It's a difficult one, really, the whole televisual punctuation-based game's and documentarys and things. They work really well on radio, but for some reason, when theyre put on the television, they always suddenly appear to be a haven of the smug, and make me want to rebel and place my apostrophe's in terrible locations' just to mess with their pedantic little minds. Sorry, mind's.
Oh I don't know, perhaps Never Mind the Full Stops (starting tonight, 10.30pm, BBC4), won't be unbearably smug, maybe it'll be fun. Maybe it will be an enjoyable half an hour, and not just rich, clever, Oxbridge types parading their egos and sounding very pleased with the fact that there cleverer than everyone else.
No, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I just can't do it anymore. I thought I could misgrammificate and misapostraphise for the sake of a joke, but I can't, I can't - forgive me. And while your forgiving me (oh god help me, I cant stop), check out what else is on tonight - a terribly good documentary about Frank Lloyd Wright, for example (and House, of course, on Five at 9) and, ooh, lots of lovely things, as taken from this week's Guide...
New Street Law 8pm, BBC1 This week, Jack (John Hannah) and the gang tackle a case of industrial poisoning. Only they'd better hurry, as their star witness is about to expire from toxic lung. "My job is to get justice," growls Jack. Lisa Faulkner blinks prettily and cross-examines his witness. Meanwhile, Joe defends Candice from Corrie in a shoplifting trial. Quite bland. And there's a speeded-up edit gimmick at the end of every scene, to make it look hip. Not a patch on North Square, the best legal drama of the last 10 years, which should never have been axed.
Julia Raeside
Suburban Shootout 11pm, Five Mayhem continues in Little Stempington's suburban underworld. Joyce's role as double agent isn't easy. She lives every day in constant fear that the next Tupperware party will turn into a blood bath, that her husband will lose his kneecaps after the local cricket match, and that her newly returned son will be devoured alive by the neighbourhood's sexual predators. Camilla's gang is dealing in super-strength oestrogen patches while Barbara's keeping a low cost housing development at bay.
Clare Birchall
All In The Game 9pm, C4 Back-of-the-net performance from Ray Winstone as the manager of a failing Premiership club struggling to avoid relegation (and a heart attack, if his permanently red face is anything to go by). His dodgy football agent son Danny Dyer (also presenting The Real Football Factories tonight on Bravo) is cooking up some offside transfer deals, while club chairman Roy Marsden struggles with a son and a ground full of angry fans both turning against him. Winstone does a convincing job with a script that gives new meaning to the concept of fouling, although it trips a little at the final whistle. There's also a great cameo from Idris Elba -- slick Baltimore gang mastermind Stringer Bell in The Wire, who's actually from Hackney.
Richard Vine
Frank Lloyd Wright -- Murder, Myth And Modernism 9pm, BBC4 Excellent documentary about the long-lived American architect, whose career spanned from his first commission at the age of 22 to the sensational modernist confection that is New York's Guggenheim Museum more than 60 years later. Wright emerges as an extremely ambitious character with no qualms about self-publicity. However, his self-absorption led him away from his marriage into the arms of a mistress, with tragic consequences for the latter, when she was hacked to death by Lloyd Wright's manservant. The subsequent scandal almost ruined Lloyd Wright's career, as his reputation rested on a fusion of modernism with suburban family values.
David Stubbs
The Real Football Factories 10pm, Bravo As we prepare for another summer of wincing at footage of British morons throwing cafe tables at bewildered foreigners, the timing of the debut of this series on hooligan firms is apposite or opportunist, possibly both. Presented with disconcerting relish by Danny Dyer, who played a hooligan in The Football Factory, this often veers annoyingly close to glorifying its subjects, but the overbearingly laddish tone is worth tuning out for some interesting snippets of social history. The interviews with hooligans would have been better for slightly more rigorous questioning, though Dyer's reticence in this regard is perhaps understandable.
Andrew Mueller
Never Mind The Full Stops 10.30pm, BBC4 Ned Sherrin hates "no problem", David Aaronovitch can't stand "laters", Janet Street-Porter is grated by people who love the sound of their own voice (?) and Carol Thatcher likes English spoken by the English. These media-land mainstays are guests on Julian Fellowes' grammatical quiz show, which is basically designed to satisfy pedants. Aberrant apostrophes, terrible grammar from famous people and clever use of cacophonisms (the opposite of euphemisms) are all subjects for rounds.
Will Hodgkinson
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Games. Documentaries. They're. Apostrophes. Locations. You're. Can't.
Oh, that's better. Sorry, I had to do that, or I wouldn't have slept tonight.
