It’s international week people and if you thought that’d mean a much needed break from the drama of the new season, you’d be sadly mistaken. If England’s star striker being subjected to trial by News of the World wasn’t enough, there was actually some football action to enjoy too!

England comfortably saw off a piss-poor Bulgaria side 4-0 at Wembley, meaning Fabio Capello could enjoy being England manager for five minutes or so. Wayne Rooney played a blinder and Fabio was quick to take some of the credit:

‘I played Rooney in a position different than usual… He had to stay just in front of the two central midfielders and from this position to go forward and to be free’

England travel to Switzerland for their next qualifier, so let’s just hope Rooney can ‘be free’ when he plays away. Oh hang on, I think I read something that suggests he’ll be just fine.

Elsewhere in England’s group, Wales were miserable as they lost 1-0 to Montenegro. Their manager, John Toshack, explained what went wrong:

‘I thought the first half we didn’t get to grips with things at all’

Maybe Toshack should take a leaf out of the book of his predecessor Mark Hughes who’s been getting all touchy feely with his new Fulham striker Bobby Zamora. Apparently he’s ‘quite a package’. There you go John, don’t be shy: get stuck in! Just remember that cold hands are a real mood killer.

Meanwhile, Giovanni Trapattoni has tried to reassure Ireland fans over Richard Dunne’s fitness before their crucial game against Armenia:

‘Dunne still has this knock in the muscle… but he made a little circle’

We’re with you Gio, there’s nothing quite like making a little circle to prove you’re in tip-top shape.

And finally, Interestment’s favourite eyebrow hooker, Carlo Ancellotti, has ruled out taking over as coach of Italy any time soon. He’s got much bigger plans:

‘I want to open up a cycle with Chelsea’

You heard it here first folks, ‘Carlo’s Chelsea Cycles’ is a goer! Apparently the original name of ‘Carlo’s Chelsea Bikes’ was attracting the wrong type of crowd altogether. Namely, erm, footballers.

It wasn’t a vintage year for Big Brother, sadly. But there was enough there to suggest that it will be missed. If you’re assessing the highs and lows of the 2010 version, the lows might just edge it.

As ever, the best characters were pointed towards the exit far too soon – some by the traditional voting out method, others finding it far too easy to stomp out in the heat of the moment. Whatever your thoughts on them, the likes of Sunshine – who looked like Amy Winehouse after rehab – the Artful Squatter Shabby, and the toff Ben – who began the show in the grips of a weird re-imagining of Brideshead Revisited with Mario – they were all great contestants who were reintroduced to the real world far too soon.

Another major low was that the whole thing just takes too long now, and with a conveyor belt of new contestants repeatedly flooding the house, it’s near impossible to keep up. The fact that the graffiti nerd Sam Pepper wandered in and very nearly won the thing in the last couple of weeks makes a bit of a mockery of a once great show. The key is to watch people grow together, not to sit back biting your knuckles because a gobshite has just walked in and called Josie “fat” to her face.

Talking of Josie - the buxom milkmaid who makes women all over the world proud to be Bristolian – she’s one of the highs. For a terrifying moment there, it looked like that abominable brainless Corin might run away with it, despite seeming like exactly the kind of person who has a couple of drinks and starts using the ”c” word, and having a curious new look, known in the trade of “Face off female bodybuilder, body off Baywatch”.

Anyway, yes, Josie was great. Quite definitely the nicest contestant there has ever been – all despite her weird love story with Scott Robinson chanelling the spirit of Alf Stewart. A worthy winner, her worth further increased when she decided that she didn’t fancy enduring the preposterous Ultimate Big Brother challenge, noting that “she isn’t like these people”.

Quite right too.

A collection of broken celebrities clawing at the past, it makes for a truly depressing ending to a cultural phenomenon. Even if Chantelle manages to realise The Great Gatsby’s dream by rekindling her love affair with Preston, it won’t be enough to lift this one from the dredges. A hunch suggests that Gatsby’s fate is a more likely outcome – a figurative Big Brother funeral that no one turns up to.

RIP Big Brother.

The Premier League is taking a break for a couple of weeks (the tears are real), but fear not, this weekend saw our favourite teams sign off in style with a tremendous weekend of football action.

