“Barrowmaaaaan!!”

So, as promised, a look forward to Day One of the Christmas telly schedule as defined by the glorious bumper edition of the Radio Times. Saturday 19th has bugger all on offer in the great scheme of things. It sees the final of this year’s “Strictly” and RT proudly lumps that in as its Pick Of The Day, not for me though ‘cos I have not seen a single second of it this year (nor any other) so that won’t be part of mine nor the Other Viewer’s watch list. The other choice cuts from the RT recommendations include a Take That concert, a CSI marathon, “Love Actually” if a rom-com is what you’re after, and finally “Merlin” whose second series comes to a close. This will be the 7th or 8th installment of Carry On Camelot that finds its way on to our Sky Planner unwatched and it’s probably a prime candidate for the Yellow Button of Doom unless we get round to tuning in soon. If a movie is what you’re after then an advert-less “Bladerunner” is on BBC2 at the same time as the Richard Curtis popular hit, which sounds much more appealing. The four back-to-back eps of CSI on Five are up against Channel 4’s frankly bizarre choice of three hours of “Wife Swap”. God forbid.  Choice cuts elsewhere that might pass the time include Doctor Who’s “Journey’s End” on BBC3 at 7pm, “Live from the Apollo” with Rhod Gilbert on BBC HD at 9:40pm or “Wallender”, which I’ve heard good things about but never seen. That’s BBC4 at 9:30pm. However, my picks of the day will be the movie “Frost/Nixon” which is premiering on SkyMovies and day four of the first cricket test between South Africa and England to see if the tourists can keep up their fightback.