Seriously. I know I'm usually a proponent of the "there's nothing the outside world can teach me that television won't teach me quicker and with surround sound (and the option of changing channel if I feel like not being taught that particular thing today)", but tonight I'm prepared to make an exception. There is officially bugger all on.
There are many other things to do. You could always go and stand in the rain at Somerset House to watch Flash Gordon if you happen to be in London, The Green Man Festival is starting on Hay-on-Wye tonight (but it's all sold out), and there's some stuff happening in Edinburgh, appearently. Also, if none of those are possible and/or appeal, I've heard your local pub is also quite good.
Still, if you're absolutely dedicated to the televisual cause (and looking at it again, I suppose there are some possibilities, and, you know, my sofa is seeming quite appealing after all), let's have a look what can be scraped together from the slim pickings to make an evening's entertainment with tonight's picks, from this week's Guide and today's paper.
Bromwell High 11.20pm, Channel 4 This subversive new animated comedy doesn't hesitate to throw political correctness out the window. Set in a run-down London comprehensive, it gleefully distorts stereotypes - and sometimes gets very close to the bone. Keisha, Natella and Latrina are the sort of girls now associated with inner-city schools - stroppy, hopelessly stupid (except for Natella, "the clever one") and into drugs and sex. Graeme Garden is the voice of their wonderfully louche geography teacher who had the bad manners to get Latrina's mother pregnant; others include Stephen Merchant and Doon Mackichan.
Mary Novakovich
Balls Of Steel 10.30pm, C4 Asking questions with a dildo as a mic. Throwing fake sick over a car that's just been cleaned. Riding a, presumably, unsuspecting "real-life person" as if they were a prize bull. Oh, joy. More TV for drunk people. A new, Mark "Richard Taylor Interviews" Dolan-hosted outing, wherein lesser celebs perform "crazy and idiotic stunts that put their arses on the line in the name of entertainment." First up, it's The Alex Zane Buzzin' Game.
Joss Hutton
The Simpsons 9pm, Channel 4 Now that Big Brother is finally over, The Simpsons can regain their prime slot. In a episode co-written by Dan Castellaneta, Barney watches his drunken self on video and is so horrified that he vows to stop drinking and learn to fly a helicopter instead. Strangely, there is some logic in that.
Mary Novakovich
Meet The Magoons 9.30pm, C4 Written and directed by Hardeep Singh Kohli, a six-part sitcom set in and around The Spice, a Glasgow curry house. The action centres on Nitin, Paul, Surjit and Hamish, four lads who bicker, booze and generally talk bollocks. Tonight, the quartet head off for a five-a-side footy tournament and an embarrassingly pink-and-polyester confrontation with a hated enemy, Punjab Patio ("Scotland's only Indian restaurant with adjoining patio"). Patchy, and arguably too often fixated with the fact that blokey-blokes use "gay" as an insult, but it's early days and the Wayne's World-esque car journeys work a treat.
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Tales from the Green Valley 7.30pm, BBC2 How refreshing to see something resembling a social experiment that isn't a cynical operation. In this 12-part series, five people - among them historians and archaeologists - have agreed to farm a patch of land using only methods from the 17th century. Over the course of a year, in which they wear only period clothes, the experimental farmers discover why, in many cases, the old methods are still the best.
Mary Novakovich
