I was gutted to hear this afternoon that the BBC show Something for the Weekend (lovingly known in our house as Summat for the Weekend) is going to be axed when the current series finishes in March. Apparently it’s up for the chop because of budget cuts, and the BBC will be replacing it with endless repeats. The crazy thing is it’s a successful show – the BBC’s own Radio Times site reports that it gets over a million viewers a week, over 11% of the audience share. There must be plenty of other, less popular shows that could be axed – The One Show, for a start.
There’s so little I watch on telly these days, and weekend TV is especially bad – yet SFTW is perfect Sunday morning viewing. It’s also one of the few shows that we can all watch together as a family, because the variety of TV clips, celebrity interviews, cooking and gadgets offers something for each of us to enjoy. We’ve often tried out the recipes later in the day (at least Steve has!) and love playing along with the Deja View game each week.
The presenters – Tim “Chelsea” Lovejoy, Simon the cook, Big Wayne and Louise “Nurdle” Redknapp – work really well together and it’s become part of our Sunday morning routine to watch Something for the Weekend, either in bed if we’re feeling lazy, or together as a family.
By the look of it I’m not the only person to be upset by the BBC’s decision – a Facebook group “SAVE Something For The Weekend From The Axe”
started yesterday and already has over 20,000 followers, and there’s a big campaign going on on Twtter too – just look out for the #saveSFTW hashtag. Even former celeb guests like Professor Brian Cox have got involved!
If you want to play your part in trying to save SFTW join the Facebook group and send a letter to the BBC .. there are contact details on the facebook group’s wall, and there’s even a template letter for you to use.
Are you listening, BBC? 20,000+ people can’t be wrong. Do something for us, the licence payers, for a change and save Something for the Weekend!
Nemesis by Jo Nesbø
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
Harry Hole is back, this time investigating a bank robbery where the clerk was killed despite handing over the money. Along the way he finds himself involved in the suspicious death of an ex girlfriend, caught up with gypsies, travelling to South America and on the end of the phone to his partner Rakel, away fighting a custody battle for her son.
This is the third Harry Hole book I’ve read. I really enjoyed it, especially getting to know the new character Beate Lonn, but I found it slightly over-long … I felt there were one or two twists too many.
To anyone interested in reading Jo Nesbo’s books, I’d highly recommend you read them in order, starting with The Redbreast …. Even though the main plot in each book is isolated, there’s a lot of back story. I started with the fourth or fifth book in the series and didn’t understand a lot of what was going on, so it’s definitely worth going from the beginning!
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I spoke to my old school friend Sharon for the first time in months and she sounded a bit down in the dumps – she’s recently moved house and though she’s in a lovely part of the country she’s living in the middle of nowhere and miles from family and friends.
So I decided to send her a surprise present to cheer her up a bit, and I knew exactly what I wanted to send – a balloon bouquet from the fabulous Balloon Babboon!
Anyway, I sent Sharon a message today and found out the flowers arrived safely but with no message or note, so it was really a surprise as she had no idea who they were from! She loved them anyway ….. job done!
Are We Nearly There Yet? by Ben Hatch
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
Very enjoyable tale of a family’s trip round Britain. Ben is commissioned to write a travel guide about travelling round Britain with children, so he and his wife set off for three
months with their two young kids Phoebe (4) and Charlie (2). The sections about the places they visit are interesting but what really gives this book staying power is the family bonding that takes place, and the things that happen while they’re away including Ben’s father’s illness and subsequent death.
Would have scored 4 but I was distracted a fair bit by the number of typos and the formatting (this was on Kindle) as lines kept dropping now and then. Shame – but still well worth reading.
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I’d originally booked it for a Saturday in September but managed to put my back out the day before, so it was rearranged for Sat 19th November – the very last driving experience day at Thruxton this year. I was hoping the weather would be okay …. but wasn’t too positive …
Anyway, we – me, Steve, Katie, Dan and my mum – piled into the car on Saturday morning and drove the hour or so down to Thruxton. After a misty start the sun came out and we were blessed with a lovely warm day – hurray!
We arrived early so had coffee in the Goodwood Restaurant and then I went off to register. All of a sudden I started feeling really nervous …. read more…
UNTYING THE KNOT by Linda Gillard
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
Enjoyed this but didn’t warmed to the characters quite as much as I normally do in Linda Gillard’s novels. tying together the restoration of an old Scottish tower, needlework, post traumatic shock disorder and some very complicated family affairs, the storyline kept me enthralled. Once again Linda Gillard paints a flawed but beautiful male character in Magnus and I loved Jessie, but never really connected with Fay, in fact I found her rather snobbish and unloveable. I felt the other characters were on the periphery, almost incidental in that they had to be there to bring about elements of the story bit that was the only reason they were there , which was a shame. but don’t let that put you off – this is a cracking read overall.
(posted on my phone so excuse typos!)
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So everything looked good – until I mentioned to the letting agent that part of the rent would come through housing benefit. Shouldn’t be a problem, I thought, because that money is guaranteed every month, and I know I can afford the extra, not least through not needing to rent an office any more.
Big mistake. “I’m sorry, but the landlords won’t even consider anyone on housing benefit, I’m afraid. They’ve been messed around before, you see,” was his reply.
Damn. Dream over. read more…
This molnth I’ve got two other things going on – I’m taking part in the Ultimate Sales Performance programme, which I hope is going to be hugely important for my business. And I’m doing some coaching with Cathy Dean, to help me get over some of the crap that has happened in my life, and help me find my fabulous self.
Both of those things are going to take up some of my free time. And for me, both of those things are more important than NaNoWriMo. Sorry 
And there’s always next November!
However, I put “Win NaNoWriMo” – in other words, complete a 50,000 word book in 30 days – on my list, and the month is here, and I have to give it a go … because there’s only one other November before my 101 things in 1001 days challenge ends, so at least I’ll be giving myself one more chance if I mess up this year. Which I won’t of course. Although the month starts today and I have a two hour meeting in Witney, a full day of work to get through, dinner to cook, the Folly pub Fantasy Football scores for October to work out AND 1666 words of my NaNoWriMo novel to write. Eek!!! Ah well, we’ll see how it goes. if you want to find out more about it and see my progress, you can do so here.
Other recent updates in the 101 things in 1001 days challenge:
#13: Grow five different kind of fruit and veg
#27: Take my kids to the 2012 Olympics
I really need to get moving on this though … with only 20 things done and more than half the 1001 days already past, I’m running out of time!
No idea what to do with them but luckily Steve has had them before, so I left the preparation to him! After some struggling he managed to get the shells open. I was undecided whether to have mine as it came, or with some sort of dressing.
Anyway, Steve decided to have his with some finely chopped shallot, vinegar and lemon juice so I had mine the same. Katie was given the job of filming the eating to prove I really did have mine, but unfortunately she caught the record button twice … so you can see I am about to eat, before the film stops. There’s about a second of footage -- and it’s on its side, and I can’t work out how to turn it round.
I promise I did eat it though!
It wasn’t nearly as nasty as I was expecting. Steve described it as “fishy snot”, which brought to mind laverbread, but that truly was disgusting, and this was actually quite palatable. Because of the shallots I had to chew it and I rather liked the salty seasside flavour, and can still taste it now. I haven’t become incredibly randy … yet …. thought oysters were aphrodisiacs?! But anyway, I quite enjoyed it so I know if I’m ever likely to be asked to eat oysters in polite company (which is hardly likely to happen, but you never know!) I will know what to expect.
Another thing crossed off the list!
