Christmas viewing figures made unpleasant reading for the biggest television channels and showed people had found better things to do over the holiday than watch a schedule laden with repeats.
For the first time, the two largest stations, BBC1 and ITV1, attracted less than half the total audience from 21 till 28 December as Christmas specials failed in the ratings.ITV1’s much-publicised documentary The Real Beckhams pulled in just 5.5 million, and even BBC1’s Only Fools and Horses (the most popular programme on Christmas Day) attracted only 15.5 million, down nearly 5 million on its 2001 figure. Must be 13 years or over” – Advertisement in the Isle of Thanet Gazette”I have been a priest for 30 years and know from personal experience that a third of all Anglican clergy are gay” – Letter in The Times. What kind of view can you see at the moment Jane?”Jane Hughes: “Not much. It’s pitch black because it is the middle of the night” – Interview on BBC Radio Five Live”Knitting is the new cocaine”Esther Addley, The Guardian”It’s a beautiful day here and, as I look around the ground, I can see about 30 young girls that are wearing Dutch caps” – Jonathan Agnew, Test Match Special”I would die tomorrow if I could have five more years playing cricket for Yorkshire and England” – Geoff Boycott, Channel 4″Neil Baker is standing on the touchline with his hands in his tracksuit, scratching his head” – Graham McGarry, BBC Radio Stoke”This is a part-time self-employed position and would suit housewives or active pensioners who enjoy walking. He has imprisoned Mikhail Khordorkovsky, the country’s wealthiest tycoon, and many believe the president’s hand has strengthened further in the wake of parliamentary elections earlier this month.However, now does not look like a good time for Mr Safin to be buying Manchester United, if he is on the hunt for a bargain. and hid in the lavatory, the only place where there were no motion detectors” – The Times”Flooding means that Falmouth Town station is closed.

Please use Falmouth docks instead” – BBC travel information on Ceefax”I was out with the troops today and I can tell you that the desert round here really is very sandy”- Caroline Wyatt, BBC News”Apparently they are shouting ‘Saddam: your days are numbered’. Have a nice day” – Notice on CNN screen stock market report”Our raison d’?e is to perform in English” – Spokesperson, English National Opera, on Radio Four”You’re a gynaecologist. During its 180-day mission it was programmed to test rock, soil and air samples for signs of life.. “A naked woman seen dangling from a bridge across the A66 motorway could need help, police said” – Darlington Times

“A naked woman seen dangling from a bridge across the A66 motorway could need help, police said” – Darlington Times
“Nasdaq down: Terror Up. It lies like a bull’s-eye at the centre of the 700sq km (435 sq mile) target area on Isidis Planitia, near the Martian equator. It was revealed by close-up pictures taken by the Nasa orbiter Mars Global Surveyor minutes after the British probe was supposed to have landed.Professor Pillinger said planning a landing on Mars was always a case of “swings and roundabouts”.When Beagle-2 separated from Mars Express on 19 December it was set to become the first European spacecraft to land on another planet.

There’s going to be [meteor] impact debris around it, which means more rocks It would certainly make the bouncing process worse. The last thing we wanted was to bounce on slopes or on more rocks.”The crater is about a kilometre (1,100yds) wide and could be hundreds of metres deep. The lander is about the size of a bicycle wheel and weighs 33kg (72lb).Professor Colin Pillinger, the chief scientist and motivator for Beagle-2, said: “We’d have to be incredibly accurate and incredibly unlucky to go right down this crater, which of course would not be good news. We’ve always recognised that Beagle-2 was a high-risk project, and we must avoid the temptation in future to only do low-risk projects.”Meanwhile a “tiger team” set up by the project to try to contact the lander has ruled out two possible explanations for the silence of the lander, while adding possibility of the previously unnoticed crater. They have decided that there is no problem with the onboard clock, or with communications methods. Dr Mark Sims, Beagle-2 mission manager, from the University of Leicester, said yesterday: “We are working under the assumption that Beagle-2 is on the surface of Mars and for some reason cannot communicate to us.”The fear is that it could have fallen into a deep crater in the landing zone, which had previously been thought to be a wide, flat area, ideal for the bouncing landing, buffered by gas bags, that was planned.