Entertainment picks: Meet the Flowertots - if you can cope

TV
Welcome to summer 06, couch potatoes. Forget the beach and haul ass to your living room instead. At least you know your comfort won't be interrupted by mosquito bites, burned animal carcasses or the pesky racket of children's laughter.

Now you're on holiday, prime time is all the time. So let's take a look at the mountain of quality programming now at our pasty fingertips.

Fifi and the Flowertots (TV2, weekdays, 3.20pm) is the It show of the pre-school set and your must-watch guide to all things ridiculously cute. It will make you sick.

The tennis is on every day (TV One, 11am), and if nothing else it should make you feel bad for sitting on your lardy butt. Not that there's any reason to go outside should fitness be on your new year's resolution list. Check out Yoga TV (Living Channel, daily, 6.30am) or Maraerobics (Maori TV, Thursday, 5.30pm).

Or say "feck fitness" and burn off that Christmas tyre laughing at Father Ted reruns (TV One, Friday, 9.10am).

Make sure to tune in to Julian and Camilla's World Odyssey (TV2, Thursday, 1pm), the backpacker doco made by four friends who set off around the world for a year and filmed the lot. They travel to 11 countries in 10 episodes, taking in everything from OE staples like the Full Moon Party in Thailand to an encounter with masked rebels in Mexico.

"That's exactly what travel is like," says Camilla. "One minute you're wandering through a mass grave and the next you're dancing with gay Cuban men drunk on cheap rum."

They also flirt with other backpackers, bicker with each other and discuss their diarrhoea. Just like real travellers.

Music
So you're stuck in town this week? Here are a few things to keep you distracted. Goldenhorse play two sets at Stonyridge Vineyard on Wednesday, (7.30pm and 9.30pm). At the Leigh Sawmill Cafe is Sola Rosa with Spikey Tee on Friday for some murderation on the turntables.

Also on Friday is Summadayze, now held at the Ellerslie Racecourse, which should comfortably house the Bodyrockers, Benny Benassi, Roger Sanchez, Concord Dawn and more from 4pm-4am.

And on Saturday, jungle aficionado DJ Hype plays Fu bar.

Movies
Okay, so my first thought about Cheaper By the Dozen 2, a film of which I have yet to make the acquaintance, was "stupid movie". But don't listen to me. Listen to the critics who say it's a stupid movie.

It does have Steve Martin. And a holiday that goes pear-shaped. And a brood of Mormon proportions.

The older siblings, played by Hilary Duff, Tom Welling and Piper Perabo, are on the verge of flying the coop so dad takes them away for one last holiday. When they get there they find dad's longtime foe (Eugene Levy) with eight kids of his own. The old feuding families chestnut.

For less schmaltzy family fare, Nanny McPhee is a fable adapted by Emma Thompson from a series of kids books. She plays a bitchy old lady with magical powers who comes to tame the seven wayward children of a widower (Colin Firth).

Nanny looks like the back end of a bus, but every time she does something good, a blemish disappears. So the message to kids is: be good or end up an ugly old wench; or, count those buck teeth as a sign that people hate you. Nice.