That’s the problem with celebrities.
Those you expect to hate usually turn out to be absolute lovers, and those you want to love are often hateful, arrogant, self-centered egomaniacs, like Ewan McGregor.
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Alex Beresford and his father Noel at the Run of Fame Around the World Credit: BBC
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The prognosticator is thin-skinned, prickly, vain, obsessive and full of himselfCredit: Rex Features
Then bow to Alex Beresford, who I’ve always imagined to be thin, prickly, vain, obsessive and full of himself to the point of being almost unbearable, far from his Good Morning Britain time card.
But waddayaknow?
To my great delight, he turned out to be exactly as I imagined.
Proof of this elusive pudding comes via BBC1’s Celebrity Run Around the World, a show I unashamedly love and missed more than anything except the Australian jungle when quarantine forced most decent television into a two-year hibernation.
Fantastically wrong
The civilian version returned in March with a relatively unconvincing race across Canada, but it’s back on form with celebrities and the most brilliantly simple format you can imagine.
Four groups of two (a celebrity and a family member) must get from A) Marrakech, Morocco to B) Tromso, Norway, via six random European checkpoints, on a budget of £1,947 without using a plane or killing each other.
It’s an amazing pairing task that mostly brought out the best in the duo, which were chosen with some care.
The most impressive are either McFly’s Harry Judd and his adoring mum Emma or the indestructible double-amputee F4 driver Billy Monger and his equally terrifying sister Bonny, both of whom have clearly gained a competitive edge over idle All Saints singer Melanie Blatt, who wanders her way towards To the Arctic Circle with mother Helena.
However, the main role in this oyster is Alex Beresford, who gave us all a fair indication of what was to come, right at the beginning, when he sniffed the air of Marrakesh and said: “I can really smell horse manure. “
Viewers got a good whiff of that, too, by the end of this tense episode, though they weren’t as tingled as his sweet, patient dad Noel, who said with some feeling, “Alex usually gets what he wants.”
It sure is, and the results aren’t great to see, even if you try to ignore the fact that Alex is wearing a backwards baseball cap and talking about himself in the third person: “This is me trashing old Alex because the thing is, I’m pretty smart.”
Rather alarmingly for someone who works in a science-based job, meteorologist Alex also believes he has a sixth sense, like Bruce Willis with a stuffy front.
However, what is magnificent here is that he is not and is not wise at all.
In fact, it’s fantastically wrong all the time.
Train doors have closed in his face, ferries have been missed and whenever the route requires them to turn left, Alex insists they go right.
More disturbingly, given his profession, he seems clueless about time zones, but always thinks he knows more than his father, including the moment they arrive in Seville, where Noel has worked for years and knows it like the back of his hand. Why?
A born know-it-all
Well, Alex may have been a born know-it-all, but I would put it down to the day job.
At the time, Britain had only a dozen meteorologists, who relied on a helium balloon and grandfather’s barometer for some really good forecasts.
Now, as others have pointed out, there are hundreds of them, and they are no longer forecasters either.
For God’s sake, no. They are the “meteorologists”, the great harbingers of doom who cannot be contradicted because they are all who stand between us and a fiery climate holocaust.
As a result, the presenters hang on their every serious word, and on GMB they even ask Alex for his lofty opinion on other matters, such as Harry and Meghan, which left Piers Morgan fuming.
It’s not even the worst of them. That would be Laura Tobin, the passive-aggressive queen of ITV’s doomsday predictions.
Let’s hope she gets cast for the next series of CRATW, because I like to think Alex is learning a degree of humility here, and she certainly seemed to loosen up a bit in Wednesday’s episode.
If he does, however much he benefits, it will surely be a small loss for television.
Because, for sheer entertainment value, you won’t beat the moment in episode two when, hundreds of miles behind the other contestants, on the ferry to Corsica, Alex leans conspiratorially toward Noel and says, “You know, like, since I was a kid, I could sense things? Well I feel something or someone…”
Me too, Alex.
i feel . . ass.
Unexpected morons in the packaging area
THE Finish Line, Roman Kemp: “What is a baby penguin usually called?”
Paul: “The calf.”
Roman Kemp: “On which part of the body are garters usually worn?”
Tommy: “Face.”
Tipping Point, Ben Shephard: “Listed before a clergy member’s name, Rev stands for what religious title?”
Elliott: “Passage.”
Ben Shephard: “Who was the American president when the Berlin Wall fell?”
Anu: “Lincoln.”
Random irritations
CHANNEL 4’s hopeless docudrama Partygate arrives with all the subtlety, skill and timing of a three-year Made In Chelsea rerun.
