The quest for a funny ITV1 sitcom continues because it certainly isn’t Benidorm.

The package holiday has never been a particularly rich seam from which to mine comedy. Duty Free was a smash hit years ago but in those far off days, its only competition tended to be the likes of Panorama or the basketball on Channel 4. Things are a tad more competitive these days.

The main crime is not even that it fails to be remotely funny. It’s just unremittingly crude and vulgar. Now I’m all for a bit of that if it’s portrayed in the right way, with a bit of warmth about it, but there was none of that here. All the characters seem so repulsive that it’s difficult to care about any of them. This could be a major stumbling block, given that by the second half of the episode, the sitcom ghost seemed to have been given up completely and the whole thing mutated into a bad soap, complete with a cliffhanger worthy of the duff-duffs.

I get the feeling that it wanted to be Carry on Abroad - though goodness knows why – and what we actually ended up with was more Eldorado.

Searching desperately for plus points, Johnny Vegas didn’t seem too bad but he was barely used. In fact he seems to get more lines in a thirty second tea commercial than he managed in the opener. The other good thing about it is that it was mercifully short.

I certainly wouldn’t go out of my way to watch another episode, especially as it clashes with the marvellous Mock The Week, which seems to go from strength to strength.

I do find Russell Howard’s flights of fancy a smidgen off the wall for my taste but this is the place to go for a bit of biting satire that thankfully isn’t laced with the sort of smugness that other topical or improvised comedy shows have suffered from.

Three things keep me coming back to this, impressive yet thankfully unslick host Dara O’Briain, the sharp cutting irreverence of Frankie Boyle and, best of all, the less frequent guests often fruitless attempts to get a word in edgeways when the regulars are in full flow.

It’s one of those shows where you get the feeling that the bits they are forced to leave out are probably even funnier than the bits that get in.

Stark raving

I’m so glad that I watched Jane Hall earlier in the year because it made me far more tolerant of conceits and excesses in Sally Wainwright’s Bonkers then I otherwise might have been.

Star Liza Tarbuck is a bit like Marmite but I’m in the camp that likes her and that’s a major help because her larger than life persona looms over this in big way. I quite like the idea that as a schoolteacher she’s more dysfunctional than her pupils.

I was happy enough with it when it was a simple tale of sex in suburbia. It remains to be seen whether I’ll still enjoy it after it went all Carry On X Files in the last quarter but there was enough wit and general silliness in the opener to suggest that it may well develop into a bit of treat.

Billy, don’t be a hero

In a village full of larger than life characters, in a place where so many have blood on their hands as a result of cartoon plots, Billy Hopwood stands out like a sore thumb because here we have a completely believable bad guy and he’s all the more chilling for that.

I’d say that his return to Emmerdale was a good thing but no doubt he’ll soon be transformed into a ludicrous over the top monster like so many of the others. I hope not though because this soap could do with keeping its feet on the ground every now and then.

Billy was involved in one of the show’s now regular big stunts this week. Who are they trying to attract by staging these spectaculars on such a regular basis, Dukes of Hazzard fans? Billy saved Victoria from a watery grave, but there was nothing he could do to revive the clunking dialogue he was forced to deliver in a croaky voice.

Before the end of the week Billy had been enticed into the bed of the twisted Jo but to be honest he looked as though he enjoyed his near drowning more than his encounter with her.

Music to my ears

You know that feeling when you’re watching a drama and all of sudden and for no apparent reason a song starts playing in the background. This seems to be happening more and more at the moment; Snow Patrol seems to pop in every other show. At times the music is used in an appropriate fashion but at others it just becomes obtrusive. The worst is when it starts a debate as to who the artist is which often means that you miss key plot points by debating whether you’ve just heard Keane or not.

What would help is if the featured tunes were mentioned on the end credits like they do in the movies but in the unlikely event of that happening, wouldn’t it be good if there were an extra subtitle channel to tell us just what tune is gracing or blighting our favourite shows. There seems to be more music in Waterloo Road these days than we used to get in your average episode of Top of The Pops while Grey’s Anatomy seems to contain enough tunes to fill a small iPod.

Meanwhile it really is worth checking the red button options on the BBC if you’re after a bit of live music but they occasionally come up trumps. This week saw a Norah Jones gig available interactively which was much appreciated, though some might see it not as a cute bit of public service broadcasting and more as an advert for her recently released album. I suppose I could harp on about whether the BBC should be using its digital services to promote a record company’s wares but frankly I just enjoyed the music.

Are Friends Electric?

I’ve got quite an old Sky+ box and it turns out that I’m jolly glad about it because the idea of a load of programmes I never have any intention of watching being added to the hard drive using my electricity is not one that I particularly relish. This is part of Sky Anytime, which also has a broadband application that I’ve never managed to get to work on my PC, though 4oD seems to work OK.

