Looks like the space-hopping creative types at C4 and ITV have been going into air slamdunking overdrive based on their upcoming autumn schedules. ITV are promising to revive their ad revenues fortunes by rolling out the ‘stars’, namely Ant & Dec, Simon Cowell and Helen Mirren. Now I can’t think where they might have plucked those names from. C4 is promising such highlights as Ian Wright’s Supersize Kids, where he attempts to get fat kids to stop stuffing and start huffing and puffing themselves into shape (un-supersize me, anyone?); they also have the mouth-watering Star Stories, which promises to take the piss out of such stars as Jude Law, Boy George and George Michael. Completely unnecessary programming, seeing as just by continuing to exist these three are already taking the piss out of themselves on a second by second basis.

Granted, this could possibly be BBC bias in revealing their rivals’ schedules to be bereft of ideas and, frankly, complete dog shit, but based on the evident idea re-tread you can’t blame the Beeb for bias.

ITV has been the televisual equivalent of the frontal lobotomy for as long as I can remember, but what the fuck has happened to C4? I don’t know if it’s just me, but C4 seems to have lost its edge ever since Mary Whitehouse snuffed it in 2001 and watched her last ever Polish arthouse documentary about existential meanderings and societal contradictions, which managed to pack in a surprisingly large amount of female nipples considering its philosophical premise.

It’s bad enough that the channel is ever more like the UK arm of HBO due to its dependence on American imports for peaktime programming, without thinking how long the next Big Brother series will run for next year. If the next one is as drawn out as BB7 then it risks there being more people who’ve been in the BB household than actually watch it on TV.

Reading through some of the planned programs for this autumn it’s hard to believe that C4’s original remit was to provide an alternative to mainstream viewing. The market for obscure Polish arthouse documentaries may well have bottomed out now teenage boys can readily access the Internet and get their knuckle-shuffle material elsewhere, but ever more celebrity programming masquerading as irreverence or lifestyle/health TV is about as welcome as bringing back TFI Friday, having Jim Davidson as co-host and making it four hours long.

I never thought I’d say this, but I find myself agreeing with Mary Whitehouse about C4’s offensive content, although if she was still alive I think we’d disagree over which programmes could be more accurately labelled a ‘wankfest’…

The National Lottery Show - BBC1

A reliable indicator that something is rotten in the House of TKK is when I start buying lottery tickets. That I’ve signed up online for a standing order for the rest of the year says a lot about my current overdraft mood.

Now there’s no shortage of killjoys warning of the inevitable socioeconomic dislocation that results from the sudden influx of millions of pounds into the bank account. Fuck ‘em. I can appreciate the social alienation if you’re in your mid 50s and have been working the factory line all your life, but being a lottery winner at 30 seems the perfect time to hit the jackpot.

The opportunity while young to disown your family, go out with Kate Moss for a week, hang out on Roman Abramovich’s yacht and turn up to the school reunion in a suit made of gold is too much of a dream to pass on. Not to mention that with my newly acquired millions I’d be able to fulfil my ambition of being a backbench MP in a safe Tory seat, and being a thoroughly disreputable old cad to boot.

A far more compelling argument against the Lottery is the undeserving causes some of the money goes to, and after watching BBC 1’s Saturday night lottery show I have to agree. I’m totally supportive when I hear about a group of 30something women being funded by the Lottery so they can exhibit their placenta artwork, but I draw the line at the National Lottery benefiting the likes of Dale Winton.

The show itself is a complete wasted opportunity and hardly the Dionysian spectacle it deserves to be. After all, we are marking the moment when some lucky bastard becomes a multi-millionaire. The show could be lines of dancing girls, Ant & Dec juggling swords, pyrotechnics galore. Instead we get a piss-poor quiz show presented by Dale Winton. Which drags on and on. I’m all for a bit of foreplay, but this is nothing less than gratuitous prick-teasing. Just get to the goddamn money shot! If I want to see a lameass quiz show with a camp host I’d watch the Camp Quiz Network on Sky Channel 7494442.

Finally, the main draw started, and fuck me if the first two numbers didn’t happen to be from my own sextet. At this point my heart pounded as I visualised myself as the tweed wearing Member of Parliament for Buckinghamshire-on-the-Foxhunt, whipping animal rights campaigners at the weekends and siring a whole horde of bastard children with the downstairs cooks.

Unfortunately for my future constituents, the next five numbers were not ones I’d chosen. If I’d had a ticket I would have ripped it up at this point, but as I’d purchased it online I had to make do with ripping up my degree certificate.

And when you’ve just missed out on your ultimate fantasy, the last thing you want to see is Dale Winton’s fat face grinning at you from your TV. I must make a point of releasing the hounds should I ever see him at one of my future country parties…

Television these days seems to be the next stage in the war against the terrors. Police, Parliament, the press and now TV have united in the campaign to install RESPECT! into the feckless bastards. If the underclass thought having a kosher TV license meant they could watch the box in peace then think again.

