We Need Answers Spawns No More Women

BBC4 devotees should be quite familiar with the trio of Mark Watson, Tim Key and Alex Horne, the three-headed monster host of We Need Answers - the most outlandish TV quiz since the heady days of Channel 4's Remote Control in the early 1990s. Every Tuesday they invite two celebrities of varying quality to fathom out the responses to the 'wackiest' questions sent to text answering services - including those concerning themselves. Outraged Daily Mail readers should look away now as, not only have the BBC thrown licence-payers' money at such a vehicle (and not at something nice like My Family or The Green Green Grass) but they've even allowed them to come up with the only game show even less intelligible. Try it, it's fun!



Eagle-eyed viewers may recognise Tim (on the right) as the bloke from the Strongbow advert who is left paralysed and oblivious by the sheer taste of his first sip of fresh cider, but we won't hold that against him. He's also been at the helm of several popular stage shows, the excellent Radio 4 shows Cowards and All Bar Luke and has an amazing second life as 'poet' Tim Key. Mark's no slouch either: he famously runs 24 hour comedy performances, has had success on Radio 4 and 5 and has three published books to his name. Currently he is wetting himself on Twitter at the prospect over turning 30. Alex Horne (playing the commentator) is something of a multimedia expert, providing idiosyncratic graphics for the trio's endeavours as well as his own live shows including his current tour 'Wordwatching' which comes highly recommended and is also available in book form.

Come On Down - The Return of Steve Mason

Following a couple of solo false starts (the patchy King Biscuit Time and highly disappointing Black Affair), former Beta Band frontman Steve Mason gives it another go, this time under his birth name, with new single 'All Come Down' released on December 7th with a new album 'Boys Outside' following in March.

We recently had the chance to speak to producer Richard X who told us more about the LP:

"Steve is a great talent so it's been good to work with him. I like the fact he's into records from any genre, obviously his past records have illustrated this. Originally he got in touch about working on a Black Affair record, but that kind of changed when I heard some of the songs he'd demoed, so we started making a different kind of album. It probably doesn't sound much like anything I've worked on before."

And for those curious, the track was debuted on Mary Anne Hobbs' radio show last week, a rip of which can be heard below.

Jacking the Charts in the Name of Charity

Now, very few of us still bother to follow the charts these days.  Even our own Dr Foster finally had to admit that reporting on ten records you have never heard - and do not want to - simply was not worth spending time over.  Well, for those of you at the back with one eye still open, I can tell you that the number one slot in the chart has been filled by an X Factor-related act for weeks now (Alexandra Burke, Cheryl Cole, JLS) and now previous winner Leona Lewis looks odds-on keep that unfortunate statistic rolling.

However, salvation could come in the form of 'I've Got Nothing' by Chartjackers, an apologetically "cheesy pop tune" from Youtube celebrity Charlieissocoollike.  The record, a product of ten weeks labor, was released via iTunes this Monday with all profits going towards BBC Children in Need and has already crept into the Top 40 in the midweeks.

 The song itself is actually quite catchy and at least one hundred times better than The Kooks (even though that's technically one hundred times nothing) and the video is ridiculous DIY fun.  Usually I'd urge you to put an extra quid in a charity box than buy a Children in Need or Comic Relief single but, far from the career-enhancement-dressed-up-as-altruism of most acts who lend their name to charity singles, this seems notihing more than marvellous. Dig deep now and get your copy from iTunes.

Just How Long Do The Simpsons Have Left?

Everyone loves The Simpsons - that's a given fact.  Well, ok...everyone loves The Simpsons apart from a couple I met earlier this year in my local pub, but two out of seven billion can be wrong.  This fact was re-impressed upon me yesterday when Channel 4 screened the classic episode 'Simpson and Delilah' (the one where Homer charges hair-growth formula to the nuclear power plant and becomes a powerful junior executive - until he is found out, the formula is spilt by Bart and eventually his influence weakens with every lost strand of synthetic hair) which was originally screened in October 1990 nestling among a universal clutch of "classic episodes".  This is an episode I have seen many times but, like so many others, it was with a friendly smile that I greeted this old friend instead of a derisive sneer of over-familiarity.  Contrarily, my normal response to The Simpsons on Sky One, where the episodes tend to be recent ones, is "I haven't seen this one - must be crap."  Sadly, it often turns out to be true.  The series will celebrate its twentieth anniversary on 17th December this year and many may argue this would be a suitable chance to finally call time, not just in Moe's bar, but on the whole town of Springfield.

It's long been said that it's difficult to pin-point the exact point when The Simpsons began to lose its magic, but general consensus puts it, sadly, at around the summer of 1997 when series creator Matt Groening began to look at his new venture Futurama with David X Cohen.  The series had run virtually flawlessly for eight triumphant seasons (although there were some near misses in season six!) but, with a disastrous season premiere finding The Simpsons in New York (which had previously been portrayed brilliantly by the fictional 'Capital City') and the first of many ill-advised character developments outside the family (Apu and new spouse in 'The Two Mrs. Nahasapeemapetilons') this was the beginning of the end for a show which had simply run out of stories.

From 1997, The Simpsons relied more on celebrity cameos.  Famous voices would more often than not play themselves as this previously normal American family increasingly found themselves coming face to face with Hollywood stars, Rock Gods, Teenyboppers and, in the abysmal 'British' episode, the incumbent Prime Minister - who, let's face it, has never been shy of doing anything for a stray dollar.  At least when Ricky Gervais was given the honour of becoming the first guest to write and appear in the show, he voiced the smarmy 'Charles', an extension of Gervais - just like David Brent or Andy Millman.  However, the wonderful irony at work here is that Gervais has been a long-standing advocate of "quit while you're ahead", wrapping up both The Office and Extras after two series and a special to tie up any loose ends.  To accuse Gervais of the same sell out tactics so often employed by his two most famous creations would be churlish, however.  This is the Simpsons after all!

That's possibly the problem.  Nobody really wants to admit that The Simpsons has gone stale, nor that it did a long time ago.  However, voluntary euthanasia may be the kindest gift Matt Groening can give his biggest cash cow.  The movie is quite literally in the can (one for you American slang enthusiasts there) and the show's greatest character has completed his journey from gruff, frustrated patriarch to a guff, frustrating idiot savant (minus the savant) with an over-reliance on a skin-crawlingly unfunny, exaggerated whisper.  It would simply be kindest to remember him on his greatest day ever...

Watch: 'Simpson and Delilah' (1990)