The World According to Gogglebox Read online

  BILL: Thank you. Nicest thing you’ve ever said about me.

  JOSEF: I watch Mastermind, University Challenge, Have I Got News for You and I might put Countryfile on in the background while I’m doing something else. Doing Gogglebox has educated us in one sense, because we’ve watched programmes we wouldn’t normally have watched, and we have found them interesting. (Or we’ve thought, now I know why I don’t watch it, because it’s such a load of dross.)

  BILL: Some things are so bad that they are enjoyable.

  JOSEF: Yes. For instance, who in their right mind is going to have sex in a box and then discuss it? I couldn’t believe that anybody would make that kind of programme.

  WHAT DO YOU DISAGREE ON?

  JOSEF: Well, we do have arguments. Like, we’ll be watching, for example, Britain’s Got Talent, and he’ll say ‘What a rubbish programme,’ and I’ll say, well, you think it’s terrible, but millions don’t agree with you.

  BILL: So they’re wrong.

  JOSEF: The fact that you don’t like a particular programme and millions do means it doesn’t appeal to you. It doesn’t mean the programme’s wrong, it’s just that your tastes are different.

  BILL: I don’t mind what other people watch. I just said it was rubblish. It is rubbish.

  JOSEF: You won’t be happy until people are only watching things like Newsnight.

  BILL: A week or two ago we watched Alan Carr: Chatty Man. I’d never watched that before. But I took an instant dislike to Alan Carr. I don’t know why.

  JOSEF: Because he’s chatty.

  BILL: There’s this lovely quote of someone who asked, ‘Why is it that people take an instant dislike to me?’ and the person he was talking to said, ‘Because it saves time.’

  JOSEF: People seem to think I like Graham Norton. I don’t know why. Certain things on his show have been interesting, but I have never once said I like Graham Norton.

  GARY BARLOW

  STEPH & DOM, SANDWICH

  DOM: Squeaky clean. Not quite so with his tax bill.

  STEPH: I’ve got a bit of a crush on him. I know everyone thinks he’s very dull. But he did that lovely thing for that lady when he turned up at her wedding and came out through the catering tent and started singing. Oh, it was lovely. That made me cry. I think, actually, he’s a very decent human being and a nice bloke. He’s been up; he’s been down; he’s been up; he’s been down. I don’t know, there’s something cute about his face. Don’t know quite what it is.

  SANDY & SANDRA, BRIXTON

  SANDRA: When we saw Gary Barlow on TV the other night in that programme with James Corden, we thought, ‘Oh right,’ and we sussed him out. And we were feeling sorry for him and whatever, and, hey, two days later I say, ‘Sandy! Big scandal! And he’s got to give back the OBE!’ Fucking dickhead.

  SANDY: He went through a lot though. I mean, he’s not the only one that went through obesity or whatever when he was younger. And a lot of people didn’t know that storyline, so it was a good way to show that side of him. But he does talk a bit slow. He does, doesn’t he? He takes hours.

  THE MOFFATS, COUNTY DURHAM

  BETTY: He reminds me of Elton John but I do like him. But it’s just … It’s his voice, isn’t it? It’s really …

  SCARLETT: … boring.

  MARK: Boring.

  LEON & JUNE, LIVERPOOL

  LEON: Gary Barlow’s as thick as the wall.

  JOSÉ MOURINHO

  STEPHEN & CHRIS, BRIGHTON

  CHRIS: So he’s the manager of the guy that’s just got the three goals? You’d have thought he’d be a bit happier than that, wouldn’t you?

  STEPHEN: He’s French. They ain’t happy, are they?

  STEPHEN FRY

  LINDA, PETE & GEORGE, CLACTON-ON-SEA

  PETE: Me and George, we watch the Discovery Channel, and people like Stephen Fry. We love him. He’s funny, brilliant, genius. He knows stuff. And when I saw that one about the gays, I actually had tears in my eyes when I saw that part, in Iran, when they hanged them. It doesn’t matter what you are, does it, for Christ’s sake?

  GEORGE: If there is anyone that I’d like to meet off the TV on a serious note, number one would be David Attenborough, and number two would be Stephen Fry. I don’t know why. I probably wouldn’t even know what he was saying to me. But I just think he’s brilliant.

