Sex With Professor Alice

Well, the CD player is already purring with the best of Barry White and I’ve placed scented candles at strategic locations around the bedroom so that the reflection in the mirrored ceiling is warm and arousing. I’ve got champagne on ice, rose petals on the pillows and even a specially scented ice cube to do that “9½ Weeks” thing should she request it. I’ve even flung a copy of Nessa Carey’s “The Epigenetics Revolution: How Modern Biology is Rewriting Our Understanding of Genetics, Disease and Inheritance” under the pillow just in case she’s up for a bit of post-coital research. Although hopefully it will be mid-sesh research and not post-coit; I am, after all, planning to perform all through the night.

I just can’t make up my mind between traditional white satin sheets or eezee-kleen black rubber… It’s so hard to decide. I mean one minute Professor Alice is all prim and proper like a prefect out of Mallory Towers and the next she’s like an attractively geeky love-elf out of… er… The Two Towers.

*sigh*

You can tell I’m nervous, can’t you? This has been on the cards for so long I’m in danger of exploding right here and now. I’ve wanted it for so long. Dreamt of it. Wrote of it. And then deleted what I’d written in case her lawyers ever discovered it. But finally it’s happening.

Sex with Professor Alice Roberts*.

I must admit I’m a little disconcerted that it’s being televised next Wednesday on BBC4 at 9pm. But hey, at least it’s after the watershed so I’m guessing she’s going to dispense with the camisole and may even slip into some science approved lingerie. And I accept it is for the sake of scientific research and not just for pleasure (though I mean to ensure there is plenty of the latter – and for Professor Alice too).

But even so. I’m looking forward to it.

She’s so coy, that Professor Alice. No hints or thinly veiled euphemisms. Not so much as a single flirty text let alone asking me out on a proper date. No, just thrusting it into the BBC programming schedule and trusting that I’d pick up on it; that I’d get the message.

Well, I have.

Professor Alice is presenting a programme about sex next week. And as sure as 2 plus 2 makes 4 and nucleic acids plus various proteins make the building blocks of life Professor Alice and I are gonna make lurve. Yeah yeah, I know it doesn’t mention me in the Radio Times but that’s just to prevent the press from camping out on my doorstep and putting Professor Alice off her vinegar strokes. And I know some of you think I am just hopelessly delusional and am reading far too much into a tiny synopsis printed in a TV magazine but I KNOW, OK? I KNOW in my heart that this is going to happen.

It’s all my birthdays and Christmases come at once. It’s the moment I have been angling and pushing for on this 'ere blog for at least 4 years.

And it’s finally all coming together. Just like me and Professor Alice, in fact.

So don’t spoil it for me.

Just tune in, shut up and watch. You may even learn something.

Just sayin’.

*wink* *wink*


*Sex: A Horizon Special: Wednesday 11th September, BBC4.

No More Merlin, No, No, No!

So the BBC’s Merlin closes its doors on Camelot for the last and final time on Christmas Eve.

After 5 series that have been smash hits all over the globe the Beeb now feels it is has “teased out all it can” from the Arthurian legend and it is finally time to knock the myths and magic bandwagon completely on the head.

No more Colin Morgan and his magic jumbo ears.

No more Bradley James and his pouty swordsmanship and swishy nipples.

No more Angel Coulby cinched so tight into improbably tight dresses that her kidneys grind up against her back teeth.

And worst of all no more Katie McGrath spilling her gloriously pale and fulsome décolletage out of impossibly black dresses as she icily stares wanton evilness over all who dare to cross her gaze.

I find the BBC’s decision unfathomable and unpalatable.

Even without the enticing lure of Katie McGrath’s curvy cleavage of evil bouncing across Camelot’s ferociously defended borders and causing fruity mayhem and musky spillages among the goody-two-shoe knights the BBC can’t fail to have noticed that Merlin has been rather good for their revenue stream.

In these days of financial hardship and the tightening of belts I find it inconceivable that any kind of corporation would willingly cut off a single cash supply. Oh I’m sure Merlin costs millions to make – the sets, the locations, the lingerie, the tight security around Katie’s Winnebago that repulsed my siege engines of love countless times... but I bet you it recoups twice that in international TV rights and DVD sales without breaking a bank manager’s sweat.

“Teased the legend out as far as we can?”

What rot.

There’s loads more they could have done. Loads. I mean, Christ, I could write them a few episodes by next week – provided they were willing to overlook the incongruity of Katie McGrath shod in leather and fishnet stockings sitting astride a vibrating waterbed.

She’s a high priestess of the old religion, for Heaven’s sake, there’s bound to be perks.

Seriously though I find it very sad. Merlin started off a bit too whimsical and kiddie-friendly but then magically matured into a glorious sword and sorcerific drama that restored my faith in the BBC after its appalling run with Robin Hood a year or so earlier.

And now some mealy-mouthed TV exec has drawn up the portcullis on one of the most popular shows of the last 5 years without batting an eyelid or even newting a toad. Or something.

Idiots.

On the bright side though it does mean that when I part with my cash for the Merlin boxed set I know I’ll be getting the complete and entire production output. Unless, of course, they run with my idea for a Christmas special next year (but that all depends on Katie learning to pole dance by then)...

*sigh*

Saturday nights just won’t be the same.

You’ve given me one hell of a sword, BBC, but taken away the stone I liked to fantasise driving it into.

Curse you!

Gag

Blogs. I wrote a few. But then again, too few to mention...

Well. That’s not factually true.

Since I began this on-line journey into the egotistical sublime back in the heady days of 2006 I’ve managed to rack up a mind-numbing 920 posts. I’ve been pretty darn consistent too. 3 posts a week for much of it, covering a wealth of subjects that have ranged from TV shows, politics, news events, social issues, home life and whatever doe-eyed beauty off the telly that I happened to fancy in any given moment.

But most of you won’t have failed to have noticed a gradual tailing off of productive output. A creative brewer’s droop. A distinct lessening of literal vitality.

My Bloggertropolis mojo is all but spent.

It’s time to draw a line beneath, put an end to and snuff out the guttering candle that is Bloggertropolis.

Oh hush your wailing. The end has been nigh for months now and the writing has been on the wall for longer than that.

The rot for me began when my blog was outed and touted by those who know me in real life (as opposed to just virtually). Without going over old wounds it caused upset and strife and made life difficult. Mostly for me (and I have to say my life is the one that I’m most concerned about). Certain subjects became taboo. Certain emotional chakras were suddenly blocked. Despite my best efforts I found myself gelded and my teeth pulled and a whacking great gag shoved into my mouth. Sure I kept going. Kept the writing production line rolling. Desperately tried to search out loopholes and ways round the restrictions... but euphemism and metaphor can only express so much.

