Divvys Blog

Ant and Dec have reclaimed their crown as the top TV presenters of the year - fending off competing claims by Phillip Schofield and Holly Willoughby.

The results were announced at the National Television Awards ceremony at the O2 arena in London and broadcast on ITV tonight.

Ant and Dec have won the contest for the previous 16 years and led a frenzied social media campaign in the run up to the public vote.

But This Morning presenter Schofield, who grew up in Newquay, did have cause for celebration as the show won the Best Daytime award.

Ahead of the ceremony, bookmakers had pipped the Geordie pair to win again this year, despite the challenge from the This Morning presenters. Also nominated was Bradley Walsh.

Holly and Phillip hit the headlines two years ago when they won the Live magazine Show award for This Morning, and turned up to present the show the next day still wearing their outfits from the glitzy ceremony, both sporting king-sized hangovers.

The TV awards also looked at categories including best Crime Drama, Talent Show, Serial Drama, Comedy and Newcomer.

Nominations for Best Drama were between newcomers Doctor Foster and Liar, as well as long-term favourites Call The Midwife, Casualty and Game of Thrones.

In the best Drama Performance awards, David Tennant from Broadchurch was up against Jenna Coleman for her role as Queen Victoria, Sheridan Smith from The Moorside, Suranne Jones as Doctor Foster and Tom Hardy from the programme Taboo.

The clear winner was Suranne Jones.

There were four to choose from in the Best Crime Drama category. ITV’s Broadchurch was up against the police drama Line Of Duty, as well as Little Boy Blue and Sherlock.

Smashing the rest, Broadchurch took the award.

This year the awards also paid tribute to the late Sir Bruce Forsyth by naming the entertainment prize after him. Ant & Dec's Saturday Night Takeaway, The Graham Norton Show, Celebrity Juice and All Round To Mrs Brown's were in the running for the award.

The top prize went to Ant & Dec's Saturday Night Takeaway.

The nominations for Best Challenge Show saw I’m A Celebrity… Get Me Out Of Here! competing against Love Island, MasterChef and The Great British Bake Off. And in the end, the prize went to I'm A Celebrity...Get Me Out Of Here!

In the Comedy category, Benidorm was up against Peter Kay’s Car Share, Still Open All Hours and The Big Bang Theory.

Meanwhile, the battle of the Best Talent Show award was a four-way fight between the well-established favourites Britain’s Got Talent, Strictly Come Dancing, The Voice UK and The X Factor.

Coronation Street's Lucy Fallon, who plays Bethany Platt, scooped the Best Serial Drama Performance.

British actor, Simon Shelton Barnes, who played purple Tinky Winky in the BBC children’s series, Teletubbies, has suddenly died at the age of 52.

He died last Wednesday, just four days after his birthday.

The father-of-three from Ampthill, Bedfordshire who was one of the four characters in the British television series had trained as a ballet dancer and choreographer before taking on the role in the BBC show,

His son Henry confirmed the sad event in a Facebook post saying: 'I lost my lovely dad on Wednesday, he was the kindest and most gentle man I knew and I love him more than anything.

'I always used to be embarrassed as a child that he was a dancer and an actor but now I couldn't be more proud.

'He is in a better place now and I know he wouldn't want me to be sad, so I'm going to live my life the way he would want me to.' 

Mr. Barnes, whose character was known for carrying a handbag,  was married to actress Emma Robbins. He was also the brother-in-law of Poldark actor Robert Daws and uncle of 'Inbetweeners' star Emily Atack

His Fans and several celebrities have all taken to social media to mourn the actor.

Also paying tribute to him was singer Paul McCartney's brother Mike McGear,a cousin of Mr. Barnes's former wife Emma. 

Mr. McGear wrote on Facebook: 'So sad to hear about Si. He was a lovely lad… and will be dancing along Uncle Bills bar, knocking Mum and Dad, Milly and Ginny, Mike and Betts drinks off, as we talk! Love to you and kids from me and mine.'

