The Friday Question: Booze-Time Stories

Welcome to Booze Britain!

That’s right! From the cradle to the grave, we Brits are drinking ourselves stupid in an orgy of boozy indulgence not seen since the heady days of the 18th century. Indeed, we’re so drunk, television has had little choice over the last few years but to document our inexorable slide into alcohol-induced insanity with a series of programmes such as Drinking With The Girls, Booze Britain, Street Crime UK and Brits Abroad. And they’re all ace because they hold a window up to our souls, and show us who we really are – pissed-up dregs hockling mashed-up kebab into a gutter with our trousers round our ankles.

Huzzah!

So to celebrate the coming together of this country’s two favourite pastimes of drinking far too much and television, we here at your rather woozy Watch With Mothers invite YOU to share your most interesting boozed-up experience.

Did you go out on the lash and end up married to a small family car? Were you astounded to wake up the next day with your head stuffed up your own anus? Or did you simply eat lots and lots of dog dirts, resulting in blindness and paralysis?

Let’s have no morbid stories, please, we’ve all got plenty of those. Instead, let’s stagger into a wall, pull down our flies, think we’ve flopped the old fella out when we haven’t, and piss boozy anecdotes all down the trouser leg of Friday.

WWMers: Mine’s a pint!

50s CD Set Adverts

“Hi! I’m Bobby Hi-Lites from Bobby Hi-Lites and the Hi-Lites. I miss the 1950s, back when the kids were down at the drive-in with The Fonz and The Big Bopper in their bobby socks, drinking milk-shakes and listening to Buddy Holly on their pink Cadillac car radios in their home towns, drag-racing their buddies on the strip. In the ’50s.

Do YOU miss the ’50s too? If you do, you need One Billion Hits Of The ’50s. It’s a seven thousand CD set that whisks you back to the now copyright-free days of the good old 1950s. Except for 1959, because most of that year’s music wasn’t out of copyright when this compilation was produced. Jive on!

One Billion Hits Of The ’50s includes:

Shang-A-Lang-A-Lollipop by Beet Rooter and the Beetroots
He Came To Ask My Father For My Hand by The Mister Sisters
Whole Lotta Hello Baby by The Rowdy Reveller
I’m In Love With A Fourteen Year Old Beauty Queen by Sexton Paedophiles

This limited edition CD set isn’t available in the shops. Simply ring 0900 900 90901290 and we’ll send you all seven thousand CDs absolutely free to try at home for a fourteen day period. If you’re not entirely satisfied after your trial period’s up, simply send them back to us unopened and we’ll be …

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The Friday Question: Speak Up!

Public speaking. Everyone’s got their own way of getting through it.

If you’re anything like me, you’ll bark very loudly at your audience until they walk out in disgust, unprepared to listen to any more ill-mannered gibberish delivered by a human foghorn with hideous teeth, a bald head and an appalling attitude to the opposite sex.

If, on the other hand, you’re anything like WWM’s very own virtual reality punchbag Dave, a heavily-photoshopped image of Princess Leia will no doubt pop into your head halfway through your speech, making you pull down your trousers and start jizzing at your horrified guests, thus causing them to run away screaming.

Like I say, we all have our own ways of dealing with these things.

But what about those times when shouting loudly or soaking your audience in Star Wars-induced jism just don’t cut the public-speaking mustard? What about those times when you’ve found y’self stumbling and fumbling and, ultimately, failing to deliver that vital speech?

Did you fuck it up at a bought-and-paid-for after dinner event? Or fall flat on your arse in front of your work colleagues? Or did you stand before the whole school and deliver a speech of such magnificent ineptitude that it earned you the derision of every man, woman and child from that day until you skulked, a broken and bitter creature, out of the school gates for the very last time?

You didn’t end up doing a shit on the stage, did you?

To celebrate BBC2’s new series The Speaker, we at WWM want to hear YOUR public speaking horror stories.

We want to know what you did, where you did it, and what happened as a result of your dribbling inability to talk out loud for a few minutes.

Are you prepared to put yourself to shame and prove you can’t deliver the goods as well as an egg-headed child on a TV speech-delivering show?

We bet you are.

