³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ

Hey! You there! Yes, you! Do I have your attention? Good.

Early next week, there will be a change to how you can leave comments on the Comedy Blog - and indeed other ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ blogs. We're upgrading our current membership system (see right) to a new and improved one.

Don't worry - you'll be able to keep your existing account, but you will be prompted to upgrade it to the new system when you sign in. It's very quick and easy.

One important thing to note: if you have more than one ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ membership registered to a single email address, make sure you upgrade your favourite one. This is because only one of the accounts can be associated with a particular email address. More details on this can be found on the ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ Internet Blog.

Let us know in the comments below if you have any problems, or in the unlikely event it's gone so terrifyingly wrong you can't even do that, email us via comedyblog [at] bbc.co.uk.

Hello all! So, it is my sad duty to tell you that filming of Coming of Age series two has come to an end. We had highs and lows, laughter and tears,Ìýsinging and dancing,Ìýsexual innuendo and just plain dirty talking. Twas a wonderful few months. Some good news coming at you though, it will be on your screens early 2010, WOOHOO! Make sure you all watch and tell your friends.
The series came on so much this year, I'm damn sure you're going to love it. And if you don't, Family Guy will be on afterwards so you might as well watch it till the end, giggidy giggidy, giggidy goo.

Series One has been going out every Monday at 10.30, after EastEnders on ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ Three, and the final episode was on last night. No need to fret if you've missed it, because it'll be available to watch for a week on iPlayer - and it's also out on DVD, WOOHOO again. The perfect Christmas gift for your mum, dad, auntie, uncle, nan, granddad. OK, maybe not nan and granddad, but some old people like a bit of rumpy pumpy now and again, so why not take a risk!

The lovely people at the ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ have asked me to keep writing this now and again, so as soon as I hear any news or interesting information, I'll throw it on to you.

Also, for anybody that's interested (so...you!), I've filmed some sketches for the ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ's Comedy Extra site, so take a look. They're mildly amusing, I'm sure you'll agree, and there are more to come, so keep your eyes open....

I'm also playing Buttons in Cinderella at the Hawth Theatre in Crawley this Christmas. Julian Clary's inÌýit too, and he's been being funny a lot longer than I have, and is better thanÌýme in oh-so-many ways.ÌýSo if you fancy coming down, that would be marvellous, we could have a cuddle and maybe a biscuit.

Take care you lot, speak to you soon!!!

Joe Tracini plays DK in the ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ Three sitcom Coming of Age. Read the rest of his diary here on the Comedy Blog.

Throughout its run, the The Thick of It team will be sharing their experience of show here on the ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ Comedy Blog. Last week the Producer Adam Tandy gave a handy overview of the story so far, and this week we're delighted to hear from new star Rebecca Front.

The last time we heard from Rebecca, it had just been announced that she was joining the Thick of It team as the new Minister for Social Affairs, Nicola Murray MP. Thankfully she lived through the process and survived to tell us how she found the experience:

Rebecca writes....

First day of filming and I felt pretty relaxed. I knew my lines, and just went for it. At the end of my part in the scene, with Chris, James and Joanna still performing, I walked off the set and round to the area where Armando was watching the monitors. "Oh look," I remember thinking," He's watching The Thick of It." And that's when my knees went a bit weak.

The point is that the show is as much about the camera work and direction and sound quality as it is about scripts and acting. There's an unmistakable house-style, which is in no small measure created by the extraordinary work of Jamie Cairney and his team of guerilla camera operators. They nip in and out of rooms, hide in corners and frequently run full pelt to catch a particular moment. It's impressive to behold, and what makes it more impressive is that you frequently don't behold it. They seem to be invisible. Like Jeeves, they shimmer in and out of rooms, only very occasionally crashing into a filing cabinet.

The upshot of this is that when you're doing a scene, you really feel as though you and the other actors are alone in the room. This meant that scenes, particularly with Peter Capaldi, had an intensity that I hadn't expected. I never quite knew where emotionally we would end up.This is what acting should be like; it's as close as TV ever gets to live theatre, because Armando never allows the mechanics of making a programme to get in the way. And all of that informs what you see on screen. The pace of the jokes, the pressure of the situations all stem from that sense that Armando and the crew create of this being real and now and ghastly and funny and true.

