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Arrivederci Roma
IT must be fate. In My View bows out this week after watching the biggest bloodbath ever seen on prime time terrestrial TV as Geordie actor Ray Stevenson survived an incredible encounter in the arena to end the series of Rome (BBC2, Wednesday).
Hated and rated
AS a man from what became Milton Keynes - complete with its first estate of brickless grey hut-like homes which blew down - there seemed little chance of finding habitats more horrible... until Demolition (C4, Sat-Tues) came along.
Am I bovvered?
IF it's true, as I suspect, that mostly women phone-vote for high profile programmes like X-Factor (ITV1, Saturday), why is it that so few females reach the final stages? Currently, sisters simply aren't doing it for themselves.
Shedding the votes
WHEN I retire - sorry, thanks to Mr Brown and Mr Blair that's IF I retire - my wife says she wants me to live in a structure at the bottom of the garden now known as "a buttress against the pressures of modernity". That's a description of the shed which helped Simon Starling to win this year's £25,000 The Turner Prize (C4, Monday).
Licenced to chill
THE price of a TV licence has suddenly become a big issue in my house... not the current payment of £126.50 per year (for the colour version) but the actual value of having one.
The good old ways
DESPITE having banned even a whiff of I'm A Celebrity... Get Me Out Of Here (ITV1) - the arrival of Cannon And Ball hasn't helped - my wife is beginning to dread the words New Series in the main programme guide.
A bid up in the air
THE Great Big Bid (Sun-Thurs, BBC1), despite being difficult to pronounce, has caught the public's imagination, but such a long run-up to last night's Children In Need extravaganza is certainly challenging charitable thoughts at home.
Who loves ya baby?
'WHO the hell is he (or she)?' has become the first line of attack by my wife as she sends the new season of programmes spinning away like autumn leaves caught in the slipstream of another David Blunkett resignation.
Changing times
A LOVE that dare not speak its name definitely covers fans of Changing Rooms and seems to be about to envelope the outrageous fashion world of Trinny and Susannah.
The hex factor
I NEVER thought I'd feel sorry for 'all mouth and trousers' Simon Cowell.
Full of bright ideas
"FANCY having to go round and tell people you work for Bright Ideas TV. How embarrassing is that?" said my wife as our Sunday morning lie-in with TV produced the rare gem of an early episode of Antiques Roadshow.
Moving days
"I DON'T see why I should have to comment on TV programmes at all, when you're so talented at making things up," was a warning shot across my bows this week as my wife and I buckled under the strain of collecting one son from London and taking our youngest to university.
Halfway to happiness
WITH ITV screens emblazoned with 50 celebrations it is fairly typical of the Hardwick household to have dropped everything - including a full scale child moving out operation - to watch the landmark 49 Up (Thursday, ITV1).
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