Top 5 Books of 2009
My literary highlight of the year was meeting David Nicholls and Nick Hornby during the Durham Book Festival and telling David that he’d made me cry!
1. One Day by David Nicholls
2. Goodnight Beautiful by Dorothy Koomson
3. Against the Odds: An Autobiography by James Dyson
4. The Time Travellers Wife by Audrey Niffenegger
5. Eat, Pray, Love: One Woman’s Search for Everything by Elizabeth Gilbert

Top 5 Films of 2009
I’m counting this as films I saw for the first time this year even if they were released earlier. I’ve missed out on lots of cinema releases as Gala Durham is so small it has a blink and you’ll miss it approach to showing films!
1. UP
2. Slumdog Millionaire
3. Avatar
4. Night At The Museum 2: Battle Of The Smithsonian
5. Hellboy/Hellboy 2 – The Golden Army

Top 5 TV Programmes of 2009
Another fantastic year for the Beeb. As the number of channels grow I’m starting to think the BBC are the only place committed to real quality and begrudging my licence fee less and less each year. I could have easily listed ten things on the BBC I’ve enjoyed this year, but I’ll limit it to four…
1. Strictly Come Dancing
2. Torchwood (Children of Earth)
3. Doctor Who
4. Have I Got News For You
5. Scrubs

Top 5 Songs of 2009
It’s at this point I note that Kylie has been so busy touring in the states etc this year she hasn’t actually released a single – though she did release ‘Live in New York‘ earlier this month.
1. I Gotta Feeling – Black Eyed Peas
2. Number 1 – Tinchy Strider feat. N-Dubz
3. Funhouse – P!nk
4. The Fear – Lily Allen
5. Up All Night – Take That

As I had to come up with a fifth category I decided to finish with Top 5 Celebrities of 2009…

1. David Tennant for being the most entertaining man in 2009 for Doctor Who, Hamlet and everything else
2. Rihanna for getting out of a situation of domestic violence and having the guts to talk about it in the news
3. Eddie Izzard for running 43 marathons in 51 days for Sports Relief (and also for making me laugh lots when I went to see ‘Stripped‘)
4. Chris Hollins for proving in Strictly that if you put your heart & soul into something, and keep at it, you can improve and succeed
5. Gary Barlow for deciding it was a good idea to get a bunch of celebrities to climb Mount Kilimanjaro and as a result raising £3.4million for Comic Relief

It was followed by heading back to my sisters for a marathon Doctor Who DVD session. Six episodes of series four, a birthday present we all enjoyed!

A day full of Doctor Who and I have concluded that you can never have enough. If it wasn’t for having this blog to write, and getting to the point where I need matchsticks to keep my eyes open, I’d happily continue with my Doctor Who Day!

“Exterminate, Exterminate”

Double Davros

Bannakaffalatta – The second best thing about The Voyage of the Damned. Obviously Astrid (Kylie) was the best!

Brannigan from ‘Gridlock‘ and The Empty Child

The Ood and his translator device with Catherine and I

But nowadays my viewing is much more limited. My guilty pleasures are Neighbours and Home & Away. They were the first soaps I ever watched, when Kylie was a mechanic and Sally was a little girl. In my opinion they are still slightly less scandalous and depressing that our British soaps.

They both get recorded on my PVR (that’s a digital TV tuner with a hard drive to save stuff on) alongside my seasonal favourites of Doctor Who, Strictly Come Dancing, The Apprentice and Have I Got News for You. But these days that’s about it.

I always imagined that being able to watch and record whatever TV I wanted would mean I would end up with hours of television to get through. But it’s quite the opposite. More often than not I reach for a DVD when I fancy some visual stimulation. Though the idea of TV on demand is a nice one in theory, in practice it ends up being another thing that I feel I have to do. If there is hours of TV waiting to be watched then it becomes a chore to watch it. I find Friday Night with Jonathan Ross far more enjoyable if I happen to catch it when it’s being broadcast, than if I have to catch up afterwards. I don’t find this world of on demand entertainment convenient, I find it exhausting.

Growing up in the days of the VCR you were able to record things, but if you went away for two weeks you could only manage a maximum of four hours (oh the joys of getting a few 240 minute videos for Christmas!) though I can’t actually remember leaving anything to record when we went away. I mainly used my videos to record movies, which is something I also tend to use my PVR for these days. Most of the time I just watched what was on TV when it was on, though in my later years I recorded Buffy (which coincided with dinner time) and watched it as soon as the episode had finished recording!

My younger self who was desperate to get Sky would be appalled at what I am about to say.