Big Spending Manchester City (yes, that is their full title) brushed aside Liverpool 3-0 last week, but this week they travelled up to Sunderland and came back empty handed, losing 1-0 to a last minute penalty. The drama! Fear not City fans, there’s no need to worry, Roberto Mancini has worked out what’s going wrong:

‘if you don’t score, sometimes you can lose these games’

Phew, what a relief eh? For a horrible moment there it seemed like he didn’t realise that.

Down in London town, Spurs celebrated qualifying for the Champions League group stages by losing to Wigan at home. Yes, that’ll be the same Wigan who conceded 10 goals without reply in their previous two games. Oh dear. Needless to say, ‘Arry Redknapp was livid. Clearly his Spurs team can’t handle their celebratory champagne cocktails:

‘You should come here today and feel fantastic about yourself, not have a hangover or feel lethargic’

At times like these you need to go back to basics, get on the training pitch, start on the learner beers and just concentrate on not throwing up.

Elsewhere, Arsene Wenger renewed his love affair with North West as he took his Arsenal side to Blackburn, for a game of ‘rugby’. Now we’re not suggesting that Arsene is a purist, or that he dislikes long ball football, but, at a stretch, he might not be too keen on Blackburn:

‘If you have ambition in this league you have got to win at Blackburn. If you fail to win at Blackburn – if you go to clubs like that and you don’t win – your ambition will not be respected by the other teams’.

But if he really does despise them, then you’ve got to give it to him, he hides it well.

And finally, Tony Pulis got all excited in the run up to Stoke’s game against Chelsea and slightly jumbled his football clichés:

‘We know how difficult it is going to be and they have started like a house on fire, so we are going into the lion’s den.’

Erm, something about a fire in a zoo?

It’s only the second week of the new season and already the league has gone all six factor on us! Yes that’s right, it’s all about the joy of six! WINK. This weekend, top footballers have been enjoying some six-y time! Anyone bored of these tabloid puns yet? OK, well basically there were a lot of 6-0 wins this weekend. Comprendes?

So with Arsenal, Chelsea and erm, Newcastle all romping to empathic 6-0 wins, three lucky managers were left with the unenviable task of facing the post-match cameras and trying to think of something vaguely clever or positive to say.

After an absolutely drubbing against Newcastle, Villa’s caretaker manager went for ‘It was a very disappointing result’. Just to confuse us, Blackpool’s Ian Holloway shot with ‘I’m not that disappointed to be honest.’

But the Alastair Campbell prize for spin goes to Roberto Martinez who claimed he was ‘delighted’ with some of Wigan’s play before acknowledging: 

‘It sounds stupid to say there were so many positives to take from a 6-0 defeat’

Yes, yes it does Roberto. But nice try.

Elsewhere ‘Arry Redknapp has been heaping big loving spoonfuls of praise on Gareth Bale after his two goals against Stoke this weekend. And true to form, ‘Arry has no problem taking credit for helping him to improve. Apparently these were his fortune changing words of wisdom:

‘C’mon Gareth, stop messing about with your hair’

If only he’d managed David Beckham earlier in his career. That boy could’ve really been someone.

And finally, over at Fulham they’ve gone to extreme lengths to stop Mark Schwarzer leaving for Arsenal. According to young David Stockdale, they’ve only gone and buried him!  Rather embarrassingly, he now appears to be a bit stuck:

“I was just trying to get the lads out of the deep muck. It’s hard enough trying to dislodge Mark Schwarzer at the best of times but I’ll just take it day by day now and see what happens”

Sorry Arsenal fans, looks like you’re stuck with Almunia for a while yet. Snigger.

Of course, everyone has been going out of their minds with joy now that the BBC have found a perfect Sunday night treat, with a thrillingly modern take on the Sherlock Holmes stories. With only three episodes to coo over, it wasn’t quite enough to grab them a spot on this list. A list which also saw Tango and Cash, Doyle and Bodie, Scooby and Shaggy, Crockett and Tubbs, and Turner and Hooch fall by the wayside…

Cagney and Lacey

The greatest cop pairing of the lot, and lovely ladies to boot. As with so many classic cop pairings, one was a wild card, the other a family man/woman, but something about their unfaltering sisterhood made it both thrilling and moving to watch. Similarly to the great 70s pop band, Abba, hours could be devoted to debating “blonde” or “brunette” – only in this case, there was the added “neither” option for those who didn’t quite fancy it. On top of being the best crime fighting twosome, Christine Cagney and Mary Beth Lacey are quite probably the finest female television characters ever created.