Our first speaker of the day is …

Just A Thought: EastEnders Update

So Phil’s fallen out with his mother and Danielle’s deaded up and Stacey’s been talking to a hole – and that’s supposed to be a cemetery in Telford, is it? Funny, because it looks suspiciously like the cemetery they buried wee-faced Jamie (Sonia’s squeeze) in back in the day.

And how are we to know that Danielle’s dad’s house in Telford is in Telford? For all we know it could be a shitty ‘60s semi in a London suburb. We’re not to know it’s actually Telford as there’s no sign saying ‘WELCOME TO TELFORD, THIS IS ACTUALLY TELFORD’.

And Phil’s overslept and missed Shirley the corpse’s cold meat buffet where Josie Laurence has got on fat Heather’s nerves by being with Minty, and isn’t Dawn looking lovely? What’s she doing with Garry?

And I don’t trust that 1940s granddaughter of Dot’s because she’s up to something, the shifty little bitch. I know Ricky’s boy Liam’s a bit thick but, as Pat says, he’s no liar and Dottie’s turning out to be a chip off the old block. A chip off Nick – and where’s he gone, eh?

And Archie’s evil schemes worked out well, didn’t they? What with buggering up Ronnie’s life – and hasn’t she got a lovely bone-structure? I would as long as the wife didn’t find out, like. He did well there, losing his wife and getting bundled into a van and I missed Friday’s and Monday’s episodes so I don’t know if he’s dead or not. Is he dead? Archie, I mean. If he is dead, what the hell was all that about? Talk about hidden agenda.

Meanwhile Janine’s feeling the strain after running over Danielle, don’t know why she’s so cut up, she didn’t bat an eyelid when she murdered Barry. And how come Pat still speaks to her because she knows Janine murdered Barry and you’d have thunk she’d never speak to the woman again, wouldn’t you? I mean, if my son-in-law had been killed up in Scotland by my step-daughter I wouldn’t give her the time of day never mind inviting her on a holiday to Paris that all went tits-up when it turned out she’d been stealing off of Peggy to fit up Jay.

Mind you, the way people treat each other on the square’s weird what with banning somebody from the pub / the shop / the curry house / the beauty parlour one minute and letting ‘em back in the next and … WHAT THE HELL AM I DOING STILL WATCHING THIS SHOW?

The Friday Question on Thursday: CSI WWM

It’s taken a mere eight years for the BBC to cotton on to the idea of broadcasting The Greatest Television Show Ever Made©. Somebody over at Auntie got round to noticing the loud noises being made by fans and critics alike, and the result is The Wire is finally being shown on BBC2. Still, to make sure it’s not going to get too big for its boots now it’s rubbing shoulders with the big guns of British entertainment, it’s being shown after Newsnight at 11:20 – the TV equivalent of the naughty step. “You may be the Big I Am over on satellite,” the BBC seems to be saying, “but over here, you’ll wait your turn until after Paxman’s had his say.”

Let’s hope this idiotic scheduling decision won’t last past series one. After all, there’s a nice, juicy slot at 9:00 p.m. on Wednesdays that’s currently occupied by the thoroughly rancid Heroes.

Come on, BBC! PULL YOUR DAMNED FINGERS OUT OF YOUR ARSEHOLES!

Anyway. To celebrate the coming to terrestrial TV of that black fella, that other, drug-dealing black fella, that mixed race oriental lesbian one, that one in charge who looks like a corpse and him off of 300, WWM turns its beady stare on the seedier side of life.

We want to know if you, the thieving, murdering, looting, pillaging, car tax-evading, benefit frauding readers of this ‘ere Watch With Mothers, have ever committed a crime.

Did you bludgeon granny to death for her pension money? Is dad buried under the patio? Are you and your sister indulging in the love that dare not speak its name, Dave?

Or did you simply give a copper some lip and end up hammering drunkenly on the door of a police cell after being arrested on a public order charge? And then have to stump up an £80 fucking fine at Sheffield police station in order to avoid the matter ending up in court? The rat bastards. All I said was the fucker looked like he should be picking shit out of his anus behind a perspex screen in Twycross Zoo. This country’s being run by Nazis, it really is.

Anyway …

‘Ello, ‘ello, ‘ello, what’s all this then?

