Londoners Magazine

I slightly disapprove of television. When I was eight my folks got rid of the Terry family set in the hope that it would encourage my sister and I to make our own entertainment.

In fact, we became social outcasts and, frustrated, turned on each other using Monopoly sets and improving books as weapons. Mrs and Mr T eventually relented when I was 13 and bought another box. However, the knowledge that one could live, if not quite happily, then at least, without television has stuck with me and I’ve never owned a TV.

“But, one can learn so much from television” I imagine you crying. Nature documentaries! Subtle comedies that reveal our inherent prejudices as a society! The way colour television changed our concept of war!

All very well and good, if your tastes tend that way. But my taste in television is still that of the denied eight year old. It is low, very low and oh so trashy.

Big Brother? Bring it on. Big Brother’s Little Brother? I’m there. Big Brother’s Little Brother’s Half Sister’s Dog? Try and tear me away from the set.

See also: You Are What You Eat, Too Fat Too Toddle, Fat Camp (in fact anything sizest, my therapist could tell you why), Corrie, Big Benders, Diagnosis Murder, Jeremy Kyle… nothing is too low brow for me. Except Hollyoaks, obviously.

Which is why I was delighted yesterday by Britain’s Got Talent. What more could one hope for in a programme? The acts included Tracey Lee Collins: an overweight drag act; Kate and Gin: a dog dancing duo (Kate’s mum: “She doesn’t have that many human friends but she wouldn’t have it any other way”), and Phil Blackmore, who’s act mainly consisted of balancing a barbeque on his chin.

The public vote was won by Signature, a Michael Jackson impersonating two-some, about whom Simon Cowell commented: “What you have is originality”. Fabulous.

And these are only the semi-finals, there will be another live show every night this week. Sod this girl-about-town malarkey I know where I’m going to be at 8:30pm tonight.

Actually, television is brilliant. What I disapprove of is myself.