Pappas and Utah

Hollywood has long enjoyed pairing the old head with the young rookie – and deserving an honourable mention here are Sean Penn and Robert Duvall in Colors - but the best of the lot can be found career peaking in the greatest movie of the 1990s, Point Break. Keanu Reeves plays a young high achiever dicking around with some bank robbing surfers on an undercover job, whilst Gary Busey puts on the performance of a lifetime as a cop who has seen it all, eaten the pie, and bought the t-shirt. This relationship exceeds father and son, it’s more like elderly husband and his very hot young boyfriend on the side.

Dempsey and Makepeace

By far and away the hottest couple on the list, the bubbling chemistry between the two could partly be explained by the fact that they were busily having it off in real life. Him a smart-arsed American who knew his way around a gun and a quip, her a sultry English seductress with hair as blonde and feathery as a chicken that does Marilyn Monroe impressions, to be arrested by them would be the criminal equivalent of being kissed unconcious in front of a clown.

Bunk and McNulty

Kind of like a grittier, flawed version of Riggs and Murtaugh from Lethal Weapon – teaming a wise owl with a renegade – if you were lying dead on the corner, you’d want these two standing over you looking for clues. These guys even made drinking booze by a deserted train track look like a rather appealing lads night out. In bromantic terms, their story is as moving as Brokeback Mountain, only without the wild man sex in a tent, followed by bogus fishing trips.

The Premier League is back! So what has the first weekend brought? Loads of proper exciting drama, that’s what.

Newly promoted Blackpool started the season in fine style by making the short trip to Wigan, spanking them 4-0, and returning home in time for last orders at the Pleasure Beach. And sure enough, Ian Holloway couldn’t help but boast after the game:

‘I’ve had those lads twice on the grass’.

Erm, OK then. Well, I suppose the grass is a better choice than the beach. The sand gets everywhere.

Meanwhile it’s business as usual for Chelsea who nonchalantly smashed six past West Brom. Carlo Ancellotti wasn’t getting carried away though, he simply hooked an eyebrow and mumbled: ‘We did our job. Nothing special’, before returning to his frankly mediocre post-match snack of lobsters, foie gras and diamond encrusted Ferrero Rocher.

Meanwhile, Aston Villa fans still smarting from the shock resignation of Martin O’ Neill have felt the deep burn of handfuls of extra salty salt being rubbed into their gaping wounds. It turns out Diego Maradona (yes, The Diego Maradona) has decided that he wants the Villa job as he ‘loves the English countryside and your respect for privacy’.

If by some ludicrous turn of events Diego does end up managing in England, expect the tabloids to be printing vomit-inducing ‘upskirt’ shots of him attempting to ride a horse within hours.

And finally, Steve Bruce has admitted getting an elbow in the face is all part of football:

‘It’s impossible to jump without your arms out. It’s why I’ve got a face like I’ve got.’

That’s quite the incentive for any aspiring young footballers out there.

We’ll admit it, up until now Big Brother has taken rather the back seat to the World Cup. There’s just nothing like the sound of 50,000 horns emitting a very steady B Flat to turn a man’s attention away from the season finale of one of the finest shows of the last 100 years.

And no, that isn’t a massive exaggeration.

However you feel about the annual parade of freaks, nomarks, glamour girls, gaylords, WKD cretins, cock blockers, normals, smokey joes, plain Janes, losers, and dullards, Big Brother deserves a well intentioned slow hand clap for raising social awareness to all manner of strange and intriguing characters that move among us on the day to day. If you happen to be one of those revolting beard twisters who considers thing kind of thing to be beneath you, then you’re missing out. Last year was a vintage one, and this year has the potential to see this bizarre journey go out on a high.

Anyway, so to the current flock, already two down after the nation decided that they don’t like their girls too pretty, like Beyonce, or their young homosexual chaps to be too divisive during their cigarette breaks. Rather depressingly, in both cases the public evicted the wrong housemate. Both Govan and the Beyonce lookalike had the potential to embark on a journey of self-discovery. Him, to find his inner sensitivity. Her, to deal with not being considered the most beautiful goldfish in the pond. As it was, the voters knee-jerked and bollocksed the whole thing up.

