The Sex Education Show

There's a favourable and very fair review on The Guardian website about The Sex Education Show. Bearing in mind the painful and just downright strange conversations I had about sex and relationships with my parents this is what caught my eye in Heidi Stephens piece:

This is not my kind of thing, as a rule - people talking openly about sex, how much they're getting it, what kind they're getting. I'd rather clean the oven. But this show claimed to present both teenage and adult perspectives on all matters sexual. And because I have both a 16-year-old son and a nine-year-old daughter, any advice on how to broach this stuff in a way that is less likely to scar my offspring for life is gratefully received.

As it turned out, I didn't need to make notes, because teenage son decided to watch it with me. Which I guess was what Channel 4 intended when they gave it a pre-watershed 8pm slot, but was entirely unexpected and potentially horrifically embarrassing (no, for ME, not him). He wandered in at the start, asked what I was watching, and decided to "give it five minutes". By the end he admitted it had been "interesting" and "useful". And in the mumble-heavy vocabulary of a 16-year-old boy, I believe that counts as a glowing review.

You can see it on 4oD. Alone. With your teenager. Or even with a parent.

The Channel 4 Sex Education website is here (and it's well worth checking out).

Chocolate Junkie Pig:

In The Guardian Sam Wollaston takes to Willie's Wonky Chocolate Factory and makes me want to watch it. This is what he says about the roasting of a chocolate basted pig:

Junkie pig, that's what I want. It's a dish I wasn't aware of before watching Willie's Wonky Chocolate Factory (Channel 4, Sunday), but that's probably because it almost certainly doesn't exist outside the Harcourt-Cooze family. Willie H-C is one of those posh people it's impossible not to like. He has a wild look in his eye that suggests he's lived a bit, he has big plans, crazy ideas, tons of enthusiasm. It's just not clear whether he's got the down-to-earth skills to make those plans happen.

Chocolate, that's his thing: he's trying to make the king of chocolates, with beans grown on his farm in Venezuela. It's basically that show Jimmy's Farm, with palm trees. It looks fun being one of the Harcourt-Cooze kids. So what if the family Volvo doesn't have glass in all its windows - they get to hang out in the jungle for a month every year, dance salsa, eat chocolate with everything, including junkie pig.

You need a whole pig for Junkie Pig, and an outdoor wood-burning oven big enough to accommodate it. Kill the pig and make a marinade from white wine, balsamic vinegar, apricots, and chocolate of course, all buzzed up together. Then inject it into the pig, using a fresh hypodermic needle (hence the name) - all over, like a proper old smackhead, not like some novice, first-time user. Then pop it into the oven for about three hours, until the skin is nice and crispy. Yum. You don't see that on MasterChef.

Got 4oD? Watch Junkie Pig here right now.

I'm off on holiday: Skins Series 2 is on 4oD

Catch up with all of the first series of Skins, watch the second series as it happens on 4oD.

Reaper free on 4oD

I've been watching Reaper on 4oD and it's pretty fine. It reminds me of Buffy crossed with Clerks (which isn't surprising as Clerks director Kevin Smith directed the first Ep). The other thing I like is that our hero Sam's sidekick, Bert "Sock" Wysocki (played by Tyler Labine) resembles quite spookily my old (but long time no see) friend Gideon.

Got 4oD? Watch Reaper here!
Not Got 4oD? Get 4oD here!

Big Brother: Celebrity Hijack on 4oD

Big Brother: Celebrity Hijack, the all new cleaned up non-racist version of this old favourite has started. You can see the whole of the launch show (all 90 minutes of it!) on 4oD or get the news and clips on Channel4.com.

Early coverage of the revamped show on The Sun's website is very positive with their BB columnist writing:

I was sick and tired of BB after Jade Goody’s antics last year.
But Matt’s choice of lumbering Scot John to do his bidding had me laughing aloud.
So that’s the next three weeks’ telly viewing sorted then.

Personally I'm looking forward to the Chapman brothers taking on the celebrity role as I've always enjoyed their antics.

Feeling Shameless: another day another dollar

It's a new year so just to reiterate for all our new visitors: If you haven't already installed the 4oD application which lets you watch 100s of hours of new and old Channel 4 programming on your PC all for free you can get it from here.

For the rest of you old skoolers here's some of the highlights on 4oD today, just open the 4oD app and have a browse:

All of the first 4 series of Shameless plus the latest episode of the new series
The Look Good Naked Specials
My Fake Baby
Murderers on the Dancefloor (about the making of the classic YouTube Thriller video. No, not the Jacko one, the one made by the 1,500 inmates of the Cebu Provincial Detention and Rehabilitation Center in the Philippines)
Hollyoaks
Deal of No Deal
Big Fat Quiz of the Year
and the first episode of series 2 of FX's Brotherhood