God, it’s dusty in this blog.

*wipes away cobwebs from TV screen and blows dust off the remote*

Let’s switch this TV blog back on.

*zaps blog into life*

Of the many wild notions I’ve had in life, becoming a TV critic was probably up there with, er, becoming a neuropsychologist. But for a few months or so the possibility of the former profession did cross my mind.

As I approached the end of my psychology degree, I needed a new outlet to continue contributing trashy articles to after I’d finished my prolific spell on the SU magazine. I thought becoming a telly addict could be a definite possibility.

My style in this respect was definitely influenced by Shelley (Jim rather Percy Bysshe). I used to read his Tapehead column like Osama reads the Koran. It didn’t matter that I hadn’t seen, and had no intention to see, the majority of the programs he reviewed. He made them seem far more entertaining than they were ever likely to be in reality.

And reading his columns made me realise one golden cathode rule.

Write the review in such a way that it doesn’t matter whether or not the reader has seen the program.

Esoteric stuff was out. Synopsis, then take the piss.

Having discovered the magic formula, I had to find an outlet beyond my own blog.

Now unless my Google searches are less than lateral, I struggled to find many online TV review sites I could submit my stuff do.

Apart from one.

I shan’t name it here, and it has (sadly) put itself into the deep freeze for the time being, but this site had it all: informative, knowledgeable, yet quite irreverent with it.It also had a formidable back catalogue of reviews.

I’d been reading it for a while and was desperate to see my name amongst the list of contributors. At the same time the standard was pretty high, and I was somewhat nervous at sending in my articles. However, I finally got round to submitting and attached a Hugh Grant-esque bumblingly diffident email with my first review.

And I got no reply.

A few more days and still no reply. My affection for the site bottomed out.

Then one day I came home and found my name on the front page with my submitted review. Admittedly it was spelt wrong, but it was my name they’d misspelled.

Over a few months I regularly contributed, including one review I’m particularly fond of. But as the last entry date on this blog will show, one day in December 2006 they came to an abrupt halt.

A couple of factors intervened, but the main one was the growing realisation of the critic’s lot in life.

The reality of being a critic of any kind is that, invariably, you have to spend your time watching / hearing an awful lot of bollocks (and, as a food critic, you may even have to literally eat bollocks).

I read an interview with a film critic and he said he probably watched over 500 films a year. Of those he thought maybe 30 of those would be any good; 250 of them would have him reaching for a revolver.

So much for a life of culture.

I also took up the guitar, and trying to practice for around three hours a day doesn’t leave time for much else (of the many wild notions I’ve had in life, becoming a good guitar player was probably up there with being a TV critic).

I also had no idea where else to start in order to get paid to do this. And watching an episode of Russell Brand’s chatshow made me realise I had to get paid to do this in future. So I stopped watching TV, apart from downloading episodes of The Wire and The Shield.

On trips back to my parents’ house in Wales I was shocked at some of the programs on during primetime hours. The One and Only, presented by that charmless cunt Graham Norton, was a cultural Auschwitz. Still, anything that namechecked a Chesney Hawkes song had to be shit.

It was going to take something special to get me watching and writing about TV again.

So thank God for the return of The Apprentice.

Seeing Sir Alan Stalin lumbering through the boardroom doors like undiagnosed Alzheimer’s in a pensioner’s brain was a joy.

Scanning through the contestants, I had the same sensation Daniel Plainview had in There Will Be Blood whenever he was about to rob a family of their oil deposits. Even after a cursory glance I spotted a Sugarbabe lookalike, at least two Young Conservatives, and plenty of cannon fodder.

That the first show of the series ended with the firing of an obnoxious chinless posho was just the icing on the cake.

For this new run of the Apprentice, I had to make a comeback.

So until the series finishes:

You’re unretired!

Vanessa’s Real Lives: ITV1, 7 December 12.30 p.m.

Whereas some might consider Vanessa Feltz’s new daytime show to be exploitationist, could it actually be a forum for challenging and re-evaluating societal norms?

By providing a platform for some of Britain’s “most controversial personalities”, Vanessa’s Real Lives enables a consideration of taboo subjects and unconventional behaviour. The episode in question considered appropriate age limits for sexual relationships, what society considers a proper expression of maternal love and the untapped potential of alternative health products.

Granted this was done by bringing on Lucy “Miss Lust” Hayward, a former teacher who was jailed for sleeping with a fifteen-year old school-boy; Veronika “bitty”, Robinson, who breast-fed her two kids until the age of seven; and Jim Crawford, a man who’s elixir of youth is a phial of his own urine, but you can’t make an omelette without having a frank discussion with those eggs.

Hayward was first and gave an account of the relationship she’d started at thirty-one with a boy half her age.

Apparently, she’d been in an “oppressive relationship during her twenties” when she wasn’t allowed out much (I dare say the two kids she was supposed to be raising during this time may have limited her nightlife). When she moved to take a new job as an English teacher she starting socialising with younger people in the town who had “similar tastes in music”, and subsequently met the adolescent in question.

According to Hayward, he was a typical “Jack the lad, confident, cocky, a charming young man”, and in Vanessa’s treacly phrase “Cupid’s dart struck very heavily and [she] fell in love”.

Hayward rebutted any cradle-snatching accusations by reminding us that she’d been in an “oppressive relationship during her twenties”. He was “fifteen going on twenty-five”, and seeing as she was thirty-one going on fifteen then in one sense you could say he was older than her. She made him feel like a man and he took her back to the youth she’d ‘lost’.

However, societal disapproval of such relationships led to her being fired from her job, convicted of indecent assault, jailed for two years and placed on the Sex Offenders’ Register for eight years. Because of this she now finds it extremely difficult to get work and resents being classified with paedophiles, especially considering the sexual abuse she’d suffered when young. She was the real victim here, and lest we forget she had been in an “oppressive relationship during her twenties”.

Well it would have been a nice story had it been true. However, while Hayward may resented being registered with paedophiles and claimed to be nothing like them, one characteristic they all share is a tendency to minimise their own actions.

What the show failed to mention was that Hayward had been jailed for cannabis possession at the time of the indecent assault conviction, having allowed her home to be used by other teenagers to have ‘pot parties’ at. And while she may have claimed the relationship developed out of “mutual respect and friendship” it ended with the boy running away from home before revealing the details of the tryst to his parents. They claimed his personality changed as a consequence of the affair and he become withdrawn and introverted (maybe he was worn out from using all the sex toys and videos found by the police at Hayward’s flat). Hardly the most responsible actions from someone whose job description entails a significant amount of in loco parentis.

Hayward was also recently exposed by the People newspaper to be working as a dominatrix and caning punters while wearing a mortarboard and gown: I guess this must be payback for that oppressive relationship she had in her twenties.

But her story at least started a discussion on this particular societal norm. Was she the victim in all of this? Had the young man been exploited and harmed by such a relationship? And is Vanessa Feltz really a MILF?

While there was general disapproval amongst the audience, most struggle to articulate exactly how Hayward had transgressed, although to be fair they hadn’t been given all the facts. One woman argues that “he was a young man with his life ahead of him”, as if he’d been killed in a road traffic accident. Another states that “he’s fifteen – not a man. You wouldn’t sleep with your own father and brother”. Hayward, perhaps understandably, retorts that it’s “not really the same thing”, and Feltz agrees that it’s a completely different topic (probably tomorrow’s).

Hayward further tries to excuse her lack of responsibility by claiming to have been “vulnerable” at the time of the affair due to the “oppressive relationship she’d had in her twenties”. Vanessa informs us that she was in her similar situation when her marriage had ended and one of her daughter’s friends informed her she was a “MILF” (‘mother I’d like to fuck‘- the more crude modern-day version of ‘oldie but goodie’), but despite her own “vulnerability” at the time she hadn’t taken advantage of the situation as she “couldn’t have faced his mother afterwards”.

But the MILF topic clearly strikes a chord in one young man of Mediterranean origin who seizes his opportunity to display his support for sexual generation games by kissing Vanessa’s hand, telling her: “You very gorgeous – I like mature women. Can I call you baby?”

