No, thanks

Isn't that online jewellery advertisement on Indian TV highly questionable? The male character is so off-putting I want to reach for an oil cloth and wipe him off, and the wife asking what's the occasion for his attention - I wouldn't want it if he was the last man on earth; searching for another species to procreate with would make better sense. Perhaps the ad men knew half-way there that something was not quite quite. I noticed a distinctly Jaws-like soundtrack playing, you know, to match the husband.

Almost as barf-inducing is the “Made for First Love” phone ad where the boy talking to his GF doesn't stop with the most vacuous conversation you will hear this side of the Milky Way. Hey, I was young once and in love twice but in my defence I never engaged in vapid talk. Surely at 18 it's all Kerouac and Kafka?? No? Wtf.

Free your mind

First superheroine comic book from India. Not bad. I always admire people who broaden their horizons and try something new. Created by that Shekhar Kapur, written by Samit Basu and quite gorgeously illustrated by Mukesh Singh. Now that we're all part of the Nerd Herd courtesy The Big Bang Theory all you now need to know is that I spied it at Blossom, Bangalore for Rs 320.

Riffs & Raffs

Was this year's Emmys the worst ever? I think so. Neil Patrick Harris seemed unhappy and dry-lipped; the only time he semi-sparkled was in the gay bandinage with Jane Lynch. Tina Fey and Amy Poehler showed him how it should have been done. That riff with NPH - “I think it would be degrading. Yes, but we would be degrateful” was just genius. I mean these girls are in the same class as Hugh Jackman and Billy Crystal; they are professionals who have what Jim Parsons noted was the key to it all when he commented on Bob Newhart's genius: Timing.

The winners were the least expected, like a bad Agatha Christie story. The one whose name I can't remember from “Nurse Jackie” who came on and said 'Thanks, um, I have to go now'? Honey, you ain't Jessica Lange who is famous enough and talented enough and cool enough to get away with something like that.

Jim Parsons, Anna Gunn and Michael Douglas were the only worthy ones up there. Jon Hamm not getting his is a matter of national shame (as, I have to say, was his beard); almost as absurd as waiting for years to give Scorsese and DiCaprio their dues.

But my Breaking Bad boys walked away with the honours, didn't they? That made me a happy camper.

Worst-dressed: Connie Britton. If it's too heavy to hold, don't.

Best-dressed: Kaley Cuoco. The right shade, the right off-centre design. Julie Bowen's Zac Posen creation was a close runner-up.

Worst walk-in-wear: Cobie Smulders whose dress was so tight she minced across the stage like Louis XIV.

Wtf moment: Carrie Underwood's underwhelming performance. So Yesterday.

Cast off

The Killing's casting is just as inexplicable as anyone thinking Nutella cookies are not all that. Why does Mireille Enos/Detective Linden have to be so dour, and not in a House-like, fascinating way? Her dialogue delivery is as dead as her facial expressions and no viewer is going to feel even a twinge of empathy for her fate. Now Holder, (Joel Kinnaman), on the other hand, has the requisite good looks, a dollop of animation and the desperate junkie manner to pull at a few heart strings at least. 

The series is interesting despite the way the main protagonists have been outlined, although it's obvious the writers are spinning it out for as long as they can with the slightly-crazed plot twists. The Mayoral hopeful (who wouldn't have a soft spot for Billy Campbell) and (spoiler alert) his aide who is obviously in love with him, (and I'm not talking about the chick), and the ex-mob father is what keeps my interest level up but if they don't do someting about Linden soon....Couldn't they kill her off and rope in Carla Gugino, for God's sake?

The other entirely insupportable element in this show is the way the mothers behave. With Linden, when the teen son has fever, she says take some painkillers and I'll be home when I can. He plays truant and she doesn't ask why. He badmouths her and she tells him Don't Do That. All with the same fish-eyed look she does everything else.

The mother of the dead girl turns out to be as inept as Linden. She says No to everything and when one child dies abandons the other two and leaves so she can deal with the rotten cards Her life has dealt Her. With mothers like these, one would rather be abandoned on a Church doorstep.

Seats reserved

Had my first laugh of the day seeing the British Airways ad To Fly To Serve. They certainly do - to the white protagonist featured on it. Try being black and flying from India to Europe on BA and you'll know what hell is like. A place where you are not served food on time, where the food you are served isn't fit for dogs; where the stewards look at everyone with that kind of cold contempt you last saw reserved for Sidney Poitier on In The Heat of the Night; where you disembark to catch the connecting flight from Heathrow to John F K and suddenly it's gold class treatment for everyone on board, most of whom it goes without saying, are NOT black. It's like when Australia Tourism suddenly flooded Indian TV with ads featuring Indians who said they found the Holy Grail in Brisbane, Perth, Sydney whatever - after a spate of racist attacks against Indian students in Australia was widely reported by the media. How stupid does everyone think we are. Very.

A crowd of cherries

I feel a bit Zen at the moment. As if the world has been balanced. Can you blame me after an embarrassment of riches via the Season 3 premiere of Justified, Sons of Anarchy and Breaking Bad? But first things first.

Downloaded and watched the full Spartacus series and wept and wailed as the final episode aired. What must it feel like to be Steven DeKnight? To have created something that people will remember forever? I've never seen a cast like this, unknowns for the most part who gave us a piece of themselves and gained immortality because they are so damn good at what they do. After Andy Whitfield I thought Liam McIntyre would “fall from fucking sight”, haha, but one episode in you could tell he had the intensity, not to mention the most sweetly vulnerable mouth, that would see him fly to Olympus. When Manu Bennett's Crixus died, the show almost stuttered to its end right then and there because his persona was always so aggressive that he ruled every frame he was in from the beginning of the series. Gannicus, by the time he was a “martyr on the cross”, had become a hero not just because he had that John Woo thing going on albeit with two swords instead of guns, but because he is so good-looking it hurts. And what a bit of directing his end was: Crucified, there he was reliving his time as a God of the Arena with the crowds going wild.

But the villains in Spartacus, aye, there was a crowd of cherries on top of the cake. Craig Parker as Glaber, Nick E Tarabay as Ashur, Todd Lasance as Caesar, Simon Merrells as Crassus, these are Gods of the Acting Arena. While my heart belongs to Nagron, I will go see anything with these guys in it in the future.

I have had to switch allegiances now that Spartacus is over, and there's nothing better in betrayal than Breaking Bad. Which other show can have an entire episode on a fly (that's not a euphemism) and keep us riveted? Watching Walter White turning from mild-mannered Chemistry teacher to a villain of Heath Ledger's Joker proportions is an exercise in how brilliant television writers can be. Imagine, in the first place, selling this storyline to studios. It is absolutely addictive, ha; such fun to watch a story evolving in an unexpected way: Junkie losers have moral cores, gentle husbands turn into wolves, drug dealers live by gentlemen's codes. I live my days spouting Jesse Pinkmanisms, bitch, and gasping at how easily Walter and his wife cross over to their Bonnie&Clyde avatars. If they can do that, what hope do the rest of us have really.