Did You See That

This was a chance to catch up with some of the contestants from previous episodes if the successful business show starring Peter Jones (wow, they’re words that having been in the same sentence for some time) and the rest of the Dragons.

James Seddon was the “nutty professor” type character who came up with an idea for a waterless egg boiler. Unfortunately his demonstration was one egg short of a success pitch when he couldn’t ever demonstrate it working. Despite this, Peter and Richard did invest in his business, but he later declined their funds and is trying to get it launched himself later this year.

David and Sarah came to the Den with their beach towel that had pockets which could roll up into a shoulder bag, called Itsa. David’s abrasive nature rubbed the Dragons up the wrong and they didn’t take kindly to him beginning his sentences as if he was about to tell them something profound about business.  Despite their knockback, David and Sarah are persevering with the product and have a big deal sewn up in America. One of the Itsa’s USPs is that it had a secret compartment where you can  put you valuables and then “go for a swim”. This seems like a massive flaw because any would be thieves would just scour the beach in search of Itsas with the certain knowledge of where any valubles are hiding.

Other survivors from the Den will be back next week.

 Dragons’ Den: Where Are They Now?  - BBC2, Thursday, 20:00

Saw this advert today during the Formula On GP which cracked me up, as championship leaders - and teammates - Lewis Hamilton and Fernando Alonso take their rivalry off the racetrack. Much has been said about possible friction in the team so it’s nice to see this light hearted advert starring the two drivers, and a great little cameo from Mika Hakkinen at the end.

Well, Stella’s bullying ways were exposed in last night’s Eastenders when  Ben  managed to tell his dad that all was not well. The blood seeping through his shirt was a major clue also. And after a few laps of the snooker table, and Stella trying to pin it all on Ian, Phil finally twigged that Stella was nuts.

As Ben poured his little heart out, Peggy asked if she had abused Ben in other ways. “No, nothing like that” said Ben, showing an impressive understanding as to what was being alluded to for one who had previously confused his dad’s pep talk on puberty with the idea that getting ritually bullied and tortured was normal for little boys growing up.

Phil - egged on by Peggy’s rallying cry, “make her pay” - tracked Stella down to a disused factory (in a city of 7 million people, it’s still amazing how useful an A-Z can be) before cornering her on the rooftop. Stella’s last words were “watch me, daddy” before plummeting to her death on the bonnet of her wedding car. It reminded me of the climax to the fantastic political drama, “House of Cards”, in which Mattie Storin asked Francis Urqhuart, “Can I trust you Daddy?”, before he threw her to her death.

But did Stella jump or was she pushed? In a little Eastenders mystery, the vital scene wasn’t shown, but we saw Phil looking at his hands. Was he looking at the hands of a killer? Or making a mental note to buy some Fairy washing up liquid? I’m sure well find out soon.

Ok, so I may be alone in this, but I am persevering with ITV1’s Tycoon although I’m starting to get the inkling that this format is heavily flawed.

In the latest episode, we were told that another business would be “closed down” to leave three left for next week’s live final. In the end, it didn’t happen and all four remaining businesses went through - but the whole concept of closing down any of them is crazy since they were all profit making businesses. Would Peter Jones really close a profitable business because it was making less profit than another? It was understandable in the early weeks when some of the businesses were clearly going no where, but all the remaining businesses seem to have a future as a profitable business and “closing them down” for a TV show is bordering on insane - whatever “closing” them down actually entails considering there are actual people, brands, contracts (apparently), products and intellectual property that will remain beyond the life of the program.

And  it seems the eventual winner is going to be chosen by the public in a phone vote and live final. Why would a tycoon’s success be subject to the whims of a voting public who have seen a heavily edited (and then re-edited/chopped up for a shorter slot)? The winner should be entirely down to their business success and nothing more. I really wanted to like this program and right up until last week I remained positive, but this has descended rapidly into the file marked “dog’s dinner”. Sorry Peter, you screwed up.

The javelin has always seemed like a scary event to me, and the horrific accident in Rome at he weekend where French long jumper Salim Sdiri was speared as he waited at the trackside has done nothing to change my mind. Luckily, he was not too badly injuredit obviously could have been a lot worse.

Ouch.

ITV1’s Tycoon was much heralded but after two disappointing weeks in the ratings, it was pulled from it’s slot and now has been reformatted as a 30 min show (half its original length) and is showing at 10pm.

I watched the latest episode and I have to say it was actually very entertaining, and Justin was hilarious with his David Brent style approach to running Tycoon tower whilst Peter was away in New York. I’d suspect his lines had all been scripted by Ricky Gervais, if Ricky Gervais hadn’t been made a point of showing us recently how distinctly unfunny he can be.

So, personally, I think this is a great show, but obviously I’m in a minority on this one. So if you saw it and didn’t like it, use the comments to explain why. If you haven’t seen it, visit the website and check it out. You can watch it online and at full screen.

Paul Potts - the star of Britain’s Got Talent - continues his journey from mobile phone sales person to singing superstar. He just got back from the USA where he recorded his new album, and today he appeared on GMTV. Check out the video below for another fantastic performance of Nessum Dorma (try and ignore the first few minutes of inane questioning from the presenter, who patronisingly asked him to explain how her phone works).

It was a Super Sunday for sports lovers with three huge events taking place in the UK.

The Tour De France (ITV4) started off in London this year and made its way down through South East London and North Kent to the cheers of packed streets. As far as I know, all the riders made it to the end and none were happy slapped or had their bikes stolen in the towns of North Kent where ASBOs are replacing GCSEs as the most common attainment that kids leave school with.

Also on ITV was the British Formula One where Lewis Hamilton came third, continuing his run of a podium finish in every race so far.

Over on BBC One was the climax the Wimbledon fortnight with Roger Federer beating Nadal in a five set thriller. In previous years, Federer has worn a white blazer but now he has added full length white trousers to his elegant post match constume. What’s all that about then?

Mylene Klass is definitely flavour of the month and she’s all over the media lately. But I realised that things are getting out of hand when the following message appeared on screen during the Daily Politics today:

Coming up: Mylene Klass gives her views on the Government’s immigation policy

Whatever next? Benny from Crossroads discusses the role of private equity companies?

Ricky Gervais is a funny guy. I’m a big of the Office and of Extras.

But watching his routine at the Diana concert yesterday, you had to come to one conclusion. Ricky Gervais was rubbish. You’d think someone who is billed as the world’s funniest man, and knows he has a live audience of over 60,000 and a TV audience of over 140 million could work out a 10 minute routine with some actual jokes or something… Can you imagine Bob Monkhouse - if he were still here in any capacity beyond computer generated adverts - moaning about having to fill 3 minutes!

Maybe he sense the ridiculousness of the whole occasion and decided not to put any effort in? But the funniest thing about Gervais was his intro from Ben Stiller. It was all downhill from there…