TV: Have I Got News For You

Friday night’s (repeated last night) episode of Have I Got News For You was the best yet since Angus Deayton was “forced to leave” after “tabloid revelations” about his personal life. Whilst I must admit I feel that people’s personal life should be personal (unless _they_ decide parts of it should be public) and whilst I think what was revealed about his personal life wasn’t too horrific (ok, he _did_ have an affair which is bad – but working in the “media business” and taking cocaine: hardly front-page news is it?) it did make his position on the show a bit “uncomfortable” as it did seem to be more about “take the mickey out of the host” rather than “take the mickey out of the news” (which is what the show is about IMHO). Admittedly, he was _in_ the news, but you cannot have a satirical news quiz that it mainly about satirical jokes at the participants expense.

For exactly that reason, I felt it was such a bad idea to have Anne Robinson (of The Weakest Link and Watchdog fame) hosting it. Paul and Ian just took p–s out of her background with Robert Maxwell. However, I felt that this week’s host John Sergeant was practically ideal for the role – only thing I didn’t like was his voice was a little bit too deep or slow for my liking (I’m still trying to figure out exactly what it was that made his voice sound “off”, but…). Personally, I wouldn’t mind John becoming the show’s new permanent host.

Oh, and I think it was also the first time I heard reference to a certain magazine. Basically John (hosting the show) said to Ian (one of the team captains if you didn’t know) – “Let’s try and keep things accurate shall we?” and Paul retorted with “You do realise you are talking to the editor of Private Eye?”. (a certain Ian Hislop is the editor of that ‘esteemed organ’ and, yep, I am a subscriber).

And I also caught Wobble and Bob on MTV last night – be warned that all the TV guides and teletext say that it’s on at 21:55 – but it isn’t. Since the show is only around 1minute long, but the guides are setup for 5 minute intervals, it’s more like 21.58 – when I settled down to watch the very first episode “Pie!” I did get worried that they had cancelled/moved it, but it came on just before Jackass (and I’ve already seen “Jackass – The Movie“, but a review of that will be coming after the long promised Harry Potter one…)