Maybe I’m getting old, but I find myself agreeing with people that compare a majority of our programming to junk food. It isn’t healthy or nutritional for our brains. For me having more channels and more choice means that I miss out on the really good stuff. Whenever I look through the TV guide I can’t find one thing I want to watch on all the channels that I have. I no longer watch adverts so I don’t see what’s coming up that might actually interest me. I’m sure that I’ve let quite a few fascinating documentaries pass me by because I just can’t be bothered to search for them amongst the repeats and complete rubbish on offer. When there were four channels (it took me a long time to accept Five as a legitimate channel) I’m sure there was much more quality. Maybe it’s just rose tinted glasses?

So if anyone has any ideas how I can avoid the chaff, and locate the wheat, that would be great. I don’t want to hate television. I think it is a fantastic invention to learn from and to unwind to, but I’ve lost the excitement about watching stuff on the box and I’d like to get it back!

I am very adverse to spoilers. I caught the Harry Potter bug in between book four and five and so for the final three books had them delivered to my doorstep on the day of release and read them cover to cover within 24 hours whilst being cut off from the outside world so as not to expose myself to any spoilers. Even yesterday whilst discussing the latest Harry Potter movie and Harry Potter 7 in the staff room our discussions were in the guise of not saying too much until we’d established no one would be offended if we discussed what happened at the end of the series. If Twitter had been going when Harry Potter was about would it have been silent until people had read the book, or full of spoilers threatening to ruin the ending for everyone?

I take the view that it is my responsibility to avoid spoilers. Whilst The Apprentice was on I was unable to watch a couple of episodes on the night of airing. I didn’t want to know what happened so I avoided Twitter until I had caught up the next day. It’s fair enough that people want to chat about what’s going on. I did have pangs of guilt (mainly dampened by a bit too much wine) on the night of The Apprentice final as I tweeted away commentary the action as it happened, revealing the winner to all my followers in real time.

But despite my aversion to spoilers I don’t think you can blame people for tweeting them. If you want to remain in ignorance then the question is what do you want to do more? To tweet? or to have some Twitter free time and be surprised? It is just another method in a long line of media allowing people to comment and chat about what is happening on TV and in movies as they hit our screens.

What’s even more interesting is in this age of Sky+ and iPlayer (plus everything else that lets you watch what you want when you want it) will this increased threat of spoilers actually keep us watching TV when it’s on rather than when it suits us? Torchwood has been an amazing example of the UK returning to gather round their TVs at the same time to watch the TV event of the year.

This is one of the ways Twitter comes in handy (another way is moaning about nPower, but more of that another time!) Rather than make the decision for myself I just narrow down the options and then ask the opinion of others. I did this for the first time a few weeks ago and thanks to that I finally watched ‘The Green Mile’. It has been on my must see movie list since it came out and it’s one of those movies that seems to provoke gasps if you admit to having not watched it. Especially when you add that the DVD has been sat on your shelf for a couple of years.

Last night I did it again, although admittedly slightly more high tech than just asking the question I set up a poll. This time the result was ‘Little Miss Sunshine’ which was as enjoyable as the reviews lead to believe, whilst being not what I expected at all!

Contrary to popular belief I quite enjoy letting other people make decisions (some of the time!). I think I might have a weekly poll and try to make it through my unwatched film collection by the end of the year!

I also had the pleasure of turning twenty four, which so far has been pretty much the same as twenty three but with a better social life (again I think that’s down to the change of job not the age). As usual I managed to make sure that celebrations lasted as long as possible (3 days) Birthdays are a good excuse for people to party so I just like to let people make the most of using me as an excuse!

On the day of my birthday my parents and their best friends made it down to the big smoke, and we headed out for a meal in (you guessed it) Giraffe. Obviously I do love this place, but it’s my mother who’s become obsessive with it, you’d think there were no other restaurants in London. Other features of the long birthday weekend included the Red Hot Chilli Pipers, The Chelsea Flower Show, Kylie at the V&A, a fantastic 50s party and of course drinks at the pub, a few too many drinks. I managed to leave behind my bag containing presents and cards, but after a few seconds of panicking, when I realised I didn’t have it with me, turned back into my useful resourceful self and managed to sober up enough to call the pub when I got home, they kept it safe and sound. For a few seconds I was having visions of having to apologise profusely to people for losing what they had so lovingly bought me!

As well as increased socialising I have found that I have managed to watch/record all of my favourite programmes recently, normally I forget but somehow I have managed to see every episode of ‘Doctor Who’ and ‘The Apprentice’… and even most of ‘Any Dream Will Do’ since I discovered it (and Lee Mead) mid series. Actually the ADWD final on Saturday night has regressed me to some kind of teenage state, having developed a big crush on Lee. Thankfully I have not got to the stage of putting posters up or recording every TV appearance (it’s a decade since I gave up that kind of behaviour with Boyzone), it’s only gone as far as posting messages on Facebook (which lets face it pretty much encourages teenage like behaviour, poking each other instead of doing work!)

