Did You See That

The comedically named Billi Bhati was the latest evictee from the Big Brother house last night. He faced the public vote alongside Tracey and Carole, but the chemically-straightened model found himself cast out. He had claimed to be a fan of the show and had various strategies to eliminate those he saw as being weak, but he forgot the most basic tactic of surviving in the house - not being disliked. You can be hated outside the house and not have a problem, but if your housemates don’t like you, all the strategies in the world won’t help you.

Bye bye Billi.

Tony Blair made an emotional farewell to the House of Commons today in his very last appearance at Prime Minister’s Questions. The session ended with MPs from both sides giving him an unprecedented standing ovation.

Did you see that?

Well, if you were watching on terrestrial TV, then you probably didn’t, since the BBC’s The Daily Politics cut away from their live coverage of this historic moment - which had overrun by a few minutes - to bring you the viewer an advert for the drama series, “Rome”, and coverage of Wimbledon.

Unbelievable.

It was week two in Tycoon Tower, as Peter Jones continues to try and create Britain’s next Tycoon.

We started off this week with an X-Factor style look at some of the auditionees who didn’t make it on to the show. There was a predictably wacky range of suggestions, such as making photo frames from the cremated ashes of loved ones and erotic material based on scratch and sniff technology.

Back in the Tower, the contestants were finding mixed success. They got a pep talk from Pete Jones where he told them that “Cash is king. Work harder and make more money”. Not sure if then advised them that lunch was for wimps and greed is good.

Justin is turning into Tycoon’s own David Brent, and his mumbling product pitches made Peter send him off for a one to one session with Paul McKenna. Elizabeth saw this as a great reward and was brought to tears. Week two and the second time she’s cried. The session with Paul McKenna had a great effect on Justin, although they didn’t as far as working out what to reply when someone asks “why would I want to sell your product” - a question that sent Justin to pieces again when Peter asked it in the weekly meeting.

The contestants had a visit from journalists and got to practice their PR skills. Tom naively believed this chance to meet visiting hacks would be a opportunity to sew up a distribution deal for his kids newspaper and was disappointed when it didn’t happen. He later got the chance to show it to the head of a picture agency who slated it and suggested major changes, which Tom accepted without question. He then relied upon a former editor of OK to put a mock up together - not a bad idea in itself - but Peter Jones picked up on the fact that Tom didn’t have much input to give and was happier taking a lead from others.

Peter Jones took Tom down the end of a pier to discuss his fate, which I thought may involve a sleeping with the fishes, but in the end Peter just closed him down and sent him on his way.

TV highlight of the weekend had to be Shirley Bassey at Glastonbury. Simply awesome.

Buy Shirley Bassey CDs and DVDs

Irish prankster Seany has been evicted from the Big Brother House.

He went up against Jonathan and Carole in the public vote, and the great British public decided to send him packing. Charley was her usual two faced self when she expressed shock at who could have wanted to vote him out despite having nominated him.

I found him annoying, and also potentially dangerous when he recklessly pushed Charley into the pool, but you had to pity him when he was genuinely gutted to have voted out.

In a special mid week live episode, Big Brother decided to play a little game with the housemates. Big Brother announced that the £100,000 prize money was in the diary room. This weeks nominated housemates - Jonathan, Carole and Seany - were sent to the diary room and had to decide amonst them who should get the money. They decided to give it to Liam.

When he was told of their decision, he appeared at first sight to be massively underwhelmed. But it was actually the complete opposite and he soon broke down in tears.

Will he keep the money or will there be further twists? What incentive do the other housemates have now? Maybe some will walk?

Liam was the bookies favourite,  so chances are he would have ended up with the money anyway.

What do you think?

Use the comments form to say who you would have given the money to…

I can’t remember how long ago we were told that business was the new rock ‘n’ roll, but I heard it again this week to herald the launch of ITV1’s new business show called Tycoon. It’s some hybrid format pulling together strands from other popular programmes like Dragon’s Den and The Apprentice.

Business giant, Peter Jones, has selected six business start-ups to come and work in “Tycoon Tower”, on London’s south bank. Each startup aims to be the most successul business of the group and their prize is to claim the profit generated by all of the companies as their own.

The Contestants

Cathy and Helen had an idea for garden-wear and accessories aimed at female gardeners, which they called Girley Gardens. Peter thought that their focus was too narrow and asked them to rebrand with a more universal concept - “sod” was their reply and he loved it.

