For those looking at doing this it's worth knowing that as well as iPlayer there is now 4OD, Demand Five and ITVPlayer for all your C4, 5 and ITV watching needs.
They've all ditched their paid for P2P based systems for advertising supported Flash players.

So how much does a gallon of water weigh? How about that 2 gallon/10l gas can, how much will that weigh when it's full? In metric it's easy since 1l of water = 1 kg Gasoline has a relative density of 0.71-0.77 (lets call it 0.75) so in metric 10l of gasoline is 7.5kg All without a calculator or writing anything down, lets see if you can do that in pounds and inches. Yes you might have to deal with learning to use 1.25 1.6 and 2.5 more often but it's no less work then learning how many feet are in a mile or fluid oz in a pint etc. Not to mention that the UK and US numbers are often different.

US immigration and security go beyond being serious to the point that they come across as rude and unhelpful. UK airport security have pulled me aside for a random search whilst joking that it was due to the sports team jersey I was wearing. On a quiet day arriving in amsterdam I've had a guy call over his supervisor just so they could make make stern faces make me worry and then crack a joke about my passport photo. I've chatted with Polish boarder guards about their visits to my home country and had a French immigration officer laugh at my appalling French. Entering the US I've see people infuriated by officers who will tell them only that they have filled in the wrong green form, or filled the right one incorrectly but will offer no more help to non-english speaking visitors then to send them back to the back of the line. I've waited hours whilst people attempt to have their fingerprints scanned whilst having orders barked at them because they misunderstood the instructions. Most immigration officers I've encountered try to ask questions in a friendly conversational style but in the US it's a cross between an interrogation and a telemarketing script. After a few visits you learn the keywords for your answers and they let you through no problem!

Hands down the best voice commands I've ever used in a phone is Voice Commander for Windows Mobile 5. (I believe it's now included with WM6 as standard.) Not only does it do voice dialling of your contacts and numbers by simply saying "Dial 555 1234" but it also gives you control over the launching apps, mp3 playback, reading SMS messages, signal status and time and appointments.
For a full list take a look at the Microsoft website.
It also doesn't need any training or any setup you just press and speak and it works surprisingly well.

As for hardware that'll depend on your budget and availability but there are lots of options for Windows Mobile powered phones including candy bars and and flip phones.