THE sad, brutal, ugly reality of Liverpool's gang culture was revealed in a timely and hard-hitting documentary screened on Sky One.

Former Eastenders hardman Ross Kemp turned investigative reporter to shine a light on this murky world, which had already been exposed in the trial of Rhys Jones' killer.

It was this tragedy, which shocked the whole nation, which brought Ross to Liverpool to find out whether, in his words, the city "deserved its reputation for gang violence."
The answer, as it often is, was both yes and no. That Liverpool has a massive problem with gun violence is undeniable, but then so does every other major city across the UK.

THERE can't be many phrases in football more annoying than "the magic of the FA Cup." Patronising to those who support lower league clubs - as though beating a Premier League team is like finding the holy grail - while also annoying to supporters of the "big clubs" who fall foul of the "minnows."

Fortunatley, now that the Football Association has opted to let Setanta and ITV share the rights to the "famous cup competition", there's not much magic around anymore. At least, not from a televisual point of view.

I've argued on here before that ITV simply can't do football very well. It gets to keep the Champions League because it's arguably football's most commercial tournament, thus making it harder for the Beeb to sneak in for.

Over the years, the scriptwriters on Dr Who have done a superb job of making jokes about of the phrase "Dr Who." You know the sort of thing:
"I'm the Doctor."
"Doctor Who?"
"Yes."
And maybe that's the response the BBC wanted when they announced that Matt Smith was their new choice of Dr Who.

Or maybe it's a sign that the powers behind Dr Who, which has pretty much been the only highlight of Saturday evening TV over the past few years, are starting to believe their press a little too much.

IN Coronation Street, Maria's very angry. She (thinks she) knows Tony killed her husband Liam. She's going mad about it, painting the word "mudererer" (she forgot the first r) across his factory in protest.

Samia Ghadie, who plays Maria, is doing a superb job of playing a young woman who is both angry and fearful, yet I really don't care if Tony does follow through on his threat to kill her too. Why? Because Coronation Street has caught the curse of Eastenders: Bring an underworld gangster-type in to be the baddie.

And here's my point: Gangsters in soap operas don't work. As soon as a script writer stands up and says: "I know what we should do, we'll bring in a Mr Big of the underworld (extra snigger in Corrie if he also runs the knicker factory)" s/he should be fired.

Gangsters are for the lazy scriptwriters. Bring one in and you have the benefit of not really having to work too hard on plots going forward because none of the viewers really have experience of gangsters so, well, anything goes.

SO far, my Christmas viewing has been rather disappointing. I tried Lark Rise to Candleford (BBC 1, Sunday). Normally, it's the only period/costume drama I can stomach, but it's mad tale of putting a Christmas ghost to rest just seemed a bit, well, pointless.

Then, tonight, there was Holby City (BBC 1, 8pm), normally one of the bankers when it comes to good, midweek drama. But the Christmas bug had bitten there, too, and instead of a brilliant hour of personal drama mixed in brilliantly with medical high jinx, instead the producers served up a very odd take on Scrooge and the Christmas Carol.

So, by the time Survivors (BBC 1, 9pm) started, I was beginning to fear that the last episode would wrap up with the whole flu virus thing being a big mistake, and all the "survivors" would be reunited with their families as people broke out into Christmas carols on a slightly down-at-the-heel-looking Deansgate.

IMAGINE if Madonna had entered a celebrity version of X-Factor, or Ray Mears had been in I'm A Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here. Would they have won, or would the fact that as a singer entering a singing competition and a adventurer entering a sanitised jungle, they held an unfair disadvantage, and therefore the public wouldn't respond to them?

Perhaps not, if Strictly Come Dancing is anything to go by. Last night, two of the top three had obvious dancing credentials to their name. Lets face it, S Club 7 were as much about their energetic, perfectly co-ordinated dance moves on stage as they were about their singing. So Rachel Stevens did have a head start there over, say, Andrew Castle, John Sargeant and Austin Healy.

The same applies for Tom Chambers. Very good as he is in Holby City - and that's the reason he is on Strictly - the fact he has had previous tap dancing training surely puts him at an advantage over the others.

AND so it came to pass - the end of the seventh series of Spooks. And, as the risk of incurring the wrath of those who insist on calling it government propaganda - it was simply superb.

The best series so far? I'd say so. After reverting back to its "one plot an episode" rather than dragging an issue out over the series, Spooks was back to its best. The early death of Adam, unexpected as it was, set the tone for the series.

Did you have money on Connie being a traitor? Didn't the writers do a superb job of convincing us that she was, then she wasn't and then it turned out she was again. And just to play with our moral compasses a bit more, she turned out to be the star of the show when she deactiviated a Russian nuclear bomb in a disused underground station.

AN MP has had a right royal go about Jeremy Kyle, the man who Frankie Boyle is certain just rounds up a store full of Netto shoppers for each series of his Jeremy Kyle show.

Accorinding to the previously unheard of Kerry McCarthy, Jeremy Kyle's show is "a modern day freak show" in which people "aired their dirty linen in public."

I HAVE to admit, my Saturday nights now revolve around Strictly Come Dancing and the X-Factor. I'm blaming the credit crunch, too.

I've never particularly enjoyed Strictly. I don't particularly think much of Bruce Forsyth as a presenter, and the idea of ballroom dancing as entertainment appears to have passed me by.

As for the X-Factor, it's normally round about now that I become interested once again - once the rubbish make-up-the-numbers-because-they-have-a-sob-story contestants have been binned off.

Both programmes are excellent at what they do, both are very different in many ways but strangely, both are suffering the same affliction, at the same time.

Both have judges who are suddenly trying to steal the show.

Not a headline you're likely to ever read in the Daily Mail but I do think the BBC is due some praise this week.

It's come in for a hard time lately, and rightly so, even if a lot of the criticism came from factions within its own empire.

But its coverage of Rememberance Sunday and Armistice Day was, without doubt, superb.