Here’s the current lowdown on the remainder on the inmates:

Josie

In previous outings, Big Brother’s girls-next-door have been a bit of a letdown. Either far too tits out (Sophie, last year), or cripplingly dull (Rachel, the year before). And yet, on both occasions, they won. Hence, really, it’s Josie’s to lose. Her advantage over the aforementioned twosome is that she seems genuinely sweet natured and funny, plus she actually looks like she might live next door to you. The fact that she’s also unknowingly pretty just spatters further fuel on her victory bonfire.

Steve

Every so often, Big Brother throws in someone with an affliction, intent on making the housemates feel like abominable bastards for nominating them. There was the blind guy a couple of years ago, and this year it’s Steve – a man who had his legs blown off when he was in the army. Unfortunately, the voting public now has a skin as thick as cow hide when it comes to picking their winner, so he will need to prove that he’s more than just a former soldier with metal legs and a body full of “art”  to win the thing. A good start would be to bin the frightening pretend eye.

Ben

Make no mistake about it, Ben has the potential to go down in Big Brother folklore as one of the greatest ever. An impossibly fey toff, his bizarre relationship with Mario “the mole” resembles a very low rent reality television homage to Brideshead Revisited. Magnificent hair, confusing sexuality. He’s got it all. Won’t win.

Nathan

The moment Nathan strode into the house, firing invisible raver guns above his head like he was getting mashed up in Ibiza, we immediately wanted to brick him in the face. Nathan is everything that is bad about the world. The kind of person who drinks lager from bottles, deploys wingmen to aid his sexual bed quests, and probably owns a “pulling shirt”. People like Nathan should do everyone a favour and immediately castrate themselves. Then we’ll talk.

Dave

Oh dear. This is what would have happened if the character of Friar Tuck were rewritten as an impossibly desperate twat wearing a very poorly put together “mop top” wig. Dave is just appalling. To survive on Big Brother, it’s imperative that the central characters have an intriguing journey on which to embark, but, unfortunately, Dave has already traveled too far along his own road to stand a chance. On his own travels, he has discovered a way of getting drunk that involves channeling the spirit of God. Hmmm.

Caoimhe

Just terrifying, Caoimhe wouldn’t look out of place staring into the blank middle distance at Warhol’s Factory, quite possibly in the grips of a far out heroin moment. It’s not often that Big Brother gets gifted the chance to pluck someone this painfully cool from their rightful home on London’s Brick Lane. Yet to say or do anything of much worth, she is currently part haircut/part lesbian bait. She may surprise us all.

Shabby

For someone who spends her time in the real world squatting in posh houses with her posh trustafarian friends – essentially living out the adult version of children pitching a tent and “camping” in the back garden – Shabby seems to struggle with communal living. This is most probably because, unlike the squatters back home, this lot aren’t quite so impressed by a rich kid dressed like a Charles Dickens orphan pretending to stick it to the man, even though – in actuality – one day she most definitely will be the man herself. Clumsy social insights aside, she’s exactly how you’d expect a former child actress to turn out.

Ife

It’s no real surprise to know that Ife is a backing dancer by trade. That’s exactly what she is here. Not as pretty as Beyonce, not as interesting as the other girls, not as Godly as the mad monk. She’ll survive the early stages, because the bigger characters will attract the nominations and votes, before joining the likes of Steph, Dale, and Elizabeth as marginally successful Big Brother contestants who you had totally forgotten about.

John James

As things stand, John James is borderline brilliant. Flying in the face of young Australian stereotypes, he’s more like Alf from Home and Away existing in the body of Scott Robinson from Neighbours. Magnificently cynical about pretty much everything, he doesn’t suffer fools gladly, which means that he’s really got his work cut out for the next few weeks. A potential winner.

Sunshine

A drug free reimagining of Amy Winehouse, there is lots not to like about Sunshine. Mainly the fact that she calls herself Sunshine. And yet, she will have benefited heavily from the group’s early decision to rally against her, earning important sympathy points. In real life, she’d turn up at a party, and within minutes the congregation will have silently disbanded to find their fun elsewhere. Annoying.

