TV Forum Watch News and Information Board

[Nini]

As part of ongoing changes, I am once again revamping the website but I am going back to the original roots, with a difference.

Granada Reports will have a total overhaul to give readers a better knowledge of the programme and who is who.

ITV Active will look at ITV in general, the history and ITV News.

Then there will be aspects about me in Politics and other information.

I also want a Forum on there to discuss the website, politics and media.

There may also be a lifestyle section where we can look at places of interest around the world.

I need help with this, especially for ITV and Granada Reports. Please advise what sensible ideas you may have to make it bigger and brigther.

A true trailblazer that one.

[Nick Harvey]

You beat me to it, Nini, but here's the link anyway.

Now then, can anyone think of any suggestions for Mr Shirtlifter?

[Pete]

I wonder what word on the homepage keeps triggering the lose 9lbs and get a flat stomach advert.

[Ant]

I wonder what word on the homepage keeps triggering the lose 9lbs and get a flat stomach advert.

"With active forums..." maybe?

[Nick Harvey]

So what's happened to Andrew (Crocodile) Dundee over at the other place?

Has he taken his ball home just because nobody agreed with him over BBC Scotland scheduling?

I see all his posts have now been re-allocated to "Guest".

[Gavin Scott]

So what's happened to Andrew (Crocodile) Dundee over at the other place?

Has he taken his ball home just because nobody agreed with him over BBC Scotland scheduling?

I see all his posts have now been re-allocated to "Guest".

Oh dear. My attempt to destroy his argument may have gone too far.

[Lorns]

You causing trouble again gav? teehee!!

[Ronnie Rowlands]

Hey people, anyone want to see my enourmous.... new PM from Tumble Tower?

[Jovis]

Yes please.

[Ronnie Rowlands]

I've just taken a quick peek in Metropol (read-only) and spotted the thread Somerfield is bought out by The Co-Op . I heard about that on the late evening (10:30 pm) edition of Points West Wednesday evening.

Andrew wrote on that thread "Aren't some Somerfield's previously Kwik Saves? Did Somerfield buy some of the ex-Morrisons/Safeway stores (either before or after they were rebranded)? etc"

Gateway bought Key Markets in the mid eighties (1984 I think). Later Gateway, Carrefour and Fine Fare amalgamated. Sometime in the nineties Somerfield bought a load of Gateway stores. My guess is they bought ones that hadn't been bought by Asda in the early 1990s. I don't know anything about Somerfield having bought any Safeway stores.

Until February last year, I normally did my grocery shoppng at Somerfield in Southgate Shopping Centre, Bath. That branch closed down in early March last year, indeed it was the last shop to close in Southgate Shopping Centre before the whole Centre closed to be demolished April and May last year. Since then I've shopped at Morrisons in Bath.

As for the Southgate area of Bath, the Southgate Shopping Centre, Ham Gardens Multi-storey car park, and bus station were all demolished last spring and summer. During late summer / autumn new sewers etc were put in. Since the start of this year, building work has got underway on the new Southgate shopping centre. Back in January one block was just a few concrete pillars, that now looks close to completion on the outside. The skeleton is made of concrete pillars, beams and floors (cast on site), and the outer walls are pre-fab panels. That's right, they look like Bath stone done by a master craftsman. In reality they're concrete panels, with genuine Bath stone cemented on, with window arches etc to look like some master craftsman has built the walls traditionally. Only in this case the builders Sir Robert McAlpine were able to crane the panels on and affix them to the skeleton in a fraction of the time to build in the traditional way. The first block now has all its stone panels on, and roof nearly done. Two other blocks are well advanced with their skeleton. This section is phase 1 which will open late next year. In another part of the site, the last 6 months construction workers have been excavating for the underground car park. A ground floor will go on top of it, and Debenhams be built on top. That's phase two which will open in 2010. Check this out for more

This summer 100 fibreglass pigs have been decorated by various artists and displayed at numerous locations around central and outer Bath. A few are in the outlying villages. They've gradually appeared the last couple of months, they didn't all appear at once. You can buy a map to find where they all are, I bought a map. I, and quite a few other locals, have been photographing all the ones I can find. So far I've photographed over 70 of them. Here's the website about it.