The Thick of It is on Saturdays at 10.10pm on ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ Two.

Out of The Thick of It

Did you know you can get Out of The Thick of It by pressing the red button directly after each show? You can! If you don't have a red button (and whether you do or not really isn't any of our business), don't worry - here's Saturday's bonus content:

It's very nearly here. The new series of The Thick of It starts tomorrow night, and we're very excited to bring you this special preview:


Read more about the new series on Comedy Extra and this Programme Page. If you're new to the show and that all left you a bit bewildered, our potted history by Producer Adam Tandy should sort you out.

Armando Iannucci on Radio 4's Profile

Thick of It creator Armando Iannucci will be the subject of Profile tomorrow night at 7pm on Radio 4. The programme will include interviews with Armando's collaborators including Rebecca Front (who of course stars in the new series of The Thick of It), Steve Coogan, David Schneider, Adam Tandy and... his English teacher, Ronnie Renton.

You can also subscribe to the Profile podcast.

Keep an eye on this blog next week when we hope to bring you extended interviews with some of the contributors above.

³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ Time's Emmer Fryer writes...

Hello. It's my last chance to write one of these, so I'm really going to give it some.

In Episode Six, the threat of an Official School Reunion looms. Whether Gaynor attends or not, the fact that it's happening is enough to impact - it's one of those milestone, take-stock-of-your-life-type events. Like realising you no longer qualify for Club 18-30.

I've never been to a proper reunion and I'm not too sure I'd be very good at them. It'd be brilliant to catch up with the lovely people (of which there were many) and reminisce over stuff that no-one else would ever understand or really laugh at - unless they were very polite or hard of hearing and trying to cover it.

My worry is that I'd sense a creeping need to redress a couple of teenage comments that left my then-permed-head spinning with thoughts of "why didn't you just say (such and such) you knobhead". A while ago I met a woman by chance, who'd made me cry for weeks into my Forever Friends pillowcase. Instead of firing back the witty retorts I'd built up over a decade, I just panicked. My mouth made an involuntary fart noise and I enquired about her kids.

It's been a funny old time of late. People have said when your first project is shown it's like giving your baby away. I've not had a baby (nor given one away) so I can't rightly say, but I think (sticking with the emerging theme of this entry) it could be likened more to sending your child off on their first day of school.

I was worried it'd never fit in. It was the awkward sort, with duff clothes and a face that seemed to be begging for a kicking. Luckily, there were some really nice people at school who sat next to it at the lunch table. Thank you.

Now we're really at the end of the process. It felt like the end when we finished filming but then we had the edit. After the edit, it was the wait for it to be shown. Now it really is finished. To mark the occasion I got the large Salt 'n' Shake Crisps cardboard box that's accompanied me on all my house moves since the late nineties and packed everything away.

It's had a variety of contents over the years and has been labelled 'bedding', 'kitchen bits' and 'food to use quick' (those were dark days). I crossed out 'boho knitwear' and wrote '³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ Time'. I packed away script drafts, sketches, a series of rude doodles from the crew, rough cut DVDs, my kangol hat and the piece of paper that said 'Gaynor' from my caravan door.Ìý Maybe one day I'll have awkward, duffly-clad grandkids to show it to. Not the doodles though, they really are foul.

If you've watched and liked the series, thank you ever so much - it means an awful lot.

• Read more from Emma and co-writer Neil Edmond on the Comedy Blog
  

Watch the last episode of this series of ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ Time tonight at 9.30pm on ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ Two and catch-up with previous episodes on iPlayer.

Russell Howard's Good News - possibly Professor Farnsworth's favourite new show - starts tonight at 10.30pm on ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ Three. Here's Russell with more:


Pop over to the Good News Blog to join in the fun and share your good news with the team.

Remember we went to the Funny Women Awards in London? Well, we've got something to show you!

Here is the highly anticipated highlights video from that night, which was compered by Jan Ravens:

Bet you wanna see the winning set now, don't you?! Well, we've got that for you too!

Miss London - aka Dionne Hughes - won a tidy prize for this set, and well deserved. However, sunning herself on a beach in Cyprus will have to wait a while, as she's just been cast in Big Babies, a ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ Comedy Production for C³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ. Here she is in action:

is continuing to showcase female comics at the in London on the second Sunday of the month: 8th November and 13th December 2009.