Suddenly I woke up and found that Bloggertropolis had lost its bite, its bile and its balls (though thankfully not its alliteration).

I had become the blogging eunuch.

As much as it has tickled me to be a thorn in the side of so many for so long I have to admit to myself that the pale reflection this blog has become is now more of a thorn in my side than anybody else’s. Simply because it is not doing what I want it to do nor allowing me to express myself in the way that I would wish.

So, my old muckers, mateys and fellamelads, ‘tis time to say goodbye. Time to sign off and let the blogging underwriters evaluate my creative credit. I have other projects planned. Some of them not involving world domination or getting into Professor Alice Robert’s handsomely scientific knickers. Some lucky few of you will receive an email from me soon describing ways in which we might stay in touch.

The unlucky few can kiss my blogging ass.

This is how my blog ends.

Not with a bang (alas). But with you whimpering.

Women On The Telly Who You’re Not Meant To Fancy But I Do, Sort Of (Part 2)

After the very successful Part 1 of this impromptu series I thought it was time to broaden the playing field somewhat with a well timed Part 2... So here we go...

1) Anna Maxwell Martin

It was Anna’s Little Dorrit that first caught my eye. A little mousy in the early stages, constrained by Dickensian reserve, but then the wallflower became a sunflower and Anna blazed across the screen with a wonderfully plummy red-haired glow. From there on she has staked a major claim in period TV drama and looks as divine in tweed as she does in whale-bone. I think what I like about Anna is her slight, almost imperceptible lisp. It should distract a little from her actorly enunciations but actually it doesn’t. She sounds as polished and as vocally rounded as the head girl from Mallory Towers and as up for a midnight feast as the best of them (with lashings of cream). I don’t know what it is about Anna – she has an “auntie” feel about her even though she’s not particularly old. I feel like she should be an auntie to somebody. Anybody. Preferably me. The kind that waits until you turn 18 and then seduces you in black lingerie and turns you into a man.

We’ve all had that fantasy, right?

No? Just me?

Was that too weird? Oh well, never mind.

Onto number 2) Sarah Millican

I think it’s the accent. Geordie or Mackem, I’m not sure but the way she says “pet” makes me wants to sit up and beg. And I like her glasses. Big, bold, glasses that say proudly, “I am wearing big glasses and I’m proud of it – none of this John Lennon steel-rimmed nonsense that disappear into your face; I’m wearing chunky framed glasses ‘cos I’m as blind as a bat without ‘em. Deal with it. Pet.” And I like her smile (which for some reason I find reminiscent of Morrissey – yes, bit of an oxymoron there: Morrissey and smiling but run with me on this one please). And I like the fact that she’s big. She’s a big girl. A big real girl with an anti-size-zero metabolism. And she’s funny. But never in a nasty way. There’s something unassuming about her and yet she does stand-up comedy. There’s a possible conflict there but it kind of works. And she strikes me as honest and homely. A proper girl next door. The kind that, if you asked her to lend you a cup of sugar (a) it would actually be sugar and none of this Canderel bollocks and (b) she’d throw in a couple of teabags as well and possibly a couple of well sized baps from Greggs. Dinner and a show. Who could ask for more?

And baps lead me nicely onto number 3) Mel Giedroyc

Oh Mel. Mel Mel Mel. In my twenties I worshipped at your student-chic shrine. I loved Light Lunch. I was working part-time and used to be home in time to watch it religiously. Mel & Sue (Perkins) were my ultimate two-girl fantasy. But much as I adore Sue (and I do adore Sue) it was Mel I could see myself setting up home with and having babies with. Now, of course, after disappearing off our screens to set up home and have kids with someone else (Mel – how could you? I was here for you, woman!) she’s back on the telly once again in The Great British Bake Off (were my baking trays sub-standard, Mel? Did I not knead my sour-dough hard enough for you?) accompanied by the gloriously quirky Sue Perky. Look at Mel’s eyes. They are perfect. They are eyes that the phrase “limpid pools” was invented for. So soft and kind and yet sparked through with a naughty sense of humour. And she likes cakes. She loves cakes. What is there not to love? Mel can batten down on my Battenberg any day of the week. Mel, it might be a good decade since I was in my twenties but still I dream of being baked off by you. And I bet you have a gorgeous little AGA to boot...

So there we have it. Three more unlikely but not so unlikely (when you think about it) sirens who I think are some kind of wonderful. This post was brought to you not in a spirit of gratuitous sexual gratification but in the spirit of celebrating real women and real womanhood. I haven’t done it for me. I’ve done it for you. I’ve done it for feminism and women’s lib and equal opportunities.

I’ve done it for...

Oh sod it.

I’ve done it for sexual gratification and equal opportunities.

So Sue me. Sue me good and proper.

(And yes, that means you, Perkins.)

Women On The Telly Who You’re Not Meant To Fancy But I Do, Sort Of (Part 1)

1) Monica Galetti.

Anyone who has ever watched Masterchef will know that Monica Galetti is Michel Roux Jr’s senior sous chef and right hand man. Literally. She is like the personal body guard to the godfather of food. This woman spends 90% of her time looking so fierce that she’s more of a serious Sioux chief than a senior sous chef. You mess up that jus or crash that ganache and this woman will have your trembling gonads plucked and par-boiled in a white wine reduction before you can say egg chips and spam. I have seen professionally skilled contestants on Masterchef quail and gnash their teeth when faced with the warrior palate of Monica Galetti. This woman does not pull her punches. This woman knows culinary karate. Offer her a dog’s dinner and she’ll fillet you in the most painful way possible. I suspect that even Michel Roux Jr himself is secretly terrified of earning Monica’s stinging disapprobation. But when a chef gets it right, when a contestant delivers the dog’s bollocks then one word of praise from The Galetti Machete is enough to reduce the hardest, toughest chef into a bubbling soufflé of sheer pleasure.

This woman is undoubtedly high maintenance. She is exacting and demanding and expects perfection every time. That would be enough to kill most men. But what a way to go. Because there is just something about Monica that does the business for me. There is something of the Amazon about her (and I’m not talking about express delivery and better DVD deals than Play.com). She is athletic in her brooding intensity. But I suspect that away from the harsh get-it-right-first-time plate-‘em-up pressure of a 2 Michelin star kitchen Monica is something of a Cadbury’s Flake eating Pre-Raphaelite fairy. Sort of floaty and into water colour painting and tantric yoga. Needlecraft and cushion making. The sort of woman who secretly wants to defer all decisions to a big hairy tattooed brute of a man.