Keen to act on his beliefs, the gigolo insists on dancing for Vanessa (“You are gorgeous – can I dance for you?”). While she takes his place in the audience, the young man stands with his arms above his head, gyrating his hips and thrusting his pelvis. He then crouches down and brings his head level with her waist, glides up along her torso and for good measure pokes his nose into her cleavage. As his closer, he lifts his shirt to expose his six-pack and nipples. Unfortunately, this does nothing for Vanessa (“I’m feeling hot – but only with embarrassment”), or Hayward. But then he was probably more than half her age.

Continuing the theme of matronly love was breast-feeding counsellor Veronika Robinson. Breast was most definitely best for her and her two children, who she’d breast-fed until the age of seven, having left the decision of when to wean to them.

The objections from the audience vary, beginning with practical issues (teething and biting). However, Robinson had used this to her advantage as a means to set parenting guidelines: “You put the baby down and you say ‘no!’, and they learn very, very quickly that if they want to breast feed they don’t put those teeth in.”

This lesson had been so well learnt that when one of her daughters was asked to write a list of what she wanted for her ninth birthday at the top she wrote ‘bitty’. Well she probably didn’t phrase it quite that way but ‘birthday bitty’ was what she’d got, and apparently “it made her day and she had a very special memory of it”. No doubt she’ll be recounting it to a psychotherapist in a few years time.

Shifting the issue, Robinson begins to argue that breastfeeding is a taboo in our culture, and one of the reasons people “have a problem is that they don’t see it”. However, as most of the mums in the audience are quick to point out, weaning is more associated with setting age-appropriate behaviour. One comments that you wouldn’t have your children using the potty at seven just because they still wanted to.

Being a breast-feeding counsellor means Robinson is bound to emphasise the nutritional benefits of mother’s milk, but as one woman points out, why not just give it to them in a cup? With the zeal of a convert, Robinson continues to fixate on what she perceives to be a cultural taboo over breastfeeding, coming to the bizarre conclusion that “We live in a culture where it’s fine to have a relationship with inanimate objects, yet we don’t want our kids to have one with human beings”.

Until this point the women were dominating the debate, so it was nice to hear the male perspective. Unfortunately, it came from the MILF-loving Mediterranean, who asks Robinson
“Do you know when you breast feed, do your boobs get bigger?” When this is confirmed he replies “that’s why you want to breast feed, because you want your boobs big, eh?” Rather than seeing breast feeding at such a late age as unnatural he is simply jealous at her actions (“The kid is seven years old – it’s unfair!”).

The final guest was Jim Crawford, keen to explain the health and well-being that can be obtained by drinking your own urine. Jim’s life had changed four years ago when a friend had recommended a book on the potential benefits of drinking your own. Apparently, out of the “hundreds” of people she knew he was one of only six people she considered “open-minded” enough to share the information with. Or maybe she just didn’t like him.

Jim argues that urine is misunderstood and is actually the most medically researched substance in the world, but on that basis blood can’t be too far behind and I’d like to see someone on daytime TV using this argument to defend drinking it. Urine is, according to Crawford, “your own way of making you healthy”, although I was always under the impression it accomplished this by an outward rather than inward flow.

But in case anyone thought Jim was taking the piss (and with the authenticity of guests on a Vanessa Feltz show always open to question), a quick necking of a flute of his own vintage proved beyond doubt that he literally was taking the piss.

If anyone is curious about the flavour then according to the connoisseur it has its own individual taste and changes according to gender. But how did he know this? Jim smirks rather too quickly for comfort in response to Vanessa’s query. It emerges that his girlfriend practices urine therapy on an “ad hoc basis when she fancies it”. It presents a lovely image in my mind, but as a picture tells a thousand words, for the purposes of space I’ll go no further.

Apart from the hitherto disregarded nutritional benefits, there’s also the opportunity to incorporate urine into your beauty regimen. Jim uses it to hydrate his skin, claiming it calms his skin after a shave “like nothing else”. To demonstrate this, and because he’s worth it, Jim smears a couple of droplets around his chin, informing his perturbed audience that “it will go straight through the skin and into it very quickly”.

Although informing him that he “smells like wee”, Vanessa was quick to sing the praises of his complexion. From a distance. And his skin does look relatively smooth and line free. But also unmistakeably yellow (just like his teeth), so I personally won’t be ditching the Clinique three-step system just yet.

As we return to an audience uniformly unimpressed by Jim’s urine therapy, he did have one supporter.

Unfortunately, it was Veronika.

Her mother also takes the piss and recommends it to her grandchildren as a “great hair conditioner”. However, it might have the unfortunate side-effect whereby your female offspring breastfeed for prolonged periods.

Taken together, the show’s deviant trio demonstrate how unexamined social norms sometimes are for some people. While it’s easy to recognise when they’re being contravened, it’s sometimes more difficult to define exactly what the deviance is about the behaviour in question, apart from the jarring unconventionality.

This is well illustrated by the final comment from a member of the audience about Crawford’s urine drinking, with a young woman stating that “I feel like I’m gong to be sick. I just don’t get it! I understand you’re not hurting anyone by doing this, so fair play to you, but personally, I think it’s wrong!”

Societal norm pariahs or pioneers? Here’s to you, Mrs Robinson, Mr Crawford and Ms Hayward.

The Russell Brand Show, C4, 24 November, 11.05

With an ego and media profile the size of Brand’s, the eponymously titled C4 chat show was inevitable.

But could The Russell Brand Show fare any better than the debacle that was Davina?

The choice of Dirty Pretty Things’ ‘Deadwood’ as the theme tune would prove to be an apposite summation of the next fifty minutes. After the opening titles segued into the obligatory camera pan round the audience (in case the viewer was curious as to how many people can fit in a television studio), on flounced Brand with trademark “blimeys!” and “‘citing!”, and wearing the same regulation outfit he’s always bedecked in (black open neck shirt and trousers and silver belt).

The line-up for his debut show was at least of a higher calibre than that managed on Davina (e.g. Tess Daly and Vernon Kay), with David Walliams and Matt Lucas (the only people in Britain more ubiquitous than Brand), and Amy Winehouse featuring. The latter was particularly promising after serving up the car-crash TV moment of the year only a few weeks earlier with her inebriated rendition of Beat It on The Charlotte Church Show.

Conforming to chat-show custom, the show opens with a topical monologue. In the news this week was Tom Cruise’s wedding to Katie Holmes, although with the entire routine based on this topic you could be forgiven for thinking it was the only thing that had happened. However, Brand’s nervous delivery results in a stilted and monotonous routine, something you wouldn’t expect to see in someone who does stand-up for a living.

But maybe it was the material that affected Brand’s delivery. Jokes about Cruise’s height (was this the ‘adult’ humour we were warned of at the start?), allegedly wearing platform shoes, and his wedding being “all a bit ‘ollywood” (which is sort of what you’d expect from an ‘ollywood actor’s wedding) were just too obvious. And it’s a bit rich from someone with a persona based on mockneyisms, contrived linguistic archaisms and shag-pile hair to mock another man’s affectations.

Brand’s nervousness was compounded by the appearance of Walliams and Lucas, whose relaxed manner contrasts with his floundering (and flouncing). The interview kicks off with a set piece in which his guests have to bring him a present (Walliams: “that’s a good idea – for you”). Lucas’ present is Douglas Adams’ The Deeper Meaning of Liff, while Walliams’ gift was a top hat, which went so well with Brand’s outfit. Perched on top of his head like a mattress balancing on a bottle of wine he certainly looked, in Jim Royle parlance, like a ‘top hat’.

Brand returned the favour by giving Lucas a model of his (Lucas’s) head made out of chocolate, although it seemed a missed opportunity for no one to quip about Brand giving Lucas head. Maybe they thought it too obvious, sort of like making jokes about Tom Cruise being short. Brand’s gift to Walliams was a chocolate-shaped penis (Walliams: I’ve always wanted you to give me that”) and in case you’re curious, after getting his mouth around the end he did indeed swallow.