Also featured have been fantastic sketch group LadyGarden, who are currently developing material with the ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ Comedy Department.

Ìý

The Thick of It is back - for a glorious eight episodes starting this Saturday at 10.10pm on ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ Two - with extra fun on the Red Button straight after.

The show began life on ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ Four, so it might be new to some viewers on ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ Two. In that spirit, here's an overview for anyone who might be feeling a bit left out:

Thick of It Producer Adam Tandy writes...

Don't be confused by all the panicking politicians in The Thick Of It on ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ Two this weekend. If you're wondering how they all got in that state, it's all very simple.

The old Department of Social Affairs was set up by the old PM and was used as a dumping ground for all the bits of government that everyone else didn't want to touch, let alone deal with. Then they put Cliff Lawton MP in charge, and made it a Cabinet job as a kind of poisoned carrot.

Even the Civil Servants there are not that hot - look at Communications Director Terri Coverley, head-hunted from the retail sector at great expense but probably to the great relief of her former colleagues at Waitrose. Her press officers are just as rubbish - Robyn Murdoch particularly. Robyn's let more cats out of hats than Dr Suess, according to Terri.

Cliff lasted 18 months before the PM sacked him for attracting too much press attention, by sending his own spin-doctor (Director of Communications) Malcolm Tucker round to extract a resignation.

Cliff's replacement as Secretary of State, Hugh Abbot MP, has lasted a bit longer.
He's even managed to pick up another sizeable disaster area to add to his portfolio, the Department of Citizenship run by the gaffe-prone Ben Swain MP. And thus DoSAC was born.

Hugh's had a couple of right-hand men to keep him out of trouble: Glenn Cullen, an old pal going back years, and bright young thing Oliver Reeder, as wonk-y as they come but good at coming up with policy on the hoof. Olly and Glenn aren't civil servants, but political appointees called Special Advisors (SpAds). If the Secretary of State goes, they go with him.

Hugh Abbot has even managed to survive a change of Prime Minister by carefully staying on holiday while the old PM was forced out by leader of the Nutter tendency, Tom Davies MP, despite the rumours about Tom's debilitating bouts of depression. Ben Swain gained politically, and Malcolm Tucker only managed to hang on to his job with a bit of nifty footwork and stabbing some ex-colleagues in the back.

Olly Reeder, encouraged by Malcolm, has started an up-and-down relationship with Emma Messinger, posh totty working for the Opposition. Emma has prior experience of Social Affairs policy so she was the obvious choice when the Opposition's PR guru Stewart Pearson assigned her to Peter Mannion MP, the shadow minister for Social Affairs and Citizenship. Peter's an old war-horse of a politician: he's even been a junior minister at DEFRA in the dim and distant past.

PM Tom Davies has finally got round to his first major reshuffle, and so probably the last before the election. Frankly, anything could happen.

Look out for more from a member of the Thick of It team each week here on the Comedy Blog.

Further into The Thick of It

Get even better prepared for Saturday...

• Read our interview with Rebecca Front (Nicola Murry MP)
• Watch the Thick of It special, The Rise of The Nutters, on iPlayer
• Enjoy our web exclusive video for Peter Capaldi and Jo Scanlan's show Getting On
  

Check this out! Our Matt has been back on set of the Only Fools prequel Sex, Drugs and Rock 'n' Chips, where he bumped in to none other than Sir David Jason, who stopped by to give some tips to the young Del, James Buckley.

Here they are together:

The Node is a brand new web series for Comedy Extra in which cultural commentators Martin Baine-Jones and Craig Children turn their critical eye to web phenomenons.

I spoke to Martin and Craig to find out more about these two experienced broadcasters.

Who are you, and what brought you together as a team?

Martin: Craig and I were music critics back in the 90s. I was the rock correspondent for The Daily Telegraph, and Craig was the rock critic for The Independent.
Craig: The Independent on Sunday's Culture pull out in actual fact. I'd been familiar with Martin's seminal, thousand word-plus history of 80s music, Start Making Sense. I don't think I actually finished reading it though.
Martin: And in many ways, I don't think I finished writing it. It's a story too big for any book to contain.
Craig: Anyway, so we finally crossed paths in Wakefield at the Sounds of the City Festival.
Martin: That's right, we were both there to review a band called The People Who Walked In Darkness. Which is ironic, since there was a 36 hour power cut at the time.
Craig: We quite literally bumped into each other.Ìý

What is The Node?