Oh who am I kidding? It would be Monica on top every time with a carving knife against your throat and a garlic press up against your testicles. This woman cooks and, yes, I mean that euphemistically as well as literally.

Chef, I say, chef?! I think my custard has set!

2) Ruth Goodman.

I am, if I’m honest, hard pressed to state why I think Ruth Goodman is quite attractive. But I think she is. Yes, she has a pointy orc nose. Yes, her teeth are not perfect (but neither are mine). Yes, she is so freckly she must have the melanin levels of an entire Mediterranean country. But she has something that makes me go “Hmm” every time I see her. She’s clever. She’s into history and is not averse to squeezing herself into a corset (ah – that might be it) to provide televisual re-enactments of days gone by. She has also got, I suspect, a filthy sense of humour as evidenced by her butter making skills on Victorian Farm Christmas this week when she informed the audience that when butter has been successfully churned the correct term to use is that “the butter has come”. This woman makes butter come! I mean, come on! That’s got to hit the spot of every red blooded male for miles around (well, barring all those that are on Benecol, of course). She then inserted herself up a windmill in the same episode so that she could admire the grinding mechanism. She is plainly insatiable.

To be serious for one moment though, I think the most likeable thing about Ruth Goodman is that she’s honest. She’s on TV a lot but she doesn’t dress herself up or go in for personality fakery. She is what she is and she neither apologizes for it nor forces it down your throat. She’s the woman next door. The woman at the bus stop. Real and vivacious. In a corset and a Victorian bustle. And she makes butter come. Even Monica Galetti can’t do that (though I have no doubt that she can stiffen a soufflé).

3) Miranda Hart

I’m not really sure if Miranda qualifies to be here in the sense that I think she is plainly very fanciable. It doesn’t feel as “out there” or as leftfield to say one finds Miranda Hart attractive as compared to the two lovely ladies above. I think this is simply because Miranda is warm and funny and smoothly spoken and kind and personable... I mean, just what is there not to like?

But a lot of people find her height and stature off-putting. I can appreciate that. After all, she is a majestic giantess of a woman. A colossus with an impressively deep décolletage. Her ideal partner in terms of physique would be The Cerne Abbas Giant. But what hillside would not be improved with an impression of Miranda Hart carved into the side of it? Hell, my own lawn is big enough and I’m pretty good with a hoe - if Miranda fancies a modelling assignment I’m free most weekends. I’ll even leave a few strategically placed dandelions dotted about the place. There may even be room for a vegetable plot. It would double the pleasure of seeing the legumes pushing through the topsoil next summer.

Miranda strikes me as being jolly good company for all occasions. She sounds posh but isn’t at all stuffy. She’s statuesque but delightfully feminine. She’s a comedy extravert and yet also winningly shy and demure. And, Godammit, she just has a very beautiful face and a smile that makes you want to hug her. She’s a gorgeous ‘gel’ and no mistake.

She’s given me a funny bone.

So, over to you guys. Who is your guilty pleasure on TV these days?

The Cross Your Heart Factor

Is it just me or have certain elements in the current series of the BBC’s Merlin been, for want of a better expression, pumped?

Augmented? Inflated? Swelled?

And this isn’t a complaint – really it isn’t – but I can’t help wondering if the makers of Merlin are subconsciously trying to compete with the rather more adult telling of the King Arthur legend that appeared on our tellies earlier this year under the shockingly original title, Camelot.

‘Cos suddenly Gwenevere’s bosom (donated unselfishly by Angel Coulby) – hardly an insignificant landmark at the best of times – has suddenly grown into planet colliding proportions. It o’erspills. Her cups runneth over. She has gone from wanting to merely catch Arthur’s eye to attempting to skewer both of them out with a two-pronged attack. Run into this girl on a cold morning and you’ll end up with broken ribs on both sides.

I daresay Arthur (Bradley James) will consider that a jolly decent way to go but in terms of courtly love, isn’t it he who is meant to be running the good lady through?

I like Merlin. I liked it from the start though I will admit the first two series were a little too fairytale for me. Thing have got blacker and darker though since series 3 and this present series – the fourth – has seen things getting blacker still. Uther was bumped off in the second episode and Arthur is at last king. Morgana (Katie McGrath) has finally been converted to the dark side and has now (alas) spurned her usual neck plunging dresses and taken to concealing her own otherworldly décolletage behind charred sackcloth and a hairdo redolent of Amy Winehouse battling uphill towards an off-license against a force ten gale in Barnsley (going to wizard rehab? I say no, no, no).

I kind of miss Morgana’s finery. Her off-the-shoulder numbers. Her sneery lipped looks over a forkful of venison. Her twirly earrings that caught the candlelight just before she did someone a particularly bad turn. The show’s writer’s need to be careful that they don’t completely lose her va-va-voom amongst her recently acquired hovel paraphernalia and the pickled frogs she keeps in her medicine cabinet. Morgana’s appeal was always that she was a vamp. She was cold hearted and icy but she was nevertheless, undoubtedly, undeniably, a black hearted vamp. And a tease. The kind that lead a man to his doom without ever actually “putting out”.

Now she’s in danger of becoming a tramp. And not in a good way either. There needs to be some curve and some bosom mixed in with that eye of newt and tongue of lizard. After all the lady is a fox not an old bat.

But maybe this is why the show’s producers are building up Gwen’s part(s)? It kind of makes sense to have Gwen as Camelot’s ye olde pin-up girl. She is, after all, the legendary heroine who attracts all the knights of Camelot from far and wide to come and sup from the warm bounteousness of her round table, not Morgana. The balance of feminine power needs to be shifted – and not just in terms of a well fortified cross-your-heart bra.

Let’s just hope Arthur has got what it takes to locate her Holy Grail... keeping both these femme fatales from tearing out each other’s throats is likely to be very thirsty work indeed.

And I'll be more than happy to drink to that.

I Applied For A Job At MI5

Once. A long time ago.

Before I was lucky enough (cough cough) to land my current job in whose warm bosomy bower I have slept peaceably for the last 13 years.

Not sure what drove me to it. I remember seeing an advert in a national newspaper announcing that “the 5” (as those of us in the know call it; those of us not referring to it as MFI) were recruiting. And further more they were recruiting non-graduates which is precisely what I was at the time.