  THE BECKHAMS

  STEPHEN & CHRIS, BRIGHTON

  STEPHEN: Victoria, bless her, she’s got really piss-fine hair, hasn’t she? That’s why it only ever looks good in a bob.

  CHRIS: David’s always had good hair. Apart from the curtains that he started out with.

  REV. KATE & GRAHAM, NOTTINGHAMSHIRE

  KATE: David Beckham’s very cute. I’m not after a conversation with him. He can stick to the vowel sounds as far as I’m concerned.

  THE MOFFATTS, COUNTY DURHAM

  BETTY: They’re perfect. There’s nothing else to say, they’re just perfect.

  STEPHEN & CHRIS, BRIGHTON

  STEPHEN: Jeremy Clarkson.

  CHRIS: Jeremy Clarkson.

  STEPHEN: That doctor as well. What’s his name?

  CHRIS: Dr Christian …

  STEPHEN: Yeah, the one that looks like Action Man.

  THE MICHAELS, BRIGHTON

  CAROLYNE: Top of my hit list is Carol Vorderman. She’s just so up herself. Thinks she’s God’s gift.

  LOUIS: She thinks she knows all the consonants and all the vowels.

  ANDREW: My list is just Simon Cowell and Russell Brand. Telling people not to vote, when people put down their lives for the advancement of democracy. And not offering us any alternatives! That’s what pseudo people actually do. I think it’s immoral.

  CAROLYNE: And you don’t like Simon Cowell because he exploits people.

  ANDREW: No, I just don’t like his teeth. They’re too white and they dazzle me.

  STEPH & DOM, SANDWICH

  STEPH: Keith Lemon. He’s a knob.

  DOM: John Sessions. Absolute twat. Needs a good punch.

  STEPH: I think John Cleese is a bit of a prat as well. Putting that out there.

  BILL & JOSEF, CAMBRIDGE

  BILL: Alan Carr. He’s the very opposite of a deadpan comic. He’s not funny and he’s not deadpan. Everything about him is just so offputting. My opinion of Graham Norton went up a notch when I discovered Alan Carr.

  THE TAPPERS, NORTH LONDON

  JOSH: Kirstie Allsopp. She’s stuck up. She thinks she’s above everyone else.

  JONATHAN: She got very upset when Gogglebox slated her crafts programme.

  NIKKI: It was very painful. It was so dull.

  SANDY & SANDRA, BRIXTON

  SANDRA: I love everyone on TV. I love them all. Between me and her, and I can vouch for her and vouch for myself: we’re lovers. Not like me and her are lovers, like, us two together. But we don’t hate anyone. We love everybody.

  SANDY: Yeah, love, not hate.

  LINDA, PETE & GEORGE, CLACTON-ON-SEA

  GEORGE: Me. Simple. Game over. Me. Give me the opportunity, I will be the biggest prat on TV.

  SANDY & SANDRA, BRIXTON

  SANDRA: Well, I’ve got a crush on Alan Carr.

  SANDY: Tom Jones you love.

  SANDRA: I’d throw my knickers at Tom Jones. He’d get the bra as well, mate. Trust me.

  THE MOFFATTS, COUNTY DURHAM

  SCARLETT: I like loads. Russell Howard. George Lamb.

  MARK: You used to fancy Bart Simpson at one point.

  BETTY: And Noddy.

  SCARLETT: Aye, but I was little, Mam!

  MARK: Betty used to like Troy Tempest. Out of Thunderbirds.

  BETTY: No! No! I just said that if you had to go out with a puppet, then Troy Tempest was the best-looking one.

  MARK: Where would you take him? Would you go down the pub?

  BETTY: No, probably not.

  SCARLETT: Settle for a champagne bar.

  BETTY: Just for a meal and then just out for drinks somewhere, I think.


  SCARLETT: What would he eat, like?

  BETTY: I don’t think he’d be fussy, to be fair. Not got a digestive system.

  MARK: Courteney Cox. I like her.

  BETTY: Oh! Or Robert De Niro.

  SCARLETT: He’s more film, isn’t he?

  BETTY: OK. Troy Tempest will do. I’d have to carry him.