Justin’s business was to produce plastic bag dispensers which would make it easy to carry round and then reuse carrier bags. He was hampered by his habit of turning to jelly when Peter Jones was in the room and needing to phone home for support

Tom wanted to launch a free student newspaper called Snap. He failed to impress with his amateurish mockup and by not admitting that there was a competitor in the marketplace in the form of a newspaper published by Piers Morgan. Peter then, hilariously, described Morgan as ” the biggest, most respected editor in Britain”. Notoriety is not the same as respect. As entertaining as I find Piers Morgan, his reputation as an editor took quite a blow when he was sacked for publishing fake photographs of British troops abusing Iraqi civilians.

Ian lives at home with his nan ordinarily, so I was a little concerned to her well-being when he moved to tycoon towers were 10 weeks to develop a business which aims to import and exclusively sell a radio controlled helicopter. During the show they all get to pitch for additional funds that Peter makes available and Ian got all £20,000 of it to buy stock.

Elizabeth wants to market a vodka based fruit drink but she struggled to come up with a name, stumbling from Vopple to Just Be, and then to Fruka, not before asking strangers in the street for ideas too. Peter was tempted to “close her down” but she got all teary eyed and promised to move mountains for him.

Lauren’s a glamour model with a natural hair extension product. Her image adorned her product packaging and Peter seemed quite taken with it.

The show didn’t deliver any hands-over-the-mouth moments of sheer awfulness as we found in early editions of the Apprentice, and Peter’s pieces to camera seem overly rehearsed, but it was an entertaining  hour and I’m looking to finding out how the contestants do as the show progresses.

The variety extravaganza that’s got the country talking reached its ninth and final night tonight, with the top six acts of the competition performing again to win the coveted top spot.

The honest truth is, most of the acts for me didn’t live up to their previous performances. Damon Scott’s monkey routine was entertaining but somehow lacked the spark of the first time I saw it and had some damb squib ending. Barwizards were good, but I still maintain I’ve seen dancing cocktail barmen too many times to think its as original as the judges seem to think. Kombat Breakers were entertaining but it’s always going to be hard for a dance group to engage with the viewer in the way that an individual can so I thought it was odd that Amanda “I completely agree” Holden suggested that could be heading for a win. Even the sensational Paul Potts wasn’t quite as moving for me as when he appeared on that humble theatre stage in the earlier auditions when his talent was so unexpected.

Probably the only act that stil had the wow factor for me was Connie Talbot, so my money was on her to win. In the end, it wasn’t to be and the winner was Paul Potts, who to be fair has shown himself to be an amazing talent. It was no suprise to hear Simon Cowell announce at the end that Paul would soon be in the recording studio recording his first album. Simon must be delighted because with this kind of act, you don’t need to find new material, you can unashamedly re-record the popular operatic classics.

This was a competition to find an act that could appear at the Royal Variety Performance. Truth be told though, the Royal Variety is usually a mixed bag and actually all six of these acts could be on the bill and it would be a better show for it. In the run up to the result, all six contestants explained why it would mean so much to them to perform for the Queen. As fond as I am of the Queen, I don’t quite get the hunger to perform for one particularly wealthy octigenarian. It seems Britain’s got talent, but none of them are Republicans.

Well done to Paul Potts - Britain’s Got Talent has been fantastic entertainment and I hope it’s back soon!

It was the last of the semi finals tonight and the last two places were up for grabs.

Here’s a quick run down of everyone did…

• Cheeky Bits - very cheeky dance troupe, and much better than the group that were on the previous night.
• Dr Gore - Oh dear. This was a disaster. Their first audition was funny and made you recoil in mock horror. This was just dull and boring and they got a rough ride from the studio audience.
• Mike the Comedy Impressionist - Some of the impressions were a bit hit and miss, but that’s true of most TV impressionists, so I’d say he’s at least as good as John Culshaw.
• Tony Laf - Moving version of Eric Clapton’s Tears in Heaven.
• Crew 82 - Cool beat boxing combo which led Piers and Simon to bitch fight over who was the most in touch with popular culture.
• Scott -Great dancer, but as the judges righty said I think, it’s surely tough for a solo dance act to compete when the quality of the other acts was so good.
• Bar Wizards - Entertaining routine, but I really feel like I’ve seen the dancing cocktail barmen act too many times to find this too exciting and am suprised the judges find it “unqique”.
• Connie - the adorable toothless wonder wowed the judges with her rendition of “Ben”.

Connie won the audience vote and the judges had to choose between Tony and the Bar Wizards. They chose the Bar stewards, I suspect because they didnt wan’t too many singers in the final. Connie must be the favourite to win this competition now?

Well, look who turned up on ITV2’s Britain’s Got More Talent…. none other than BB8’s fame hungry Shabnam. Check out her cringeworthy audition.