As the show progresses it becomes apparent that Brand and the Little Britain pair have inverted the traditional roles of host and guest, occasionally slipping into This is Your Life territory, such as Walliams’ wistful description of his first impressions on meeting Brand (“I hated you when I first met you, when you were on heroin [but] then you’d done yoga and you cleaned yourself up and we became really close friends”).

Intermittently remembering the host's traditional duties, Brand mentions the special Comic Relief Little Britain episode, although this only leads in to another opportunity to talk about himself, such as his very own appearance in the Comic Relief Little Britain episode, dressed up in ladies underwear (maybe the black shirt and trousers were at the dry cleaners that night).

After an unnecessary reference as to exactly why the duo were on the show (“you’re here to do something promotional”), we’re shown a extract from their live DVD, before returning to a sketch idea nicked from another source (Saturday Night Armistice), in which CCTV footage of lookalikes playing Walliams and Lucas are shown in their dressing room before the show. A runner comes in with a cup of tea for them and ‘Wallliams’ and ‘Lucas’ are shown humiliating him in various escalating ways, culminating in him dressed up as the hooded Iraqi Abu Ghraib prisoner (a visual joke that was done better on Arrested Development over two years ago, mainly because it was actually topical then).

The imminent commercial break (“to raise revenue and that”) prompts Brand into the first display of his Ted Rogers-esque 3-2-1 wrist movement, and promises are made that when we come back David and Matt will “reveal exclusive things about their private life”. Which will make a change from hearing about Brand’s.

After the ‘revenue raising’ the show resumes with a sketch featuring, you guessed it, Brand as Tom Cruise and more height jokes (maybe there would have been room for the head joke after all) and innuendo about Cruise’s sexuality. So we can pretty much assume Tom won’t be appearing on the show in the near future.

Back in the studio the host and guests have moved towards a bar area (with Lucas looking particularly uncomfortable while perched on a stool), and Brand continues his attempts to interview the pair. But is it possible to take anyone seriously as an interviewer (or person) who asks Walliams about his cross-Channel swim in the following way:

“Your real chance to shine, David, come when you done that swimming across the sea, what you done.”

After a clip showing Walliams beginning his cross-Channel swim (and falling off a rock at the end), the spotlight is soon back on Brand as he ponders whether “you can find redemption through these charitable acts” (Lucas: “You’d have to swim around the fuckin’ world, mate!”). A skit of Brand pretending to swim the Channel is shown, followed by unnecessary outtakes of him flouncing about in the sea (“Me fuckin’ snout’s gone out!”).

At this point Walliams and Lucas have been on for more than half the show and, as Brand notes, “I don’t know if you’ve told us anything yet that’s really, really intimate”. This is always going to be the critical factor in making a chat show interesting, although Walliams is pretty clear why this hasn’t happened so far (“Well you haven’t asked us anything – you’ve just talked about yourself”).

In the final section, after more revenue raising and wrist reflexes, the host and his guests return to the sofa for more chat, although it’s unfortunate - or depending on your opinion rather apt - that the chocolate penis is constantly in shot whenever the camera switches to Brand as he asks a question. He continues to elicit little of interest from the two with Walliams being slightly touchy over Brand’s questioning on whether he took his mother to the Baftas “to use her in a defence capacity” (Walliams: “No. I just took her because I knew she’d like to go”).

Finally, after 30 minutes of inconsequential chat (mainly about Brand), something vaguely intimate is revealed when we discover Matt and his partner are about to have a civil partnership, although any follow-up on this is lost as Brand worries what he’ll wear at the wedding (my money being on the black shirt, black trousers and silver belt combo).

It’s something of a relief when the show finally moves on from the pair to Winehouse, although it’s disappointing to find she’s not pissed. Well, “not yet” she isn’t. After an introduction by Brand which made me consider whether he’d fallen off the wagon (“Winehouse: do a record, you lunatic, sing it out of ya gob!”) she “does her record”. As the first time I’d heard her sing was on The Charlotte Church Show, it’s evident that alcohol doesn’t do much for her vocal range, although it has to be said she does sound an awful lot like Shirley Bassey done ‘in the club style’.

After ‘doing her record’ Winehouse accepts Brand’s invitation (“Oi! Winehouse! Come over ‘ere!”) to join him on the sofa with David and Matt. However, Winehouse doesn’t have a present for the host, which leads to an unintentionally amusing verbal squabble between the pair, who despite looking like a gothic his and hers tribute to Dusty Springfield sound exactly like Wayne and Waynetta Slob.

Possibly for this reason the show moves to its climax, with Brand relocating everyone in front of a shelf in order to “situate these glorious gifts up here on the mantelpiece”. Brand claims “these will stand here for all time”, although based on his debut show the likelihood is that his hat and book won’t be the only possessions of his shelved in the near future.

The show ends with a bemused-looking Winehouse (perhaps trying to remember where she’d left her drink) and an embarrassed looking Walliams and Lucas trying to stay in shot by the shelves for the closing credits. Lucas’ book falls off the shelf and narrowly misses Brand’s barnet (probably not the first time the deeper meaning has gone over his head), while he continues his demented Ted Rogers impressions as the credits roll.

Whatever the merits (or otherwise) of Brand’s concocted persona, if a chat show host’s interest is more in himself than his guests, there’s little to sustain interest once the host become tiresome. In thirty minutes of chat with the pair all Brand managed to elicit is they have a DVD out in time for Christmas, Lucas is gay and Walliams’ mother is still alive, and you didn’t need to watch the show to find that out.

It’s appropriate that the production company responsible for this 50-minute exercise in egomania is called Vanity Projects, with its corporate logo being of a scruffy-looking man holding onto his genitals.

Who says narcissists don’t do insight?

MacIntyre’s Underworld. five, Tuesday 21 November, 11.00pm

As anyone who’s seen shirtless Newcastle supporters on a winter evening at St James’ Park will testify, Geordie men are made of hardy stock.

But the macho bravdo of Toon Army members pales in comparison to the actions of Geordie underworld veteran Paddy Conroy, the first figure profiled in MacIntyre’s Underworld.

Out on license from an eleven-year jail sentence for torture, kidnapping and escape, Conroy’s conditional release is complicated by a rival gangland family taking out a contract on his life. His re-appearance at a time of turf warfare between rival gangs threatens to worsen the fragile balance of power, due to his stated aim to re-establish his profile and reputation within the criminal fraternity.

Although now middle-aged and resembling a leaner Geoffrey Hughes, his eye patch (worn due to his eye haemorrhaging as a result of prison staff delaying necessary treatment for cataracts – or so he alleges) is a permanent reminder of the brigandish nature of his lifestyle.

The show starts with Paddy playing daddy to his two sons, Buster, eleven, and Jack, one. Long-suffering wife of thirty years Maureen also features in this homely sequence. However, as the couple recount the tale of how they met it’s further evidence of the roughness of their environment. Conroy used to mug Maureen and steal her pocket money; unsurprisingly, she didn’t fancy a date with him when he asked. But Paddy wouldn’t take no for an answer and one day, in his own words, he “grabbed her by the hair and took her home… You think I’m jokin’, don’t ya!”.

Maureen’s expression indicated he wasn’t.

Conroy’s father ran a criminal enterprise in which Paddy served his apprenticeship and would later inherit. This provides some insight into his almost nostalgic view of historic criminality. Of his youth he states that “the villain was just a part of life in those days, especially from the more deprived areas. It wasn’t considered a bad thing unless you did bad villainy, immoral things”. Conroy makes a distinction between “gangsters” and villains. To him, a villain is just a product of his environment and upbringing, whereas “a gangster lives in a world of his own, an imaginary world”.

Conroy denies MacIntrye’s contention he might be perceived as a dangerous man (“I don’t think so - if you don’t have problems with me. But if you come attack us, then I’ll be a dangerous man”), and understands the current underworld difficulties as resulting from the new breed – those operating outside accepted criminal codes: “there’s loads of families from our sort of background who are good people, but you get families who are villains with no morals and not fit to walk this FOOKIN’ earth!”

