
‘Stupid old bat.’ That’s what my father always used to say when Mary Whitehouse appeared on the screen, and the older I grew the more I agreed with him. What right had this ghastly woman with her horn-rimmed specs and silly hats and Black Country accent to stand between me and ‘the torrents of filth’
As budgets fall and standards slip, it’s inevitable that TV is going to get worse and worse and that the job of the TV critic in trying to shame the bosses into arresting this decline will become more important than ever. But this doesn’t make me feel happy. It just — like so many things
I’m always on the lookout for writers who’ve had well-paid, fun, fulfilled lives but I hardly ever find them. Jane Austen, for example. You’d think that the very least God would have given her in return for Emma and Pride and Prejudice would have been a single man in possession of a good fortune, a
In those distant days when I used to hang out on Facebook one of my favourite user groups was ‘I hate Catherine Tate and she shouldn’t be in the new series of Doctor Who.’ I don’t remember many of the members’ exchanges being particularly witty or illuminating, but then they didn’t need to be. The
According to a recently divorced friend of mine, the sex opportunities when you’re a single man in your forties are fantastic. Apparently, you don’t even need to bother with chat-up lines. You’ll be hanging about at the bus stop, or wherever, and, bang!, a flash of meaningful eye contact then back to her place for
Words you seldom hear at U2 concerts (or, indeed anywhere else): “If only Bono spent a bit less time in the recording studio and a bit more time on the international stage talking about global injustice, ah, bejaysus wouldn’t the world be a better place?” After last weekend, right-thinking Radiohead fans may find themselves in
Rather deftly, I managed to avoid all but ten minutes of the 3,742 hours of programming dedicated this week to the fifth anniversary of the Iraq war. I’ve no doubt that some of it was very well done — Nick Broomfield’s Battle for Haditha (C4), say; Ronan Bennett’s 10 Days to War (BBC1), which I
You have neat, slicked-back hair which never gets dandruff. You keep a pile of beautifully laundered white shirts stacked in your office drawer. You look great in your sharp suit and so does everyone else in theirs. The girls in the office are there to service your every need, and actually discuss with one another
Imagine (BBC1); Ten O’Clock News (BBC1); That Mitchell and Webb Look (BBC2) The Day of the Kamikaze (Channel 4, Monday) was really good, I’ll bet, but the Fawn wasn’t having it so I suppose I’ll have to watch it some other time on my own. She’d rather be watching some old rubbish like Ladette to Lady (ITV1),
When I was a boy my father and I used to spend our summer holidays collecting lizards. We’d prop a large bucket at an angle in a suitable spot, grease the rim with butter, put some rotting fruit at the bottom and wait for the lizards to get trapped. It’s the best way, otherwise they
You were probably expecting me to review Ross Kemp in Afghanistan (Sky One, Monday) this week but I’m a bit off Afghanistan programmes at the moment. Not to the point where I won’t watch them all the time to the exclusion of almost all else. Just to the point where, at the end, I feel
My resolution this year is to make huge sums of money, buy a vast country estate, surround it with a moat and spend the rest of my life hunting, driving fast cars round my private race track and generally trying to maximise my carbon footprint. At Christmas, I shall invite the poor people on to
Sorry, you’re not getting your Christmas present this year. Yes, I know what you want: one of those columns where I avoid TV altogether and just rant madly about myself for 800 words. Well, tough. It’s been one of the crappest, most hateful years of my life and, though I’m not holding you all totally