Martin: The Node is a Lexus.
Craig: No, Martin, it's a nexus, a meeting point.
Martin: It's an online coming-together. A sort of online gondola, punting through cyberspace, through the canals of net culture, picking the odd cultural dropped hat and burst balloon out of the murky waters.
Craig: I don't think that was a burst balloon Martin. But yes, you're right, The Node is a discussion of net culture, in which we try to work out what it all means. What does it all mean, Martin?
Martin: You'll have to watch The Node to find out Craig!

Is net culture any different to that on more traditional mediums? If so, how?

Martin: It's becoming less and less so, I think. Increasingly net culture and real world culture co-mingle and wash up on our collective beaches.
Craig: We very much see ourselves as beach scavengers, in a metaphorical sense and in a way a very real sense.

What, in your opinions, is the most culturally significant web phenomenon of our time?

Martin: Probably the Zippo lighter iPhone app I'd say. Great for holding aloft at a Simply Red concert with no risk of burning the finger tips.
Craig: Martin, what you've actually done there is name the most pointless thing ever. I mean what is the point of a lighter which gives off no heat, light, and crucially doesn't light anything?
Martin: But at least Mick Hucknell can sleep safe at night, knowing he won't ever suffer a Michael Jackson-style hair combustion incident on stage.
Craig: Yes well anyway, I think my nomination for the most culturally significant web phenomenon is Gaydar.
Martin: Craig is there something you want to tell me?
Craig: Purely for it's ingenuity as a social network. It really is the best example technically of that sort of site. Don't get me wrong, I'm a thrusting, straining bloke, always up for heterosexual sex. I'm always looking at women, can't take my eyes of them. Looking at their mounds, crevices and what have you.
Martin: I see.

Have you considered that you may now become cultural artefacts in yourselves and become the subject of other critics?

Martin: Not until just now.Ìý
Craig:Ìý Oooh I wouldn't mind being caught in the cross-hairs of a critic as long as the critic were female. I am, as I've repeatedly said in the past, a hot-blooded male, rampantly interested in heterosexual inter-relations and, you know, whatever it is. That Bonnie Greer, she could criticise me intimately, grrrr.
Martin: Stop it Craig, I feel sick!

What's next?

Martin:Ìý We've been keenly following a comedy double act who go by the name Armstrong & Miller, and we believe they are currently at the bleeding edge of the cultural zeitgeist.
Craig: Yes, they're at the moist of the spectrum. Or perhaps the clammy end.
Martin: Either way, I understand they have a new comedy sketch programme which will frequent the 9.30pm slot on ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ One each Friday night.
Craig: Yes, and there's also a tour coming up, I hear. A live tour featuring all of our funniest characters. I mean their funniest characters.

Martin and Craig were being channelled by Alexander Armstrong and Ben Miller. The new series of The Armstrong and Miller Show can be seen on Friday nights at 9.30pm on ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ One.

Hello again.

In ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ Time episode five, The Girls finally hear the tick of the Growing Up Clock, as Kelly turns 30.

One intent as we wrote ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ Time was to show a sense of creeping epiphany in the series, as Gaynor's return nudges The Girls towards some seeping recognition of how they are, compared to how they thought they should be. Gaynor's been through that already. That's why she's so glum in episode one.

So has Paul Walsh, a bit. But only in this episode (and next week's finale) do Mel, Becky and Kelly creak towards some kind of healthy self-doubt.

I've always felt old and left out. I came to the conclusion, when I was about 22, that I'm not light-hearted. Heck, I like doing fun and being daft and mucking about, but not if there's a chance that I'm avoiding some unstated social responsibility, or shirking a duty to my fellow man. Too many superhero comics, I think.

When we shot this episode's nightclub scene (the only scene in the series that uses contemporary music, incidentally), it was the first time I'd been in a club for 12 years. I'm suspicious of large groups of people all trying to affect the same emotion, to feel the same thing: festivals, carnivals, raves, rallies, lynchings, etc, leave me cold. I don't mind funerals so much, 'cos most people are sitting down.

