Cristina Buccino has reached the final of Veline, the long-running contest on Italy’s Canale 5 to find hostesses for Striscia la notizia, the popular evening programme that parodies Italian news stories.  The veline perform stacchetti (short, sexy dance routines) in addition to introducing presenter Ezio Greggio and his co-hosts.

Why are we telling you this?  Way back in June when the show first started, our own TV critic wrote about Veline and Striscia la notizia, and it just so happened that the clip we decided to use featured none other than Cristina Buccino.  Was that just coincidence or divine inspiration?

Either way, we’re now backing Cristina to become the next veline, regardless of what our critic says about political correctness and the exploitation of gorgeous Italian models.  So there.

Cristina Buccino alle finali di Veline roughly translates as “Cristina Buccino in the final of Veline” in case you were wondering, or at least we hope it does!

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Friday Night with Jonathan Ross made its high definition debut last week with guests that included Kelly Brook and The Mighty Boosh.  Ross, a self-confessed technology junkie, opened the show by telling viewers that they can see everything in HD...

...and that would include everything that is currently wrong with the BBC’s HD output.  Viewed at 1080i, throughout the entire programme there were invasive levels of video noise (similar in appearance to film grain) and as a result, clearly visible macroblocking whenever there was camera movement or a shot comprised large areas of the red studio set.  While the video noise is the result of sub-standard production values, the macroblocking can be attributed to the BBC’s aged encoders, which once stood tall but are now patently struggling, especially in the face of such poor source material.  Our WMV HD clip from the Kelly Brook interview has been resized to 720p in order to make the download more manageable, and yet the noise and compression artefacts are still fairly obvious.

Friday Night with Jonathan Ross is a studio-based show and as such shouldn’t pose anything of a challenge; the controlled environment should allow the BBC to produce pristine HD images and if they can’t, which is clearly the case, then that simply isn’t good enough.

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Kelly Brook in HD on Friday Night with Jonathan Ross, complete with video noise and macroblocking, unfortunately.

Olivia Lee’s Naughty Bits is the undoubted highlight of Channel 4’s 2008 Comedy Lab series of pilot comedy shows.

In her own programme, which is a series of character-driven, improvised hidden camera sketches, Olivia Lee absolutely shines, successfully casting off the Balls of Steel shackles that have limited her comedy potential in the past.

Funny women are thin on the ground, as is good home-grown comedy these days – it’s either complete filth (the shock factor lost its impact years ago) or absolutely dreadful, so combining the two and looking drop-dead gorgeous all at the same time is quite a feat.  Although an accomplished comedy actress, Olivia’s looks certainly help in this setting (she has graced the pages of FHM in the past) because in some of the sketches participants are clearly thrown off their guard by her appearance – it’s hard to walk away from a tall, leggy blonde telling you she loves you even if she does have black mascara all over her face.  Having said that, it’s Lee’s quick-witted improvisation that really carries the show, especially in pressure situations as illustrated by our clip, in which she decides to walk on stage, give a lengthy speech and collect an award... somebody else has won.

Some may question whether the ideas and characters could be stretched to a full series, but we’d certainly like to see Channel 4 give the show a longer run, both Lee and the concept are more than deserving of that chance.

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Olivia Lee’s Naughty Bits... no real naughty bits, just great new comedy.

Aerobics Oz Style, the fitness and exercise show from Sydney Australia is broadcast regularly at various times of the day by Sky Sports here in the UK.  In fact, across the globe over four million people view it every day so at any given time you can bet there’s somebody out there stretching their abs in a vein attempt to capture a slice of the healthy Australian outdoor lifestyle.

For the couch potatoes, the draw isn’t in the low impact routines, the cardiovascular exercises, yoga or Pilates, but the instructors themselves, a group of toned Aussie babes who all look as though they could crack walnuts between their butt cheeks.

Senior instructors June Jones, Wendi Carroll and Taryn Noble usually lead a group of four super-fit girls who perform their routines with seemingly boundless energy... proving that exercise really does work!

This is all well and good, but sometimes it’s hard to tell whether a particular show is providing a workout for serious fitness fanatics, or just a workout for the raging hormones of teenage boys, especially with both the sports and lingerie model Kate McCracken and the stunning Taryn Polovin (above) as part of the team.  As you can probably tell from our clip, Barbie look-alike and ‘up-front’ Pilates instructor Helen Tardent is a serial offender, but with acres of tanned flesh on show from all the girls thanks to the tight spandex and lycra outfits, even the most serious armchair-bound fitness fanatic is going to find it hard to concentrate on their inner thigh lifts.

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The girls of Aerobics Oz Style show us their postures.  Helen Tardent (red top above), Erinjayne Gard (white top), Mia Baker (aquamarine top), Taryn Polovin (red top) and the lovely Kate McCracken (blue top).

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Carol Kirkwood is one of the BBC Weather Centre’s better presenters; she’s often got a naughty twinkle in her eye and we like that too!  She has been a BBC presenter and weather forecaster since 1998, following a stint at the Weather Channel and some Met Office training.

Currently you’re most likely to spot Carol on BBC Breakfast, usually being precipitated upon in the Blue Peter garden or out on OB at some wind-swept location.  She’s something of a Children in Need regular too, who can forget that Rocky Horror Picture Show routine from 2002 and the dancing on ice in 2006.  You’ve got to applaud a presenter who is willing to step outside of their comfort zone.

One of the latest outings for Carol has been as presenter of The Weather Show – Summer 2008 currently airing on the BBC News channel.  In it, Carol’s main aim is to demonstrate the tensile strength of the buttons on her blouse and show a lot of cleavage in the process.  A female member of our team spotted a lack of continuity when it comes to Carol’s bras and we’re told that flesh coloured is far preferable under a white top, but we’re too PC to ask her to explain the concept to us.

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Carol Kirkwood, complete with out-takes, seen here stress testing the buttons on her blouse (do your best to ignore the scary-looking producer).

Escala, the sexy female electric string quartet discovered on Britain’s Got Talent, are fronting Sky Sports’ stylish ‘new season’ 2008/2009 football promotional campaign trailer, which made its on-air debut today.

The group members are – left to right in the image below – Izzy Johnston, 23 (violin), Chantal Leverton, 24 (viola), Nastasya (Tasia) Hodges, 26 (cello) and Victoria Lyon, 24 (violin).  The girls met when they were part of an orchestral group, and having performed as a corporate band and at private functions, made it to the Final of Britan’s Got Talent after which they were duly signed by SyCo Music... and judge Simon Cowell, but we won’t hold that against them.

The music for the Sky trailer is the first track Escala performed together, ‘Theme from Palladio’, written by Welsh classical composer and musician Karl Jenkins, who is also well known for the Adiemus project. Palladio is a popular target for electro-classical arrangements, there’s another excellent version by harpist Catrin Finch.

Something tells us most of these subtleties, together with Escala’s virtuoso talents will be lost on the average football fan.  The phrase “pearls before swine” comes to mind.

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The long and the short of it... two versions of Escala’s Sky Sports new season trailer.