Durga Pokhall is a Nepalese immigrant who speaks four languages, reads Shakespeare and aims to earn the respect of noble Englanders by handing out parking tickets.

As you can imagine, he is in for quite a shock.

After a couple of months, the idealistic little dude’s vision of a British population who value honour and spirituality have been well and truly dashed. As it turns out, the ‘crafty’ illegal parkers will do anything to avoid getting a ticket.

While this won’t surprise most of us, Durga is shocked, and watching him transform into a more cynical man who realises that “it’s just about the tickets” almost reminds us of that poor bloke in 1984.

We could sit and talk about Durga’s lovably naïve foibles all day but it would be an injustice to a thoroughly decent TV show which lifts the lid on some of the most unpopular people in Britain.

We’ve all cursed a parking ticket in our time, but some of the abuse we see these parking patrollers get is truly astounding, depressingly consistent and frequently racist – the polite and orderly British people that Durga has read so much about don’t seem to own many cars.

People who have been in the job a little longer than our new friend give us a little more insight though.

Alex came to Britain from Nigeria in 2007 and tells us that despite being outlawed a couple of years ago, firms still hoist unofficial ticket targets on to their roving employees and only those wardens who clock up the most fines are given lucrative overtime shifts.

Of course this is all denied by bosses who wax lyrical about “customer service” from their board-rooms but we know what’s going on and it’s not that surprising, after all they make their money by fining lazy motorists.

It’s a fine example of capitalism in motion.


Sean Marland

Is there a celebrity couple left in the country without a camera crew permanently installed in their living room, recording the deathly dull minutiae of their lives?

Following in the footsteps of Peter and Katie, Sharon and Ozzy et al, are Yvette Fielding and husband Karl Beattie.

Once known for being a Blue Peter presenter, these days Yvette is the self-styled ‘First Lady of the Paranormal’, hunting down ghouls and ghosties for Living TV’s scarily popular Most Haunted, along with co-presenter (and producer) Karl.

It’s all go at chez Yvette and Karl, in this latest episode in the fly-on-the-wall series. Karl rescues a limp duck from their pond, then a builder called Steve calls round to discuss adding an £80,000 conservatory onto their Cheshire pad. The Wire this isn’t. Then disaster almost strikes. Yvette has a slight cold, but has to rehearse a dance routine for Ant & Dec’s Saturday Night Takeaway a whole day early!

This temporarily turns Yvette into a female Alan Partridge, whinging about the traffic, blowing her nose in the face of her make-up artist at the TV studios, and talking inappropriately about the function of female orgasms. Except when she dances, she looks a bit like the woman from the old Shake & Vac ad. Karl is, in general, a more upbeat David Brent type. ‘I’ve stood next to Stallone, Schwarzenegger, Willis,’ he boasts at one point. ‘I’ve met world leaders, Madonna. And I’ve never been nervous.’ What, even when Madonna showed you her veiny arms?

Later on we see a jollier Yvette – a woman who’s no stranger to an unflattering night-vision camera – having her extensions done in the hairdresser, and going online to research renewing her wedding vows. I don’t mean to be rude, but watching someone else use the internet is hardly Rebecca Loos pleasuring a pig.

Yvette and Karl seem like perfectly lovely people, and they’re really very good at asking mediums to communicate with the spirit world. Back in the world of the living, though, this is about as interesting as watching your neighbours do their weekly shopping in Asda. The only thing that can save them now is to bring the spooks in.


Cheryl Freedman

No wonder plastic surgery is so popular if this is what your doctors are like.

Sean and Christian are back with their scalpels and are still trying to either slice open or have sex with every woman that crosses their path.

Here’s a quick recap of what happened before: Julia’s recovering from her gunshot and is dealing with some memory loss. Matt is still reeling from the shock of accidentally sleeping with his sister. And Christian is just being Christian.

Meanwhile crazed stalker Colleen had pushed Sean to the limit. She snuck into the operating theatre where Sean is about to work on his daughter following her car crash. Colleen grabs a knife and brutally attacks Sean, leaving his life hanging in the balance.

The second half of Season 5 follows on with Sean recovering from his life threatening injuries. The shows jumps 4 months into the future and reveals that Sean is in a wheelchair and working on being rehabilitated.