Filming in a club was much preferable to dancing in one. There was only music for a five second burst at the top of each take, then silent jigging about by a hundred youngsters. Plus the crew said that, of all the nightclubs they'd ever filmed in, Carey's was by far the cleanest. Another feather in the cap for Cov, I reckon.

One bosomy girl continually managed to wobble a knocker into shot, somehow, despite the able wrangling of our Pete and Tracey, but apart from that, everything went very smoothly.

Anyroad, here's the only photo I took that relates to this episode:


Neil Edmond wrote ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ Time with Emma Fryer, who plays Gaynor.

The series continues tonight at 10pm on ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ Two. Read more about ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ Time on the Comedy Blog and watch a clip on Comedy Extra.

Tim Groyn writes...

Snooker, pastime of princes. Not for nothing do the professionals refer to the Crucible Theatre (where all snooker is played) as The Palace Of Small Hard Balls. I've loved Snooker ever since I first turned on the radio in the 60's and heard the DJ playing Chas & Dave's Snooker Loopy (Nuts Are We). What a song! I had to hear it again but in those days you couldn't simply go to i-tunes and download whatever you wanted. I had to walk 45 miles to the radio station and beg the DJ to let me use his i-tunes, which back then resembled a giant cooker. I rushed home with my giant wax MP3 of Snooker Loopy and listened to it non stop for 16 weeks. My parents cried and cried, assuming naturally that something was very wrong with me, but I was fine. At least I was physically fine. My mind had been infected with a chronic case of the Snooks.

It's hard to say what I love most about Snooko but it's probably the sticks, the green tables and the holes. I'm conflicted about the balls. On the one hand they're a crucial part of the game, on the other hand they are the enemy and must be pushed into the holes.

My hero as a teenager was Steve 'Mind Thunder' Davis who is still considered the greatest Snooktician of all time. I had posters of Steve, plates of Steve, clothes of Steve, sheets of Steve and a tattoo of Steve's face over my whole body (I still have this but when I'm working I'm often forced to conceal parts of it with make-up).

I remember when the 'satirical' puppet show Spitting Image dubbed him Steve 'Interesting' Davis. It was supposedly an ironic dig at the expense of his personality shortcomings and it enraged me to such a degree that one afternoon I burst into the Spitting Image offices with a snooker stick and threatened to kill every single one of the smug turds that wrote, puppetted and voiced that not-very-funny show unless they made the Steve Davis character more dynamic and cool. When I got out of prison I noticed that they had failed to heed my warnings and as a result I refuse to watch the show to this very day.

Nowadays a new star has risen in the stick-and-small-hard-ball firmament and his name is Ronny 'El Ronovator' O'Sullivan. My video Master Snooks (above) features Ronno wiping the floor with a player whose name I don't even recall, that's how insignificant a threat he posed to Ronjons. For 6 years now I've written a long love letter to the Ronbot every single day of the week but have so far not received a reply. I don't mind though, I know it's because Ronnimax is busy redefining the greatest game on the planet: Snookles.

Tim Groyn is, of course, an invention of Adam Buxton.

More fun with Dr Buckles

• Adam's videos on Comedy Extra
• Adam Buxton on the Comedy Blog
  
• Adam's
  
• Adam and Joe on 6 Music
• The Adam and Joe 6 Music Blog

Fans of his regular appearances on Mock The Week and anyone nostalgic for his old show on 6 Music will be delighted to see that Russell will be fronting a new topical comedy series on ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ Three called Russell Howard's Good News.

You'll be able to follow the progress of the show before it hits the air on the brand new Good News blog, which will include exclusive updates from Russell and is also your chance to submit stuff you'd like to see featured on the show.

Take a look!

HI! I'M DOCTOR GUSTAV GRIPPENSCHAAFT

You know, I spend a large percentage of some of my time thinking about people less fortunate than me - for instance: children and animals.

Remember: CHILDREN AND ANIMALS ARE PEOPLE TOO.

In a world full of crazy new technologies (internet, robots etc...) does anyone know the true meaning of compassion any more? It's something you won't find in the dictionary.

YOU MUST SEARCH FOR COMPASSION WITHIN YOUR HEART. Alternatively, you can Google it.

