Radio Times

What use a British summer without Wimbledon? More than any other event in the calendar, this tennis favourite sums up everything good and bad about middle England, cramming it into a two-week-long sporting garden fête. The strawberries. The flag waving. The freshly cut triangular sandwiches. The intense anticipation of glory shafted by the crushing disappointment of cruel defeat.

Yes, everything about Wimbledon is England through and through. Except for the winners, they're normally American. Or Swiss.

But it matters not - we don't need to win to enjoy ourselves. We're happy, nay giddy, just to take part and...

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I never really used to watch this show much, even though I think "confused hippie/part troll" Bill Bailey's a comedy legend. The problem was the presenter Mark Lamarr. He was just too annoying.

Dubbed the "cheeky cockney 1950s throwback" by Vic Reeves and Bob Mortimer, as far as I could see he was more of a self-obsessed, cheeky, cocky prat. He had an infuriating way of interrupting guests when they were humming songs for fellow contestants to identify. It was just plain irritating.

But now there's a new kid on the block. You may recognise him from Channel...

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It's a question so commonly asked that you should already have a pre-ordained answer filed somewhere in the forefront of your lobes ready to pull out at a moment's notice. Which superpower would you most like to have?

Me, I'd like to be able to leap rooftop to rooftop with amplified strength and dexterity - like Spiderman but without all the sticky web nonsense. You?

In fact, given the fascination we hold for superhuman abilities, the bigger question is: why wasn't Heroes made before now? In television terms it's an open goal for ratings success. A series...

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Football is an ever-changing world.

In the 1960s it was rattles, England, Bobby Moore, crap wages. In the 1970s we had bubble perms, slow-motion replays, communal baths. The 1980s was all tight shorts, hooliganism and unforgettable mullets. And the 1990s saw Richard "Hairy Hands" Keys on Sky, Ron Manager's Jumpers for Goalposts, and Baddiel and Skinner's Three Lions.

Now we have WAGs (heaven help us), diving and Roman Abramovich's yachtfuls of cash. But one thing has remained constant: Match of the Day.

Saturday night, 10:30pm-ish, there's Gary Lineker with his trademark cheeky schoolboy grin and...

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Ah, the luxury hotel: a world unto itself where anything is possible and theoretically available. Of course, the reality of luxury hotels isn't like that at all, and nor is the delightfully unhinged Hotel Babylon.

You might think a series starring Max Beesley and Tamzin Outhwaite isn't necessarily the most appetising recipe for scrumptious television. You might well be wrong.

Tamzin is a revelation as Rebecca Mitchell, the exceedingly glamorous, exceedingly repressed hotel manager, while the unnervingly handsome Beesley as her deputy, Charlie Edwards, is the sort of cheeky chappie you end up rooting for, and not...

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Can Lost be the most unpopular "most watched" series in TV history?

According to a survey published last year in Radio Times, Lost is only second behind CSI: Miami in global viewing figures, so there are plenty of people watching it.

But in "watercooler" terms, the criticisms that Lost receives are endless. Such as, "it's infuriating!", "I simply don't have the patience for it" and, "even the writers don't know what the story is!" I agree, wholeheartedly, if I'm to be honest.

But I'm utterly, painfully hooked. The tension racked up toward the end of...

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The premise of Deal or No Deal, for anyone that's been living in a cave for the past year, sounds much like a question in an A-level maths exam. Twenty-two identical boxes containing 22 different sums of money are distributed between 22 cash-hungry punters who await their opportunity to become the player.

The player, without knowing what their own box contains, must open each of the others in the hope that they won't eliminate the higher cash prizes (thus prolonging the possibility that their box contains the biggest prize, £250,000).

At regular intervals they will receive a...

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When it comes to Neighbours, it's more socially acceptable to admit an addiction to, say, Pot Noodles, or Lambrusco. There's no debate around the watercooler for the Neighbours fan. No discussions on the bus. No Christmas Day special. Neighbours is a lonely pleasure.

It's the Cinderella of soap operas - never seen at glitzy TV awards shows, unaccountably snubbed by every magazine's soap round-up, as if watching Neighbours might be somehow grubby, embarrassing, even suspect. As minority an interest as nude morris dancing.

Yet "fan" is too small a word for us loyal underground viewers....

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I'd rather brush my teeth with a dog than own one. Your pooch could have been to Swiss finishing school and be able to administer its own breath mints, but still it wouldn't be welcome in my home. Sorry, dog people, but I'm not a fan. So how did I come to adore a programme about exasperated owners trying to reform their miscreant mutts?

It's like this: It's Me or the Dog is not for dog lovers. Oh, no. Just as You Are What You Eat is ignored by the fat and cherished by smug skinnies, the attraction...

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No country jails its citizens with as much enthusiasm as the United States, and while the restorative effects on society of putting a percentage of the population out of harm's way have yet to be satisfactorily demonstrated, there is one clear and undeniable benefit: America is the world leader in prison dramas, the greatest dramatic genre of all.

A confined space is the ideal location for drama to flourish, especially when certain individuals are eager to make the experience as unpleasant as they can for everyone else.

Like all good prison stories, Prison Break is not just bad...

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The average soap opera is about as accurate a portrayal of real life as Scooby Doo is actual detective work.

Coronation Street might be good for the occasional giggle, but the impression it gives of modern Mancunian life is by comparison to reality so saccharine sweet it might as well be the setting for the Mr Men books.

In Hollyoaks it seems you only need to be 13 to run your own highly successful take on The Gadget Shop, and as for EastEnders? Well, the Fowlers might as well be the Munsters for all the relevance...

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Jack Bauer is the government agent with extreme time-management issues from the nail-biting show 24, who solves most problems by killing people. He's so good at it that he's now regarded as the main cause of death among terrorists in America.

He can be found either growling to himself like Mutley, saying "dammit" and "sonofabitch" under his breath, or yelling at a bad guy to "Holster your weapon!" When he combines the two approaches, it is to cajole innocent computer geeks to help him stop California from being blown up: "You have got to help me."

This man...

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Torchwood. It's an anagram of Doctor Who. But then so is Hot Rod Cow or Hot Cod Row. You can see why they chose Torchwood. (Imagine a drama about bovine drag racing, or fish arguing heatedly. Don't worry, the way things are going, they'll happen?probably on Five.)

So it's the X-rated, post-watershed Doctor Who spin-off; but beside Captain Jack, David Tennant's hand in a jar and some mumbo jumbo about time rifts, Torchwood is its own beast.

Yes, it's daft - gloriously daft - but it's also racy, glamorous, well acted, lovingly produced, cleverly scripted and flipping sexy....

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I love wildlife programmes. There's something about the survival-of-the-fittest law of the animal kingdom that, while fascinating to watch, makes it reassuring to be human. That's why I tune in to observe the behaviour of the species they call "celebrity" (sadly, far from endangered) dwelling in an antipodean jungle for three weeks of each year.

Here they have migrated, stripped of all essential amenities (ie their bi-weekly spray tan and lunch at the Ivy with their agent) to brave the elements and battle it out for the crown of king or queen of the jungle,...

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