Paddy considers himself a protector in the local community, and it says much for his standing (or, perhaps, the fear he inspired) that when he was jailed for violence against the police in the 1980s thousands of people demonstrated on the streets for his release. Right-hand man Bullock even went to the extreme of climbing to the top of the Tyne Bridge to protest, but only managed four hours because “it was cold. Freezing, proper freezing”. Conroy chides Bullock for not staying up there longer, although the latter defends himself by saying “well, it wasn’t planned properly. Next time I’ll take a sleeping bag and a flask!”

But despite Conroy’s bravado and criminal heritage, he’s clearly feeling the pressure of the license conditions and the price on his head. Conroy wears a bullet proof vest in public, and his associates constantly monitor his surroundings. When the security lapses, as happens when Conroy returns from a night at the track, he starts to panic. After shouting “where the fook are ya?” repeatedly into his phone, he skulks in the lobby until his driver turns up, greeting him with “cunt! You cunt!”, before berating him further off mic.

Unable to retaliate in the way he had before his sentence, Conroy employs various means to deal with the tension, such as escaping to his country getaway thirty miles outside Newcastle. On his allotment he grows vegetables, and to MacIntyre’s surprise is particularly proud of the trophies he’s won for his prize leeks.

But even in his hideaway he has to be careful of his activities. As an example, his lifetime ban from using firearms means even a spot of rabbit hunting would result in an infringement of his license terms.

As Bullock, MacIntyre and Conroy chat in a shed, two associates bring in a couple of rabbits they’ve shot, and Bullock guts them by the riverbank. The shots of Bullock’s handiwork are intercut with MacIntyre asking Paddy if he’s religious (he’s not) and whether he thinks he’s going to heaven (he does). To those he think he’s going to Hell he retorts: “they can think what they like – it’s between me and the big fella!”

Conroy also uses other methods to relax, having smoked cannabis since he was sixteen. The green-fingered approach he uses on his leeks also applies to his cannabinoids (“better to grow your own. See that? It’s fookin’ organic!”).

But the cannabis and leeks are insufficient to keep Conroy’s ferocity in check. When his family plot in the local cemetery was desecrated in 1994 by a rival gang, his inability to tolerate any affront to his reputation or control his anger led to him committing the acts that resulted in his eleven-year sentence.

When Billy Collier, a criminal who worked for a rival family, was allegedly heard boasting in a local pub he’d been paid £5,000 to dig up the grave, chop parts of the body up and put them through Conroy’s window, it was only a matter of time before Paddy and his henchmen exacted their revenge.

While the pain felt by Conroy after the graves had been attacked is understandable, with him unable to hold back tears as he recounts the story, the retaliation he had planned for those alleged to be responsible is chilling, issuing his threat head-on to the camera: “I would have killed the whole family. All their loved ones. I would have murdered every single one of them if any of them had done that to my family”.

Within days, with only the digging up the grave part of the alleged plan being carried out, Collier was kidnapped at gunpoint from a local shop and tortured. He was abandoned in a warehouse by his attackers after having his teeth pulled out with pliers. Conroy denies being behind the amateur dentistry (“I just beat him up. Hit him with a stick, pool cues, hit him with a gas bottle. He got a beating but not a great beating”), but admits to driving him 400 yards and leaving him at the location where Collier’s teeth would be torn out.

Conroy was arrested but managed to escape en route to court, and was on the run overseas before being caught by Interpol. Security was much tougher on his return: to be on the safe side, a seventeen-vehicle convoy, aeroplane, helicopter, snipers and a gunboat made sure he kept his court appearance.

However, his holidays in the sun did nothing to moderate his temperament, and Conroy cracked under pressure in court, attacking the prosecuting lawyer. As a result he was dragged out past the jury by four prison officers, which, as Conroy concedes, “didn’t help” his innocent plea. He was found guilty on all charges and sentenced to eleven years, although Maureen continues to accept Paddy’s version of the attack on Billy Collier.

Conroy struggles to process the changes made in the Newcastle landscape in the decade of his incarceration, and also finds unfamiliar the spectacle of a new godfather (John Henry Sayers) controlling his former patch (“they say they run Newcastle, but no one fookin rules me”). With the old-skool underworld against him, Paddy is forced to make new alliances with local Triad gangs (the ‘new breed’ which he had earlier railed against), and not without reason. A confrontation with 14 members of the Sayers gang led to Paddy having to endure a severe beating, in the knowledge that to fight back could have resulted in his death, and to involve the police (strictly against his criminal code) would have meant he’d contravened his license conditions.

The ongoing feuds and precarious situation cause Paddy to worry about his eldest son Buster, (“one day you will be the Bossman”) and that he’ll inherit the internecine feuds in the same way as he did with his own father. Buster is only now realising the extent of his father’s criminal lifestyle. His copy of Zoo magazine shows a pixellated snapshot of his father alongside a cover feature on ‘Britain’s deadliest gangs’ (‘Meet the men who run YOUR manor’). This side of his dad he finds hard to understand, with the additional implications of what it means for his own future.

One reason for Buster’s concern over his family’s criminal heritage may be the example of his cousin Dylan, who at 22 has already been jailed four times. Despite Paddy’s assertion that he’s a “good lad in general, just bored”, Dylan is back in jail within four days of being released from his latest sentence after brandishing two sawn-off shotguns.

Yet despite having a clear understanding of the reality of prison life (“everyone in there is depressed – whole prisons suffer from depression”), Paddy risks his license conditions being invoked after an unnecessary run-in with the police. During a raid on his sister’s house he allows himself to be drawn into a verbal confrontation with an officer and is charged with a public order offence. Unwilling to face court proceedings, Conroy goes on the run again, despite the knowledge that he risks a heavier sentence as a consequence. However, this proves to be unnecessary, and somewhat farcical, as his 72-day period in hiding turns out to be just to avoid a £130 penalty charge which is sent through the post to him after he avoided the initial court date.

Despite this good fortune, and the end of his license period meaning Conroy is a free man once again, he’s unable to shake off past events, particularly the feud with the Sayles family. Conroy interrupts his cooking of a celebratory family dinner to launch into an uninterrupted four-minute tirade, unintelligible in parts and incoherent in others, where he tries to piece together what may have been slights on his reputation and the intentions of his rivals (his perceptions and thought processes clearly affected by his cannabis use), leaving no doubt that he’ll retaliate at some point, “and it’s coming fookin’ shortly, believe you me”. His rant culminates in him shouting “get that on your fookin’ documentary!”, before resuming his preparation of the family meal.

At this point, just by giving its subject enough rope, the profile allows the true nature of Conroy to emerge, demonstrating that any performance by an actor of a ‘gangster’ role can never fully convey the menace of intent that an authentic criminal has. Despite certain sequences that humanised him (sequences with his family and on his allotment) and a refusal by MacIntyre to allow a caricature to develop - as would be likely in a Zoo feature – Conroy’s inherent brutality continually re-surfaces. His own need to distinguish between his own criminal acts and those of “gangsters” suggests that to some degree he is fully aware of the nature of his lifestyle and its implications, the essence of which it was essential MacIntyre captured in his “fookin’ documentary”.

ITV1, Dating the Enemy,19 November, 10.00 p.m.

Being honest, did we ever want the Blind Date couples to live happily ever after?

The bickering on the plane, tantrums on the veranda and the pre-mediated verbals on the sofa with Cilla, it was Cupid’s misses that made the show a hit, with the occasional happy ending only there to help maintain the illusion that we watched the show for these magic moments.

ITV1’s Dating the Enemy ditches the Blind Date pretence and gets straight down to business: a couple are deliberately mis-matched on the basis of their being the complete opposite of their stated ideal partners, and have to endure three days in each other’s company. The aim at the end of the 72 hours is to see if the wooing by one half of the couple is enough to convince the other to 'date the enemy'.