Years of watching Rikki, Jeremy, Jerry, Montel et al have led to my becoming desensitised with the plight of the underclass, although occasionally I wipe away the odd biscuit crumb tear when watching from the comfort of my bed. Continually railed against for representing all that’s fucked in society, it’s worth remembering that the underclass are not responsible for Enron, the Poll Tax, the Iraq war, al-Queda, the congestion charge, arms to Israel, arms to Hezbollah, or the Beatles splitting up.

Eerily in step with the present Government’s surveillance culture, Trisha excels in the mish-mash of the scientific and the psychobabble these shows love: polygraphs (lie ‘detectors’) DNA tests and a body language ‘expert’ are now as prominently featured on the show as the bad teeth and trackie bottoms.

Apart from the DNA test, (always worth checking to see if the DNA in question is of human origin), why such dubious methods as the polygraph are employed is beyond me. When you have an episode called "Loverat partner shagged my sister and she fuckin’ loved it!", then you don’t need a polygraph to tell you that the bloke on stage might well be a two-timing wanker.

Most of the real life dilemmas on Trisha are depressingly similar, although one I recently saw had me reaching for the antidepressants.

Sister B wanted a drop a sprog, but didn’t appear to have a regular partner(s) to help her out. Sister A generously suggested a sperm donation from her partner to help Sister B get pregnant, which seemed like the sisterly thing to do. There was just one problem with the arrangement:

The delivery method employed to transfer the sperm from Sister A’s partner to Sister B.

Rather than a five knuckle shuffle, a petri dish and a turkey baster, Sister A’s partner had decided on the conventional route to impregnating Sister B. And who could blame him: ejaculating onto a petri dish is just so degrading for a man.

Now Sister A must have been either incredibly confident of her partner’s virility, or a bit thick, because she didn’t have a problem with this as she assumed Sister B would be up the duff after just one session in their caravan.

Surprisingly enough, 20+ times later Sister B still didn’t seem to be any closer to getting pregnant. But practice does make perfect.

Now the men on Trisha always merit a description, if only for further evidence of the sheer injustice in the world today. Here I am going through a sexual drought which I can only attribute to global warming, and some bastard is leaving his lawn sprinkler on overnight on not just one but two sisters. They really should impose a hose-pipe ban on these people.

To totally rub it in, the Romeo in question looked like Hulk Hogan, minus the steroids and the suntan. Now if there was a part of the Hulkster I was going to emulate, it probably wouldn’t be the haircut. Yes to the cocaine habit, the tan and the yellow wrestling pants, but a definite no to the haircut.

Just as I thought I had enough diazepam to get me through the show, on came the Hulkster’s daughter (did I mention he was twice as old as the sisters he was screwing?). If Sister A wanted another good reason why her partner was not the best person as the sperm donor, besides the fact it might complicate her relationships with her partner and sister, Daughter of Hulk was it.

Amazingly, Daughter of Hulk (or DOH for short) defended her feckless dad. I know he gave her life, but that was twenty years ago.

As ever, Trish thought a healthy dose of psychobabble would save the day and started talking about the Hulkster needing to respect ‘boundaries’ between the two sisters. Frankly, it wasn’t boundaries they needed between them all but borders.

As I cracked open another Tenants Super, in a moment of clarity, I remembered that this was someone’s real life and that after the credits rolled, for these people, if not for me, the five inch roots, poor dentition, hurt, secrets and lies would continue.

But as the producers of these shows say, they will be counselled after the show. Well, they’ll get their taxi fare home.

You don’t need to be a psychology graduate to see these people need more than that. They need Prozac, Valium, FSH, CBT, ECT, DLA, an NHS dentist and their roots done. Possibly a more equal society would help a bit as well.

And not to mention a little bit more ‘respect’ from the rest of us.

My Hero. BBC 1. Friday August 4. 8.30 pm.

Anyone who’s read my blog on a regular, or even infrequent, basis would be of the opinion that being cynical and disliking stuff comes natural to me. Which it does. But, occasionally, there are some people who I find it hard to whip up much enmity for, even though they probably merit it. Steve Punt and Hugh Dennis are good examples of this, ‘comedians’ who’d I’d normally want to despatch with rapier-like putdowns or even a rapier, if I hadn’t handed mine in at the last knives amnesty.

But the truth is, until now, I just haven’t had the heart to do it. Whenever I see them it’s like they metamorphasize into puppies in a pet shop window, and I’m compelled to give them a doggy biscuit and pat them on the head.

However, after watching the latest episode of My Hero, not only do I feel more than ready to put them down, but I could probably ‘put down’ a few pups while I’m at it.