As a keen fan of the Eurovision Song Contest, I watched it. The first semi-final was Tuesday 20 May, but I saw that on video three days later. I saw the second semi-final on Thursday 22 May and Grand Final on Saturday 24 May live. As always, I throughly enjoyed watching them. Saturday night I had the BBCi lyrics up and sang along to bits of some songs. Also I joined in and copied the dance routines for some songs, you know where I've got that trait from! I particularly liked Pirates of the Sea "Wolves of the Sea". That was the adult kids version of the Boogie Beebies dance "Pirate Gang". I thoroughly enjoyed joining in and copying the "Wolves of the Sea" dance routine. Well done to Lativa for picking that song, it seems they've heard my gripe that there was no equivalent to Boogie Beebies when I was playgroup age. My favourite song, which I voted for, was Sweden. That should have won, it was sung by Charlotte Perelli (formerly Nilsson) who won for Sweden in 1999. One of my disliked songs was France, that was basically a weak, poor imitation of "Hippy Hippy Shake". As for Spain, that was terrible and should have had nul points. Commiserations to Andy Abraham who represented the UK, he should have come 10th to 15th I think, though definitely not won. It finished 18th. Russia won, with "Believe" by Dima Bilan. I half liked that at the time, but come the voting, was routing for it when I saw Sweden going nowhere.I wrote a detailed review of the Saturday final on TV Forum, as well as this note about what the UK has entered since 2003.

Thank God the Irish entry by Dustin the Turkey failed to qualify. TV and Radio Bits said that if it had qualified and won, next year's Eurovision may have ended up resembling The Muppet Show! So what will next year's Eurovision be? Well if Latvia had won, it would perhaps have been an adult edition of Boogie Beebies, with many of the countries doing dance-along songs that resemble Pirate Gang or other Boogie Beebies dances. Latvia finished 12th, so not so sure now. Russia's winning entry included a notable gimmick: skating. Not sure whether the tiny rink was real ice or plastic, but never mind. My prediction on those grounds is next year's contest will be Eurovision on Ice. Over half the countries will want to include ice skating in their songs, so the whole thing will have to take place on a full size ice rink.

Other than Eurovision, I've not seen much TV the last couple of months, only "How Do They Do That" and "The Gadget Show" on Five. The FA Cup Final, Wimbledon and cricket didn't appeal to me.

So what else I been up to since Easter away from TV? Well the last Saturday in March I went to Basingstoke for the day, to go to the Leisure Park to do swimming and water sliding at Aquadome in the morning, and ice skating next door at Planet Ice in the afternoon.

I'm in the Roller Coaster Club of Great Britain. One weeeknd in April I went on the Club trip to Blackpool Pleasure Beach. That included entertainment Friday and Saturday evening, and riding the rides Saturday and Sunday daytime. The last Saturday in June I went on the Club trip to Great Yarmouth Pleasure Beach.

Sunday 8 June I set off early morning for Cornwall, and stayed 4 nights in St Austell. I returned to Bath the evening of Thursday 12 June. Whilst down there, I packed in lots of fun things Sunday afternoon, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. At least I came up trumps with the weather, sunny all day Sunday, Monday, Tuesday and Thursday. Wednesday was sunny till mid afternoon, then cloudy, but at least it was dry all day.

Looking back I'm glad I went to Cornwall when I did. The last couple of weeks the weather has been quite poor really for July, not that much sun, an awful lot of cloudy and even showery weather, and not that hot. At least there hasn't been the torrential rain giving rise to floods this year. What's the weather been like round your way the last few weeks?

What have you been up to the last few months? Seen any good stuff at the cinema or on TV? Been anywhere exciting?

All the best

Tumble Tower

I'm seriously considering taking out some sort of restraining order against him.

[Alexia]

Another classic from Tumble Tower....I love the way he says things like no-one else knows them, like he's imparting unknown information. I'm also glad he chose the week BEFORE me to visit Cornwall.

The stuff about the building site, and even the pigs, is potentially mildly interesting, but he ruined it with his almost compulsive earnestness in going to such lengths to describe it.

Ronnie - don't take out a restraining order - just collect all these PMs together, release a book and get rich.