But now both ‘The Apprentice’ and ADWD have finished, Doctor Who only has three weeks to go, at least it’s summer so for a few weeks I can enjoy having a social life on Wednesday and Saturday evenings. Whatever happens I am not getting drawn into Big Brother this year, and will even resist the charms of Dermot O’Leary (unless of course I have nothing better to do and so might catch a few minutes of BBLB to top up on Dermot loveliness). If the weather’s rubbish and/or there’s no social life to be had it looks like I’m back to Friends repeats on E4 and my Sex and the City DVD collection.

I think I am now going to have to go and reflect on the fact that my current TV watching trends seem to be dominated by who I have celebrity crushes on (apart from The Apprentice, Sir Alan doesn’t really do it for me!) I feel like I’m fourteen all over again!!!

Last night I had my 15 minutes (or to be more accurate ‘my 0.15 seconds’) of fame. If you watch ‘The Apprentice You’re Fired!’ tonight you might just catch a glimpse of me in the opening shots of the audience.

I am a huge fan of The Apprentice, one minute I’m shouting abuse at the television, the next I’m laughing out loud… and it’s a completely guilt free experience as I can write it off against career development. I have also have had my moments of wanting to apply to be on it (which is partially prompted by a number of friends telling me I should apply for it), however so far the applications have never quite come into fruition.

So a couple of weeks ago when my friend E informed a few people via email that she had two tickets, and might anyone be interested in going to watch The Apprentice a day early and see ‘You’re Fired!’ being filmed, I immediately shot an email back (without even checking my diary) saying ‘Yes, definitely yes!’

This is not my first television experience – if you watch Trinny & Susannah’s last series of ‘What Not To Wear’, for a split second I appear in the beginning of the episode in the middle of a crowd (along with my friend T who came along for moral support, thankfully when it was on we had replay TV and so could fast forward, pause and rewind to our hearts content until we could pinpoint ourselves!). I also went along to the recording of ‘The Album Chart Show’ as a friend’s brother had spare VIP tickets, unfortunately in some sorry mix up we ended up with the non-VIP people (i.e. paying for our drinks) and it is unlikely I was ever in shot, as we spent most of our time hanging around to the side of the camera where there was actually some breathing space (I have never got into standing in the middle of crowds at gigs, I’m too short, I get lost easily).

The ‘What Not To Wear’ (WNTW) experience wasn’t too bad (The sandwiches and biscuits took the edge off). The day consisted of doing more rounds of auditions, and filming the opening five minutes of the episode. The latter in all probably took somewhere in the region of three hours and involved lots of standing outside on a cold morning sometime in the winter month pretending to look warm, smiley and happy (which didn’t seem as much of an ordeal when we saw the poor bunch of middle aged women in swimwear doing the same thing for another episode, at least we were all fully clothed). The day also involved lots of waving videotapes at Trinny and Susannah. I even managed to get myself interviewed by Trinny, who told me that although I did dress like a student my style wasn’t completely awful – which meant a) I didn’t make it to the shortlist of people on the show and b) my interview with Trinny didn’t even make it into the first five minutes of the episode.

So despite the fact that this week I have been run off my feet at work (more of that another time), I am surviving on a minimum of sleep (a consequence of the work situation) and my previous experiences of television filming haven’t been so great, I still kept my plans to go watch ‘The Apprentice’. Based on WNTW ratio of filming time to edited screen time (approx 36:1 – I know I am indeed a geek!), working on the same ratio it looked like E and I could be holed up in the studio for 15 hours or more.

Thankfully all I can assume is that due to the biggest audience participation moment being to hold up the ‘HIRED’ or ‘FIRED’ cards at the end, the filming was not nearly so drawn out. In the space of three hours we had been ushered in, watched this weeks episode of ‘The Apprentice’, witnessed and participated in (lots of clapping and laughing, and the odd “Boooo”) the filming of ‘You’re Fired’ and safely returned to the streets of Hammersmith to commence the journey home. All in all it wasn’t painful or boring in the slightest, in fact it was a very entertaining experience (although E thought the chairs could have been more comfortable).

Obviously I am not going to reveal anything to do with the episode (because it would just ruin the show… oh and the BBC would kill me!) so watch it tonight (or if you’re reading this after the 25th April 2007 go to the BBC website for the episode guide!) and if you do happen to be a close personal friend, then check out ‘The Apprentice You’re Fired!’ on BBC2 tonight at 10pm and see if you can spot me!