Strictly Come Dancing has kicked out Les Dennis, the only contestant who would make regular people laugh.
America’s off-camera jerk, Fisher Stevens, who keeps kissing David Beckham’s bottom during Netflix’s hagiography.
And the political parasites who run Football Focus showing us exactly where the beautiful game really is on their list of priorities when he ended Saturday’s show with a bit of free PR for Extinction Rebellion/Labour Party supporter Dale Vince.
So please stop pretending about what’s going on here and just call it Focus.
Endure Ben? It’s not fun
RIGHT at the start of Channel 5’s Endurance: Race To The Pole, Ben Fogle declared: “This isn’t just a couple of guys chattering around in fancy dress.”
And you immediately knew, deep in your heart, that it was exactly that.
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Dwayne Fields and Ben Fogle in AntarcticaCredit: PA
You’ve probably also come to terms with the fact that Ben, who imagines himself endlessly, will occasionally stick his bare ass out to relieve boredom.
But Professor David Olusoga was on another channel with his hurt expression on his face, so you were watching Ben and his pal Dwayne Fields follow in the Antarctic footsteps of Scott, Amundsen, Sir Ranulph Fiennes, Michael Palin and all those tiresome jerks who can’t leave this a good peaceful place.
Along the way, Ben himself made a comment, not making it clear whether he was referring to the adventure or the viewers when he said: “I’m starting to wonder what it is that drives these people.”
But with Professor David Olusoga still muttering on BBC2, I carried on, somehow navigating my way through the moment where Ben and Dwayne spontaneously decide to pull their bare asses, right up to the final scene where they impaled the flag and uttered the two most terrifying words known to man .
“Next week . . . “
NEXT WEEK?
Next week, in the immortal words of Captain Oates, I am going out, and may be a while.
And on Wednesday, TV Biz gleefully reported on its upcoming Alaskan survival series: “Sue Perkins will learn how to survive a bear attack.”
But let’s try to stay optimistic, shall we. Maybe he’s very hungry.
UNLESS you’re an obsessive fan, I’d think twice about committing to all four episodes of Netflix’s overhyped Beckham series.
It adds nothing new, for me, apart from a lot of PR and a creepy anecdote about the real star of the show, Fergie, deliberately sabotaging the Beckhams’ honeymoon at Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber’s house in the south of France.
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Victoria Beckham asked an important psychological and anatomical question Credit: Getty
Victoria, however, raises an important psychological and anatomical question about midway through the second episode.
“What do you say when you’re sitting next to someone and 75,000 people are singing that you’re screwing up?”
Err, do you need a pillow?
MEANWHILE, back on Celebrity SAS: Who Dares Wins, it was time for the hostage release task, where narrator Shaun Dooley very slowly set the scene: “DS separated Michelle Heaton from her teammates and placed her in an abandoned property. They are also holding two locals as hostages. Pass the task?”
They have to hand over the rest of the Liberty X to the terrorists and then scarper.
This is no time for heroism.
Great sports insights
MIKE DEAN: “He went for the ball and obviously he didn’t.”
Kris Boyd: “As a player you have to make the right mistakes.”
And Paul Merson: “It’s not like a striker scored four goals without a game.”
(Compiled by Graham Wray)
ATTEMPT to justify the existence of poltergeists on Celebrity Help! My House Is Haunted Jake Quickenden claims that wherever he goes, “The TV turns itself on and off.”
Click. Go ahead, Jake.
TV Gold
BBC1’s hidden gem Locked Up: Inside Maghaberry Prison, where brilliant journalist Stephen Nolan lets no one off the hook.
Les Dennis channels both Benny Hill and Captain Birdseye during the Saturday Tango.
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Towie’s Amber Turner on SAS: Who Dare Wins Credit: Rex
Michael McIntyre and Bradley Walsh do magnificent covers of The Wheel and Blankety Blank, which are more fun than Strictly.
And SAS: Who Dares Wins DS Foxy adds the necessary reward when Towie’s Amber Turner tried to describe herself in the most flattering terms possible on Sunday’s show: “I’m caring, passionate about what I do and a bit, what’s the word?” “Arrogant.”
Lookalike of the week
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Edward Tattsyrup, from The League of Gentlemen, and former LA resident Kevin O’Sullivan
THIS week’s winner, sent in by Pablo from South London, is The League of Gentlemen’s Edward Tattsyrup and former LA resident Kevin O’Sullivan, who barks like a madman on TalkTV all the time, but mostly weekdays from 3-5pm hours.
Categories: Optical Illusion
Source: HIS Education