Perhaps my life was lacking excitement. It was certainly lacking travel, a fake Russian accent and a Parker ball pen that not only transformed into a MIG fighter but had a little naked lady in the end whose clothes fell off when you turned the pen upright.

I thought, sod it, I could be a spy. I could serve Queen and country. I could take photos of top secret documents with a mini camera hidden in my cravat or my diamante cufflinks. I could sleep with loads of gorgeous foreign women and rifle their leathery attaché cases whilst they slept afterwards in post coital bliss, I could. I really could, I thought. Blimey. I’ll fill in the application form right now and send it off.

I sent it off.

I heard nothing back from MI5 but MFI offered me a job selling bedroom furniture to couples who wanted to luxuriate in post coital bliss. I suspected they were sleeper agents so I told them to go and get stuffed. Ha ha.

Thus ended my career as a top British spy.

I watch Spooks now with a personal sense of chagrin. But also, it has to be said, with a sense of smugness. Because despite the wildly comic imagineering above I know that there is nothing very glamorous about being a spy.

From what I’ve heard (and I will never reveal my sources, damned infidel of the capitalist state) The 5 are as prone to budget cuts as every other Government department. The chances of getting a nudey-lady pen is about as likely as Cameron and Clegg sucking each other’s nipples live on national television. And quite frankly if the money was available I’m sure we’d all much rather take the pen.

Real spying is tedious, dirty, lonely and more likely to drive the spy into an anorak and uber-geekiness than into the arms of a busty Russian spyess whose name is so complicated to pronounce you end up with a tongue like Arnold Schwarzenegger’s left bicep.

And yet Spooks continues to captivate me.

Even though I know they are selling the dream of MI5 rather than the reality.

I love the gadgets. I love the fact they can seemingly tap into and control everything from the internet, mobile phone networks, weather satellites and the internal wash cycle on your Zanussi washer-dryer just with a little tap of their youthful upwardly mobile index fingers. I love the moral dilemmas they go through every week; how they justify not only risking themselves but others in their quest to keep the rest of us safe. I love the pained looks they give to camera just before they do something totally immoral and inhumane. Once again with feeling, dahling, once again.

And I love the glamorous women. We’ve had Keeley Hawes. We’ve had Hermione Norris. And now we’ve got Lara Pulver. All legs, lethality and brooding brunetteness.

Marvellous.

Do I regret my application to The 5?

No.

And nor do I regret that they turned me down.

Real spies are non-descript and anonymous. They are never glamorous. They catch the Tube and the bus. They catch pneumonia and the shits from eating crap food in dodgy bedsits. They are poorly paid and over-stressed. They have to beat their consciences into submission with alcohol, narcotics or the psychological disorder of your choice.

I’m happy to employ myself in the fantasy and leave the reality to the fish and the cold sharks of society.

But just remember: I do it for you guys. To keep you safe.

Now pass me another Vimto, bartender. Shaken, not stirred.

Digging Dr Alice

For all I would consider myself an outdoorsy person I am well aware that what I actually mean is: I like traipsing the hills and valleys and admiring the view. I don’t as a rule relish the thought of pushing a Flymo around, laying fresh turf on clay or running my fingers through the green bushiness of a vegetable patch.

Me and trowels... we don’t have “a thing” going on.

But whenever I see Dr Alice Roberts on the telly I have a sudden and overwhelming desire to bury myself deeply into some undergrowth and root around in a dark hole to see what glorious treasures I can find. Forget the welly-boots and a stout sou’wester I’d be quite prepared to do it absolutely stark bollock naked. (Dr Alice you have only got to ask. P.S. your Lawyer was rather rude to me last Friday... you know, I don’t think he is passing on my letters to you at all).

So Friday night saw the return of Digging For Britain and more importantly the return of Dr Alice – new mum, bone expert and all round historical / archaeological pin-up. Within the space of an hour she transported us around Roman Britain and uncovered more earth than a JCB driven by a coke-head.

One of Dr Alice’s missions in life is to get young people (yes, alright, that excludes me straight away) interested in the sciences and history and proper ‘ologies. Snare ‘em young and our scientific community will be enriched for years to come, etc. She’s right too. When I was at school and it came time to choose my “options” (as they were called back then) I found I had to choose between Geography and History. I was good at both. If I’m honest I preferred History but due to a timetable ‘thing’ I could only take one of them, not both. At the time I thought Geography would have more practical applications in terms of acquiring a job so I chose Geography.

I’ve always regretted it. Not that I didn’t come out with a good mark – I got a B. But, well, I kind of feel History would have been more up my street.

If Dr Alice had been around at the time I think I would have undoubtedly chosen History and would have studied a lot harder at Biology too (I only got a C). She would have put thoughts into my head of Roman digs, Iron Age mounds and the possibility of kneeling in the English mud for months at a time next to a velvet voiced beauty who occasionally dyes her hair red.

I would have told Mrs Abbot that she could keep her meteorological charts and her ‘fruit growing in the Vale of Evesham’ and all the other twaddle that we studied in Geography and that I have never ever used – ever – on the various states of employ I have endured over the years and I would have prepared myself for the coming of Dr Alice.

And then it would have been me on Time Team excavating all those barrows. It would have been me on Digging For Britain holding Dr Alice’s freshly lacquered rose-wood handled soil brush for her. And most of all it would have been me holding Dr Alice’s towel and bathrobe for her when she did that programme about skinny dipping, sorry, wild swimming, a year or so ago.

You hear me, North Leamington School? You and your effing Options! You ruined my life!

P.S. On a lighter note. Here is a link to a superb interview with Dr Alice conducted for the on-line show, Carpool – a superb little programme where Robert Llewellyn drives various TV celebs around from A to B and interviews them whilst filming them with on-board cameras mounted onto his dash. It's brilliant.

*sigh*

That could have been me in that car. Me. Possibly only sitting in the back, not saying very much at all, but nevertheless it could have been me.

Goddammit.

Officially Middle Aged

That’s it. I’m at the brow of the hill. I’m looking down at the giddy descent into old age.

The sign post that I am leaning on whilst I catch my breath says “Middle Aged”.

How do I know this?

Matt Smith told me. Steven Moffat told me. The BBC told me.

In short, Doctor Who told me.

Years ago, I would have been all over Amy Pond (played by Karen Gillan) like (to quote Sandy Cheeks from Spongebob Squarepants) ugly on an ape (Gorilla Bananas: no offense intended). She would have ignited day dreams and night dreams so hot and puerile that the script writers of The Inbetweeners would have recoiled in horror and told me to grow up. Luscious lips, long red hair, long legs and a lust-worthy Scottish accent. I mean, can you imagine anything sexier than being bossed about sexually by someone who sounds like a rebel from Balamory? I dinnae care what ye wannae doo – jus’ git doon there an’ git busy, yer filthy, dirty little Sassenach...