The show starts with "ambitious Chelsea socialite" Melanie, a cross somewhere between her namesake Melanie Griffith and Geri Halliwell. To illustrate her go-getting nature an Apprentice-esque sequence shows the hard-working girl’s lifestyle: conducting business in the back of a cab ("on my way to a very important meeting") on her Blackberry, being extremely professional with clients and, er, sniffing a bunch of roses at a flowerstall.

Melanie is candid about what she can't tolerate in a man: scruffiness, being dirty, lacking ambition, and not being a gentleman. However, while Melanie listed her beau no-nos, these were intercut with shots of her date-to-be waking up with three-day stubble, munching toast in the middle of the afternoon (and not using a plate, so doubtless getting crumbs over the carpet) and belching.

For "slacker and proud of it" Mark, knowledge, experience and love are the essentials of life, stating that "at the risk of sounding like an old hippie (and probably smelling like one), I would say that I can unashamedly defend why my way of life is the way of life to live".

So the successful Sloane and the scruffy slacker – surely the perfect match for a lorra, lorra laughs.

As Melanie made her way to Brighton (Blackberry constantly on the go), Mark ruminates on how he can convince her he’s more than just a slacker (having a shave would have been a good start). At 36, with "neither academic or career success", and working in a comic store, clearly he has his work cut out. Philosophising over his lack of occupational progress ("on paper I look like a bum, maybe, but to me it’s more a career of life than work") Mark decides on a back to basics approach to win over Melanie: a night of camping under the stars. After all, as the scruffy one notes, "what’s not to like about tenting under the sky – it’s all good". Well the potential for getting wet and dirty for one, things we discover Melanie will not tolerate ("I don’t want to go anywhere dirty").

The love train pulls in to Brighton, doubtlessly late as the service is operated by First Capital Connect. The odd couple meet, with Melanie confessing later in the show how gorgeous she found Mark to be ("he’s just like a tall Orlando Bloom"). Mark decides to reveal the evening’s plans by holding up the tent bags and asking "what are we going to do?", perhaps under the delusion that being such a hard-working city girl means Melanie has never seen a tent before.

After finding a suitable clearing, things don’t get off to the best start as Mark realises he can’t pitch his tent ("I’m absolutely buggered"). Fortunately Melanie, the novice to this camping game, is on hand to point out why he’s having such difficulties ("it’s inside out").

But three hours later, with the tent up and the campfire burning, the two swap notes on how their lifestyles contrast. Melanie always has a plan and her diary is constantly booked-up, with something on "every day, sometimes two things on at night". In contrast, Mark confesses he’s more "a sitter and a thinker than a mover and a shaker". But at least he looks like a tall Orlando Bloom while he’s lazing around.

After surviving the "coldest night’s sleep she’s ever had", Melanie travels with Mark to the Isle of Wight to meet the parents. Melanie is looking forward to meeting them, and over the dinner expects an insight into Mark and his background. On hearing the description of them as "aging hippies" she’s under the impression they’ll be "fun and light-hearted". But before she’s received her first course at the Horse & Groom this proves not to be the case.

After telling Mark’s dad she organises events and parties for a living and the next is a fashion event for the British Red Cross, he retorts with "so lots of anorexic young ladies walking up and down in overpriced clothes, with the odd celebrity turning up?"

Being a professional, Melanie takes this in her stride, and responds with an anodyne question to deflect the awkwardness ("why did you move to the Isle of Wight?"). However, I’m quite sure she wouldn’t have asked the question if she knew this was going to be the response:

"If you go to these new towns in the south of England, everyone aspires to the same boring shite. Not everyone’s aspiring to a four-wheel drive, and the availability of spirituality over here is more accessible, and I do like being away from the human species. I don’t like people very much. It’s a nice place and the trees are nice, but people are a bit revolting, ain’t they, don’t you find?"

While this made for great TV, it’s hardly polite dinner conversation.

The charm offensive continues (Melanie being charming and Mark’s father offensive), with Mark’s dad asking Melanie if his misanthropy has "given you an insight into maybe changing your perception of life?", although by the expression on her face the only thing she seems to want to change right now are her dinner companions.

Taking refuge in the ladies (or ‘fillies’ as daintily signed on the door), Melanie lets off steam about Mark’s dad and how he’s "quite rude to put me down and what I do", which is perfectly understandable. It’s one thing to question someone’s way of life, another to completely disrespect it. To add to the dining debacle, Mark confirms to Melanie that he share’s his dad’s views, which means he’s managed to be both dirty, scruffy and ungentlemanly within the first 24 hours of their date.

On their final day together, no doubt as a response to her treatment by Mark’s father, Melanie turns the tables on Mark, considering him to be "all talk and no action". Over lunch at a café (appropriately called Belchers) Melanie asks him if he has any plans to read some of his poetry at the poetry reading evening ("this is your moment to shine"). The mere thought of it has Mark blushing so much that he has to remove his jumper (Melanie: "are you feeling flushed because of the pressure?").

Melanie continues her probing as the pair engage in some pottery painting at a workshop. Melanie asks Mark if he’s prepared to display his porcelain Elvis in his house for people to see, and if so, why the difficulty in reading his poetry in public:

"I don’t get embarrassed about showing things I’m slightly able to do, but if it’s something I want to do…"
"Or you have more to lose?"
Yeah. "It’s difficult for me to expose the raw inner feelings, and that is what I put into the things I write..."

This becomes evident in the show’s climax at the poetry evening when Melanie meets some of Mark’s friends, purportedly along to offer support. Rather than challenge his preconceptions of how an audience may react they reinforce his negative views, with one opining on how "soul-destroying" a single heckle would be. Melanie proffers that she’d think the same but consider it a "risk worth taking", a phrase clearly unfamiliar to the men as they have to ask her to repeat it.

As Melanie is by now fully aware, Mark’s slacker ideals mask a basic lack of confidence and self-belief, reinforced by a lack of parental encouragement (he later admits that Melanie has given him the "verbal kick in the pants I needed sixteen years ago") and his friends’ meekness. His statements about ‘a career of life rather than work’ reveal a belief system that gives him reasons to get away from attempting new things or achieving anything. It’s not a case of him rejecting ambition, but being scared of it.

But after watching a reading by a relaxed poetess, Mark confounds his friends and Melanie to get up on stage and do a reading, and an accomplished one at that, of a "very well-known poem" (Desiderata by Max Ehrmann). This leaves Mark’s friends "gobsmacked", and Melanie taken aback ("after the last 24 hours I never expected him to do it"). In addition to this, the organiser of the Brighton Poetry Society encourages Mark to attend their next meeting, where he says he’ll "do one of mine". But has this minor show of ambition been enough to compensate for being dirty, scruffy and his early ungentlemanly conduct and convince Melanie to ‘date the enemy’?

Unfortunately, not.

Although Mark has gone up in her estimation due to his public performance, and that he no doubt looked like a tall Orlando Bloom as he read the poem, it wasn’t enough. Her verdict was that "on a piece of paper he’s perfect, but there’s a thing inside of him that won’t move him forward", which leads her to doubt that Mark will actually go through with the performance of his own work, despite his invitation for her to come back to Brighton to watch him.

But the show’s heart-warming moments came not from the potential of any romance between the two but seeing Mark’s personal development thanks to an infusion of Melanie’s carpe diem spirit ("there’s a Mark way of doing things and the slightly more effective way of doing things"). He didn’t get the girl, but he got some of his confidence back.

But as they part with a hug and a song by the appropriately named Embrace plays out over the credits, on reflection, maybe Mark should have chosen a different poem with which to enchant Melanie, as Ehrman’s lines clearly state to:

"Be yourself. Especially do not feign affection.
Neither be cynical about love; for in the face of all aridity and disenchantment,
it is as perennial as the grass."

Your Money or Your Wife, C4, 25 October, 8.30 p.m.

Despite claims by some that Britain has become a nanny state, what we are in fact living under is a dominatrix dictatorship.

