grumpyf1

Cumbria is home to many amazing visitor attractions. The county boasts myriad places to go and things to do, including delights such as the World Of Beatrix Potter, the Ravenglass & Eskdale Railway and historic Dove Cottage. Hell, we’ve even got the Cumberland Pencil Museum. But lurking over the border in North Yorkshire, something new is coming, something so daring, it could steal away our valuable tourist trade. It is... ‘Sausage World’. Go on, admit it – you want to go already. Food producer Heck have had plans for a visitor attraction and expansion of their factory in Kirklington approved by councillors, and the new building for groups will doubtlessly draw in the crowds seeking a sighting of sausages, or cheeky chipolata-based action. It’s bound to go with a bang(er). Co-founder of the company, Andrew Keeble, reckons it will attract “loads of school trips”, before revealing that their machine can turn out a staggering 1,300 sausages every minute. Who doesn’t want to ...

For a TV show about cars, the BBC’s Top Gear has managed to get an awful lot of people hot under the bonnet. Even those who don’t know their RS from their E-Type. Some say he has more lives than cat, and will stroll back on to our screens with a stupid grin before we can say “Power!” very loudly whilst wearing a leather jacket. Others that he is a preposterous, out-of-date buffoon, who has no place on modern TV. All we know is - he’s called Jeremy. Jeremy Clarkson is, in case you haven’t been out from under your rock for a while, star host of Top Gear, a show ostensibly about cars, but in reality a three-way male menopause featuring “Jezza” and his two mates crashing things, blowing up stuff, being cheeky and driving some very costly cars like they’ve stolen them. Ironically, they wouldn’t need to do that as the show has made all of them (and the BBC) very, very, rich. Whilst the laddish behaviour and fooling about prods the annoyance button for many, the programme has point...

...but not necessarily in the right order. Some of then are probably still lurking on the HDD recorderboxthingy (I liked it when you just said "video"), but here's the grumpyf1 review of some of the stuff on the telebox over the Christmas/New Year period. Handy hint: If I haven't reviewed it, it's because: a) I forgot to watch it b) I haven't watched it yet c) I'm not interested in watching it d) The damson gin consumed during the festive period has clouded my memory sufficiently that I don't recollect it OK... Here we go then... Doctor Who: A jolly festive romp, although I'm already hankering for the days when it was a good story with Christmas added in, rather than Christmas first. I found myself struggling to remove the image of the stressed Mum from Outnumbered from my mind every time Madge was on screen, the whole Xmas-present-that-leads-to-a-snowy-forest bit has kind of been done before (!), if you blinked you'd have missed...

Top Gear last night was awesome. From listening to the radio this morning. Chris Evans seems to think so too. It was a masterpiece of entertainment: Hammond racing two nutter snowmobile dudes around a ski resort, Captain Slow becoming extremely quick in the Bugatti Veyron, and then Tom Cruise and Cameron Diaz blasting to the top of the leader-board in the reasonably priced car, and clearly loving it. To be honest, it could have ended there, but then Clarkson narrated a fantastic piece about Ayrton Senna, including numerous past and present F1 drivers putting him at the top of their list of all time greats. A hugely over-excited Lewis Hamilton then got to drive Senna's McLaren MP4/4 and clearly couldn't quite believe it. Well done Top Gear - you excelled yourselves. POWERRRRRR!!!!! (Actually listening to the radiogram this morning! BBC Radio 2 is currently playing the Pet Shop Boys)