While Sean isn’t able to perform surgery he’s teaching surgery students and finds a protege in Raj, a medical wunderkind who’s somewhat lacking in social niceties.

Liz, the surgeon’s faithful lesbian anesthesiologist, has a consultation with Christian to decide if she can have a breast reduction. When he finds a lump, she has to get herself checked out. But when Christian mentions that he too has a lump in his chest, the doctor recommends that he get a mammogram.

When Christian and Sean meet two hotties at a bar and go home with them, Sean finds that being in a wheelchair has some unexpected benefits.

In other developments, someone has breast cancer and two unlikely people have bubbling chemistry that swiftly builds up to a sexual encounter. We’ve peeked ahead to the next episode. It’s a doozy.

The directors have really kept up the high standards of this show; it looks good, it’s well written and it’s never afraid to make the characters unlikable. Which only serves to make us love them, thus proving that everyone loves a bad boy.

Emily Moulder

ENID: Monday 16th November, BBC4, 9pm ALERT ME

It’s nearly impossible to imagine a programme about Enid Blyton which doesn’t include some posh young vigilantes armed to the teeth with ginger beer.

But the only lashings that go on in this piece of television are aimed solely at the author herself.

Instead of giving us a fluffily saccharine version of the storyteller’s life, the BBC has crafted a probing and original period drama which vividly portrays her as a woman who has more in common with Lady MacBeth than Beatrix Potter.

This biopic is not a gushing tribute but a biting character assassination which doesn’t shirk from tearing into one of the most prolific novelists in history.

Fresh from her exploits as marginally less evil Potter villain, Bellatrix Lestrange, Helena Bonham Carter opens up the troubled author with ease and she captures the spirit of an exasperatingly volatile Blyton superbly.

However it is through her first husband (Matthew McFadyen) that we see what this extraordinarily manipulative woman is capable of. Indeed her lies about her mother being dead even remind us of the famous bigamist bride, Emily Horne.

In the first two minutes we see her threaten to sack her driver for sneezing and things aren’t much better for those people actually in her family.

After a short intro which features Enid climbing the writing ladder to the accompaniment of the obligatory montage, we see her fall in love with her first publisher and the real drama begins.

Haunted by the departure of her womanising father (for whom she has a deluded admiration) when she was a young girl, we learn that Blyton is a stunted soul and she starts to swing between being a bit-selfish and positively bi-polar.

A cracking piece of TV which would have us believe that the famous author was also an emotional cripple – who much like Noddy and Big Ears – was trapped in her own little world.

Discuss.


Sean Marland

Many things may have changed since that sepia-tinted day when a sexy young Elizabeth Windsor skipped into Westminster Abbey to be crowned, but the British people’s fascination with the monarchy has apparently endured.

Royalists will obviously be more enthusiastic about this than a bunch of students at a free bar – but is there anything here for the rest of us?

The answer is yes and no.

When Bob Angell and Arthur Wooster made these pioneering recordings back in 1953 they believed they were on the cusp of a revolution in film-making – however the rise and rise of television quickly put paid to the fledgling career of 3D movies.

So when the footage of the coronation day was discovered by chance recently, it seemed only proper that someone finally put it on the television. Better late than never.

Objectively, this is a mediocre programme which demonstrates why 3D was quelled so easily, but viewed as a historical landmark, it is poignant.

Anecdotes flow and traditionalists wallow, yet underneath all the shmaltz there is some genuinely excellent footage, although ironically enough, most of it is not of the coronation, but one of her majesty’s trips on the Royal barge.

Various contributors also share their memories, some of them are interesting, many of them aren’t. “The British people love getting dressed up and attending the Royal Swan Upping,” says one particularly-detatched Etonian.

People gush over the Queen and slather on nostalgia by the bucket-load, but this piece still provides an excellent window back to an age when the Royal family were still significant.


Sean Marland

DOCTOR WHO – THE WATERS OF MARS: Sunday 15th November, BBC1, 7pm ALERT ME

In the last decade, astrological boffins have become very excited by the discovery of water on Mars.

But instead of working their fingers to the bone on the nearest gigantic calculator they could find, these excitable NASA employees should have contacted David Tennant.

In his pre-penultimate outing as the Doctor, he discovers that the water on Mars is not so much exciting, but down-right treacherous.