Just watch any terrestrial TV station for a couple of hours. It’s inevitable at some point you’ll encounter a stern-faced disciplinarian issuing a series of orders to some masochistic member of the public.

But as if Mistress McKeith, Mistress Frost et al aren’t enough, C4’s latest strict mistress is double-barrelled dominatrix Cesarina Holm-Kander, Your Money or Your Wife’s whip cracking financial trouble-shooter. Holm-Kander, the show's self-styled ‘Debt Buster’, aims to bring her boardroom expertise to the bedroom and help couples climb the debt mountain they’ve managed to accumulate; and with the average debt of the under 30s being £8,000, Holm-Kander won’t be short of victims.

First in the series was credit card queen Kerri, a 22-year old psychology student and model, who was definitely more model than student. Label lover Kerri (motto: life’s too short not to get everything you want) felt it was important to look good and live up to her expectations of life, but was unable to manage this on her alleged £40,000 salary, and had ran up a five-figure debt on credit cards.

It wasn’t difficult to see how this had happened. Kerri admitted to spending £3-4,000 a month on clothes, had two silver convertibles, and had undergone a £5,000 boob job in 2004, although it was perhaps appropriate that the latter should have been financed by plastic.

Amazingly, boyfriend James (motto: If you can’t afford it you shouldn’t get it) was unaware as to the full extent of Kerri’s spending, although you would have thought he couldn’t have missed the overnight breast enhancement and been curious as to how it was paid for. Maybe he was having too much fun.

Mistress Cesarina (motto: spending money you don’t have to achieve your dream is the recipe for a financial nightmare) certainly had some work to do as not only were the couple deep in debt but planning to go into business together and open a nightclub. Could she whip the profligate pair into equitable shape?

The first part of Cesarina’s master(card) class was to reveal the true extent of Kerri’s debts, not just to James, but to the debt diva herself. Kerri’s tenuous grip on her financial affairs was such that she was unaware of how much she was in arrears, although you’d have thought a model would have known a thing or two about figures.

Kerri told James she was “30-40 thousand” in debt, although Cesarina was quick to point out the exact figure was £41,000. If you were being generous you could say Kerri was only a thousand out, but it would perhaps be more accurate to state she was £11,000 out. James was surprised it was that much (“I thought it was half of that”), although Kerri at least had some idea where the money had gone (“I shouldn’t have bought all those shoes.”).

After Cesarina got financial and informed Kerri she was technically insolvent, then explained to her exactly what this phrase meant, the mistress got down to drawing-up a post-nup agreement and attempting to pass on the organisational skills needed to manage their debt. Being a financial expert, Cesarina reckoned she could knock off £9,000 of Kerri’s debts inside two weeks, although I wasn’t that impressed. Even though I’m a beginner at this financial advisor stuff, I could have knocked £41,000 off James’s debts inside two minutes with some simple advice: dump Kerri. However, James was determined to stand by his woman, insisting that they were “in this together”.

Despite this declared spirit of togetherness, he was strangely absent from the next part of Cesarina’s attempts to “dent the debt”, a spot of public shaming. As a psychology student Kerri should have understood the motivation here. Carrying a suitcase of £20 notes which contained the amount she was paying in interest on her debt each month, Kerri had to walk the streets and hand out to passers-by the money for thing, explaining to them as she did so why she was being so generous. Kerri thought this exercise was a waste, although as her mistress was quick to point out, this was what she was doing on a corporate basis by virtue of her interest payments each month.

But just in case the symbolic effect of the lesson wasn’t enough, James obeyed their mistress’s next set of instructions by cutting up all of Kerri’s cards. In addition to this was an enforced budget of £7 a day, with all their financial decisions having to be made together and Cesarina having access to their online accounts.

Following this was the inevitable asset-stripping which, understandably, had the Visa vixen feeling a little nervous, but while she was likely to lose the shirt off her back it was unlikely Cesarina was so strict she was going to take the implants from her chest. After going through her possessions and calling in an auctioneer, Cesarina was confident she could raise £2,000 by selling the tagged items, but James and Kerri resisted the proposed flogging by their monetary mistress.

James said he’d “rather get a job than sell this stuff” which in more than the way he’d meant revealed why the pair were so indebted. Kerri also refused to sell many of her ”investments”, such as the £900 bag she’d ‘invested’ in. But, as Cesarina pointed out, this wasn’t an investment, it was a debt in the shape of a £900 bag. This also applied to £34,000 debt in the shape of a BMW Beamer that was parked next to the other convertible that Kerri couldn’t part with as she wanted ‘the best of anything’. With an attitude and car like that, it was no surprise when Cesarina fitted Kerri with a tracking device so she could be monitored 24 hours a day.

The next stage in installing discipline in Kerri was an attempt to show the superficial and ultimately pointless nature of her desire for image. Kerri had to discern a designer bag from a high street one, which, unsurprisingly, she was unable to do – but then she wasn’t alone. When the bags were shown to people on the street (the people Kerri the ‘model’ was most likely to spend her time mixing with), they too were unable to tell the difference or which was the most expensive-looking. As Cesarina pointed out, many celebs wear high-street attire, and besides this try and blag as much free stuff as possible. Some of them probably even take advantage of the firm Holm-Kander mentioned that offered designer bags for a £30 monthly hire fee.

But the final test of Kerri’s newly found obedience was a spot of entrapment. Could she resist the ultimate accessory of the conspicuously consumptive: a pampered pooch as carried by the likes of Paris Hilton?

Knowing of Kerri’s desire for a £1000 pug puppy, Cesarina had a secret meeting with James (in the front of a parked car for added furtive authenticity) to inform him of her cunning plan. James was to take Kerri to her pedigree chum to see if he could use a pug to make a mug of her. Four hidden cameras were recording the occasion with James attempting to entice Kerri. However, she refused to take the bait, worrying that she didn’t want Cesarina to “lose respect for me or be told off”. Right on cue after this display of submission, Cesarina rang Kerri to congratulate her for not giving in to temptation.

By the end of the first month Cesarina had saved the couple £9845, although this sum was perhaps less impressive when taken into account the £7900 that had been saved by selling one of the cars. Much of the advice Holm-Kander had given (organise your bills, pay them on time) was the practical advice you’d expect a layman to offer, and when the financial expert told them that all they had to do to clear the remaining £31,155 was carry on with £7 a week budget for the next two years you had to wonder if it wasn’t just Kerri with the tenuous grip of financial reality.

But then this hadn’t all been about financial gains, and the experience had taught Kerri and James lessons about each other. The psychology student had learnt she can’t have everything she wants and James had learnt his woman can be tamed, but then what else would you expect a dominatrix to teach you?

Guys and Dolls: C5, 11pm, 10 October.

One of the best things about having a psychology degree is being able to watch cheap, exploitative television programs about sub-groups and doing so with a clean conscience.

Psychologists probably have a word for that type of behaviour.

They doubtless also have a term for the behaviour of the men featured in C5’s ‘extraordinary people’ series, which focussed on four men and their special relationships.

With life-size dolls.

But let’s not rush to mock these guys. Let’s take a leisurely approach and gradually poke fun over a 1500-word article.

As anyone who’s gone through a dry spell knows, finding that special partner can sometimes be tricky. So thank God for the Californian dream factory pimping out the pumped-up women for those fellas struggling to find love and companionship with ‘organic’ women.

The program focussed on a series of American men and their real-life Barbies but, before us Brits get too smug, they also had a Dorset local on there. Although the individual circumstances of each man were presented in turn, parallels could be drawn between all four: an almost morbid fear of being alone, issues over control and reliability in a relationship, and a perceived incapability of living up to the expectations of women.

The oddly named Davecat featured first. Davecat still lives with his parents, which he found a little embarrassing, unlike his predilection for his blow up beau Sidore. Being a mid-western American, Davecat’s father was obviously not tolerant enough to accept his son’s relationship with Polythene Pam and considered it ‘unnatural and strange’. Clashes would often occur and, as a consequence, Sidore spent 99.9% of her time in Davecat’s room. But then you wouldn’t think there’d be much point in Davecat’s mom setting her daughter-in-law a place at the dinner table.