Actress, Emily Atack also wrote on Instagram: 'My wonderful uncle Simon Barnes has been taken from us all so suddenly.  'The kindest and most talented man you could ever wish to meet. Loved by all who knew him, and will be forever.' 

According to Daily Mail, his funeral will hold at Bedford Crematorium in a fortnight's time on February 7, and his family has asked mourners to 'wear bright colours'.

Following the Chilean forward’s switch, Jesse Lingard took to Twitter to send out a welcoming message to his new teammate.

The cringey tweet from Lingard prompted all sorts of responses from Arsenal fans who are still coming to terms with Sanchez’s decision to join a rival club.

And Piers Morgan joined in with his own banter for Lingard as he called for the winger to not celebrate the arrival of Sanchez too much since the former Arsenal star has come to take his place in the United team.

How are they all up in the hills looking so young all the time? Where is the source of this fountain of youth?

Talk show host and comedian Ellen Degeneres tweeted that she was turning 60 on 26 January, and apparently she can’t believe it either.

We get it. You’re shook. We’re shook too. In fact, the entire celebrity-following world is shaken to its very core with the revelation that Ellen DeGeneres is (about to turn) 60 fucking years old.

“I can’t believe I’m going to be 60 this week!” she said, and you know what? Neither can we, Ellen. Are you sure you’re not actually turning 50? 40? A very accomplished 28-year-old?

Now we want to be absolutely clear here: getting older is not a bad thing. This isn’t intended to be a ‘looks like someone’ heading for retirement’ post.

It’s just here to register our absolute shock – and everybody else’s – that Queen Ellen DeGeneres is a sexagenarian.

It’s not like her age was a secret. It’s not like you couldn’t Google and find out her exact birth date (January 26, 1958). It’s just that she’s sort of ageless, with the incredible bouncy humour of a sprightly 22-year-old.

See some reactions below…

Ellen Lee DeGeneres, born January 26, 1958 is an American comedian, television host, actress, writer, and producer. DeGeneres starred in the popular sitcom Ellen from 1994 to 1998 and has hosted her syndicated TV talk show, The Ellen DeGeneres Show, since 2003.

Her stand-up career started in the early 1980s, and included a 1986 appearance on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson. As a film actress, DeGeneres starred in Mr. Wrong (1996), appeared in EDtv (1999), and The Love Letter (1999), and provided the voice of Dory in the Pixar animated films Finding Nemo (2003) and Finding Dory (2016); for Nemo, she was awarded the Saturn Award for Best Supporting Actress, the first time an actress won a Saturn Award for a voice performance. In 2010, she was a judge on American Idol for its ninth season.

She starred in two television sitcoms, Ellen from 1994 to 1998, and The Ellen Show from 2001 to 2002. During the fourth season of Ellen in 1997, she came out as a lesbian in an appearance on The Oprah Winfrey Show. Her character, Ellen Morgan, also came out to a therapist played by Winfrey, and the series went on to explore various LGBT issues, including the coming-out process. This made her the first openly lesbian actress to play an openly lesbian character on television.[4] In 2008, she married her longtime girlfriend Portia de Rossi.

DeGeneres has hosted the Academy Awards, Grammy Awards, and the Primetime Emmys. She has authored four books and started her own record company, Eleveneleven, as well as a production company, A Very Good Production.

According to Channel News Asia reports that Cho Yoon-sun, South Korea’s former culture minister, will spend two years in jail for creating a blacklist of 10,000 artists who were viewed as being disapproving of Park Geun-hye’s presidency (Park was forced out of her role last March).

Prior to Cho’s position as culture minister, she was Park’s policy advisor. The court said it was “reasonable” to conclude that she had worked with Park in preventing state support of “certain artists.” Cho, who was on bail, was arrested in the courtroom today, January 23.

The blacklist included a wide range of artists from various fields, such as filmmaker Park Chan-Wook and writer Han Kang, who won the Man Booker International Prize in 2016