The Block focused on distractions
There’s a popular British TV programme called 60 Minute Makeover with Peter Andre. The series is now into its 11th season, transforming homes in record time.
It focuses on redecoration with a few distractions. In New Zealand we have The Block (TV3, Monday to Wednesday), which focuses on distraction with a few redecorations.
While it’s great to see our local contestants, Stace and Yanita, The Block is long on diversion and short on development. Wednesday was bewildering as issues, injuries, personalities and delivery problems dominated the episode.
As someone for whom the words ‘‘some assembly required’’ are the scariest in the English language, I longed to see skilled tradespeople transform a room, but The Block focuses on frenzy and doesn’t deliver on design.
Stace and Yanita’s dinner for the other contestants added some enjoyment at the end. They all dressed as red hot chillies, but more closely resembled genetically modified radishes.
I might be parochial, but Stace and Yanita are my pick to win the competition. I just need more exertion in the things that matter from the series.
For anyone who’s ever visited London, Kings Cross will bring back vivid memories.
It’s one of Britain’s busiest hubs and will house memories of Kiwis missing connections, heading in the wrong direction, diverting their luggage to East Timor and eating stale British Rail sausage rolls. It’s rumoured the company used to employ human pie revivers to breathe life into last year’s Cornish pasties.
I spent two years in London commuting by underground to a publication so Inside Kings Cross (Choice TV, Tuesdays) held immense interest. Services are now run by Virgin Trains, which boasts that 80 per cent of its rolling stock runs on time.
That means that 20 per cent doesn’t. So the episode dwelt on the day when a train broke down near Grantham and caused disruption to 319 other services.
Passengers waited on the platform for hours with staff trying to placate them with free drinks, snacks and ‘‘delay and repay’’ tickets. They did a fine job, although one commuter commented ‘‘I missed a flight to New York and they offered me a bag of chips’’.
Then to add insult to injury, a lift jammed between platforms 6 and 7, and 10 passengers invaded each other’s space for 40 minutes.
However, the lasting memory of Inside Kings Cross was of staff handling millions of people daily throughout England with speed and courtesy and having a bag of crisps at hand when all else failed.
Fortunately, the Brits have turned queueing into an art form, whereas Kiwis would head to the nearest bar for a bottle of Fuller’s London Porter.
Inside Kings Cross is great enjoyment if you need to know how to efficiently move people by the million. If you want to get happy, then watching Tonight At The London Palladium (TV One, tonight) is the way to go.
Endearing host, Bradley Walsh, showed he can do more than ask questions in The Chase (TV One, Monday to Friday), as he sang, danced and entertained the audience.
He was happier than a Labour Party signwriter. He sang the Judy Garland classic Get Happy and worked the crowd like he was the reincarnation of Bob Hope.
His guests were Peter Firman, magician; soul singer, Emeli Sande; Steps, an Abba soundalike pop group who, after 20 years, looked younger than Elton John’s toupee; and Ben Forster from Phantom Of the Opera .Hehada great voice, but took more breaths in the wrong place than a goldfish with asthma.
Bradley held an ‘‘on the spot’’ quiz and gave couples the chance to win a free trip to Italy. Choose the right bag and they were on their way to Rome.
Choose the wrong bag and they received the booby prize, a tin of ravioli.
It reminded me of It’s In the Bag, by hokey. Bradley was ‘‘toogood to be true’’. But in the end he was the star on the night. It was as if his roles in Coro Street, Law and Order UK and The Chase were all preparing him for his night at the Palladium.
Now Bradley, I want a song and dance when you host Celebrity Chase on Sunday night.