WWMers, it’s over to YOU …

Just A Thought : Balding’s Balls-Up

I see the BBC has received over 1,500 complaints about Claire Balding’s mocking of National winner Liam Treadwell’s gnashers last Saturday.

As the owner of a set of teeth one could generously describe as an ‘abomination against God’, I’d like to add my support for Claire at this difficult time. My sort (the orthodontically despicable) shouldn’t be allowed on the television, and it’s high time somebody had the balls to point it out.

Indeed, I reckon we should go further and get rid of all visually repulsive people off our screens once and for all. As well as hell-mawed ape-men such as m’self, may I suggest we give horse-faced, pug-nosed, bullock-built unterfrauleins the boot to boot? Nobody springs to mind at the moment, but I’m sure we could truffle out someone of that description if we sniffed about the BBC sports department for long enough …

The Friday Question: TV Time Travel

Peggy Mitchell: What can I get you, darlin’?
Michael Caine as ‘Alfie’: (To camera) She’s a bit of a rangy old bird, but she don’t ‘alf go like the clappers in the bedroom department. That’s the fing wiv yer older woman … what they lack in looks, they sure make up for in experience, see?
PM: Sorry, what was that?
MCaA: (To camera) Cor! She’s got a mouth on ‘er, I’ll give ‘er that!
PM: I beg your pardon?
MCaA: (To camera) I’ve always found it’s best to give ’em a slap, early on, like. That way, they’re easier to control later on in the …
PM: Give me a …? Oi! Who the ‘ell do you fink you’re talking to?
MCaA: Now, now, sweetheart. You’re not too old to be bent over my knee, girl. Remember that.
PM: Bent over your …?
MCaA: (To camera) Blimey! If she turned any redder, you could bottle ‘er up and sell ‘er as fruit juice dahn my local hypermarket!
PM: GET OUT OF MY PUB!

On the above evidence, I think we can all agree that time travelling some of our favourite stars / characters from long, long ago into today’s shows would be the best thing to happen to TV ever. Yes? Good.

Just imagine it …

• Les Dawson shows ’em how it’s done on QI
• Brian Clough takes no prisoners on Football Focus
• Albert Steptoe has no time for the ‘bleeeeedin’ woofters’ of Queer As Folk
• Tony Hancock’s four hundred hour-long Room 101

The possibilities, ladies and gentlemen, are endless.

So, which classic character / actor / comedian / what-have-you would YOU time travel into today’s TV shows?

What impact would they have on the storyline?

What would they do?

Would they end up washing their underpants in Ken Barlow’s front parlour when he’s just brought this sophisticated bird back from his weekly art class, or would they go careening down a hill in a tin bath in answer to one of Paxman’s impertinent University Challenge questions?

WWMers, it’s over to YOU, YOU, YOU!

Just A Thought: The Colour Of Money

I’ve found it’s only possible to watch ITV’s The Colour Of Money if I’ve recorded it. The reason for this is quite a lot of its one-hour run time is taken up with recaps of stuff you’ve only just watched, plus the usual advertisements you never wanted to watch in the first place. It’s probably the most fast-forwardable show on British TV.

To give you an example: say Andrea from Wigan has managed to get £8,000 from the Emerald cash machine, £11,000 from the Charcoal cash machine and £6,000 from the Cream cash machine and you’ve just watched this happen, ITV cares not a jot. Despite some of the action having taken place mere seconds before, it’ll still show you a highlights package before going into the break.

And then, after you’ve sat through drivel inviting you to buy stuff you don’t want, ITV does it again by showing you another highlights package when the show returns! So, in the space of fifteen minutes, you’ve watched nine minutes of someone trying to nervously guess when one of the show’s machines is about to run out of money, three minutes of adverts and three minutes of repeats.

This happens every time the show goes into and comes out of a commericial break. By my reckoning, and considering you also have a five minute ad break at the end, that means you get twelve minutes of in-show ads, twelve minutes of repeats and only thirty one minutes of new programme. Thirty one fucking minutes of actual original content!

So, the next time you see Chris Tarrant and he tells you he works hard for his money, can you tell him he’s a fucking liar, please?

Oh, and can you tell him his new show’s shit too? Thanks.