The Bad Kind Of Countdown

Two nights in a row. Two. Nights. Two nights the BBC have decided to not bother making proper programmes for BBC Three and have just let the newest un-paid intern at the office go crazy at lunchtime with a top 100 list of their choosing. You just know they thought this was their big break, they had to do an original countdown show! "100 Greatest Plants!" they'd think. "Top 50 Scandals in the North of England!" they'd counter. And, suddenly, whilst making the 48th cup of tea that morning; they had a masterstroke. "POP MUSIC!"

Billed as "an affectionate, light hearted countdown", "Most Annoying Pop Moments" (parts 1 & 2, apparently) on BBC Three is your cookie-cutter countdown show; with just about every part of the show being as generic as possible. The slightly-popular and rather annoying TV presenter is your host for the evening,Richard Bacon and his annoyingly smug voice taking control for the night. You've got commenter's a-plenty, but, as it's a BBC show, not only have you got your usual comedians so unfamous that even their mothers don't know why they are and journalists desperate to get on telly; but the range is just immense! Only the BBC could rake in so many people for one show they decide to give up finding people related for each entry and just get a musicologist (a what?) and a comedian that was once on Mock The Week to talk about how annoying G4 are; who, for those who are interested, are just missing the Top 20 at number 22, but I'm sure they'll be happier to know they're more annoying than Fergie's tits. The highlight of these "celebrities" has got to be 'Celebrity Stylist' Philip Bloch who, aside from being a stylist (obviously), a celebrity (more obviously) and randomly appearing on TV saying how annoying pop stars are on planes, seems to make a bit of extra cash starring in kids TV series Lazytown as Sportacus 10.

The most confusing part about the whole thing is, they seemed to have ran out of annoying things in pop by the time I started watching, just putting in random things that have happened in the world at some point that are pop related in some form. Another adjective and this whole thing wouldn't have become the head-baffling train wreck it ended up being. It really did just become "Most... Something To Do With Pop Moments" about halfway through. For example, in at number 25... Phil Spector Murders An Actress! I'm just struggling to comprehend how the BBC found so many people who upon reading the news that Spector had killed Lana Clarkson thought to themselves "Darn, well isn't that just annoying?" that they managed to get it to number 25. And worst still, the commenter's gave their thoughts and witty remarks with the compassion and sympathy of a wet sandwich. "And you know what the most tragic part of the whole case?" The needless death of a young woman? "His ker-azy wigs!" Oh. "He came into court once with a giant afro!" He also, y'know, killed a woman. "Maybe he put the murder weapon in his giant afro!" LOL! Who cares about the life of the dead woman, let's not bother commenting on her, "the reason he needs to go to prison? Those wigs..." Wow, how did this Entertainment Journalist not get a career as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court with logic like that? Light hearted subject indeed...

Other shining example of annoyance in pop. "Take That Re-Unite", yeah! Damn them for coming back and making one of the most popular pop albums of 2006! "The Sugababes never dying!", "Top of the Pops ending!", "Sexy Girls in Dance Videos!" featuring a comedian moaning how it's sexist and objectifying women. Woah woah woah! So you can get serious about girls in bikinis dancing about, but murder? That's a hilarious subject to joke about!

Then it got to Number 15, R Kelly's 'Trapped In The Closet' series. Stop right there! This isn't annoying, anyone who watches these will agree that this 'Hip-Hopera' is without a doubt the funniest thing on this planet. Is unintentional comedy all of a sudden an annoyance?

It was at this point I turned off, giving up on this pathetic excuse for filler. Not only was it rubbish, it wasn't even entertaining rubbish. I gave a sigh of relief, thinking I'd forever banished this crap from my TV... until the next day... oh look, it's on again! So for 2 and a half hours on a Sunday night, they had nothing to put on BBC Three so did a quick repeat of something that had last been on 24 hours ago. Maybe we should all band together and give the BBC some money so they can make TV shows for us or something...

If they have to repeat, Monkey Dust hasn't been on for more than a year, people might like to see repeats of that, it was funny. However, chances are, people aren't going to flip over to BBC Three and think "Oooh, this was good when I watched it yesterday, but since it's still so fresh in my memory... I'll watch it again!"

And so, watching again, wondering what the hell the Top 10 could be, it slowly became apparent that even the poor intern themselves had given up on his idea to make a fun, pop-based countdown and just started listing things they pointed at blindly in the Daily Mirror. The Top 10 was as follows...

In at 10... David Cameron! (Including, rather brilliantly, a man over 40 on a pop culture show saying "Men over 40 should not have any interest in pop culture")

Number 9... Lily Allen's career! That's right, her whole career!

Reaching number 8... Paul McCartney's hair!

Peaches Geldof annoys at number 7! Look! She's got a famous dad! How annoying!

Number 6... Various facets of Bono's life!

Reaching the Top 5... Pete Doherty... and his hat.

Reaching the Top 4... Britney Spears... and her vagina.

In at number 3... Joss Stone at the Brits, I never noticed what exactly happened there. Rather brilliantly, 3 of them talking about it fully said it wasn't annoying, they've started rebelling against the system!

Just missing the top spot... Robbie Williams gets help for addiction! So annoying when people try to get help!

And at the top spot... Alcoholic Amy Winehouse!

Stopped caring at around number 6 or so? Yeah, so did I, and I was watching the damn thing.