The other thing which occupied my attention during my blogging hiatus and which caught me by surprise was Comic Relief Does Fame Academy.

I am still not sure how I got sucked into it. I have never shown any great interest in any of the reality TV shows or talent shows, let alone the ‘celebrity’ versions. I did try to watch Big Brother when our comrade Eugene turned up on it, but it would usually drive me mad within a few minutes, and I saw some “I’m A Celebrity…” when Johnny Rotten was on it, but gave up as soon as he did.

At first it was the car crash element of hearing songs sung so badly, and the novelty of seeing Colin Murray. I can never reconcile how he looks with how he sounds on the radio. It was a few days into the run and I was reading or something and kept the TV on as background noise, but after a couple of days I was making a point of making sure the TV was on as background noise when that programme was on. By the end I had given up any pretence that it was just background and was actually watching it.

And yet I didn’t watch the final. Seeing Tara-Palmer-Whatsername croak her way through against the scouser who so desperately wants to be a singer had no appeal at all. Poor old Barry-from-Eastenders! When he dropped out it was all down to the fact that every female voted for the female contestant and every male voted for the male contestant, and Shaun lost out because there was one more woman than there were blokes. It was as predictable as the voting in Eurovision.

Having given that a miss, I did see Top Gear’s version of Top Of The Pops where Jeremy Clarkson made his bid for the title of worst drummer in the world ever… it was even more ‘car crash television’ than when they actually showed a real car crash!