A weekend away with Alexander Armstrong

Fancy a weekend away, with an evening with Xander and his band as the highlight? Look no further than Warner Leisure Breaks, who have a weekend at Littlecote House in Berkshire with Xander as the Saturday evening attraction. Amazing, right?

The date to put in your diary is Saturday 15th July 2017. I suggest you book early.

Sports Pointless Celebrities, 4th September

There's a Pointless Celebrities sports special repeat on Sunday 4th September at 5.50pm, with Willie Thorne and Tony Jacklin, Andy Fordham and Deta Hedman, Tessa Sanderson and Derek Redmond, and Nick Easter and Martin Offiah.

The first showing of this was quite recent, but I remember nothing of it. I'm sure this just means that I was blinded by its excellence (or by Tessa's jumpsuit).

Pointless Celebrities, 3rd September

On Saturday 3rd September at 6pm there's a non-themed Pointless Celebrities, with Tim Vine and Terry Alderton, Tracy-Ann Oberman and David Schneider, Reverend Richard Coles and Julia Hartley-Brewer, and Arthur Smith and Arlene Phillips.

 Excellent selection of guests, frankly. I'm looking forward to this one.

Ashes Pointless Celebrities, Sunday 28th August

There's a repeat of the Ashes special on Sunday 28th August at 5.50pm.

Taking part are Graeme Swann and Alison Mitchell, Michael Vaughan and Phil Tufnell, Melinda Farrell and Jonathan Agnew, and Ebony Rainford-Brent and Henry Blofeld; topics include films, chocolate and, erm, famous Willies. Will they include Ian Botham? The world waits.

Sitcom Pointless Celebrites, 27th August

Pointless Celebrities returns to our weekend screens on Satuday 27th August at 7.10pm, with a sitcom special featuring former TV to Go co-stars Hugh Dennis and Pauline McLynn, comedy writer Charlie Higson and Citizen Khan actor Adil Ray, ex-'Allo 'Allo stars Richard Gibson and Vicki Michelle, and Last of the Summer Wine's Jean Fergusson, who teams up with Tina Malone.

New Pointless shows are back from the 29th!

Finally! New civilian Pointless shows are back from Monday 29th August.

How long will it be till it's back to repeats again? No idea, but here's hoping it's a good long time for once.

*holds Pointless to bosom, cries "Never leave me again!"*

Armstrong & Miller at the Perrier Award, 1996

It's 20 years since Armstrong & Miller were shortlisted for the Perrier Award, the name at that time for the Edinburgh Comedy Award. A long time ago, right? And through the miracle of the BBC website, we can see just how young Xander and Ben looked back then.

Turns out that people's appearance changes the course of 20 years. Who knew? "Whatever happened to them" though, BBC? Tsk.

More weekday Pointless Celebrities!

The Olympics end on 21st August, and Pointless returns to BBC1 the next day...but once more in repeats of its Celebrity format.

Monday 22nd August sees the return of the period drama special, with Colin Baker and Simon Williams, Helen George and Pam Ferris, Martin Jarvis and Nerys Hughes, and Matthew Kelly and Christopher Timothy.

Tuesday's show features record breakers: Neil Fingleton and Jessica Pardoe, Sally Gunnell and Linford Christie, Kellie Bright and Tim Bentinck, and Andy Akinwolere and Janet Ellis.

On Wednesday there's a sitcom special, with Vicki Michelle and Ian Lavender, Simon Day and Arabella Weir, Meera Syal and Phil Cornwell, and Ewen MacIntosh and Simon Greenall.

There's a West End edition on Thursday, with Jodie Prenger and Gary Wilmot, Kerry Ellis and Tim Rice, Paul Nicholas and Ben Foster, and Danielle Hope and Richard Blackwood. 

And finally on Friday 26th there's a repeat of  the cookery special with Rustie Lee and Antony Worrall Thompson, Theo Randall and Rachel Allen, Jean-Christophe Novelli and Paul Rankin, and Aaron Craze and John Whaite.

Xander and Richard at the Cheltenham Literature Festival

Date, time, and booking information for Xander and Richard's appearance at the Cheltenham Literature Festival have now been confirmed. 

They'll be promoting A Pointless History of the World on Tuesday 11th October at 8.30pm. Tickets are on sale to festival members from 31st August, and to the general public from 7th September. This event normally sells out very quickly, so I recommend you buy your tickets early.

As if you weren't already tempted, here's the event description:

Presenters, comedians and Pointless quiz masters extraordinaire Alexander Armstrong and Richard Osman romp through A Pointless History of the World. They pull out some of the most pointless, hilarious and interesting events – from the obvious to the most obscure. If you have a hunger for little-known facts then this is the event for you!

Sounds great, right?

A Pointless History of the World: more details!

Publishers Hodder & Stoughton have released the 'blurb' for A Pointless History of the World, the next Pointless tie-in book, which will be published on 6th October.

Delve into the world of Pointless, the huge ratings-winning hit BBC One quiz show, with this brilliant romp through the history of the world.

A Pointless History of the World is a complete[1] and meticulously researched[2] series of essays on our rich and glorious past. Alexander Armstrong and Richard Osman, two of the world's foremost experts on Things Before Their Time[3] take you on a step-by-step journey through history.

From the Big Bang to the Fall of the Roman Empire, from the Ice Age to the Evolution of Language, from Henry VIII to Last of the Summer Wine: all of civilisation is here. A publishing first, this thoroughly comprehensive and highly ambitious quest through Time and Space is interspersed with questions for all the family from TV's most popular tea-time quiz show, Pointless. This is Alexander and Richard's biggest book yet.

The book no historian can afford to be without[4], it comes complete with introduction and footnotes[5].

[1] Highly selective
[2] Largely cobbled together from what we can remember from school
[3] That's not even a thing
[4] Under no circumstances to be used for reference
[5] Um...

Sounds excellent, and the ideal Christmas present for any Pointless fan. Except, possibly, any Pointless fan with an upcoming history exam. A Pointless History of the World can be pre-ordered from all usual outlets.

Alexander Armstrong delivers listener boost to Classic FM

The latest listener numbers for Classic FM show impressive increases in listener numbers across the station's schedule, and particularly from the weekend 'star' presenters.

Xander's weekend lunchtime shows are a big hit, with 576,000 people listening to his Saturday show, up 43,000 since last year. His shows are always entertaining, and full of beautiful music (as is the rest of the schedule, of course). Why not make it 576,001?

Civilian Pointless is back!

It's not that I dislike the Celebrities shows, you understand, but I seem to have seen them all so often I can recite chunks of banter along with the contestants.

Well ordinary Pointless, the civilian version, is back from 8th August. Admittedly it's repeats, but my understanding is that it should be only the second time they've been shown. Here's hoping, right? And at least repeats means you can pretend to be really smart.

The shows will be on BBC2 (due to Olympic coverage on BBC1) at the usual time of 5.15. I reckon we might get new shows again after the August bank holiday (the one at the end of August. If you're in Scotland, you've already had yours, I know.)