Get compassionate! Try the following:-

When you next see that homeless guy on the street corner don't just give him your spare change - He'll probably just use it to buy drugs. Instead, why don't YOU sell him the drugs! Everyone's a winner!Ìý

Case Study

The other day I was hard-pumping in the gym when my thoughts wandered to a patient that I had recently had in my care - one Simon Ardman.

Simon was feeling low on account of being a total loser-prick and it was up to me to get him out of the rut in which he found himself in.

He'd made some bad decisions in his life that he wanted to put right and, starting with his crappy dress sense, I was happy to oblige.



What Simon didn't know is that his ass was now mine and I was going to do everything I could to make his life better. Even if it killed him.

The next step was to get him laid...

Grippenschaaft is written by Thomas Nelstrop and Simeon Goulden.

The Micro Men are coming! That's as in micro computer, not tiny little guys (they might be on their way too, but that's really nothing to do with us).

Tonight as part of the Electric Revolution season on ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ Four, Martin Freeman and Alexander Armstrong will battle it out as Chris Curry and Clive Sinclair - two major players in Britain's new home computer market.

They're two distinctly British characters and, as you'd hope from a programme starring such comedy greats, it's not short on laughs - despite not strictly being a comedy:

So, did you guess who our Iggy is?

We had a few correct guesses via and : Iggy is, of course, Morwenna Banks!

Morwenna has been filming a new web-exclusive series with us, Celebrities STFU.



In the episode below, Lady Gaga, Noel Gallagher, Susan Boyle, Pixie Lott, Jools Holland and Duffy discuss reading and the Booker Prize. Enjoy!

My name is Dr. Firth. Ever since receiving a highly prestigious Yahoo! Answers PHD in the field of "knowing certain things", I have been settling queries from the general public. Allow me to correct your life.

Letter from Howard:

I'm bored. Who should I blame?

Howard, I feel for you, I really do. It's not uncommon to be bored with everything, I know I am. The only reason I'm writing this is to keep myself awake. Boredom may be the biggest problem facing our country, yet there is currently no one interesting enough to solve it.

Did you watch the news this morning? I struggled to stay awake. Finance this, referendum that. It's all so boring. We need explosions, more unexpected celebrity deaths and shocking horrible visions of the near future. I don't know anyone in Basra, so I don't care if they're dead. Let's blame something, so we can throw rocks at it. Let's get our pointing fingers out! It's blaming season.

What I want YOU to do, Howard, is put the TV on. Start at channel 001, and try and watch for more than eight seconds without being bored. If you get bored, write down the name of the person responsible, and move to the next channel. By the time you're at GemsTV, you'll have a strong list of blameables. That is your starting point. I will do radio and then we'll get started on the internet. It's going to be a struggle, but our efforts will be a starting point. And with a blame-list steadily expanding, we'll eventually be able to solve this problem.

Jill (Somerset) says: When I'm bored I turn to social networking. It's a great way of telling others how bored I am.Ìý

Thanks Jill.

Letter from Kerry:

I'm bored of cooking dinner, any solutions?

Kerry, we're all bored of cookery. Cookery is a bastard. Plain and simple. Cooking isn't your friend, if it were, then food poisoning wouldn't exist and meals would always taste good.

In reality, cookery is a stubborn, spiteful little menace that requires time and effort, and rarely pays off. Cows don't need cookery. Their food is right where they need it, all day long. They're laughing at us, along with the rest of the animal kingdom, for wasting valuable time, heating up food and eating, when we probably don't even need to eat at all. In fact I'm sure of it. Kerry, my advise to you is stop eating altogether. It can't do any harm.

For further reading on the subjects of blame and boredom, Google the following questions to see what you find:
Ìý

• How to blame people for things and then change the subject before any suspicion arises.
• How to subtly change the subject when someone is boring you.
• Do cats have pubic hair?

But what about the youth of today? How do they deal with boredom? I recently diagnosed myself as "out of touch with today's youth", so I am unable to comment. My resident child contributor Jerry Jackson offers his views, in the form of a short animated film:

Never Mind The Buzzcocks is back - now with added Noel Fielding. If you enjoyed Episode One last week, you might like to know that there's a little bit extra to watch after each show. Digital viewers can press their Red Button* to watch team captains Phill Jupitus and Noel Fielding debate an Issue of Cultural Importance. For the first episode, they must decide which is the better: Brian Ferry, or... ferries.

