Surprising TV, Warband and Boxer Shorts

Now, it comes as much as a surprise to me as it does to you that the best comedy series I've seen recently was a) on ITV and b) Mike Bassett: Manager.

However, it was. Great performance from Ricky Tomlinson and supporting cast, very well produced with great attention to detail (Wirral County are a very believable team, their main sponsor being Wirral Rubbish), and a very sharp script (the scary Serbian war-criminal who is the team's goalkeeper being one highlight). All that, and it proved to be the one ITV programme this century not featuring Ant and/or Dec.

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If you're in the general area of Brighton (that's the South East, you ignorant nerks) tonight, you may wish to go and see the peerless Warband who playing at the Pressure Point this eve, with a promised start time of 8.30pm. I, sadly, am double-booked to go to a drinks thing at the LSE, where I will cement my future in the upper firmament of Higher Education by sharing jokes and flirtatious banter with Sir Howard Davies, Director of the LSE . Why, Howard, you're looking particularly ravishing tonight...

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The other day, I was woken by the barking of my neighbour, followed quickly by a ring at the doorbell. Not having time to dress, I answered in my vest and boxers, to find a postwoman with a parcel for next door. She then had to go back next door to leave them a note, but was chased there by the menacing wheelchair-bound neighbour, angry that she had parked in the sacred zone between the tree and the lamp-post. So, were you down my road at 8.30 on Tuesday morning, you'd have been confronted by the sight of a postwoman being chased by a barking (in both senses) man in a wheelchair, followed closely by a barefooted me in boxers and vest attempting to calm him down and assure him that the van would be gone from the precious, precious realm of no parking. I actually had the Benny Hill chase music going through my head, and were you recording it on a camcorder, you could speed it up and overdub it. I tried to choreograph a segment where we'd all be chasing each other round a big tree, and emerge in the wrong order, but I couldn't get all parties to agree to this. Shame.