David definitely not H-off his face

Former Baywatch star David Hasselhoff is a recovering alcoholic and there are countless stories of his excess before he kicked the bottle into touch.

So it was probably a little reckless of OK magazine to assert that the Knight Rider star was “off his face” in an LA nightclub and unsurprisingly the Hoff didn’t take too kindly to this.

And, having been assessed independently, he has now won undisclosed damages from OK! magazine, because he was actually drinking energy drinks and celebrating with his family.

As stupid as this was, you have to feel a little sorry for OK! There may well have been countless occasions in the past decade or so when Hasselhoff was indeed “off his face”, but they don’t seem to have been captured on camera. The one time photos of the TV legend are published, he’s as sober as proverbial court official.

If only Amy Winehouse could say the same thing…

No more Celeb Big Brother

Well, perhaps it will reappear in 2009, but C4 has taken the sensible decision to ‘rest’ Celeb Big Brother after this year’s race row, so no show next January.

There can’t be anyone in the modern world who didn’t hear about the rumpus in which Bollywood ‘star’ Shilpa Shetty (who, to my mind was almost as culpable with her sneering, aloof attitude) was abused and slurred by, among others, Jade Goody.

However, even though, CBB has produced some of the most memorable TV over the past 5 years, including George “Robotics” Galloway’s cat impersonation, Vanessa Feltz’s meltdown and Les Dennis crying, I doubt people will be that upset. The boredom and inanities of the show far outweigh the good bits.

Personally, I’ll be far more happy if they decide to “rest” the regular Big Brother – of course, Channel 4 rely on its viewing figures to keep up their share of the audience in the ratings battle with the other terrestrial channels, so they couldn’t possibly countenance such a popular move – it’s a show that past its sell-by date about five years ago.

The fact that it seems to be longer than the football season tells you much about the place it occupies in British society, but while approximately 20m people in the UK are interested in football, no more than 4m have any glimmer of interest in Big Brother.

Sadly, there haven’t been any similar rows or scandals during this year’s Big Brother, which probably goes some way to explain why it’s off most people’s radar – but then Channel 4 almost inevitably engineered it thus – so we can expect to see it back again next May, with the usual clutch of no-marks, who seriously think it will improve their life to spend a couple of months incarcerated with a similar group of eejits. Haven’t they learned yet?

020 ‘is’ the number

For those of you who don’t live in London, this won’t mean much, but I’ve been getting increasingly annoyed at the ignorance surrounding the capital’s telephone dialling code.

Here’s a typical example from yesterday. Having moved in the last week or so, I’ve had to update my address details with numerous companies, which also entails changing contact numbers:

Customer Services: What’s your new number, sir?

Me: It’s 020 865X XXXX

Customer Services: So that’s 0208 65X XXXX

Me: (with a resigned tone) Yes, that’s what I said

You see, everyone thinks that the dialling code is 0207 or 0208 and it’s not – it’s 020!

This may sound like a petty, small thing, but it’s not. When the powers-that-be changed the dialling code around 10 years ago, it was to be prepared when the numbers started to run out. This mean that they could numbers other than 7 and 8 after 020.
And that is what has started to happen. For example, the media company IPC has recently moved offices and changed numbers. Their new switchboard number: 020 3148 5000 – now that’ll freak out the customer services departments, won’t it?

CS: What’s your number, sir?

IPC: 020 3148 5000

CS: OK, that’s 0208 314…

IPC: Noooo, 020 3148 5000 – there’s no 8

CS: But you’re in London – that’s 0208, isn’t it?

And so on…

I know in the grand scheme of things, it’s not a big deal, but it’s the numerical equivalent of missing apostrophes, in my view. The Lynne Truss’ of this world hate it when people write things like, “Its my birthday” – why should this number problem be any different?