Lady to Ladette

BBC Press Release

Following the success of their Ladette to Lady series the BBC have announced that they are to make a sister show entitled Lady to Ladette. The concept of the show is that six debutantes are transformed over a course of six few weeks from refined young ladies of excellent breeding to drug-taking shag-happy pissed-out-of -their- brains harpies.

Lessons will include drug abuse, alcohol abuse, verbal abuse, self abuse (if necessary), advanced effing and blinding, fighting (including hair pulling, spitting and biting), mooning, screaming at coppers and getting shagged by blokes mostly called Darren.

The pilot episode, already in the can (where a lot of the action takes place, incidentally), is dominated by two of the girls, The Hon Arabella von Hof, youngest daughter of property magnate Baron von Hof, and Henrietta Fforbes-Hyphen, only daughter of socialite Henry Fforbes-Hyphen and his wife Twoeffs Fforbes-Hyphen. In the episode Arabella, on drinking ten Bacardi Breezers, after warming up with six pints of Stella, is shown by programme consultant Denise van Outen how to pull a bloke named Darren, give him a blow job in the gents toilet, and be sick all over him, in no particular order, whilst Henrietta gets her first lessons in becoming a cokehead from guest ladette ex-East Enders star Daniella Westbrook.

By the end of the six planned episodes it is hoped that the six girls will have learned enough for them to be able to forsake their vacuous world of Sloane Square and shopping for a more rewarding life in Nottingham or Newcastle, working by day (or throwing a sickie) and clubbing by night.

Any Budding Female TV Presenters Out There?

Opportunities in Television Presenting

Female? English? Well educated? Good diction? Excellent communication skills? Can’t get a job as a television presenter? That’s because you don’t have a Scottish accent. 80 percent of female television presenters now have a Scottish accent, although it often seems more than that. Now you can join them. Simply sign on for a course of lessons with Scotspeak and a career in television presenting will be yours for the asking.

Be just like the Scottish presenter who murders ‘chirpy’ who fronts the snooker on BBC 2!

Here’s what one of our successful clients said on completing our course. ‘Who the fuck are youse lookin’ at, Jimmy?’


Another said ‘I’ll away the noo boogle an’ scottle the wee hinnie.’ *


Yet another said ‘The rain in Spain falls mainly on the plain’, but she was a really thick woman from Newcastle so it doesn’t count.


*No, we don’t know what it means either, but that doesn’t appear to be a problem, as having a good Scottish accent is seemingly the only criteria demanded by the television companies. In fact the girl in question is now presenting Panorama.

Once you have joined our course you have only to select the Scottish accent of your choice and you’re on your way. We’re certain to have an accent you like. Our range goes through the complete spectrum of Scottish accents from a gentle Highland lilt, through guttural Glaswegian, all the way to the noise like a stuck pig made by that bird with shoulders like a prop forward who sometimes does the National Lotto.

So don’t delay. In a few short weeks you could be the next Lorraine Kelly, or even someone attractive.

Write to –

 

Scotspeak

The Wee Cottage

You’ll-Have-Had-Your-Tea

Clackmannanshire

Scotland

Parkinson

 I came by this today

Extracts from Michael Parkinson’s memoirs, to be published late this year.

CHAPTER ONE

I remember my first interview very well. I was three at the time. I was standing at the counter in Cleckheaton Co-op with my mum, waiting to be served. On impulse I turned to the woman behind us in the queue and said: ‘Tell me missus, what’s brought you to t’ Co-op today?’ She looked down at me and replied: ‘Why t’ bus of course, if it’s any of your business you cheeky little bugger’. I didn’t explain to her that I meant was what was the purpose of her visit, in the hope of continuing with the interview, as I then realised that dressed as she was in clogs and shawl with a pinafore over her frock, that it was most unlikely she was a film star who had a recently released film to plug. (This was long before the days of Helena Bonham Carter)

CHAPTER TWO

My best mate at the infants’ school was Stinky Higginbottom. Stinky was a real card and for a while we were inseparable. The pranks we got up to! Nailing a pound of tripe to the underside of the teacher’s desk so it stunk the classroom out, taking down the union jack from the school flagpole on VE Day and replacing it with Stinky’s sister’s bloomers, pushing fireworks up to cats’ bums. However it was obvious that Stinky was never going to become famous so I stopped talking to him.

