Old published stuff

Long before Pete Doherty started stuffing deodorant-soaked socks in his gob and penning paeans to supermodels, a young poet named Byron set sail for Europe. With a reckless disregard for cash, he visited the brothels of Portugal, took tea with a brutal tyrant in tribal Albania and hung out in the infamous “buggery shops” of the Ottoman Empire. All in all, a bit like a Saga coach trip, but with a few less toilet stops. This two-part documentary opens with the alarming sight of über-luvvie Rupert Everett splish-sploshing around in an antique bathtub, and as such, it’s immediately clear this show is as much about him as it is his hero Byron. Although he’s clearly in awe of the subject matter – and Byron’s life is undoubtedly as colourful as one could possibly imagine – it’s also strikingly apparent that Rupert sees himself as some kind of pretender to the poet’s Bacchanalian throne. In truth, it’s more like watching a member of the Bullingdon Club rattle through some old Carry On s...

In the recession-ravaged world of advertising, desperate times call for increasingly desperate measures. But rather than shed a few jobs and come down hard on stationery theft, ailing Newcastle company Onebestway has decided to call in the TV cameras and enlist the help of a radical business guru. Well, I say “business guru”, but one presumes David Taylor, introduced to us as a “best-selling author, top trouble-shooter and part-time lecturer at Warwick University”, managed to scribble out “wild, deluded fantasist” from the script in the nick of time. I may be wrong, but I don’t envisage “naked brainstorming” troubling the MA Business curriculum any time soon. Slipping into his impressive “Poundstretcher Paul McKenna” mode, David announces that he’s going to save the ailing company with a radical new plan. “It’s the most extreme technique I’ve ever used,” he booms. “It’s the ultimate expression of trust.” And best of all, it’s also the ultimate way of spicing up Virgin1’s viewin...

Remember those heady days of 2007 when we were slapping foie gras on toast with a trowel and drowning our Bran Flakes in Bollinger? Well MasterChef ’s resident boombox Gregg Wallace is probably still living them, but nevertheless, the Beeb has tasked him with an investigation into how the recession has affected our eating habits. It seems as wages get frozen, so does the food, and the nation has ditched its obsession with all things organic and starting heading for the bargain bins in droves. And against all odds, shoppers have ditched their preoccupation with European upstarts like Aldi and Lidl and are going back to Sainsbury’s and Tesco because feel like they’ve been sucked in by all that sparse, no-frills packaging. Now even Waitrose is getting in on the act. Gregg enlists Nina, a housewife from Twickenham, to help him out with a little experiment. Instead of her usual weekly shop, she’s asked to spend a week living off budget brands – 3p bottles of gloopy, luminous ketchu...