Corin

Unfortunately, if Josie slips up, Corin might win the thing. This would be a travesty. Offering little to proceedings beyond a wide-eyed admiration of absolutely everything, she seemed over the moon to have learned the word “vocabulary” whilst being in the house. This would be ironically funny, were it not also completely terrifying in a look-at-the-state-of-the-world kind of way. Thick barely even covers it. Between them, her and Shabby are giving lesbians a very bad name.

Mario

Mario’s alright. Thanks to his unusual position as a randomly selected housemate, he is the everyman of the house, and seems popular with the voters. An outside chance at best, there’s not much to say about him, except that he’d really like to have sexual intercourse with Ben, and doesn’t care who knows about it.

The genuinely brilliant news is that Big Brother kicks off in a few days, and we can’t wait. Derided by some, it doesn’t appear to be very cool to outwardly enjoy the show, but sod that, we’re fans. And not ironic fans who are trying to create some kind of angular haired bandwagon. Actual fans, who have enjoyed summering with these strange individuals from day one. That said, some of the housemates have left us feeling a little bit too uncomfortable, and probably shouldn’t have bothered in the first place. They are all named below. Kinga (above) narrowly missed the cut, despite performing a trick with a wine bottle that even made inanimate wine bottles lurch forward and dry puke…

Caroline ‘Caggy’ O’Shea, Series One

The first series of the show was rather notable by its lack of fame hungry maniacs. Except for this berserk saxophone player/sex toy saleswoman, who became known for oscillating between laughing like a cigar-smoker and silently crying to herself because she thought that Nasty Nick looked at her a bit funny. In many ways, she blazed the trail for numerous future contestants who navigated the same confusing pendulum between utter joy, and navel gazing internal reflection/misery. So good for her. In a way.

Penny Ellis, Series Two

When Penny entered the house, she rather misrepresented herself by claiming to be “a bit eccentric”. As everyone knows, people who are “a bit eccentric” tend to make for magnificent company, but with Penny – not so much. Like Caroline before her, her petrified desire for approval took her down a rather dark road. In this case, one that led directly to an uncomfortable face-off with the abhorrent business prick Stuart, who mutilated her self-confidence after she jokingly called him a twat. After that, she was never the same again.

Tim Culley, Series Three

An awful posho, Tim should never have gone on television. His strategy appeared to be to stand up to Big Brother in a doomed bid to appear cool in front of his boarding school buddies, but instead he came to resemble one of those horrible little toads who like to impress teenage visitors by verbally abusing their own parents. Unresolved childhood abandonment issues aside, Tim rallied the nation against him by shaving his stupid chest when no one was looking, just because he didn’t want anyone to find out that, actually, he had beautiful ginger hair.

Lisa Jeynes, Series Four

Here at Interestment we absolutely despise the phrase “to be fair”, but to be fair to her, on a Big Brother scale Lisa wasn’t that bad. She just so happened to appear during a series which found the producers making the ill-judged decision to create a house inhabited by normal, rational, and predictably boring members of the public. Hence, when she casually suggested that she could probably kill someone using just two of her fingers, the bonkers-ometer became magnified and immediately hit Mad Factor 12. She did, however, make it all the way to 13 when she reapplied to go on the show exactly one year later. They say that lightening doesn’t strike twice in the same place, and, well, it didn’t.

Michelle Bass, Series Five

Quite definitely the most predatory contestant yet – and that includes hysterical Chanelle, and Makosi, who was as mad as a box of oranges. Michelle (above, terrifying a dog) entered the house, then immediately decided that she was going to coax a young university student called Stuart into her terrifying web, and then NEVER EVER LET HIM OUT OF HER SIGHT. Her tactics involved working him into the corner of a room, then ignoring his screaming body language that just wanted her to please leave him alone. Bullying him into accepting her lunging tongue kisses the minute anyone went for a quick wee. And practically demanding sex underneath a table. Along the way, she still squeezed in time to make a standard from the Requiem Mass sound like a Beyonce having a nasty stroke.

Craig Coates, Series Six

Poor Craig. He never really stood a chance. A journey which began with him taking the nomination process very badly indeed, ended with him attempting to explain to a paralytic young disco dancing heterosexual lad that he loved him, and would do just about anything for him. It would have been a moving love story, had this TV show reimagining of Brokeback Mountain not starred a version of Heath Ledger who much preferred doing it with lasses. On the plus side for Craig, 3.9 per cent of viewers voted for him to win.

