Some things I'd like to do before I die . . .

A report has come out this week that shows that Bath is on a 'bucket list' as one of the top places that people want to go to before they die.

The concept of the 'bucket list' derives from the idea of setting out all the things you want to achieve before you depart this mortal coil.

The idea was spotlighted in 2007 when Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman starred in film (called The Bucket List, of course) where they ticked off a big chunk of things to do before cancer got the better of them. The film wasn't supposed to be all that great (hence it is not on my bucket list to see it) but the idea must have got a lot of people thinking.

I am sure most of you can rattle off your own ways to fill up your proverbial buckets and so to get you all started I took great delight in compiling my own list. It is not definitive, it is not terribly serious (something of an understatement) and above all, and I feel I must stress this, it is not terribly worthy either.

Sure I would love to see the Second Coming, see all my family and friends prosper, win the Lottery, see the Chronicle sell more than The Sun and welcome in world peace and the end of global poverty. But I am setting the rules here and I declare that for my list (and yours) you can be as selfish and as decidedly unworthy as possible.

Hence here is my completely worthless bucket list. It is my view as of Tuesday 6pm after literally seconds of thinking, and I can assure you come 7pm it will have changed totally.

• See England win the World Cup. On penalties. Against Germany.

• Work out which one is Ant and which one Dec.

• Visit New York, go to Israel (again) and visit somewhere exotic no one else has ever been. And Dundee.

• Hear my favourite band (The Stranglers) play my favourite song again (Down In The Sewer) surrounded by my favourite music fans (Strangler ones). All within walking distance of home. They are pictured here - pretty bunch hey?

• See Curly Wurlys return to their original size – and chewy Texans make a comeback.

• See Josiah Bartlett (The West Wing) made US President with Larry David, pictured, as his Vice President (the world would be on the brink on a daily basis). Oh, and see Jimmy McNulty, from The Wire, put in charge of the US police.

• See Garth Crooks win an award for making The Most Obvious Sports Comments Ever Heard on TV.

• Go a whole month where 'no weather records are broken since records began'.

• See someone get to the moon – just to prove the Americans actually did.

• Go a whole week of editing the letters pages in the Chronicle without finding anyone moaning about anything.

• See the rules of food alter so consuming lots of chocolate, curry and beer makes you thinner while cucumber and celery are derided for making people put on weight.
  

• See Phil Collins music banned from the airwaves.

• See Tiswas brought back to our screens. It remains Chris Tarrant's best moment. And Spit the Dog's only one.

• Watch a whole X Factor without someone saying "this means everything to me/this is my dream/please, Simon, please, please let me through".

• See Brian Clough given a posthumous knighthood. And a good chunk of the UK to boot.

• See a new dictionary introduced with an easier way of spelling rhythm. I mean, why two 'h's?

• See a Jerry Springer/Star Wars special entitled Luke, Who Is Your Father?

And finally . . .

• Being able to find a way to avoid kicking the bucket in the first place!

Happy bucketing.

Get wired up the wonderful Wire

Tonight (Monday, March 30) the BBC will do something quite unprecedented in its long and proud history.

For, if my understanding of the situation is correct, they will be screening a 60-show American drama series from start to finish every single night. It will run on BBC2, after Newsnight, from Monday to Friday and whole swathes of their schedule has been arranged to fit around it.

The show, therefore, must be something pretty special. And trust me, it truly is.

Just by way of a starter, it is Barack Obama’s favourite show on TV, but beyond that, magazines and newspapers from Time and The Chicago Tribune in America to The Guardian and The Independent over here have hailed it as possibly the greatest television show ever made. One reviewer said quite simply that the world is divided into two sets of people – those who have seen this programme and love it and those who simply haven’t yet seen it.

The programme is called The Wire. Never heard of it? Then don’t worry, because large sections of the public haven’t either as it was only previously shown on television in this country on a very obscure satellite channel called FX.

What has catapulted The Wire into our consciousness is a modern-day phenomenon of watching television – via the box set. There was a time when the only way you could watch the next episode in a drama was to wait until the scheduler allowed you to do so, but as people have grown to love top-class, lengthy American dramas such as 24, Lost and the magnificent West Wing, people have been snapping up the box sets at an incredible rate. Then they watch the shows as and when THEY want to.

And this is why I think the Beeb’s scheduling of The Wire to run on consecutive nights to keep up the pace set by box sets is so inspired.

For the record, I would add my own voice to those who would argue that The Wire is quite possibly the greatest TV series ever made and I think you could only really enjoy its multi-layered, multi-faceted, in-depth story lines if you watch them close together as it is a series full of nuances, subtleties and seemingly random moments that only make sense in other, later episodes.

For those who don’t actually know, The Wire is focused on the drugs culture in Baltimore and it looks at it from every conceivable angle. It is a rough, tough and gritty and nothing is black and white, nothing is clean cut and there are no compromises whatsoever to language or to traditional beginning-middle-end storytelling.

OK, tonight's kick off time of 11.20pm is rather late but it's worth it. Get ready to get wired.