The good news for any non-digital viewers, or viewers who pressed a non-red button, or anyone who had a power cut directly after the show, is that all the Red Button videos will be available to watch on Comedy Extra. Here's the first:

Hello.

We've decided to take this in turns. This week, Emma's 'doing up her hall'. I must again emphasise that this is not a euphemism. Not as far as I know. Either way, you're stuck with me.

Episode Four of ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ Time contains a nocturnal scene filmed on a fancy bridge over Coventry's nicely tarted-up canal basin. As Emma mentioned last week, we were filming in the January cold snap, and this night became very important for me:

It was the only night that I let someone lend me a coat.

There's a lot of pressure from a film crew to keep warm on night shoots, and they regularly expressed concern that I was underdressed. In part this is altruism, but I think a fair bit of their interest is because they've all spent quite a lot of money on North Face all-weather gear, and if you're stood there in an eBay polyester jacket and slacks they feel like they could've saved themselves a few quid.

However, on this night, as the frost gently fingered its way up the canal, and the Arctic winds whistled through my Farahs, reducing my genitals to barely more than a furry knoll, I let our Art Director chip my frozen hands off the metal bridge railings and fumble them, Action Man-like, down the sleeves of a beautiful parka of almost impossible tog rating.

Thank you Kyz Kistell - you may have saved my life.

She (and her department) were also responsible for some of my favourite ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ Time elements. If you get a chance, take a look on iPlayer at any scene set in Gaynor's room. There's so much detail, all of it strictly adhering to our 'nothing from after 1997' rule (this applies to the soundtrack too, in case you'd not spotted it...). Sourcing and getting permission to use long-lost Body Shop balms, forgotten cartoon merchandise and properly dated pop paraphernalia is an onerous task, and Emma and I were frequently moved by the accuracy and dedication with which it was undertaken.

Also, at the head of the bed, on the left of screen, Noel Gallagher can sometimes be seen licking a stuffed lamb's bum.

Anyroad, Episode Four also has Tina B turn up again. She's the girl that 'filled in' for Gaynor after Gaynor ran away, and who was summarily dismissed by The Girls on Gaynor's return. She's beautifully played by . Here's how I originally thought she'd look:

Luckily, Gemma was keen to get as near to scabby and unlovely as she could, and also imbues Tina with a limp nobility. Ace.

Oh yeah, when they worked out the Autumn schedule, the Beeb told us that ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ Time would move to Thursday nights for the last two episodes. I'm not sure why, but keep an eye out for that: Episode Five is on at 10pm on Thursday the 15th of October.


Neil Edmond wrote ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ Time with Emma Fryer, who plays Gaynor.

The series continues tonight at 10pm on ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ Two. Read more about ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ Time on the Comedy Blog and watch a clip on Comedy Extra.

The cast for the workingly-titledÌýSex, Drugs & Rock'n'Chips has been announced - and it's a very exciting mix.

Telling the Only Fools and Horses backstory will be Inbetweeners star as a teenage Del Boy, while Nicholas Lyndhurst will return to Peckham, this time as Freddie 'The Frog' RobdalÌý - an 'art connoisseur' with more than a passing resemblance to the future Rodney Trotter.

"Sex, Drugs & Rock'n'Chips hurtles us into the rough and unglamorous world of London in 1960 to discover the circumstances that led to Del and Rodney Trotter turning out the way they did," said writer John Sullivan.

Centering on the relationships between Joan, Reg, safe-cracker Freddie and teenage Del, it picks up the Trotter story in 1960, as Joan Trotter (Peckham's answer to Brigitte Bardot) is not-so-happily married to bone-idle Reg and mother to a teenage son, Derek. But the reappearance of Freddie Robdal, fresh from a ten year stay as a guest of Her Majesty, is set to ruffle some feathers in the Trotter household...

Other cast announced include Kellie Bright and Shaun Dingwall as Trotter parents Joan and Reg, Phil Daniels as Del's granddad, and Robert Dawes as Joan's sleazy boss.

We haven't yet learned who will be playing the teenage Boycie, Trigger, Denzil and Roy Slater - but we do know they'll be in it.

Shooting begins this Monday, and we'll try to get on set to snap some behind-the-scenes photos for the blog, so stay tuned.

UPDATED: here they are!