For this series Ardal O’Hanlon has been replaced by James Dreyfus, a casting choice that Father Dougal would acknowledge could only have been made by a feckin’ eejit. I appreciate that Dreyfus might not want to get typecast in roles playing an incredibly camp gay man but, let’s be honest, it’s the kind of performance that does seem to come quite naturally to him. I don’t think Dreyfus could do straight even after he snuffs it and rigor mortis set in. But taking this casting decision a little further, does this mean that Robson Green and Gary Kemp are going to feel they are being typecast as always playing white men in TV and start auditioning for Jamaican Yardies in The Bill? If they did decide to shake up their typical script choices they’d manage this ethnicity transition more convincingly than Dreyfus does playing it straight. Rock Hudson he ain’t.

But the choice of casting wouldn’t be such a problem for the episode if it’s central theme didn’t revolve around Dreyfus’s character’s attempts to pick up a woman. Having no success with the woman (a case of art imitating life), he notices that his object of desire likes cats and is a big pussy lover (unlike Dreyfus) and decides that if you can’t beat ‘em, then join then, and drinks a serum another character has devised which allows him to develop cat-like tendencies.

Therefore, the entire episode revolved around setups where a human does stereotypical cat behaviours, which, of course, are automatically funnee, like coughing up furballs, bringing in dead birds in his mouth and licking his posterior. Actually, the latter didn’t happen as it was pre-watershed, but you get the picture. It’s a pretty lazy plot device for getting laughs, much like the assumption that watching a celebrity do mundane things (like riding a horse) makes it automatically entertaining because a celebrity is doing it. Maybe if the woman had been a dog lover then the premise might have had more legs (so to speak), what with dogs being natural entertainers (unlike cats), but cats are just not funny. Unless they’re in microwaves.

Anyhow, the episode was predictable stuff: Dreyfus gets initial success with his pussy-esque nature until he goes too far with the dose of cat serum and ends up living in the house of an old spinster. Actually, I made the last bit up, but when you do chase after women who like cats then that’s the type of woman you end up with (real straight men know this to be the case).

But what does all this have to do with Punt & Dennis? Well, just as I thought the lame cat concept couldn’t get worse, for some inexplicable reason Hugh Dennis made an appearance in the episode dressed up in drag, because when a man dresses up in drag its automatically funnee. Unless Hugh Dennis does it, at which point no man again can ever do a drag act again and be funny as it’ll only give me flashbacks of Hugh Dennis dressed up in tights and makeup. *Shudders*

So, essentially, the entire episode had a floridly camp gay man playing a straight character pretending to be a cat to get a woman and is treated for his pussy-addiction by a man dressed in drag. Only Dreyfus and Dennis could take this material and render it so bland and unfunnee. The Beeb really does need to put My Hero out of its misery, because right now the only thing they’re succeeding in doing with this show is putting its Friday night audience to sleep.

Celeb fetishism: how low can we go? Pretty far down, it would seem.

Being 30, I might not be totally down with the kids, but who the fuck are these people? And I’m talking about the presenters as well as the contestants.

Initially, I thought Les Dennis had had a stroke due to his funny accent and not so funny quips, until I checked my TV Times and found out it wasn’t Les but someone called Patrick Kielty.

Like I said, who the fuck are these people?

As for Fearne Cotton, I thought nobody could be more of an inane fuckwit than Jo Whiley.

Ms Whiley, I owe you an apology.

I realise Ant and Dec can’t present every show on ITV, but if there ever was an argument for human cloning it’s watching Kielty and Cotton in full effect. I assume that one is supposed to be funny and the other a looker, but which one? I’ve tried all possible combinations without getting a match. Is Fearne related to Dot Cotton? Based on her skin the answer would appear to be yes. If she ever needs a skin graft, Madonna's hands should provide a perfect match.

ITV may think they’re saving a format from ridicule by dropping the word ‘celebrity’ from the show’s title, but they shouldn’t have stopped there. Based on the contestants’ lecherous activities, ITV could have safely dropped the word 'love' as well as 'celebrity' from the title. Love may be an infectious disease, but so is chlamydia, and that’s more likely to be going round the contestants than anything Cupid would approve of.

But getting a fitting sobriquet for the show would also require the letters ‘sland’ being dropped from 'island', leaving a much more fitting title based on the egomania of the contestants: I (as in me, myself and).

The idle rich used to be classy. Now they’re just emotionally and intellectually-arrested buffoons. And we can’t have poor people being deprived of their role in society. Maybe the idle rich need the threat of higher taxes/estate death duties hanging over their heads (or a guillotine) to make them behave in a more entertaining fashion. Watching adults bicker like kids is as irritating as watching kids bicker like, er, kids. At least children can be smacked and sent to bed made to sit on the naughty step and not have any tea, which got me thinking as to how the Love Island concept could redeem itself.

Taking advantage of the fact that no one seems to know who these people are (therefore they won’t be noticed when they go missing) and they’re on an island, I would suggest livening things up by gradually fading out their food rations until they’re forced to turn on each other in a cannibalistic frenzy worthy of 1930s Soviet Russia, until there is just one contestant left to supervise the barby.

That way, if celebrity is going to eat itself, it really will be in a literal way.