Going Off Alarming

He loves me, he hates me, I love him, I hate him, Diet, had a bad day, sex, boss is a tosser, glass of wine, new job...

Pretty much the staple diet for female bogging. Perhaps I shoud have entitled this blog "a glass of whine" (d'ya see what I did there?)

But you know what? - Contrary to my original and natural thoughts, They are fantastic to read!

I have realised that I am addicted to blogging. I have been reading them for quite a while (i must be a real nosey git) and I noticed that the ones written by women over 23 are generally the same. And the best.

When I started my blog only a week ago, I stated that i would like it to be some kind of moaning forum for myself and I fully expected the Bridget Jones style bogging to be a target.

But as I started to write, I realised that I actually love them and are more addicted to the female tales of woe than any of my more likley persuits of sport and TV.

Some women - and I have real flesh friends like this too, - just seem to attract idiot men yet when they find a good one, they make a complete hash of it.

One of my friends regularly reels off a stream of tales about her disasters with men and she is such a lovely girl that we never understood it. Really attractive, funny, good job (bit of a housing portfolio too as a side) so it was bizarre that after two dates, these guys would run a country mile away from her.

We speculated that it must be sex. 2nd date it all goes wrong so she must be pretty scarey in the sack - or rubbish!

Then one day, a mate at work wondered if I had a friend who would be up for a blind date. Naturally I said yes and set it up with her.

Well, first date - Great. They had a snog, swapped mobile numbers and she was telling me how great I was becuse I had set her up with what could easily be "mr Right".

It was at that point i realised.

One date - one snog - and he is a "potential mr right????" Oh FFS! Sure enough second date was the last.

On talking to my mate about it he said "lovely girl, comes on far too strong though and was talking babies, marriage, what colour walls we would have...I just wanted a laugh and perhaps a shag."

On further interrogation he said that after a while if the laughs continue it could develop into something serious but she wanted it NOW NOW NOW!

So girls - there you have it. A cautionary tale about how a man's mind works. Be patient and don't think that every time he says he is busy he is with someone else. Don't wallow in self pity because he wants to watch the champions league in the pub with his mates. He is just a bloke and we don't like being pushed.

Oh - but don't stop the blogs!

Dan

I really wanted to avoid talking sport on my blog, mainly because it switches off half the potential readers. But I cannot let the current England football situation go un commented.

The thing that gets me is that the job is said to be "the hardest in the world". What utter tosh. It is hardly solving world hunger of finding a cure for AIDS or Cancer is it?

You only need 4 qualities to be a great international coach:

1 - Organisation/Tactics
2 - Motivation
3 - Man Management
4 - Luck

The team and squad should pick itself (i think if you polled 10,000 england fans you would only get 4 or 5 different teams after filtering out the wierdos and agendas)

They do NOT need coaching. They are at the top of their games to play for England already. Let the clubs coach.

The only other quality is perhaps man management. But you would hope that top players can manage themselves. (Pause for laughter)

Why do we see it as some sceintific thing that only a handful of managers can do?

Dan

A few years ago, I was in America and I noticed that their TV schedules were choc full of copycat programmes. If one was successful, then each network would have it's own version. For every Oprah there was a Geraldo or Donahue. For every Sienfeld, there was an Ellen. For every Letterman, there was a conan O'Brien. Every Simpsons there was family guy, Quiz shows were just variations on a theme. It felt like despite there being 50 channels to choose from, there was in fact only a handful of programmes to watch.

I did think how lucky we were in the UK that it rarely happened.

I hate cliches, but what happens in the US generally follows west to us. And sure enough today's schedules are indeed just copycat. Check the following off the top of my head:

Dr Who - Primevil
Dragons Den: Million Pound Giveaway
Life on Mars - Bonkers
Pop Idol (x Factor) - Fame Academy.
Big Brother - 100 generic rip offs
Strictly Come dancing - Dancing on Ice

There are many more but I am just typing a stream of thoughts with no research.

What triggered this was an advert running on ITV promoting Grease Lightning where live auditions will take place to find the new Danny Zucko and Sanrda Dee for the return of Grease to the West End.

Oh well done ITV. What terriffic creative brains you have. Instead of actually creating something new, lets just look at what was mildly successful on another channel and rip it off. Do these highly paid pillocks with expensive suits and no ties just sit in a room and look at last years TV ratings and decide a new spin?

How hard is it to take the exact format and change it to another musical?

What is next on ITV? Steal the teletubby idea and change the 4 characters ever so slightly to avoid copyright? Oh, right they have already..it's called the Hoobs.

Or how about a fly on the wall documentary about the everyday happenings in an airport - Oops yes, done that too but ITV based theirs on an airline and a number of airports! Well thats alright then. Totally different. Silly me.

I challenge anyone to find an original idea that was successful that has not been ripped off by another channel within 18 months.

Even Harry Hill mentions it when he jokingly refers to Primevil as Dr Who.

It is a farce. ITV wonder why advertising revenues are dropping. I suggest they look no further than their lazy new programming.
But BBC are only little better but at least the bulk of new stuff is on the BBC - and boy do they have to be careful as it is our money they are playing with.

Maybe I should not get so riled up abut TV. Maybe I should just read more books. But I love TV. And more than that I love quality creative TV and it irritates me when all that is available is identikit programmes in template format rolled out - and a chance to vote at £1 a time.

And don't get me started on that. Another blog another day perhaps.

Dan

When you do not have your own column in a newspaper, it can be so frustrating not being able to shout about what really bothers you in this world.

I have no desire to be a celebrity. However, there are two big advantages (apart from the cash) of being a celeb over the rank and file members of the public. Namely - they have the platform to spout their views, no matter how ridiculous and misguided and despite being no better than me at football they get to play at Wembley stadium. And for those two things I am insanely jealous.

The blog may come to my rescue for at least one of those.

Obviously there is no guarantee that any bugger will ever read it, but to me that matters not. My thoughts and views will be aired and rather like the aforementioned columnist, even though most people just look at Page 3 and the TV listings the publication is all that matters.

But I shall keep my powder dry for now purely because I want to make sure this is all working first, however I fully expect my blog to turn into a personal "room 101" for all things that just annoy me to my very bones.

See you soon.

Dan