CHAPTER THREE

 I am afraid I didn’t enjoy my years at Barnsley Grammar school very much, apart of course from the time I spent playing for the school cricket team, cricket being my great love in life apart from talking to Muhammad Ali and people who have a book out. There was nothing wrong with the teaching – it was good enough to get me five O –levels – it was just that I felt my time there was wasted as there was no one famous there to talk to. That holds true for the town of Barnsley in general. However in Barnsley town centre there were many statues of famous people so I spent my time talking to them. (I didn’t realise it at the time but this was to stand me in good stead for the time I interviewed Meg Ryan on the Michael Parkinson Show many years later)

CHAPTER FOUR

I hoped that by taking a job in journalism I would get to meet many famous people, but as a cub reporter on the Ossett Exposer (named after a flasher at the time of the paper’s birth, according to the editor, a likely story) it soon became obvious to me that these fond hopes would not be realised. Then one day I got a note from the editor telling me to hot foot it to the Alhambra Theatre, Bradford, to interview Laurence Oliver. It was obviously a spelling mistake, the editor meaning Laurence Olivier. This was it! My big break! But when I got to the Alhambra I found to my chagrin that Laurence Olivier was not appearing there and the Laurence Oliver the editor referred to was the theatre manager. However it came out in the interview that he used to be an actor with the Harrogate Rep, so he was sort of famous, so I didn’t mind interviewing him so much. (This interviewing of a nearly famous person came in useful when BBC cutbacks forced me into having cheaper, sort of famous people like Ben Elton on my show)

CHAPTER FIVE

I have a great love of Yorkshire and a great love of cricket so naturally I interviewed many other famous Yorkshiremen who play cricket, my friends Geoff Boycott, Dickie Bird and the late Fred Trueman to name a few. Interviewing Fred when he was dead was perhaps one of the most difficult things I have had to do but it was certainly preferable to talking to someone who wasn’t famous. Then again, his wife had a book, ‘Ee Fred Tha Were A Reet Laugh’ newly published.

 

The X Factor

Notes to judges prior to the first show of the 14th series.

Audience figures for the closing programme of Series 13 were 1,200,000 down on the closing programme of Series 14. In an effort to redress this, you are requested to try to come up with a few new apposite phrases to express your admiration for the efforts of the contestants. ‘You’re a star’ and ‘You really nailed it’ are all very well but are much overused and don’t go far enough in their praise if we are to get it through to the audience that the contestants are demonstrating an exceptional talent. We suggest something like ‘You’re going to be bigger than Streisand/Sinatra’ and ‘You really welded it’ instead

Notes to judges following the first show of the 14th series.

Two observations need to be made following last week’s note. (1) As far as we know there is no singer called Streisand Slash Sinatra. By Streisand/Sinatra we meant Barbra Streisand or Frank Sinatra, depending upon the sex of the person you are praising. (2) ‘You really welded it’ will be sufficient; whilst ‘You really bolted it down after first applying superglue to the threads of the nuts and bolts then welding them

together’ may be a more enthusiastic appraisal, you would do well to remember that the attention span of our audience does not stretch to more than half a dozen words

and consequently such an expression is entirely lost on them.

Notes to judges following the second show of the 14th series.

The praise for deserving performers was much better this week, although I think telling the anorexic girl from Poole that she could be bigger than Demis Roussos was a bit incongruous, if not hurtful. Speaking of which, being hurtful to undeserving

performers is just as important than praising deserving performers, booing and catcalling the judges being all part of the entertainment. I would therefore urge you to pay equal attention to this aspect of the show.

Notes to judges following the third show of the 14th series.

Reference to last week’s notes in which you were encouraged you to be more hurtful to those contestants deserving of such treatment, I would remind you that The X Factor goes out well before the 9 p.m. watershed, and expressions such as ‘You really fucked up there, you ugly slag’, although very possibly true, should not be used in future. Having said that I think we could get away with ‘You really ballsed it

up there, Sunshine’.

Notes to judges following the fourth show of the 14th series

Well done indeed. Going overboard in your lavish praise for Nick, referring to him as the new Pavarotti and then awarding him a total of 3 points, was a masterstroke, equalled only by telling Helen that she had a voice which would launch a thousand quips and then awarding her the highest points in the entire history of the show. Keep this up and we’ll soon be getting half as high an audience as Strictly Come Dancing. Try referring to the black one as a filthy spade lezzo, telling her she sounds like Barbra Streisand and awarding her half a point for trying.

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