Not only is the evergreen timelord back, but he is arguably better than ever, and we are given a tantalising taste of his Christmas exit – apparently David Tennant will be going out with more than a bang.

Never mind that though. With handy robots, strategically placed air-locks and homicidal aliens popping up everywhere, this edgy dash to save the planet is a rip-roaring special episode in its own right.

Yet it also sets the scene perfectly for the cosmic crescendo that’s in the astro-post, and the Doctor is already being forced to consider the massive questions that await before this particular incarnation’s time is up.

In the not-too-distant future (2059 to be precise) the timelord rocks up on the red planet and stumbles upon Adelaide Brooke – played by a de-Thatcherised Lindsay Duncan – and her pioneering team of scientists.

As it turns out, it’s a good thing he pops in because pretty soon the crew of the Marsbase are having a few problems with the plumbing – well their drinking water to be precise. Unfortunately their H2O is turning them into water-spurting zombies who have a mad-eye on planet earth.

There aren’t many people who have been round the chronological block as many times as Doctor Who though, and he soon realises that he’s seen the crews future – they are more doomed than a bunch of Daleks on a scuba diving trip.

The results are visually spectacular and the new shady material makes for a thrilling story that children will lap-up as eagerly as the adults who grew up with Tom Baker.


Sean Marland

Well Mr Tennant could be on his way out, but fans of the doctor will be pleased to hear that someone even sexier could appear in the next series – apparently BBC bosses are desperate to find a role in the time drama for one Cheryl Cole!

When I was growing up, we owned an out-of-control dog called Monty.

One of the more mortifying episodes of my childhood occurred when a friend came round for tea and Monty vigorously dry-humped her leg. When I dragged him off, he bit my arm – I still bear the scars today.

Alas poor misunderstood Monty is no longer with us, but if he was I’d definitely be glued to The Dog Whisperer.

I understand that in doggy-owner circles, this American programme is discussed in revered tones, and it’s easy to see why. The star is Cesar Millen, a man who probably could stop a rabid Doberman tearing the face off a small child at 100 paces. No hound is too harrassed, no pooch too psychologically disturbed, not to be turned into a tail-wagging bundle of furry love by the credit roll. This Supernanny of the canine world even has his own magazine, a feat normally reserved for the likes of Oprah.

Today’s despairing owner is seasoned rocker Matt Sorum, the drummer from Velvet Revolver and Guns N’ Roses, and his partner Ace. The couple have a French bulldog, Miles, who’s ’sweet and fun-loving 85% of the time’. Unfortunately the other 15% he spends attacking any other dog that crosses his path, and pawing manically at house guests. Cesar eventually cures Miles, but his methodology seems slightly opaque. As far as I can tell, it’s part the owners exuding ‘the right kind of energy’, part simply Cesar’s hypnotic presence.

When it comes down to it, though, Miles is all bark and no bite. That can’t be said for Maxi, a pitbull belonging to wheelchair-bound Jaime. Maxi’s been blacklisted from a charity where sick children are visited by dogs. The reason? She got in a fight with Jaime’s sister’s Bichon Frise, a ball of white fluff that ‘didn’t make it’.

Crikey, I didn’t expect the Dog Whisperer to be quite this harrowing.

Luckily there’s a happy ending: Maxi is accepted into another scheme helping disadvantaged teenagers train dogs; Jaime shows them how it’s done.

If you have a four-legged friend, I’ve no doubt The Dog Whisperer is riveting. Millions of fans obviously think so. If not, you might find it a teensy bit on the long side. I must confess, on the evidence here, I won’t be buying that puppy I wanted just yet.


Cheryl Freedman

Lumberjacks are like mutant superheroes.

They brave razor-sharp chainsaws, icy rivers and swinging 180-feet hooked line.

Thrill-seekers, adrenaline junkies and all-around crazies, they are the Axe Men (cue melodramatic symphonic score).

The non-fiction series Axe Men tracks competing American logging crews as they chain-saw and haul their way through the jungle of the Pacific Northwest. But the stakes are higher for the Axe Men this time around. After last year’s housing market crash and the devastating storm, the competing companies must step it up.