Sezer Yurtseven, Series Seven

On entering the house, Sezer made some dreadful quip about this being “Sezer’s Palace”, and then things really started to go downhill. He committed the cardinal sin of announcing that he’d probably win the thing, because girls would find him charming and irresistible, before ending up having to scoop great big chunks of egg from his face when he was quickly evicted with 91.6 per cent of the public vote – which, at the time, was a very unfortunate Big Brother record. Some rather tawdry tabloid stories ensued.

Emily Parr, Series Eight

When Emily first appeared on our screens, she sat somewhere on the axis of sophistication between Skins and Peaches Geldof, as a terrifyingly self-assured teenager, who was also a bit posh and unafraid to talk to anyone – so long as the conversation was mainly about herself. In her intro video, she misguidedly declared that she’d recently discovered, and probably christened, a hot new form of music known as “indie”. And unfortunately, a little over a week into the show, she thought it wise to communicate with a black girl by reclaiming the N-word for undeserving white people, before being silently ushered from the house for being racist. On the plus side for Emily, magazines like Nuts don’t have a problem with racism, so long as girls are hot and happy to pose in their underpants they can pretty much say what they like.

Dennis McHugh, Series Nine

Now, we were going to opt for Alexandra from Series Nine. You might remember her – she was the seething inmate with an unsavory habit of suggesting that she’d have people killed on the outside if they messed with her. Hence, frankly, we’re too frightened. So, instead, we thought we’d go for Dennis, who was less scary, but equally impossible to like. His bold claim on entering the house was that he’d never go out with anyone better looking than him – an interesting choice in standards which presumably left him prodding around the rather boggier areas of the gene pool with a muddy stick. He was eventually booted off the show for spitting in Mohamed’s face. As is Mohamed the housemate. Not the founder of Islam.

Rebecca “Bea” Hamill, Series Ten

As hugely disappointing hippies go, Bea is up there with Neil Young going all Ronald Reagan on everyone in the 1980s. When she first turned up, she seemed like a perfectly lovely barefoot bisexual who probably lived in a wigwam, and – in her own words – she was a big deal on the festival circuit. And yet, within a week, a hunch began to suggest that her absence from the Big Chill would have actually been rather welcomed by her friends, who just couldn’t handle her paper-thin skin and crippling anxiety any more. Shortly before becoming reacquainted with the outside world, she literally reacted to every single question, however mundane, by bursting into tears and demanding that the asker explain exactly what they meant by that. Erm, just wondered if you fancied a cup of tea, Bea?

If you’re anything like a certain member of the Interestment Family, then you’ll like to spend your evenings methodically working your way through a pile of television boxsets. They’re literally the best thing ever invented, besides perhaps weak lager, and the very real possibility of one day making it rich. Oh, and cheeseburgers. Lovely, delicious, great big bags of cheeseburgers. In fact, whoever thought of adding a slice of processed cheese to a hamburger should have a statue erected and be WORSHIPED for generations. Can you imagine a world without cheeseburgers? It’d be totally lame. Yeah, cheeseburgers are cool. Anyway, stomach rumblings put to one side, the point is that much “research” has been done to uncover the best US Sitcoms OF THE MOMENT – shows that could follow Larry Sanders, Arrested Development, Seinfeld, Cheers and Friends into the pantheon of greatness, and these are the four that are in with a shot. Just missing out were Eastbound and Down,  Parks and Recreation, Two and a Half Men, and Curb Your Enthusiam (simply because it’s already made the aforementioned pantheon)….

The Office

The UK version of the show was a masterpiece, but – dare we suggest it? – the US version is EVEN BETTER. Now stretched out to six brilliant seasons and counting, it is quite probably the funniest show currently on TV. The premise is more or less the same as the original, but as things have progressed, the show has become more conventional in terms of set up and humour, but without losing any of its magic. Literally every single character is magnificent, but in particular Steve Carrell as Michael Scott, and Interestment favourite Ed Helms as Andy Bernard (aka The Nard Dog). Plus there’s a genuinely touching romance spanning throughout.