  THE MICHAELS, BRIGHTON

  CAROLYNE: I’ve got a crush on Russell Brand, but you can’t say that. Oh, Alan Rickman! I’m completely in love with Alan Rickman.

  LOUIS: Alan Rickman is a Gogglebox watcher and he said that I was a bright and clever boy.

  ANDREW: There is someone I like. Who is it I like?

  CAROLYNE: Nigella Lawson.

  ANDREW: Oh my God, I love Nigella Lawson.

  CAROLYNE: For fuck’s sake.

  LOUIS: You like Mary Berry, don’t you, Dad?

  ANDREW: I don’t!

  LOUIS: I’m just taking the piss.

  ANDREW: I don’t like any women apart from Nigella Lawson and my wife.

  STEPH & DOM, SANDWICH

  DOM: Steph.

  STEPH: Yeah. Me. Me. Talk about me.

  DOM: It’s always about you, darling.

  BILL & JOSEF, CAMBRIDGE

  JOSEF: Felicity Kendal. In The Good Life. That was such a good programme, you’d think they really were married. The perfect cast, in my opinion. You’ve got Tom and Margo next door. Jerry was the perfect henpecked husband and Margo was the perfect I’m-better-than-the-Joneses wife. And you’ve selfish Tom and his self-sufficiency thing, and the faithful Barbara who did what her husband wanted. And I thought to myself, you are so perfectly matched, the four of you. And Felicity herself, I thought, yeah, I’ve fallen in love with you. She was great.

  BILL: Monica Galetti from Masterchef. She is real scary. I like her passion for what she’s doing. Very interesting and fascinating to me. I’d really like to meet her.

  Almost always, after Saturday Kitchen, I go into the kitchen and cook something. It really produces a passion. It makes me want to go and play in the kitchen. A few weeks ago, Daniel Clifford (who is the two Michelin-starred chef at Midsummer House, just across the way) did a very simple thing with lamb’s liver, which I immediately downloaded and cooked. And it’s wonderful.

  THE SIDDIQUIS, DERBY

  UMAR: I used to have a crush on Michaela Strachan. Currently though, I like the Countdown girl.

  BAASIT: Yeah, she’s hot. Good with numbers as well. Which is always important. Dad liked Nigella Lawson. [Makes tiger noise]

  SID: We all have a soft spot for her.

  UMAR: Well, you two do.

  SID: Don’t you?

  UMAR: No.

  SID: Something wrong with you.

  THE TAPPERS, NORTH LONDON

  JONATHAN: Michelle Keegan.

  JOSH: Mila Kunis.

  NIKKI: George Clooney.

  AMY: Harry Styles.

  JONATHAN: Cara from Studio Nights.

  NIKKI: Studio Nights?

  JONATHAN:

  On Babestation.

  AMY: She’s the boobs on the wallpaper on his phone.

  ANT & DEC

  THE TAPPERS, NORTH LONDON

  NIKKI: We are all massive fans of Ant and Dec in the Tapper household.

  JOSH: Ant and Dec are the best people on TV.

  AMY: Mum and Dad had a dressing-up party and they went as PJ and Duncan.

  JONATHAN: We looked nothing like them.

  NIKKI: You know they’re huge fans of Gogglebox?

  JOSH: When on Saturday Night Takeaway they did their version of Gogglebox, I felt so privileged.

  NIKKI: They’re huge fans of the show, in fact they tweeted after the BAFTAs, like ‘We got a BAFTA!’ So George, from Linda, Pete and George, put, ‘So did we!’

  JEREMY KYLE

  THE WOERDENWEBERS, THE WIRRAL

  RALF: For me, he is two-faced because he tells people in their faces what they doing wrong, and he cheated on his wife.

  VIV: We’ve been to see Jeremy Kyle.

  EVE: Jezza! He told Jay to take off his hat when we were in the audience. When he told him to take the hat off, I perked up. Because I wanted to talk to Jeremy Kyle, I went, ‘I don’t like this hat,' and Jeremy was like, ‘Right, the lady doesn’t like your hat. Take it off or I’ll kick you out the studio.’ I was like, ‘Jeremy, I love you.’