Felling far more ground, and scouting sky and sea, the new season adds three newcomers to the competition. On top of Oregon’s J.M Browning and Pihl Logging from season one, we follow Washington ’s Rygaard and S&S Aqua Logging, and Montana’s R&R Conner Aviation. That means helicopters and wet suits.

The highlight of Axe Men are its real-life characters. Dwayne Dethlefs, a 30-year logger with a full red beard and a goofy smile, points to a ditch and mutters: “Good place to put a body in that hole on the other side of that stump.” Creepy. At least the owner of S&S Aqua Logging admits, “My dad had an 8th-grade education and he is twice as smart as I am.” Completely mindless, yet entertaining.

The Logging is not for the faint-hearted. Browning, whose company holds the track record, producing 15-to-20,000 logs a day, takes out his deformed hand and retells the hook accident in a matter-of-fact tone: “Everything came out–ligaments, tendons. It looked like spaghetti.” Excuse us while we throw-up a little in our mouths.

It is the perfect case of schadenfreude. You know, the whole “finding pleasure in other people’s pain”? It is just too much fun watching these dimwits manage heavy machinery in the middle of a forest. One can only anticipate what this season will bring.


Danielle Jacoby

They can leave us with laugh-out-loud stomach pains or a gnawing emptiness that leads us asking ‘eh’? We are going to have to go with the latter for Comedy Showcase’s second pilot, PhoneShop.

Written by Phil Bowker (Pulling, 15 Storeys High and Time Gentlemen, Please) and script edited by Ricky Gervais, PhoneShop centres on the quirky employees of a High Street UK mobile phone shop. It is a comical concept backed by a quirky cast, but a half-hour of drawn-out jokes kills the buzz early on.

“New man” Christopher, a highly awkward recent graduate, must make his first sale by the end of the day to secure the job. But with a wank-a-holic boss who claims to have “the sex drive of two 18-year-olds,” a soft-spoken razor-riding female co-worker, and two boorish thong enthusiasts, poor Christopher’s mission seems futile.

The ensemble cast includes Javone Prince, Andrew Brooke, Martin Trenaman, Tom Bennett and Emma Fryer. All are quirky and entertaining characters, appealing to the Gervais-ian brand of humour. But, like the majority of the comedian’s stuff, they tend to over-act with irritatingly prolonged dialogue.

The banter about clothes brands as a metaphor for women is inane. The racist repartee becomes awkward. The gaucheness of our leading man is frustrating and his constant utterance of “You mug!” grows tired. And inside mobile phone retailer jokes become redundant.

What could have been a satirical original falls flat. In less than 30 minutes, Bowker manages to make us yawn.

Not sure that is what Gervais signed on for.


Danielle Jacoby

After you hear about a catfish that can swim into a bloke’s penis while he’s whizzing in the river, you start to think that Piranhas might not be worst thing to live in the waters of South America.

We would still think twice before getting our rubber ring out though – but Jeremy Wade is not only a very brave television presenter, he’s an extreme angler who finds the deadliest fish on the planet and joins them for a spot of backstroke.

Steve Irwin would have been proud…

In this latest episode of his series, the crazy fisherman travels to the Amazon to find out what makes these homicidal river dwellers so deadly, before asking whether their fearsome reputation is justified.

The eventual answer to the second question is: Yes – they’re mental fish murders that eat quicker than Rik Waller after a couple of joints.

Next we’ll be hearing that a nature crew has set-off for the forest to find out if Bears really do s**t in the woods…

Maybe that’s a bit cynical, because as Jeremy proves when he takes a dip in a Piranha pool, certain conditions have to be present for a feeding-frenzy to take place, as they were in 1976 when a bus that drove into the river was hauled out a couple of hours later with a dozen skeletons inside it.

In his interesting quest to explain the behaviour of these famous tourist gobblers, Wade visits several people with horror stories to tell, including one family who tragically lost a young boy after he fell in the river by their house.

His enthusiasm makes River Monsters a decent nature show and there are plenty of grisly anecdotes for macabre-lovers out there.

We even get to see Wade dip a dead duck into a shoal of Piranha and watch it disappear quicker than a plate of cookies in Woody Harrelson’s dressing-room – now that’s what we call the munchies.


Sean Marland

For more nature documentary brilliance, you have to read our review of the BBC’s latest mega-doc Life, Last Chance To See: Blue Whale or The Whale That Ate The Great White…..