Broken But Unlikely Dreams

I very rarely take advantage of the fact that I have access to several TV channels on Freesat at my disposal whilst I'm back in Canterbury.

Although to be fair there's quite a bit of rubbish on there at times, such as the heavily edited American Idol shown on ITV2.

They're now into the voting stages with the studio audience and it looks as if barely anything's changed at all, to the point of the theme tune staying the same since the original Pop Idol 8 years ago.

However I like the fact that all the contestants are sat together ahead of the voting which is something you would never get on The X Factor as it seems to be a popularity contest for the judges every year and it's evident that barely any of the contestants have a personality.

This is all down to the fact that the on screen captions with the phone numbers have a photo of the mentor superimposed on them as opposed to one of the contestant.

I very much doubt I'll be watching the following series when it returns later in the year for all of those reasons and the over dramatic sense of it all.
Also because I won't be at University and don't need to have that crap in mind in order to start a conversation.

There's rumours that series 3 winner Leona and recent winner Alexandra are set to be working with Timbaland on their records which could prove succesfull.

What would really impress me however would be if they'd work with Bluey as I'd see it as a boost rather than a downturn as anything he produces for any artist can work perfectly and tick all the right boxes musically.

I can dream.

Anyway the programme I saw tonight had guest appearances from Stevie Wonder, and to a lesser extent Smokey Robinson not because of him as an artist but because he was duetting with Joss Stone who despite having a standout (if otherwised forced) singing voice, still hasn't found her proper talking voice.

There was also a guest appearance by season 2 winner Ruben Studdard from all the way back in 2003 performing his latest realease, although I'll remember him best for his version of the late 80s gospel favourite "Ain't No Need To Worry" orginally by the Winans.

That's The Winans as in the band, not BeBe and CeCe Winans.
All a bit confusing.

This was followed by a few more visits to Hell's Kitchen series 1 where at this stage the red and blue teams were ditched and they all formed into one big team where from this stage on it was every chef for themselves.

Each chef was also asked to prepare a signature dish with the standout being Jennifer Ellison's Chateau Brion which was essentially steak and chips, which Gordon was impressed with but Jen was unsure if it would sell.

Her thoughts were turned the other way round however as it sold out within 15 minutes and became very popular automatically putting her in Gordon's good books as the best cook in the team.

The other highly rated signature dish was Al Murray's fish pie made with smoked haddock, smoked salmon and crayfish tails which added a twist on the traditional recipe.

One of the people trying it was Al's lovely looking wife although they ended up splitting last year.

At this point of the series Al was becoming very determined and focus to the point of being very competetive although Edwina was still being a pain as always, with Gordon at one point saying she was "like a granny that won't die".

Some of the celebrity diners included Nicholas Parsons and his wife Ann, Jimmy Carr, and Jerry Springer who was in London as he was guest presenting the drivetime show on Capital Gold that week. Gordon was particuarly interested to see him as he'd been on his chat show that was broadcast on ITV a few years earlier.

There were also a few less welcome arrivals (in terms of status) who were dealt with in a tounge in cheek manner such as Charles and Diana Ingram, prompting Gordon to cough "Bullshit!" on their arrival.
The team came up with the idea of putting a red strepsil in place of a cherry on one of the appetisers which lead to good humoured results.

Even worse was James Hewitt who head chef Angela Hartnett referred to as a "nobber". And that's being kind.

Also appearing were Newsround's Lizo Mzimba who was with Richard Blackwood, and Lizo referred to Jennifer's Chateaux Brion as
"the best beef I've had in years"

Probably the reason why Phillip Schofield wasn't seen in the series.

I hope to finish the series by tomorrow and on Monday I plan to work on my background chapter for my dissertation, ahead of my appointment at Laurel House that afternoon which isn't really a reward, but more of a reassurance as to what will be happening over the summer and ways of preventing a repeat of what happened two years ago.

But what's worse, ending up in hospital for acting manically, or the pain and depression that follows after leaving?

I'm probably going to end up being dreadfully depressed by the end of the year, and it has to be said that a lot of people in the hospital were really lovely people and took interest in the music I liked and ended up adding to the computer they had in there.

One young woman rather enjoyed the Dianne Reeves CD I had added which I imagine is ideal listening when things are too much to handle.

We were all in our own little worlds but at least we were allowed music and DVDs to enjoy in our rooms which Mum and Dad did provide me a lot of. It's a times like that I wish I had owned an iPod as a lot of my music is on my external hard drive.

The way I seem to be typing now is slightly similar to how I was in August 2007 so I'm slightly worried I may end up going a bit too far or possibly proposing to someone via MSN messenger.

Yes, that did happen at the time and the certain individual's names became acronym poems whilst I was in St Martin's Hospital.

I wish I had kept some of the things I drew or coloured in whilst I was in there.