Davecat’s plastic fetish had started at an early age after his mother had taken him to a downtown store and found him talking to a mannequin with a tennis skirt. He admired their "beauty and stoicism" and sense of being "incorruptible".

But that’s not to say he hadn’t had a bloody good go at corrupting his latest.

To start with, his relationship with Sidore had been "sex, sex, sex", but had tapered off to just laying close by and appreciating her. Davecat had made half-hearted attempts with ‘organic’ women but had been unable to tolerate the "lack of constancy", unlike his situation with Sidorie. She was like an anchor, unlike real women, which was not surprising as being an inanimate object means a plastic doll has a lot in common with other inanimate objects.

However, he faced an impending separation from his love as she needed repairs after going all loose and floppy over the years (it’ll happen to you at some point, Davecat). Sidore would be away for three weeks which was the longest they’d been apart. Being alone was something he didn’t want to think about, although if he known the man he’d entrusted his true love to then their time apart would be even more unsettling, although perhaps not as much as the "second honeymoon" he’d promised Sidore on her return...

As soon as the camera panned around 50-year old computer technician’s Evarard’s house, you could see he had a thing for models, and this was before we’d come face-to-face with his lovers. Model airplanes hung from the ceiling, demonstrating that the man was clearly a dab hand at patching things up with an Airfix kit.

The production team had obviously arrived early at Evarard’s house as ‘Virginia’ was sleeping when they got there, but this wasn’t too inconvenient once he changed her eyes from the sleeping set to the awake ones. Everard cooed as he described how she just lay there and was so "very static" and didn’t move at all, but that was unsurprising considering Virginia was made out of plastic. And she had her closed eyes in.

The nearest he’d got to a girlfriend was a wren from the Royal Navy who’d taken dance lessons and was "quite fit" although, ever the fetishist, he was disappointed she didn’t wear the uniform when he met her. Evarard didn’t go into the specifics as to why the wren had flown, but had some generalisations as to why women don’t flock to him. He considered attractive women to be "unattainable", perceived himself as an "outsider" and that all women reacted negatively to him before he’d even said anything. Which is just as well if decided to enter into a conversation about the tricky subject of his alternative lifestyle.

To counter the negative perceptions Everard had taken up hang-gliding to distinguish him from the common man on the street, with the expectation that women would be naturally attracted to guys who do exciting things, although this hadn’t worked out either. If you ask me, he was going about it the wrong way: if he wanted to demonstrate his alpha maleness he should have casually slipped into the conversation that he was currently living with a couple of beautiful models.

As with Davecat, Everard was keen to stress the companionship angle to his latex loves. His mother had died eleven years ago and he’d clearly been unable to grieve and move on from his loss. Admitting that it "doesn’t make sense when your mother dies" he said he’d "probably" prefer it if he had a real woman in his life, but "sooner the dolls than no female company at all".

As he poignantly, if a tad self-pityingly, put it:

"I’m 50 years old. Losing my hair. I’ll never get a real woman that would look like this [his model]. A real doll will love me, no matter what."

So despite the subject matter, the program had been able to engender some sympathy for these lost souls.

Until it came to Gordon.

If anyone in the program met most people’s stereotype of a sex-doll user it was him.

Although his issues over control and dependency were similar to the others, his was the most misogynistic attitude of the featured men, and considered sleeping with a woman who’d had the audacity to have intercourse with another man before him as "like going to a restaurant and being served regurgitated meat".

His biological father had left him after six months and he’d been raised by his mother in Virginia (the place, not Evarard’s partner). Perhaps as a consequence of this Gordon was quick to emphasise the transitory nature of human relationships ("how many friends do you have from when you’re five or six years old?") and how it influenced his preference for plastic.

But leaving aside Gordon’s early attachment difficulties, his experiences in adult life had reinforced his preference for inanimate companions. He’d met a woman at a party and despite his perceived unattractiveness ("bad skin, bad teeth") had gotten talking to her and passed on his number. A couple of weeks later she called to ask him over to her place. To babysit while she went out with another man. Wicked, wicked woman!

Gordon had taken this rather hard, although he was at least able to look on the bright side by reflecting on the money he’d save at Christmas by not having to buy her any presents.

Perturbed by the unpredictability of human relationships, Gordon no longer had to worry about "lies and deceit" with his dolls, which gave him peace of mind.

Plus there were the obvious sexual advantages (no pregnancy or disease), although at least with real-life women you don’t have to take a puncture-repair kit on a date. Unless you know they cycled there.

As Jean-Luc Godard once quipped about movies, all you need is a girl and a gun, and Gordon had two of the former and three of the latter, which coupled with his Astroglide lubricant and two-handed broadsword made him his "own God" in his fantasy world. His dolls were worth everything to him, to the point he was planning on having them buried with him, although for the sake of a relatively dignified service I hope he chooses to leave his sword outside of the coffin when the time arrives.

The valley of the dolls responsible for all this latex love was situated in California, who ship around seven dolls a week worldwide. Even by their standards they had various unnatural requests to deal with, such as pregnant dolls (Gordon clearly hadn’t placed that order) or an eighty-year old doll (maybe Evarard was looking for a substitute for his mother). One had even asked for pubic hair going up to the belly button and the lower back, although they’d refused this request on the grounds they "had to draw the line somewhere". However, that didn’t stop them from sending the customer the pubic hair necessary for some DIY doll-work.

Doll creator Matt was flattered his creations were able to fill such an emotional space in the lives of his customers, considering the dolls to function like insoles function in shoes. For those guys incapable of talking to girls, opined Matt, "sex with a rubber doll is better than never having sex at all". Which all us guys would agree with. Wouldn’t we?!

Sharing a similar tenuous grip on reality was Slade, who was the maintenance man when the dolls needed their annual service. Some of Slade’s work were minor things such as replacing teeth. Or vaginal lips. In fact the model he was working on at that moment had what looked like to him as a "destroyed vagina". Of particular concern to Davecat, considering he was repairing Sidore, was Slade’s confession that he’d had sex with a couple of the dolls entrusted to his care. The bounder!

But just to prove the show was giving an equal platform for both men and women to demonstrate their psychological flaws, on came Slade’s girlfriend Rebecca. Unbelievably, she had been jealous of the dolls when she first started dating him, feeling intimidated by what she perceived to be their "physical perfection". However, as time passed she had gotten over this jealous phase, seeing the dolls as just "a very high form of masturbation".

Which is where Mike came in.

As the only man featured who was bridging the gap between fantasy and reality by having sexual contact with a real life woman, and perhaps not coincidentally, Mike was pretty upfront about his dolls functioning as an outlet for his 3am hard-ons. Unlike other guys who had Harleys, sex was his hobby, and the dolls provided sexual outlets for Mike, the latex Lou Bega, who even had his own eight-woman harem of individually named honeys:

A little bit of Wendy in his life
A little bit of Sandy by his side
A little bit of Misty’s all he’d need
A little bit of Christy’s what he see
A little bit of Jazzy in the sun
A little bit of Lexy, his number 1.

Trumpet!

Complicating matters for Mike was his burgeoning relationship with Texan lovely Jodie and the realisation that although sex with the dolls "can be awesome, [they] provide zero companionship". Jodie seemed admirably open-minded about Mike’s activities, but as she had met him via the Internet and he turned out not to be a serial killer then she’d probably consider his doll fetish as a bit of a result.

Mike saw the possibility of wedding bells and used his birthday as an opportunity for Jodie to ‘meet the prosthetics’ leading to a particularly memorable exchange as Jodie met his harem for the first time:

Jodie: Do you use all eight?
Mike: No. Just one at a time!
Jodie: I need a beer!

Jodie liked the fact that he’d opened up to her and took his doll fetish as just being a part of who he is, but if she ever found out he preferred sex with dolls over women she’d "break it off" (I don't think she was referring to his penis..." as she requires more at this point in her life.

