You Are The Weakest Link! Get Lost!

Twas the night before the day of the night before Christmas or, if that is too confusing, Christmas Eve Eve. I retired at 11 pm but have trouble sleeping and whilst I was trying something popped into my head from earlier this evening. This thought made me so angry that sleep was definitely off the cards so I was back up again at midnight booting up the laptop. No apologies if this turns out to be a rant because I am sleep deprived.

Tis the season for celebrity quiz shows raising money for charity and tonight it was The Weakest Link, the reboot with Romesh Ranganathan. Bonnie Langford was on, who I have a lot of respect for since the first series of Dancing on Ice where she was the first celebrity to go for the head banger. Christopher Biggins was also on and he is everyone’s favourite especially in panto season. Danny John-Jules too, best known for Red Dwarf but I understand he is back on the first seasonal Death in Paradise special which is the only thing I have deemed worth watching this Christmas. Yet there was also someone else on the show, a person who really gets my hackles up anyway but it was something she said which riled me even more.

She was asked how many beds were in a twin room. An easy question that she got wrong – in addition to the one where the answer was pantomime – but it was the excuse she gave for getting it wrong that upset me. “I only ever stay in a suite or the penthouse.” Who would say this sort of thing? A minor royal? A mega movie star? A top music star? No! It was Gemma Collins – the self-styled G.C. – and I say who the hell does she think she is?

I hate reality TV, more than I hate Soaps. Let me put this into context. I have not seen an episode of Coronation Street since I left home in 1987. I never watched Emmerdale Farm because it was a half hour show on at lunchtime. And I never voluntarily watched an episode of Eastenders. (My sister used to watch the half hour episodes on Tuesday and Thursday on the portable in her room but then insisted on watching the omnibus edition on Sunday on the main TV when I wanted to watch The Big Match. There were no other football fans in the house so I was up against it.) I have never even contemplated watching TOWIE on any of those other poor excuses for entertainment.

Basically what reality TV has done is take ordinary people, put them in front of the camera and make them think that they are celebrities. And the stupid audience fuels the fire by watching them and treating them that way. I don’t know how TOWIE got started and I had to look up what the so called cast used to be before that show aired. I had to laugh. The person in question here used to be a car salesperson. She is not a diva, she is a female Arthur Daley with a weight problem, a big mouth and so far up herself that if she ever fell back down to earth she could wipe out the dinosaurs again.

Call me amused, because as I write this now, I have just seen that her comment above has produced a load of complaints from viewers, according to papers anyway.