Do you remember when the BRIT Awards were fun? Where government ministers went in fear of having buckets of water tipped over them? When Michael Jackson couldn’t come out to do his Messiah routine without that dorky little Jarvis Cocker showing himself up? When swearing and drinking and carrying on were the order of the day? Well, it may no longer be that badly behaved but you still get moments like last year where Adele (remember that night we kissed her up and down her arms? Oh, you weren’t there) came out and slapped us about the person with her tearful ‘just me and me old joanna’ rendition of Someone Like You. This year we have Olly Murs (complete with bulging trousers), Rihanna, Coldplay, Blur, Ed Sheeran and Bruno Mars (maybe working in collaboration with each other) and, most exciting of all, Adele, back to blow the froth clean off your cappuccino again. It all goes down at the O2 on Tuesday or on a television on ITV at 8pm. The only downside? That bore James Corden hosting.
Every year there is one big US TV show that everyone must watch. You know, like The Sopranos or Nurse Jackie or Mad Men or 24 or Rhoda. This year it is Homeland, which has the distinct advantage of starring the delicious ginger actor Damian Lewis as an American Marine who has been held captive for eight years by al-Qaeda. Released to a hero’s welcome, he returns to his – wait for it – homeland and tries to get on with his life, the only fly in his oinkment being that a certain lady from the CIA, played by Claire Danes, thinks he’s a terrorist. Which is not only an irony but a darned shame. Landing on UK televisions with the highest of plaudits from our American friends, it starts on Channel 4 this Sunday at 9.30pm. The end.
Sales of hot cakes will look decidedly sluggish in comparison with those of tickets for David Sedaris at Cadogan Hall on 28th and 29th September. For those for whom books are just something to rest cups of coffee on, we are happy to inform you that David Sedaris is the hands-down most hilarious writer of your short story that you will find for ready money. Added to which he is a raging homosexualist with a boyfriend and a gay lifestyle and everything. The humour is deadpan, the delivery even more so (think Alan Bennett with an American accent and fewer references to Cream Crackers) and his readings are complete sell-outs (in the good way!) wherever he puts bottom to chair or underside of forearm to lectern. We love him. Buy your tickets right this instant here.
One of the worst things that ever happened in the world, ever, was when they (and when we say they, we really mean it) got rid of our beloved Routemasters. Gone was the hop-on, hop-off life we had grown to love; gone were the conductors whom we had grown to be kind of fond of; gone were the funny wind-up windows that gave us frost-bite on our hair. And for why? In case stupid people fell out the back of them. Why can’t stupid people just get cabs? But after lots ‘n’ lots of talking and scribbling and power point presenting, Dear London is set to get the Routemaster back, albeit a post-modern twist on the Routemaster that people are already scoffing at. Just be grateful it isn’t a Bendy, h’okay?! They’re being rolled out on the No.38 route – a bus we know well, because when we’re waiting for the No.55 we see at least 172 of them whizzing by, peopled by Islington residents busy plaiting each other’s hair – and we don’t care what anybody says, we already kind of love them.