Did You See That

Sorry, but are we supposed to take this story line seriously?

Ian Beale has been the victim of a campaign of terror which has involved emails from his dead wife, a coffin being delivered to his house, a photoshopped image of her in the square and then tonight, being led a merry dance to a block of flats where a mannuquin was dressed as a hoodie. The whole thing has been absolutely absurd.

Eastenders has taken a hammering in the ratings over the year, especially when it goes head to head with Emmerdale, and this kind of nonsense doesn’t suggest to me that they are anything like back on the right road to recovery.

Anyway, finally Ian found out who was behind the mysterious goings on tonight. He seemed to know who it was but the face wasn’t recognisable to viewers. I’ve always suspected it would be Steven Wickes but I guess that will be confirmed soon enough.

The suspense is killing me.

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

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.

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…

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.

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

Buy Shirley Bassey CDs and DVDs

Well, I suppose it should have been obvious. Simon made a total balls-up of the “TV selling” task, but Sir Alan fired poor Naomi, which I guess should have told me that Simon was his favourite, but for some reason I thought he would go with Kristina. She seemed genuinely gutted not to get the job.

But what is the job? Well, Sir Alan wants Simon to help find a hotel provider for a new hotel and golf complex he is setting up near Stansted. Hotel and Golf complex? Someone’s trying a little too hard to be Donald Trump, I think!

And what of Katie? She was publicly embarrassed again last night on the You’re Hired program with Adrian Childes. Their treatmeant of her seems oddly petulant. They should be thanking her for making their TV show - and that’s what this is, it’s not a serious business exercise - actually interesting.

Well, I tried Eastenders and there was some rubbish with Dot agonising over Pauline’s ashes, and I switched over to Emmerdale to see Marlon and Ely doing an armed robbery on a bookies, and then Marlon getting shot in the process.

Emmerdale won hands down for me!

The thing I love about Emmerdale at the moment is that the writing seems excellent. The dialogue and the acting seems spot on and so natural for many of the characters.

Eastenders is just dull, dull, dull. Of course we all love Dot Cotton, but when she gets a storyline of her own, it just seems to drag on and bore you to tears.

Ok, one problem with Emmerdale I forgot to mention at the time: They recently had a pageant to celebrate Emmerdale’s history. They seemed to forget it was originally Beckingdale and only renamed after the plane crash!!?