  JEREMY CLARKSON

  SANDY & SANDRA, BRIXTON

  SANDY: He’s a dickhead. He gets away with it because of money. There’s a lot of people that watch the show, because it’s a motor show with cars and all that. If it was somebody else, they would have got sacked for their behaviour. He’s got away with it too many times and they still allow him to do it. Obviously it’s not his looks or anything else, it’s just the money, isn’t it?

  LEON & JUNE, LIVERPOOL

  JUNE: It’s the Top Gear guy.

  LEON: Kenneth Clarkson, is it?

  JUNE: No, Jeremy Clarkson.

  LEON: He’s a bully and a nasty man. Arrogant pig.

  LINDA, PETE & GEORGE, CLACTON-ON-SEA

  PETE: I think a lot of what he says is deliberate. And they can’t get rid of him, because he’s too far up the tree, isn’t he? I think a lot of it is shock tactics with the bloke. The actual show is brilliant, but he does seem to put his foot in it.

  THE MOFFATTS, COUNTY DURHAM

  BETTY: I just think he’s overrated. Fourteen million, was it, he made last year?

  SCARLETT: I Googled it. And he’s got a face like a sponge. And this proper mundane voice, droning on. He’s like a fun sponge.

  THE TAPPERS, NORTH LONDON

  JONATHAN: I like him.

  NIKKI: I think Top Gear’s become a really good programme.

  JOSH: Mum! You don’t watch it.

  STEPHEN & CHRIS, BRIGHTON

  STEPHEN: Anyone that passionate about a fucking car has got something wrong with them.

  STEPH & DOM, SANDWICH

  STEPH: He’s a knob. But I like him.

  DOM: I wouldn’t mind putting him in charge of the country for about six months. That could be quite entertaining.

  THE SIDDIQUIS, DERBY

  SID: He’s a classic one for letting his mouth run away. And then once he’s done that, he realises and then he’s apologetic about it. I don’t like the man, full stop. The whole attitude about him, his arrogance, the way he dresses.

  UMAR: It just seems like he’s been suffering a very, very long midlife crisis.

  LEON & JUNE, LIVERPOOL

  JUNE: That’s a nice way to see Africa, isn’t it? At the country’s expense.

  BRIAN COX

  THE MICHAELS, BRIGHTON

  CAROLYNE: Brian Cox? He makes me want to go to sleep.

  BRUCE FORSYTH

  REV. KATE & GRAHAM, NOTTINGHAMSHIRE

  GRAHAM: He needs to go home now.

  LEON & JUNE, LIVERPOOL

  JUNE: We go back to Sunday Night at the London Palladium with Bruce Forsyth. He’s stood the test of time, hasn’t he? OK, he’s fluffed his lines, but is that the end of the world? It shows he’s human.

  SANDY & SANDRA, BRIXTON

  SANDY: I met him when I was very young. I used to sing, when I was three, ’til I was five years of age. In the Tower, in Blackpool. And I met Bruce Forsyth, and Larry Grayson and a few others. I used to sing ‘My Old Man’s A Dustman'.

  JEREMY PAXMAN

  STEPH & DOM, SANDWICH

  DOM: He’s ageing, isn’t he? He’s starting to look like a bloodhound.

  STEPH: I was about to say he looks like his face is melting. Like a candle.

  SIMON COWELL

  THE TAPPERS, NORTH LONDON

  NIKKI: Genius.

  JONATHAN: Pain in the arse.

  THE MOFFATTS, COUNTY DURHAM

  BETTY: I think he’d be a brilliant prime minister. I don’t know what the hell he’d do.

  MARK: He’d take the shite away.

  STEPH & DOM, SANDWICH

  STEPH: Short.
r />   DOM: Sharp.

  STEPH: Machiavellian.

  DOM: Ballsy.

  STEPH: Bad skin.

  SANDY & SANDRA, BRIXTON

  SANDRA: Guess what I dreamt about? I told them, when I woke up, I said no word of a lie at all. Simon Cowell. I dream a lot about stars. Simon Cowell, I like him, I like him. Before even this dream, I like him. I like the way he’s stern, I like the way his trousers are up there.

  SANDY: And he’ll never get rid of Sinitta.

  STEPHEN & CHRIS, BRIGHTON