I haven't many stories of drunken celebrity, so I never pass up the chance to use one at the flimsiest opportunity. So here we are:
I once called one of the stars of today's 'Why go out?' TV picks a - a - well, I won't use the word here, but it's one that that bloke from Big Brother with the Tourettes uses an awful lot. It was at a drama school party, and, for some reason, he was calling my definition of love naiive, and me young. "Well, I may be young and naive, but you, sir" I half remember saying, "...are a complete beeeeeeeeeeeeeee...". Winningly Churchillian, I think you'll agree.
In my own defence, I was very tired and emotional. And he was, actually, a *******. So for veracity alone I'm actually quite proud of myself for the sharp and witty riposte.
Well, not that sharp, or, in fact witty, I grant you, but certainly better than the man I rounded on later in the evening, cackling "I suppose you think you're some kind of comedian, don't you?!", only to discover that he did, in fact, think he was some kind of comedian. And so did the Perrier judges.
And, interactively, you can guess who my drunken [insert swearword here] might have been, by clicking here to find out the picks of tonight's TV, taken from this week's Guide...
The War Of The World 8pm, C4 "What made men act like Martians?" asks Professor Niall Ferguson as he introduces his six-part history on the 20th century. It's not such a daft question. Ferguson's point is that HG Wells' vision of alien invasion in War Of The Worlds was prescient in its ideas of technologically driven carnage. It's a starting point for a starkly revisionist everything-you-knowabout-history-is-wrong narrative.
Jonathan Wright
The Baby Mind Reader 9pm, Five Derek Ogilvie comes to the rescue of parents at the end of their tethers. He's that weird combination of head-to-toe media professional and spooky mystic. "Am I scaring you?" he smiles. "Good." But he does seem to have an amazing effect on tonight's tot. 24/7 screamer Teegan has driven her 19-year-old mum, Emma, to despair. The amiable Scot looks more like a hairdresser than a mind reader, but he's on the money here.
Julia Raeside
Saxondale 10pm, BBC2 Steve Coogan stars as Tom Saxondale, a roadie who never quite made the biggest tours and has now settled down, living with girlfriend Magz and working as a pest controller. Tom isn't nearly as smart as he likes to imagine, plus he's got anger management issues, which come to the fore when he's confronted with animal rights activists while on a pigeon-shooting mission. Too early to tell this is going to be a worthy successor to Alan Partridge, but there are some promising moments.
Jonathan Wright
Beau Brummell: This Charming Man 9pm, BBC4 "You have taste, your highness, an abundance of taste," Beau Brummell, the inventor of dandyism, cheekily tells the overdressed Prince Regent. Brummell gets away with it because, despite huge debts and a gambler's addiction to risk, he's a fashionable leader of London society -- so fashionable that the Prince Regent even visits while Brummell is dressing in order to see exactly how it's done. Infamously, Brummell eventually fell from grace and much of the drama here focuses on what might have happened, a tale laced with homoerotic jealousy keyed off by Lord Byron. Brummell's decline is dealt with a little too abruptly, but this is a largely excellent drama, with superb performances from James Purefoy, Hugh Bonneville and Phil Davis.
Jonathan Wright
Little Britain 11pm, BBC3 Vomit, cross-dressing, yeahbutnobut, equal opportunity slanders: the catchphrases may have become tiresomely familiar but David Walliams and Matt Lucas's hugely successful sketch show still strikes me as more amusing - and fresher - than the latest from the Big Brother household or the World Cup, the latest bulletins from which watch eerily like the stalest repeats imaginable.
Michelle Doran
Autopsy: Life And Death 9.45pm, More4 Debut of a new series by weird teutonic necro-maniac Dr Gunther Von Hagens, who proposes to explain death. As with previous Von Hagens programmes, this centres on the dissection of an actual human corpse in front of a live studio audience. Tonight's episode pays particular attention to the circulatory system, the miracle of minute plumbing that pumps the blood around our bodies. This is a fascinating subject, but one that could, would and should be better explained with much less of Von Hagens' tedious Bond villain shtick, and fewer shots of audience members struggling to keep their sandwiches down.
Andrew Mueller
Funny Games (Michael Haneke, 1997) 12midnight, FilmFour Peter and Paul seem such polite fellows when they turn up at a lakeside holiday home. But they are wearing surgical gloves, and the atmosphere shifts swiftly from oddly menacing to nightmarish. Haneke's intentions seem deadly serious: a cool and calculated discourse on our voyeuristic fascination with screen violence. Haneke's Piano Teacher plays tomorrow --essential if you've enjoyed his recent Hidden.
Paul Howlett
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It's funny. I called him a nasty name, and all he did was look at me disgustedly, lower his voice to a growl, and rumble: "You'll never work in comedy, I'll see to that..."
And you know what? He was right. Granted I've never wanted to, or, you know, tried. Nevertheless, I don't know what strings he pulled, but I have never, ever worked in comedy since.
