Loose Women, ITV, 12.30 p.m. 20 September 2006.

Despite the best efforts of the Government to conceal the true casualty figures, British troops are struggling to cope with the ferocity of Taliban attacks in Afghanistan. However, I have a cunning plan with which to undermine the fighting ability of the Taliban shock troops. I’d sit down with Taliban Supreme Leader Mullah Mohammad Omar and make him watch ITV’s Loose Women, because by the time we’d got to the loose morals section I’m quite sure he would recognise the need to reverse the Taliban’s opposition to educating women and insist all Afghanistani women are educated to at least doctorate level.

As part of the lightweight TV programming which makes up ITV schedules from today’s GMTV to tomorrow’s, Loose Women aims to transfer to TV the blend of features found within the magazines my mother is so fond of purchasing when she does the shopping: a bit of diet info (“lose 10 pounds while sitting on your arse eating chocolate!”); some celeb fluff (“Peter Andre on his best buy coffee machine!”); a real life story (“My son learnt maths by selling drugs!”); and, my favourite part, the problem page (“My Man keeps badgering me to have a threesome – should I?”). The answer to the latter is a definite yes, as long as it’s another woman he’s talking about bringing to the conjugal bed.

The show is reasonably anchored by main host Kaye Adams, although holed below sea level by crewmates Coleen Nolan (ex-Nolan sister and ex-Mrs Shane Ritchie), Carol McGiffin (Chris Evans’s wife before Billie Piper) and Denise Welch (ex-Corrie). What use an anchor is to a sinking ship is a moot point as, despite Adams’ best efforts to avoid icebergs, her crew is set on a constant collision course with icebergs due to their constant internecine bitching.

The show kicked off with some diet chat as Coleen talked about her non-solids diet, which was rather apposite considering the last time her BMI was in reasonable shape was during her pre-solids days. Coleen wittered on about changing her relationship to food, although you’d think the human-food relationship is pretty one way: you eat it; it doesn’t eat you. Unless it’s some form of GM killer tomato.

Rarely able to focus on a topic for long when the co-hosts fill time, the conversation set sail for distant shores. Coleen, apparently, is big in Japan, although judging by the size of her arse she’d be big in any country she chooses to visit.

With the show shipping water fast, and this being ITV, the show moved onto its premium line competition plug, with the following challenging question to win £2000:

Albert Square is the setting for which soap:

(a) Neighbours.

(b) Emmerdale.

(c) Eastenders.

I thought the government was supposed to be taking action against these kind of no-brainer £1 a minute quiz lines? It’s completely obvious to everyone that the answer to the question is Emmerdale.

Just in case the above question was a little taxing, on came first guest Todd Carty (ex-Eastenders) to jog your memory. At this point I began to wonder if Carty’s microphone was playing up as I was unable to hear anything he said due to his low-talking. To summarise, I think the conversation went something like this:

Loose women: Coo! Coo! Tucker Jenkins!
Todd Carty: Mmm, hmm, hmm, mmm.
Loose women: Coo! Coo! Mark Fowler!
Todd Carty: Mmm, hmm, hmm, mmm.

Carty was asked about his views on corporal punishment, serving as a none too subtle plug for ITV’s forthcoming ‘documentary’ I Smack and I’m Proud, which gave the girls a chance to extemporise wildly about their own personal experiences. Both Colleen and Denise were in favour of kids and smack; Carol doesn’t smack her kids, although that’s because she doesn’t have any (well not since her divorce). At this point the tension between the women re-emerged as Carol’s liberal stance was defensively met by cries of ‘you don’t have kids so you don’t know what it’s like!” With such sisterly solidarity is it any wonder the patriarchy survives?

With Carty gone and another plug for the competition, the show moved onto its version of the problem page with its loose morals segment. Neil from Manchester had written to the show as he was worried his girlfriend was a bit of a lush due to her aggressive and abusive behaviour when on the grog. How should he broach the subject with her?

Rather than an attempt at empathy, Carol, Denise and Coleen became instantly defensive as if their own drunken antics were on trial. Carol gave the advice you’d expect from an ex-wife of Chris Evans: she suggested he get inebriated with his woman so he didn’t notice her behaviour (two drunks always being better than one). She also added it was a bit much of a man to criticise his beau’s behaviour just because it "changes after a couple of drinks”. At this point the show sunk further under the weight of the hosts’ bitching, with Carol once again being the group scapegoat. Kaye accused Carol of being “stroppy and deluded” when drunk; Colleen told her she never felt concerned about leaving her “in many a gutter”; Denise, having quit the grog due to her own embarrassing behaviour, said she hates being around drunks and pretty much accused Carol of being an alcoholic (Carol: “I’m not ill.” Kaye: but you are defensive.”).

With the lifeboats at the ready, on came Monarch of the Glen actor Hamish Clark (no, me neither), so the girls could inevitably ask him about his kilt and “which part of it he wore out” on set (Denise). Clark was about as coherent as Carol on the lash, although she at least has alcohol as an excuse.

With the show a wreck on its way to Davy Jones’ locker, there was just enough time to plug the competition again with the promise that the answer would be revealed the next day, as if this was necessary. Emmerdale was so obviously the answer!

Womens’ magazines perform a valuable function, providing housebound WAGS mental relief from the interminable rounds of hoovering, doing the washing-up and getting the dinner ready for their subjugating partner. However, a live TV equivalent includes the gormless fuckwittery that a Now! editor would prevent from going to the typesetters. When the regular sections (e.g. soap star interviews) fail, the segments where the girls bitch chat amongst themselves are like watching a crew firing a cannon at its own deck.

But that’s not to say the Loose Women format doesn’t have potential: shifted to a post-watershed timeslot and with the girls allowed to get loaded in the green room before the show starts, the inevitable drunken catfight that would erupt would be preferable to the watery death the show suffers at its current midday scheduling. Until this time, in shipping terminology, if the show was a deck it would most definitely be the poop.