So a happy ending. Or perhaps not.

A week after the birthday surprise, Jodie decided to end it. But then she’d probably found out the truth about the kind of man who has sex with inflatable dolls.

They’re notorious for letting their women down.

Eggheads, BBC2, 6.00 pm, 15 September 2006.

If there’s one thing the television producer and the psychologist have in common it’s a chequered history in defining exactly what ‘intelligence’ is. Any standard introductory psychology textbook will detail the problems psychometric testers have had in attempting to measure intelligence, and the over-valued status attached to IQ tests (the only thing the tests are guaranteed to measure reliably is an individual’s ability at taking IQ tests).

As an example of the meaninglessness of IQ scores, take the following example. Madonna is reputed to have an IQ of 140 (the average is 100), yet this didn’t prevent her from marrying Guy Ritchie, choosing to star in the career-ending shocker that was Swept Away or recording that bloody awful cover version of American Pie.

In televisual terms, intelligence seems to come down to nothing more than rote memory recall, the ability to use semantic memory (the memory of facts and concepts) to remember all sorts of pointless information such as the capital city of Venezuela being Caracas. Now unless you’re in Venezuela and need to get to your country’s embassy as a matter of urgency, knowing this simple fact will not be of much use to you, nor knowing another several thousand similar useless facts. Yet, in TV terms, knowing the scores of all the FA Cup finals somehow equates to being Einstein.

Still, the quiz show is the staple food of television producers, mainly because they’re cheap and fast to film with multiple episodes being recorded back-to-back. They’re also relatively amusing to watch with the family, as various members take turns to make idiots of themselves by blurting out the wrong answer to such questions as what the capital city of Venezuela is.

Currently running in the ‘unbuckle the jeans and let the dinner go down’ timeslot on BBC2 at 6pm is Eggheads, featuring "the most formidable quiz team in Britain" or, as they’re described in the TKK household, the least charismatic quiz team in Britain (and that’s saying something). The team are so dull that I’ve given them insulting comedic nicknames just to liven them up.

First up is Judith Keppel (‘Posh’), the first winner on Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? Her main distinguishing feature is that she pulls a face like a constipated owl whenever she has to think hard about a question.

Next is Kevin Ashman (‘Bus-driver’), a former winner of Mastermind and a man so nondescript he could live in your house for seven years before you noticed him.

After Busdriver is CJ De Mooi (‘Boss-eye’), whose one distinguishing feature is being the weakest link on the team and the Egghead the opposing teams relentlessly go far, sensing easy meat. And he’s not sensitive about it all. Not one little bit.

The penultimate member of the team is Daphne Fowler (‘Dentures’), two time winner of Fifteen to One, and whose distinguishing feature is not having one.

The final member is the unofficial daddy of the team, Christopher Hughes (Amos Brealy as designed by Frank Oz), whose distinguishing feature is his catchphrase "I’m still the reigning International Mastermind champion", which epitomises the smug condescension that oozes from him like sweat from a builder’s arse-crack. Just for the record, there hasn’t been another International Mastermind since 1983 and he isn’t being the least bit self-aware when he says it.

The format is as follows: five-person quiz teams "pit their wits" against the Eggheads. There are initially four rounds before the fifth and final round. In the first four rounds the challenging team are informed of the theme the questions for the round will be on (e.g. sport, history). They select one person from their team to answer the questions, who then chooses a member of the Eggheads to compete against on an individual basis. No conferring is allowed and the loser is ruled out of the final round, in which the remaining members of each team compete on a group basis and are allowed to confer. Each contestant and Egghead has three questions to answer, with a forced choice between three possible answers. If the scores are tied at the end of the round the questions go to sudden death, but with no answers provided.

Before going onto the rollercoaster ride that was the quiz, a word about the competing team for the episode I watched. It takes a lot to make the Eggheads look charismatic, but Black Country boys the ‘Lump-hammers’ managed it in style. Their names alone are enough to suggest the boys’ blandness: Paul, Tony, Gary, Ken, Graham (Did their parents have some form of allergy to syllables?).

The team also committed the cardinal sin of quiz by having such a shit name for their team. Anyone who’s taken part in a pub quiz knows the aim is to have give your team the most ridiculous name possible, so the compere looks like a complete arse when he has to read the scores at the end of each round:

"The Blue Team have 4, The Red Team have 6, and The Urine is Running Uncontrollably Down My Leg Team have no points and no chance of winning whatsoever."

Trust me: after a couple of drinks it’s a hoot an’ a holler.

The first subject is geography and the Egghead was Posh.

Sample question:

The tower called the Scot monument is the feature of which British city?

a) Edinburgh
b) Cardiff
c) Belfast

And no, it’s not a trick question. It really was that insultingly easy.

With questions like the above, it was no surprise all were answered correctly and the scores were tied at 3-3, meaning the round went into sudden death. With no clues as to the answer, the contestants now have to recall rather than recognise the answer. This really sorts out the eggs from the Eggheads.

But Posh loses and, like her namesake, she won’t be seen anywhere when it comes to the grand final.

The next round was arts and books, so step forward Big Daddy Amos to flex the mental muscle.

Sample question:

Which member of the Beatles in 1997 released a symphonic work called Standing Stone?

a) George Harrison
b) Paul McCartney
c) Ringo Starr

Hilariously, the smug twat got the answer wrong with his unnecessarily prefaced answer of "the late George Harrison" (just in case anyone wasn’t aware George died five years ago).

Unfortunately, the Lumphammers fail to take advantages of Amos’s cock-up, and they too had lost a member for the final.

As the quiz progresses, what becomes evident is that for a significant proportion of the time the Eggheads don’t instantly know the answer. Taking advantage of the forced choice format, they tend to go through the answers and eliminate the ones they know are wrong, before arriving at an answer they think is correct, rather than know for certain.

The next round was entertainment, and step forward Mr Bus-driver to entertain you.

Sample question:

Who played the role of Danny Zuko in the stage musical of Greece the first time?

a) Jeff Bridges
b) Al Pacino
c) Richard Gere

Again, Bus-driver wasn’t 100% sure what the answer was, but revealingly commented that "the only name [I have] associated with Greece is Richard Gere". Again the ‘intelligence’ on display was simple associations rather than knowledge.

Bus-driver ran his opponent over, and the Lumphammers (or ‘Lumps’ for short) had lost another man for the final.

The penultimate round was history, and being a history graduate I was looking forward to pitting my wits at home against Dentures. Fat chance.

Sample question:

Which criminal of the Old West was shot by Pat Garrett?

a) Doc Holliday
b) Jesse James
c) Billy the Kid

I didn’t need my history degree for this one; having watched Sam Peckinpah’s Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid was sufficient to give me the answer. As Dentures is around 86, she clearly had an advantage when it came to history and defeated her opponent. That meant there were just two Lumps left for the final.

In the final round the topic is general knowledge, with four Eggs competing against two Lumps. At this point the numerical advantage should come into play, but not with questions as straightforward as the following example:

Which member of the royal family was engaged to Koo Stark?

a) Edward
b) Charles
c) Andrew

Unsurprisingly, again, there were no wrong answers until it came to the final question with the scores at two apiece. For the deciding question the teams were given a line taken from a nursery rhyme:

"Lady bird, lady bird, who hides under the pan?"

To have a chance of beating the Eggheads, the Lumps had to guess who hid under the pan. Was it:

a) Anne
b) Agnes
c) Alison

As nursery rhymes were clearly not their forte, and neither was lateral thinking, the team was completely stumped, but they still had a one in three chance of guessing correctly.

They chose Alison.

Falsehood!

The correct answer was Anne, as the Eggheads successfully guessed. But the reasons as to why they chose their answer revealed the secret of their success: Anne had been chosen because it rhymes with pan, which, being as it was taken from a nursery rhyme, was a common sense logical deduction.

So, as for many of the questions, the Eggheads hadn’t displayed awe-inspiring mental gymnastics but simply used common