Yes, ma’am!

But the flames have not been ignited. I look at Amy Pond and I see the lips and the hair and the legs and I think, Christ, I hope she’s warm enough; I hope her mother sent her to work with a nice thermos flask of hot soup and one of those high fibre bars with chunks of fruit in it. She’s so young. She ought to have a chaperone on set. I hope she’s being looked after properly. I hear her accent and I hear my gran from Scotland asking me if am doing well at school and would I like another Werther’s Original?

I have reached that age when I am automatically filtering out girls like Amy Pond from my fantasy directory. I am rubber stamping her in my mind with the words Not Age Appropriate.

But more than this, what tells me most of all that I have embraced middle age is the discovery that my fires are now being ignited by the older woman. Because while Amy Pond might not be wetting my whistle, River Song (played by Alex Kingston) most definitely is. My whistle is positively drowning in wetness.

Sorry. Possibly too much info.

River Song is magnificent. River Song is sexy. Wild hair. Décolletage that could conceal an AK-47 and a few hundred spare rounds. Beautiful lips and forever arching upward eye brows. And most of all an attitude that exudes knowing confidence and a sense of being more than comfortable with herself.

Like I said: magnificent.

What sums it up best for me is after regenerating in last Saturday’s episode into the River Song we all know and love she took one look at herself and oozed, “ooh, it’s all going on down there isn’t it...? I feel so... mature.”

Mature in that second, in the way River Song enunciated it, became profoundly OK. It became sexy and desirable. It became exciting and fun. It became wicked in the very, very best way.

So yeah. I’m on the brow of the hill. And I’m leaning on that sign that says “Middle Aged”. But only as a precursor to pole dancing with it.

Does anyone care to join me?

Survival Of The Fittest

So are we still evolving?

This was the question posed by the BBC’s Horizon on Tuesday night (apologies to my non-UK readers). I don’t often watch Horizon but I did this week because, as you will have surmised by the many posts on this subject that I have published on this ‘ere blog, our evolution as a species is a subject that regularly keeps me awake at night and had nothing at all whatsoever to do with the fact that this week’s show was presented by flame-haired, curvy, science ingénue, Alice Roberts who, according to my wife, I have a “thing” for.

Ha! As if. Ahem.

So are we still evolving?

Well, then we look at the behaviour exhibited by Wayne Rooney, Colonel Gaddafi and Bible bashers in the mid-west of the USA, it would be fair to assume that no, we are not. If anything we have entered an evolutionary cul-de-sac or, quite possibly, are returning to single celled amoebas one brain cell at a time.

But this, of course, is just the cynical blog writer in me talking and isn’t factually true. The gorgeously honey-voiced, Dr Alice said so. More or less.

We are still evolving as a species. In fact we are changing completely as a species. Us folk today are technically a different form of human being than our ancestors were a thousand years ago.

With the amazing advances in technology that have revolutionized our existence and affected the existence of practically every other living thing on the planet some have posited the theory that natural selection as a process is dead. It has stopped. We have somehow removed ourselves from its melting pot.

This is not true. Natural selection is still occurring – just perhaps not at the life or death, cutting edge of evolution that it once inhabited. Our species is no longer being shaped by the “survival of the fittest”. The weak not only survive in our society now but also survive long enough and ably enough to pass on their genes to the next generation. We also, through our grasp of genetics and embryo manipulation, can select the traits of our future generations ourselves and not leave it up to the good old fashioned Darwinian process we’ve all come to know and love.

But this does not mean that evolution has stopped or that we have freed ourselves from its reins. Evolution is driven by the dialogue all species unconsciously have with their environment and each other. Sure we have changed our own environment, made it more comfortable and almost dove-tailed it to our needs – mauled it almost into an image of our own likeness – but that does not mean that the environment is still not working on us in ways that we cannot yet perceive.

And also, perhaps more pertinently, we have the evolution of other life forms on this planet to consider. They impinge on us very directly sometimes and the effects of this may well drive our own evolution in ways that could be sudden, drastic and unimaginable in their end results. Viruses evolve a lot quicker than we do. No sooner do we come up with a vaccine against them than they evolve in response and we find ourselves dealing with a virus that has suddenly become highly resistant to human control.

It is not beyond the bounds of reason that a particularly nasty pandemic could one day make a good stab at wiping us all out. But as the programme posits, should such an event occur, there may well be some survivors. Some survivors whose genetic make-up contains a previously useless and overlooked genetic anomaly which suddenly renders them immune from the new virus. It is these survivors whose genetic code would be carried forth into the future generations of our species and change its course forever. The evolutionary process – the survival of the fittest – would once again claim ascendency over our arrogant attempts to control our own destiny.

So. In short: we are all of us still evolving. Even Wayne Rooney.

And that single fact just blows my mind.

Just like Dr Alice.

More Arse Than You Can Shake A Pink Stick At

I’ve taken the unusual step of publishing a picture of a lady’s bottom at the top of this post. It is not meant to be sexist or gratuitous. It is merely a response to some of the buttock shaped flak that I have received over the last 7 days. Life has been giving me the bum’s rush and I’m not sure how I should be interpreting the message.

Take last week. I’m going about my duties. An undesirable has entered my workplace despite being banned from the building. It falls to me to approach this ne’er-do-well and remind him that his bodily functions and the building wherein I work are not meant to meet. There are reports he has gone into the Gents’ toilets. I go in. There’s no sign of him. I check the Baby Change facilities and find Mr ASBO with his back to me, his trousers and boxers slumped around his ankles like Jayne Torville around Christopher Dean’s ice skates, his arse hanging out like something unspeakable in a Turkish butcher’s shop window and his gooseberries in the sink being washed with the hand soap.

It ain’t a pretty sight.

It’s one arse too many.

I asked him to leave. He got mouthy and shirty (after he hastily got trousery) but his previous nekkidness had one positive effect: it is impossible to feel cowed by someone when you have seen their hairy bum cheeks.

And then take last night. I’m walking home from college after another Sign Language class. I pass the park. I hear rowdy male singing coming from the bandstand. “Here we go, here we go, here we go-o...” Oh good, I think to myself, drunken footballers... Though I was not aware there was a match on tonight. I can make out about 15 figures prancing about in the gloom.

