A few words from Rob Mansfield

Strictly Come Dancing: what if there’s a tie?

rob — Mon, 08 Dec 2008 13:17:59 +0000

I was sitting watching Strictly Come Dancing on Saturday and a thought suddenly came to me. What happens if all 3 or all 4 couples end up with the same number of points? It’s not such an implausible scenario and one that Bruce and Tess never allude to, which leads me to believe that there could [...]

Now Christmas has really started!

rob — Mon, 08 Dec 2008 13:01:16 +0000

No matter how many adverts I see on TV, how many times radio stations play Wham!’s Last Christmas or the number of presents I have/haven’t bought it never really feels like Christmas until the tree is up. Yesterday, we tootled down the road to a man selling trees from the car park in the local pub. [...]

Andy Burnham sticks up for the BBC again

rob — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 13:35:27 +0000

The ongoing saga of topslicing the TV licence fee to help prop up the likes of Channel 4, but at the expense of the BBC, has been a thorn in the side of Ofcom and the government this year. No-one in power wants to rule out topslicing, but no-one wants to come down heavily on [...]

Does anyone give a stuff about the Guardian’s celeb wrapping paper?

rob — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 12:16:08 +0000

Sometimes I wonder if the head honchos at The Guardian have their own little in-jokes and like playing tricks on their readership. How else to explain their current bizarre promotion of celeb-designed wrapping paper. So far the likes of Johnny Depp, Jonathan Ross, Paul Smith, David Bailey and Sophie Dahl have leant their considerable talents to [...]

Is 40% off really such a good deal?

rob — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 13:42:33 +0000

So we beetled off to our local Wine Rack on Sunday because, like many thousands of other booze-buyers, we had a 40% off voucher that seems to be doing the rounds. It’s quite an exciting prospect to be told you get 4 bottles free for every 10 you buy, isn’t it? I mean it sounds too [...]