Entourage

Entourage is basically Sex and The City for boys, and although that sounds like a really bad thing, actually it’s not. If anything, it’s rather good. Both shows run the parallel of featuring a main character who you would joyfully observe clumsily sliding in dog dirt on a wet pavement, and yet both shows make up for the hideousness of the programme’s official face with a host of magnificent supporting characters. In Sex and The City, it’s the one from Mannequin who bangs like a sailor, whilst here it’s Hollywood actor Vinnie Chase’s agent, Ari Gold.  Matt Dillon’s brother, Kevin, is great in it too.

30 Rock

30 Rock deserves “props” for numerous reasons. Firstly, for creating a female character who isn’t pristine, and totally desperate to be loved. Secondly, for taking the already-excellent Alec Baldwin and shooting him somewhere into the stratosphere. And thirdly, for surrounding them with fantastic maniacs. On the downside, whilst the shows above seem to steadily peak, this one does seem to have lost some of the original lustre. Interestment’s advice would be to rely less on famous cameos, cut the annoying stable boy out completely, and then let nature take its comedy course. Still better than anything in the UK. For years, actually.

It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia

Ridiculously, this hasn’t been picked up by any UK TV channels. It really should be. It’s essentially the story of Cheers, only, in this case, the bar is run by a gang of unbelievable/brilliant cretins. Plus there’s the added thrill of Danny DeVito dusting down his sitcom tights, and appearing as a regular character from season two onwards. Primary themes include: racism, abortion, underage drinking, cancer and guns. And that’s literally just the first five episodes. This is edgy stuff. And it’s definitely more hilarious than everything we’ve just said.

Look at us all with our boring jobs. Seriously, it’s all so drab and lifeless. What’s the highlight of your day? Drinking a cup of coffee? Making it to the end of the day without hating your job any more than you did at the start of the day? If only you had followed your dreams, rather than getting caught up in the whole money-making career-ladder-climbing madness of it all. You’ve got decades left of this, you know. Anyway, that’s enough with the crippling navel gazing, because IT’S NOT TOO LATE. Yes, chances are that your mundane ascent into middle management and beyond will still see you through to retirement, but that doesn’t mean that you can’t still jam a well-maintained fingernail into a few more exhilarating pies while you’re at it.

All of which leads rather seamlessly to the whole point of this piece – that you can still totally work in the FASHION INDUSTRY if you want to. Kind of.

As alerted to the Interestment Family by friend of the site Sarah B, a London based fashion designer called Katie Eary has launched a womenswear collection, which is to be funded through “public investment”. What that means is that you can donate a little bit of your own money into getting the clothes made and manufactured, effectively buying glitzy fashion shares. Here’s what it says in the press release, which explains it better than we ever could:

Eary’s menswear has been attracting critical acclaim since the launch of the label as part of the Fashion East MAN collective two seasons ago. Her bold statement prints, fusion of traditional tailoring with streetwear styling/design details and macabre accessories are best described as ‘aggressively beautiful’ and her work has been attracting high profile admirers both male and female (hence the choice to develop a range specifically for women – fans currently include style leaders including Lady Gaga, Kate Moss, Courtney Love, Roisin Murphy, Sienna Miller and more).

The ‘crowd-funding’ principle adopted by Catwalk Genius is both simple and effective (it has been applied to other industries including film, Franny Armstrong’s ‘Age of Stupid’ being a perfect example of the success that can be achieved) The concept offers customers the opportunity to support designers and brands with a small financial contribution for a share of the final profit. Most new business ventures seek funding from sole or few investors who each invest large sums of money. Crowd-funding invites a wide audience to invest a small amount of money by purchasing ‘shares’. By doing this, the financial risks to each investor are as much or as little as they choose. The scheme works as follows:

- Catwalk Genius source and approach a suitable designer to collaborate with. The designer works with Catwalk Genius to set a financial target for funds they need to raise in order to produce a collection solely for the site

- Announcements for the collaboration are made and shares equating to the financial target go on sale through the Catwalk Genius site (in this instance, Eary’s shares go on sale on April 26^h, aimed at raising £5,000)

- When all shares are sold and the target is reached, the designer is given the funding to design and produce the collection that (on completion) goes on sale exclusively through the Catwalk Genius site

- All supporters will get first option to purchase the new collection, as well as the chance to receive exclusive perks such as a visit to Katie’s studio, tickets to the launch and a free custom-made sample.

- At the end of the season, the revenues are split and distributed equally between the designer, the supporters and Catwalk Genius.

To get involved, just click here, and you’re away!