And then one of them makes a dash my way. And... Oh God... he is wearing nothing but his socks. He is stark staring bollocknekkid. His gennies are flopping about like one half of a broken deely-bopper. Thankfully as he nears me he is distracted by the bright lights of the pretty cars that are rushing by. He leaps out into the road and begins to ‘air-thrust” at the passing motorists. I half expect the voice of Mr Punch to emerge from his arse saying, “That’s the way to do it!” I’m holding my breath at this point because let’s be honest, erectile tissue + sheet metal travelling at 40mph = airborne ketchup. The result of a collision isn’t going to be successful insemination.

But then Mr Car-Lover changes tactics and begins to race up the road, chasing one of the cars. My last view of him is his buttocks grinding at speed and diminishing in size as his pink fleshy form blurs into the red tail lights of the car in front of him.

Now, I don’t know about you but that is too much male naked arse for a dyed-in-the-wool hetero like me to take in one week. I’m fine with homosexuality but I take no pleasure, sexual or aesthetic, in being presented with the jelly-like realities of the masculine buttock. It don’t float my boat. So what the hell is Life trying to tell me?

As near as I can figure it, I think it’s telling me that it is time for more totty on this here blog. Female totty. Rounded, smooth, female totty. Hence the picture above. I’m not just being as arsehole, honest. The Universe made me do it. I am merely answering the call. Restoring the balance. Ensuring there is no gender bias.

After all, one buttock deserves another. It’s Nature’s way.

We Need A Hart To Hart

There is a long tradition in this country (in any country in fact that sports a Royal family) to take the p out of them, make snidey comments and satirize their many foibles. It is a healthy tradition and one that should be defended to the hilt regardless of whether you are a Royalist or an anti establishment Royalist hating Emo.

So it was with some dismay that I read that dear Miranda Hart – surely the world’s most likeable comedienne – has flown into some flak for a gag she made on Have I Got News For You last week. I actually watched the show but my recall of the offending joke is a little hazy because, to be honest, it was a pretty innocuous joke. Basically, whilst talking about the well-known and widely accepted racism of Prince Philip, Miranda made the gag that the world should move past making racist jokes and someone ought to tell that Greek twit and his Kraut wife about it.

Now, let’s be honest, it was a pretty obvious joke to make. It’s almost a given. Even me in my secret desire to be a stand-up comedian would have jumped on that kind of feed and responded with a similar line. It is a joke about the racist stereotyping used in racist jokes. I don’t think it was meant to be a racist joke about the Queen per se. Or am I the only one splitting that particular hair?

I should point out at this point that I am not a raving anti monarchist and am quite content with the Royal family’s continued existence in this country’s status quo.

Apparently 5 people complained to the BBC and a few more managed to fart themselves out of their armchairs and put finger to keyboard to offer their cholesterol marinated opinions on various internet forums.

They didn’t get the joke. They didn’t think it was funny. They thought it in poor taste, racist and that the Queen should be mollified with a strap-on wielded by Miranda Hart herself. Actually that last bit is a lie and a bit of a fantasy.

Personally I can’t see what the fuss is about. I don’t think Miranda Hart is racist and I don’t think the joke was racist. It was satirical. In truth the joke wasn’t even that funny – but only because it was so obvious. But it had to be made. It was the cymbal crash after the drum roll. The digestive after the cup of tea – ‘cos a drink is too wet without one.

Poor Miranda. There’s something quite harmless and inoffensive about her – the poor woman must be mystified by all the hoo-ha. I have to say I like Miranda Hart and my family is greatly enjoying her eponymously named sitcom, Miranda. It makes us all laugh including our 9 year old who nearly split an intercostal muscle at this week’s show despite being surely too young to get most of the jokes. She has somehow revived the sitcom ethos of the 70’s, made it cool again and exhumed the much missed ghosts of Frankie Howerd and Eric Morecambe with her asides and to-the-camera gurning.

She is a striking looking lady – easily over 6ft, and solid. A veritable shire horse of a woman. But you know what? Strangely attractive. And in an attempt to subvert a minor tradition of this blog, stick two fingers up at those poker-faced, Hitler-youth loving Royalists who can’t get their malformed senses of humour around a simple joke and strike a blow for big beautiful women everywhere I am going to make her my TV Totty Of The Week.

Miranda, you can dress up as a Nazi and pratt-fall into my lap anytime. I think you’re lovely.

Am I An Old Perv? No, Don’t Answer That

So it’s Saturday and I’ve been sucked into kid’s telly and I’m watching Dani’s House with my boys and I’m marvelling at how the girl that used to play Tracey Beaker has (seemingly overnight) blossomed into a hot young chicklet and the TV gets turned over because other household members (how dare they usurp my ownership of the remote control) have decided that 3 back-to-back episodes of Dani’s House is 2 episodes too many (hey not my fault if the BBC resorts to lazy scheduling at the weekends).

“Hey, I was watching that!” I cry.

“I’m sure you were, you old perv!” Comes the reply.

What? Old perv? Me?

I’m about to spew out the kind of retort that would have had Oscar Wilde creaming his fustian trousers when I stop short.

Am I an old pervert? Is the accusation well based?

Because suddenly I’m aware of a whole body of evidence stacked up against me, most of it (it has to be said) penned by my own hand. This here blog.

Post after post extolling the virtues of various TV stars. Katie McGrath, Alice Roberts, Lucy Griffiths, Cheryl Ladd, Emma Watson, Julia Sawalha... the list goes on and on.

The trouble is, right from a young age, I had an eye for eye candy. At 9 years of age I was heartily in love with Charlie’s Angels. All of them though Cheryl Ladd was definitely my queen bitch.

And this penchant for giving the glad eye to TV babes continued through my teen years and my lonely twenties. But it was fine back then. Acceptable. It’s what lonely guys who can’t get a girlfriend do. Er, so I’ve been told.

And then I hit my thirties and, gulp, despite getting myself all-girled-up I’m still casting a roving fantasy eye over the TV and the cinema. But hey. That’s us men for you. And, by Jove, you women too ‘cos I know from reading around the blogosphere that you lassies are also prone to a bit of butch visual confectionary.

It’s normal. And I’m at pains to point this out because it is my only defence.

But now I’ve just tiptoed into my 40s. And suddenly the balance has shifted. It’s starting to feel uncomfortable. Back when I was younger fancying a young bit of stuff on the telly was acceptable. Hell, Juliet was only a teenager and Romeo (so I’m led to believe) only in his twenties. And when I hit my thirties, well, if old goats and young lambs were acceptable to Jane Austen why should it bother me?

