» Burn It (for William Ash and lingering shots of Mel B’s tits)
» Swiss Toni (for outrageous Tom Baker guest appearance)
» Little Britain (ridiculously good).
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Thank you, ITV2, for giving us the splendidly trashy American Idol.
In a lot of ways, it reminds us of a bad photocopy of Pop Idol – not bad, just slightly fuzzy.
We were disappointed that they skipped over the audition process in just two hours – watching people with no talent being humiliated on TV is one of our favourite pastimes, so a bit more of that would have been welcome.
Of course, Simon Cowell is in his element telling all the poor, deluded Americans that they’re tone deaf and dressed like a hooker, but we have some worries about his fellow judges. Randy Jackson’s OK, but we can’t even look at Paula Abdul without the spectre of the Vibeology video looming large in our mind.
Lots of the contestants have the very annoying ‘Mariah syndrome’ (why sing just one note when you can sing 15 just to show how clever you are?), but they’re all bright, perky and have nice teeth, so that’s OK.
Our favourite, though, is Frenchie Davis, a woman who may as well have ‘ball-busting diva’ stamped on her forehead. We hope she wins.
2013 UPDATE: She did not win.
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We touched briefly on the subject of the Alessi Twins from Neighbours, alias Gayle and Gillian Blakeney, about a week ago and, frankly, we’ve been able to think about little else since.
Where are they now? Are they bitter that their pop career was a miserable flop-o-rama? And does one of them still have a wonky mouth?
Sadly, we could find no trace of them after 1994, which was so long ago that lowculture was still a teenager.
Back then, they managed to bag themselves a guest spot in a dreadful US cop show called Silk Stalkings, which enjoyed a brief run on Sky One in the mid-90s (we watched it religiously during the Chris and Rita era, and were heartbroken when Chris was murdered so Rob Estes could go off to be in Melrose Place).
Anyway, they played a pair of ballerina-dancer twins (surprise!) who were involved in a dastardly murder plot. We’ve even dug up a picture of them in their leotards.
But since that, nothing. Can anyone shed any light on their activities?
2013 UPDATE: Still no sign.
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Are you missing your weekly dose of La Halliwell now that Popstars: The Rivals is just a dim and distant memory?
Well, don’t fret, because Geri’s got another show in the pipeline.
Unlikely as it may seem, she’s been making kissy-faces with old pal Simon Fuller, and is about to become one of the coaches on 19′s latest US reality TV project.
In All American Girl, 15 unfortunates will be split into groups led by either our Geri or one of two other people we’ve never heard of. They will then be sent to a kind of beauty-queen boot camp where their athletic ability, mental agility, performance in the popular arts and beauty will be assessed.
The coaches will be responsible for reducing their groups to four and then three finalists before the obligatory telephone vote and lucrative contract for the winner.
We await the episode in which La H instructs the hopefuls in the art of raking around George Michael’s bins for cake with considerable interest.
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lowculture has recently discovered that a colleague was the editor of the 1995 Chuckle Brothers annual.
Full report if and when we can bear to quiz him on the subject.
2013 UPDATE: The colleague I mentioned is this man: http://www.thisisgrimsby.co.uk/Jungle-Zoo-protest-case-collapses/story-11535881-detail/story.html
The sudden deluge of hermaphrodite babies on television has made us yearn for more innocent times.
That’s why were were so delighted to see that UK Gold had started repeating old episodes of Doctor Who from the Jon Pertwee years.
These stories, which date from the early 1970s, follow a fairly standard pattern in which the Doctor, stranded on earth by the Time Lords for being naughty, would team up with some army types to defeat alien invasions. All good, wholesome stuff.
Unfortunately, we then remembered a story called The Curse of Peladon, which featured a cowardly hermaphrodite monster with a squeaky voice named Alpha Centauri.
If that wasn’t shocking enough, when the actor playing this strange beast appeared on the studio floor in costume for the first time, the director realised that he/she was basically a dressed in a giant rubber phallus.
As you can see from the picture, even the last-minute addition of a fetching yellow cape could not disguise the awful truth.
So, on reflection, you should probably just stick with Footballers Wives after all.
2013 UPDATE: I’ve added a YouTube video tribute to Alpha Centauri to this post. I promise I didn’t make it myself, despite the fact that the soundtrack is Floorfiller by A*Teens.
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Flicking through the local paper yesterday, we came across the top 10 from ten years ago this week.
We were horrified to realise that a whole decade has passed since the lovely Sybil was at No.2 with the mighty The Love I Lost.
To celebrate, we’re proud to present the original single cover, just for you. Seeing it again reminded us of how sorry we used to feel that whoever did the sleeves at PWL went to increasingly elaborate lengths to avoid showing too much of Syb’s face.
And was there some sort of rule that female solo artists with first names beginning with ‘S’ produced by Pete Waterman were not allowed to use their surnames? Mind you, Sybil Lynch, Sonia Evans and Sinitta Malone don’t have quite the same ring to them, do they?
If anyone knows where Sybil is now, please get in touch. If lowculture ever comes into money, we plan to buy her for our collection.
2013 UPDATE: It is now 20 years. Fucking hell. Sybil found this post after Googling herself and sent me a lovely email telling me what she had been up to, and I felt really bad for saying that bit about her face.
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We would love to tell you what we think about last night’s Holby City. But, as Lowculture Towers is located in Scotland, we can’t, because our tartan version of the BBC thinks we should watch it on a Wednesday night, a whole 24 hours after the rest of the nation. Frankly, we’re breathless with anticipation.
This delay allows us to enjoy the dubious charms of River City, Scotland’s very own soap.
It’s the everyday story of the residents of Montego Street in Shieldinch, a fictional Glasgow suburb. As it’s set in Scotland, it features lots of people with ginger hair (they put Irn Bru in our water, you see), and also stars her out of Deacon Blue as the heroin-addict prodigal daughter of the main family.
It’s actually not quite as bad as it sounds, but nothing and no-one can come between us and our weekly appointment with Sister Kath, so we hate it. Official.
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Bonkers late-night soap Night And Day is about to get really strange.
They had a hermaphrodite baby weeks before Footballers Wives, and they’re now set to unveil soap’s first undead character.
Cute-but-strange Josh, played by Seb Castang, is about to take a funny turn after getting a beating from Alex in the church catacombs.
For revenge, Josh takes Della (Alex’s daughter, and Josh’s half sister, we think, but we’ve also got a feeling she was switched at birth with best pal Jane, so that might not be true) to the catacombs and tries to attack her with his demon eyes, but ‘the goodness in her disarms him’.
Can’t wait.
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News reaches us that Jordan will soon be bringing her unique brand of really big tits to Sky One’s football soap Dream Team.
Don’t worry about her acting talents being stretched too much, though – she’ll be playing herself.
DT has a proud history of high-profile celebrity cameos – past episodes have featured such notable guests as Amma from Big Brother, Richard Keyes from Sky Sports and Ron Atkinson.
By the way, is is just us or is DT about 500 times better than Footballers Wives? Our favourite characters are Tash, the goalkeeper’s wife who keeps accidentally sleeping with her husband’s team-mates, and receptionist Nicki, whose character development this season has included an exciting new fringe.
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