Telly Hell

What is going on in Britain? We’re all cracking up and going mad – MAD I tell you.

I know why we are going mad – and I have a cure. The people of Britain will not like it one iota but in my view, you sometimes have to be cruel to be kind.

My plan is to purge our television of all programmes that turn people into dribbling imbeciles whose common sense seems to take a holiday for the duration of the garbage they are watching.

What has caused this outburst, I hear you cry?

I was reading about what people like to complain about on the TV and I came across an article that said a number of people had complained about the use of the phrase “soggy bottom” on a programme that seems to have turned the UK into a bunch of maniacs. The programme is called “The Great British Bake Off” and is basically a cookery programme where amateur bakers compete against each other to win some form of pathetic prize – what the prize is, I don’t know – I would never watch such rubbish.

The programme should be removed from prime time telly because, quite frankly, it turns people into brainless goons who find excitement in truly awful entertainment; some people become obsessed with such trash telly and feel the need to write about how the phrase "soggy bottom" upsets them enough to write a bloody letter to the BBC.

What is wrong with these people?

What turns normal every day pleasant and intelligent people into these sad obsessed complainers?

I'll tell you the answer: programmes made in telly hell.

Here are some programmes or types of programmes that I would relegate to the early hours on an obscure television channel or, better still, wipe off the face of the earth, in order to save humanity.

Cookery Programmes

Cookery programmes should be relegated to a specialist channel and not be shown all day every day (or so it seems). Such programmes are becoming more prevalent every single second of every single day, making celebrities out of bizarre people like Jamie Oliver, Anthony Worrall Thompson and Delia Smith. Such shows have turned these so-called celebrities into megalomaniacs – like this:



Yes – Delia claims she wasn’t drunk but wanted to use her “status” to get the crowd behind her favourite football team simply because of who she was.

She just made a fool of herself and of those who thought such a rant was a good idea.

Soap Operas

Soap operas do not reflect real life – if they did then society would break down into total anarchy, particularly if real life reflected soaps like Eastenders.

I have a confession; I used to watch Eastenders, Coronation Street and Brookside religiously (as they are on all the time or so it seems). Thankfully, I had a Eureka moment on 5th July 1991 and said to myself “Hang on! What the flump am I doing watching a programme where every character is a flawed arse who wants to con, shag or kill everyone else?”

Soaps are responsible for inflicting Jason Donavon and Kylie Minogue on us. Thanks Australia for Neighbours and Home and Away. And what about Dallas and Dynasty? America is just as culpable.

And of course, I am absolutely certain that we are totally blameworthy for inflicting Eastenders on our American and Australian friends, making them all believe that every cockney is a depressed gangster who screams at every other one and then kill themselves.

Talent Shows

The X Factor is still on for what seems like the gazillionth year. It is a show that dominates Saturday and Sunday night television, exposes us repeatedly to Simon effing Cowell and his equally talentless judges, and presents to us a bunch of lame karaoke singers who are “on a journey”, “have a deep trauma in their lives” and who all sing shit songs in the style of a bad boy band singer or in a bad impersonation a croaking warbling oversinger. Equally deplorable are The Voice, the BBC equivalent, and Britain’s Got Talent, a show that unequivocally proves that Britain has NO talent whatsover.

Such shows are gold dust for tabloids because they fill their pages with bilge about the contestants - which is apt really because I would probably ban tabloids too.

Reality TV Shows

I do not want to watch Z list celebrities trying to dance on a Saturday night in Strictly Come Dancing. Nor am I remotely interested in any other Z list celebrities who want to be dumped into a jungle in Australia. The only time I would be interested would be if they exiled Piers Morgan on a desert island – but only enough to see his smug face crumble when he realised that there would be no cameras to film him, he wouldn't actually get paid and he had to stay there for six months.

I am equally uninterested in the bunch of oversexed Geordies trying to get their end away in Geordie Shore and a bunch of posh pratts in Made in Chelsea.

I can got to the city centre late on a Saturday night to watch that kind of garbage.

Freak Shows

If I woke up and discovered that I had piled on 500 lbs or developed and embarrassing and totally horrendous bodily ailment that made me look like The Elephant Man, I would immediately call the hospital and beg them to fix me behind closed doors. I would not ring Channel 4 and say “Can I be a contestant on Embarrassing Bodies” and subject the entire horror of my condition to the whole of the UK, including showing the full gory details of all operation I need to rectify the situation.

Mrs PM is a sucker for these kind of programmes and usually watches them when it is my turn to cook (having recorded them the previous week). When I walk into the lounge, I then find myself confronted with my tellybox showing me an explicit operation, complete with blood and gore, of a man just at the point where the surgeon is going to puncture his swollen scrotum. I look at my plate and see a lovely meal but the sight of a bloated ballsack about to be sliced somehow turns me off my dinner and makes me want to throw up.

That is not entertainment.

And Finally...

There are lots more programmes I want to consign to TV Hell. I will tell you more in a future post.

Over to you, dear reader.

What TV programmes make your blood boil?

Which TV programmes would you consign to TV Hell?

Am I being weird in my choice or am I the crazy one?

Actually – perhaps you shouldn’t answer that last question.