But now I’m in my 40’s and my 50’s are beckoning from the other side of the hill the fantasy element is beginning to become untenable. It’s beginning to verge on socially unacceptable.

And yet TV and the media are geared up to sell us sexy young things. We’re hit with it every day. It’s hard to resist.

I mean take Hermione from Harry Potter. Even Jimmy Carr makes gags about when it became acceptable to admit that you fancied her.

So. My question is: does acknowledging the beauty of much younger women make me an old perv? Should I perhaps be retraining myself to tune into eye candy of a different, much more mature sort? Should I be composing paeans to Thora Hird, Anne Widdicombe and Gillian McKeith? If I start mooning over them will that make me less of a pervert?

Or one that is far less easily understood?

Answers on the back of a lad’s mag to the usual address please...

Shooting From The Hip

+++ APOLOGIES +++ MINORITY INTEREST POST +++

There have been but 3 choices of conversation in the work office this week. (1) I'm [hoping to be] A Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here; (2) The Royal Wedding-to-be and (3) The Apprentice.

Now given that (1) and (2) make me want to vomit my sphincter up through my nose this has left me very little in the way of conversational light relief with which to lighten my interminable workload. I did make an attempt at no. (2) by joking that Will's would probably follow his old man and dump Kate in ten years time after finally admitting to a lifetime love affair with Barbara Windsor but that gag was met with tumbleweed so prickly I practically had to roll myself into a little ball and hide under the nearest hedge. The good ladies of the office then resumed their discussion about what colour dress Kate might wear for her big day as if I had never been born.

So. On very different wavelengths there then.

However, the Babs Windsor gag/gaffe does bring me neatly onto subject (3) which I feel I can talk about with impunity and without risk of offending anyone. Except possibly Lord Sugar. But I'm sure he's man enough to take it. You see Babs Windsor has been quoted as saying that the first time she met Lord Sugar - back when he was just Al and not even SrAlan - she came over "all giggly". Why? Because he "reminded her of Sid James".

Sid effing James?!?

What? Did he spend 30 years trying to get into her knickers and then once he'd finally achieved it spend the post coital hours sobbing into her voluminous breasts and using her belly button as a tray for his brandy glass?

I really don't want to think about Sir Alan getting down and dirty with Barbara Windsor. I mean, can you imagine?

"Ere, Babs. I've fired."

"Already? Blimey. And I thought Sid was quick."

Boom boom as Basil Brush would say.

No, let's skip this. My contribution to the work discussion this week was to posit the theory that Sandeesh Samra's firing on The Apprentice was an act of wanton robbery and that Stella English is my favourite to win. Sandeesh because those wild Pharaonic eyes and hawk-like nose make her look like an exotic bird of prey about to Stuka dive onto a small mammal wearing cheap Marks & Spencer Y-fronts and gobble him up for breakfast and Stella because she's smart, sassy, sussed and well tasty. Plus she used to be a model (as you can see from the top picture) and hang around with hard nuts in the East End (so she and Lord Sugar are possibly old pals). (So. Another Babs Windsor connection there then.)

Plainly then it has been a quiet week on the telly when I am turning to The Apprentice to bolster my flagging Blog stats by selecting a couple of the candidates to join the pantheon of babes that already make up my highly irregular TV Totty Of The Week slot. (Blame Merlin - Katie McGrath was hardly in it this week and her absence was keenly felt.)

So, believe it or not, it really is a toss up (no, don't even go there) between Sandeesh and Stella. Only one of them can get the job. I am offering a 6 figure salary (in old money: £12 10s 11d) and a chance to work with me on a new range of shitty computer products to be promoted under the umbrella name SteveTrad. It is, I am sure you'll agree, a once in a lifetime opportunity.

Now normally, Sandeesh being a brunette would be the favourite to win and those mesmeric eyes would certainly make her an ideal Sith apprentice but... just as in the show... she's sadly come into the boardroom with a very strong contender. Being a fickle kind of fellow I do occasionally plump for blondes and Stella, by virtue of being incredibly intelligent and laying into Stuart (this series' resident arsehole) with aplomb and an untouchable sense of her own self-esteem has just pipped Sandeesh to the post.

I know, I know. It's a double blow for Sandeesh. Fired twice in one week. I may have to find her something to do in my back office to keep her mind off it. In the meantime, Stella English (a porn name if ever there was one), you are this week's TV Totty Of The Week and my 3rd nomination is this pathetically puerile series of blog posts.

See: 3rd! And you guys said it would never run.

Morgasma

+++ APOLOGIES +++ MINORITY INTEREST POST +++

So with the return of Merlin to our TV screens last Saturday (apologies to my overseas readers) I find myself dusting off my TV critic’s visor and lance and preparing to saddle up the steed I call “please Radio Times employ me as a columnist”.

The first two series of Merlin were good. They were OK. They were ample. They were entertaining. Compared to the BBC’s ill thought out, misbegotten Robin Hood, they were brilliant. But compared to other stuff the BBC was churning out (Lark Rise To Candleford, Ashes To Ashes to name but 2) the writing was patchy. A good episode was frequently followed by one which merely made me shrug my shoulders and toss my gauntlets down in exasperated ennui. Only the searing brunetteness of Katie McGrath’s Morgana kept my interest constant.

After only one episode it’s impossible to say whether the writer’s of this third series have finally found their legs but they certainly left the starting blocks with enough acceleration to leave Roadrunner spitting out tarmac.

Finally the story is moving. The pieces are beginning to fall into their allotted places. Morgana has turned to the dark side. No more riding around on a palfrey mare looking like a representative of the Scottish Widows (although actually she did do that in this episode); no more haughty looks above a décolletage that I would love to drop my wand into (though, er, she did do a couple of those as well) and no more simpering smiles to Arthur and Uther as if she were accepting an invitation to cream tea at The Berkeley (though, yes, there were some of those but they were all part of her evil plan to lull them into a false state of security).

The dynamic has changed. Old allegiances are broken. The whole social dynamic of the show has been injected with a newer, darker energy. The interaction between the characters is now far more interesting. It’s gone from Enid Blyton jolly japes to C.S Lewis good vs. evil mysticism. There is betrayal and sneering looks afoot. There is righteousness and corruption. This is all much more in-keeping with the Arthurian legend and gives the actors something to really get their teeth into.

