Radio Times

Like me, are you having a hard time keeping up with the rapidly expanding world of idents? You know, those little clips of channel branding ("ident" being short for identification) that remind you which station you're actually watching, in case you mistakenly find yourself tuned in to The Adult Channel thinking it was BBC4. (Anyone can make that mistake.)

The internet being what it is, there are even websites devoted to them (check out www.idents.tv and www.thetvroom.com), right down to the specific ident Anglia TV deployed in 1975. You can also download a pile of the more recent versions in case you need to watch...

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So Vera Duckworth, Corrie's original neighbour from hell, has shuffled out of Weatherfield to take her rightful place in the bulging pantheon of soap immortals. For 33 years, Liz Dawn seared herself into our retinas – and eardrums – as the common-as-muck loudmouth with stone-clad pretensions. Comedy gold. And it set me wondering: who is the greatest long-running character in Soapland? And do I have my own all-time favourite?

I apologise in advance for the fact that I know practically nothing about The Archers or Emmerdale and must tiptoe past Crossroads for qualitative reasons (sorry, Meg, Benny, Amy Turtle et al), so I'll only dwell...

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At this week's Baftas, The Bourne Ultimatum could win the award for best British film, even though it's made with American dollars, produced by Americans, stars an American as an American CIA assassin, and is based on an American book by an American author. It's eligible because its director, Paul Greengrass, and other "key creatives" are British.

Much as I love the film, this looks like a technicality too far. Bourne certainly doesn't feel British in the same way as the other nominees: Atonement's wartime reserve, Control's gloomy northern backdrop and This Is England's suburban skinheads. Even the Russian mafia-themed Eastern Promises...

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If I wanted to sue my pet, hug an inflatable lawyer or observe sexual misconduct in the workplace, I'd head to the Massachusetts offices of Crane, Poole & Schmidt, attorneys-at-law.

Boston Legal - a spin-off of The Practice - is an undervalued, merrily peculiar legal drama on Living. It's frothy, flippant and funny in ways that are difficult to illustrate without clips, or at least a finely crocheted pair of William Shatner and James Spader hand-puppets.

Shatner and Spader play lawyers Denny Crane (a trigger-happy Republican who likes to say his own name) and Alan Shore (a democrat with a heady sex appeal that's in...

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Location, Location, Location is a programme based on greed and sex. Greed is provided simply by bringing the housing market to the screen and suggesting that not only could we "trade up", but also we would be better, happier people for it. Sex, less successfully perhaps, is provided by the intimation that, given the chance, Phil and Kirstie would be at it like knives.

The show's bast*rd offspring Relocation, Relocation has taken this model and gone global - well, over the Channel, anyway. Now it's not just about being greedy in Britain, it's about being greedy in Europe at the same time.

Last week...

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Some while ago, I declared my addiction to Friends re-runs on E4 and E4 +1. If I was at home, I'd watch, 8-9pm every night. But there comes a time in an addict's life when she has to step back and ask herself: "Why am I doing this? Why am I spending empty hours watching episodes of a TV show that I already know off by heart?"

Of course, the answer is "because you can't be bothered to do anything else and besides, you quite like eating M&S lasagne from a tray on your lap in front of the telly. And what would you be doing instead?...

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Reader, I am ill. A chest infection has punched me to the carpet and left me wheezing like a dying balloon. From my new, sickly vantage point (on the couch, under a blanket that smells - as blankets invariably do - like biscuits), the world has developed a distinctly wobbly hue.

And nothing has proved more discombobulating than radio. What was once a garden of sonic delights is now a tangled window box of befuddlement. Ever tried listening to the radio after a week spent ingesting high-strength powdered flu drinks? Well, don't. It's awful. Everything sounds either really far away or as if it's being pumped...

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Heath Ledger, who died on 22 January, finally seemed to have found his groove.

Behind the surfer dude good looks, Ledger also had hidden depths, most recently seen in his fine, sullen turn as one of the "Bob Dylans" in I’m Not There.

Born in Perth, Australia, he first showed his quiet talent playing the outsider in the teen comedy 10 Things I Hate about You, and further cemented his reputation as Mel Gibson’s son in The Patriot.

Along with countrymen Hugh Jackman and Eric Bana, Ledger found plenty of work in Hollywood and his native Australia: he was self-mocking in A...

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When I saw a preview of Paul Thomas Anderson's oil-prospecting epic There Will Be Blood before Christmas, one thing seemed certain: the performance by Daniel Day-Lewis as "black gold" tycoon Daniel Plainview had Oscar written all over it.

I don't claim Mystic Meg status for spotting that, but I was right. Thus far, he's picked up a Golden Globe and a clutch of Critics' Circle awards. Now he's been nominated for a Bafta and an Oscar, and seems certain to win both.

Among his other roles – as disparate as a 19th-century Manhattan tribal chieftain in Gangs of New York, an adopted native American scout in Read more...