If I ever did bother to upgrade my Sky+ to a better box, I’d rather that any extra hard drive capacity could be used by me rather than for shows Sky think I should watch. A major part of Sky 's initial attraction for me was that they gave viewers what they wanted rather than they thought they should have. This latest idea seems to be a reversal of that.

Tea, toast and telly

I struggle to get myself together first thing in the morning and need a bit of stimulation. The thing is I can’t settle on an early morning show to bring me round.

BBC Breakfast is not bad I suppose, but it can get a bit overly newsy, very repetitive and for some reason I just can stand that Kate Silverton. I’ll admit that I’m more likely to stay tuned to the show when Bill Turnbull is in the chair because I feel like he is talking to me rather than at me. I was rather put off this week when Dermot savaged the Home Secretary John Reid because I felt he was being overly aggressive. I’d rather watch an interview than an argument.

Sky News Sunrise seems to have mutated into the Eamonn Holmes show these days. While I didn’t think the partnership with Lorna Dunkley worked that well, I’d still rather he had a sidekick rather than the underling that Charlotte Whatshersface appears to be. I just can’t settle to this show in its current form and find myself catching the headlines via the red button rather than viewing the show itself.

The problem is that everything seems to revolve around Eamonn’s ego now rather than the actual news. The show is more watchable when Mark Longhurst is there and the stories can take centre stage rather than the anchor and poor Charlotte doesn’t come across as an office junior. I wouldn’t advocate getting rid of Eamonn, I like him but the format definitely needs a re-tweak.

That just leaves GMTV, although there are times when The Hoobs over on Channel 4 see to make more sense than Fiona Phillips. There’s a sense when watching this that the hosts are having a far better time than we are and the whole thing just feels so lightweight these days. Even the once reliable News Hour is becoming less and less distinguishable from the main show.

None of those shows manage to hold my interest so I have to fall back on good old fashioned radio and BBC Five Live. If I’d rather listen to Nicky Campbell than watch the telly things must be bad.

Brandalism

I still don’t really see why the name Grandstand had to disappear completely. When the Grand National is shown for example, it’ll still be Grand National Grandstand to me what ever they decide to call it this year.

What I’m annoyed about is the whimper with which this television institution was allowed to bow out. Here would have been a great excuse to plunder the archives for a great celebration of nearly fifty years of sport and it was squandered, showing that those currently in charge have scant regard for the traditions that made the BBC such a loved institution.

It’s the minority sports that will suffer as a result of the show’s demise but at least they’ll now be ample opportunities for those who work weekdays to catch the odd episode of Diagnosis Murder.

Meanwhile the Tomorrow’s World brand had been revived but the bits and bobs it’s being used for aren’t worthy of the name. Quite why they’ve dug Maggie Philbin up to present these fleeting glimpses is also a bit of a mystery. Let’s have the proper show back, there’s loads of stuff for them to cover. Thursday nights would be good and they could follow it up with Top of The Pops. Come on BBC, give it a trial on the red button.

Read all about it – on some sets only

Do the graphics for BBC News 24 fit on all your tellies? Mine neither. For years it’s been industry practice to use “safe areas” for graphics so they remain readable on the vast majority of televisions but the arrogance of those currently running the corporation’s news service – a service we are forced to pay for – means that so that we can have a “less cluttered” screen, things like the ticker are now cut off on many sets.

If you prefer watching your news in 4:3 ratio – the only sensible option for people watching on small screen traditional ratio sets – you don’t get a clock any more, something they are completely unapologetic about.

Complaints about these changes have been treated with similar disdain to the ones made when they ruined the weather forecasts. Apparently minor tweaks have been made. I made my own minor tweak and switched to Sky News where the graphics are fine.

Bits n Bobs

I was no fan of Celebrity Wrestling but I reckon they could bring it back for a one off bout between Ulrika Jonsson and Kay Burley. I feel a campaign coming on.

I don’t suppose they’ll ever set a series of 24 in Britain because if they did, agent Jack Bauer would have to spend at least six episodes stuck in traffic.

Most guests don’t know what to make of Al Murray’s Happy Hour but Buzz Aldrin was completely unfazed and came across remarkably well. Unfortunately the memory of The Pub Landlord duetting with Sophie Ellis-Bextor will take far too long to fade.

I spent an hour in the dead of Friday Night/Saturday Morning watching Quiz Call and an interminable question about counting cats. I calculated the answer to be 4257 but I've no idea whether I was right or not because the thing was dragging on forever. If anyone out there has ever made it to air using the free web entry route, do let me know because I'm a bit of a sceptic.

If you were anticipating Channel 4’s season on masturbation, it seems you’ll have to contain yourselves a little longer. “Wank Week” has been pulled from the schedules. Don’t worry though, my understanding is that the shows concerned are coming soon.

The Last Post

As the Fowlers finally left EastEnders an old favourite made a final appearance - Sonia's trumpet. It was a nice little piece of attention to detail that suggests that maybe, just maybe, a bit of care is going into the production of the show again.

It was a lovely touch.