For the girls Bradley James (Arthur) spends much of his screen time either swishing his sword or his nipples around in manly topless abandon and Colin Morgan (Merlin) somehow manages to muffle and mangle his muscular Irish accent out of all existence and into a generic English plum with such skill and verve that you completely overlook the fact his ears totally eclipse the light of the sun. How the lighting riggers manage to backlight him without making his head resemble Shrek’s, I don’t know.

For us guys Angel Coulby plays Guinevere as if Thomas Mallory had re-written Cinderella but is wenchy enough to be modern, sassy and, dare I say it, chav-like but all in a positive way (I’d just love her to say to Arthur “yo bruv, it’s well shameful but like I love you, innit”) but for me, the real star is Katie McGrath. Poised, graceful, long limbed, brunette and able to wield a plunging neckline as expertly as she wields a blade. She can pull my sword from its stone anytime.

The producers have found some money too. I suspect the wagon load of groats that was delivered to their gatehouse with a note from the BBC executive team that read “’ere, give us a third series and make it look like Clash of the Titans” had a lot to do with it but I am not complaining. Last night we had giant scorpions, fighting skeletons (almost as good as the ones Ray Harryhausen produced for Sinbad) and a flying dragon. And for once none of it looked too ropy. Hopefully this is a sign the BBC are in for the long haul and we might actually get to see Arthur crowned king rather than have the Beeb pull the plug just as it all starts to come good.

So, all things considered, I will be flying the flag for Camelot every Saturday evening for the next 13 weeks though secretly supporting the dark side just ‘cos the bad girls are hotter than the good ones. And whilst in that vein, Katie McGrath you have the honour of receiving this blog’s second TV Totty Of The Week award for services rendered to corsetry and witchcraft.

Just bung it on the mantelpiece next to your grimoire, luv; it’ll look magic.

Wild About Skinny Dipping

We like Dr Alice Roberts in my house. Or rather, I like Alice Roberts in my house. My wife, I suspect is a little more ambivalent seeing her as yet another addition to the already overlong list of top television totty pin-ups that I adolescently maintain in my mind to mull over on a rainy day.

But you see, Alice Roberts isn’t just eye candy. She’s intelligent and astute and has a soft gentle voice that was just made for television voiceovers. And she’s a doctor. And a scientist. And she sometimes dyes her hair red and she once showed an X ray (or something) of her clitoris on TV. Yeah, yeah, I know what you’re thinking: that’s going the extra mile in the name of science, but for me it was a very direct and very personal come-on – there it is, Steve; I’ve shown you where to find it!

So it was with interest that I noted she’d made a documentary for BBC4 on the subject of Wild Swimming. My mind blazed with images of Dr Alice, face and body painted like a tiger, cavorting in a swimming pool alongside other suitably painted animalized ladies... possibly the top ten from my list of top television totty pin-ups... but as I read the Radio Times review I realized it wasn’t going to be like that at all. It was in fact a documentary about swimming, free and unfettered, in the UK’s rivers and waterways. A televisual homage to Roger Deakin who extolled the virtues of wild swimming in his famous book, Waterlog.

And I have to say it was lovely. Although I am not a great swimmer, I can really see the attraction of wild swimming. You are immersed in the natural environment, part of it rather than just a casual observer, you are seeing the natural life of the river and the riverbank the way the wildlife sees it.

At first Alice did her swims in a wetsuit; her rubber enveloped limbs cutting smoothly through the peaty water, but she soon proclaimed that she was missing out on the full sensory experience. She wanted to feel the water upon her skin, moving across her flesh, tingling her all over... my Bunsen burner suddenly pulsed with an intense flame so blue it cracked my petri dish clean in half.

Could she mean...? Did she mean...? I hardly dare whisper the words skinny dipping... for, ahem, I was taking no vicarious titillation from the intimation only wandering how far Dr Alice could push the envelope of respectability whilst honouring the ethos of wild swimming and being at one with nature. After all, I am not the kind of man who watches TV programmes just to get off on occasional glimpses of flesh and suggestive movement, no; I wish to be edified and educated. My higher ambitions illuminated and excited.

As it was, Dr Alice merely meant losing the thermal protection of her wetsuit and swimming in nowt but a one piece bather. Would she be able to take the cold though? The average river temperature in the UK for the time of year she was filming was something like 15 degrees C. Now that’s damned cold. Would there be pokie action? Some of the more uncouth of you were probably thinking. But not I. No. I was pleased they showed how cold Alice was with nothing more than a nice thermal imaging camera borrowed from a passing thermal imaging camera salesman. Look how blue she’s gone. Oh heavens. That water is cold, isn’t it? I do hope they get her warmed up again soon. Nothing to titillate here, folks. All good science.

But as it was, all was not lost on the skinny dipping (purely for scientific research and artistic integrity) issue, for to honour the memory of Roger Deakin Dr Alice decided to conclude the documentary with... gasp... a real totally naked and unrobed skinny dip in an unnamed pool in the Lake District that has by now, I suspect, been religiously sanctified and dedicated to the memory of this great boobs-out event. (Latest news reports state that votive offerings have been left at rocks near to this sacred tarn and candles lit in the trees to better aid the sight-lines of passing binocular users).

And so, as the denouement of this fabulous documentary neared, Dr Alice, proud and curvy in her geeky boffinness, threw off her white fluffy bathrobe with an almost Old Testament defiance, and plunged full length and body long into the cold clear waters of Wordworth’s birthplace. Back and forth she surged, scarcely causing the surface water to ripple or break, a veritable nymph of the pool awaiting the pen of Tennyson to immortalize her forever... while some inept camera man floundered around behind her doing the doggy paddle and only managed to snatch occasional shots of her legs from the mid-thigh down and her arms barely up to her shoulder tops, I mean, really! What kind of shoddy camera work is this? Is this what I pay my TV license for, BBC? She was skinny dipping, for God’s sake. Bloody skinny dipping! Naked in that there pool and you had a ruddy great professional film crew to capture it. Where were they? Did they shove a couple of apprentices behind the cameras or something? Were the real film crew down the pub playing Sudoku or sinking jars of Riggwelter? Sod respectability and the higher cause of science! I feel really let down.

Damn you, BBC!

P.S. In protest at the BBC’s ineptitude I may have to start a new series on this here blog called Steve’s TV Totty Of The Week. This will be a new feature and will probably not be weekly at all but merely dragged out when I have little or nothing else to waffle on about and will feature – you’ve guessed it – my TV Totty Of The Week. Well done, Dr Alice: you have the honour of being the first in a very long and very shallow line of totally self indulgent, sexually gratifying blog posts about TV totty. A round of applause for this week’s winner, please.