Telly today – treating us all as thickos

YOU used to be able to rely on telly for a bit of light relief and entertainment – but nowadays it offers nothing but wall-to-wall tedium and has become a powerful aid to British society’s increasing stupidity and depression.

On Sunday night I looked in on Hell’s Kitchen (ITV1), expecting it to be crap – and it was.

Some young geezer with a dodgy barnet was complaining about his woman’s meat course being undercooked and that resulted in a bit of a tetchy situation with the highly strung waiter.

The chef Marco Pierre White, who has a reputation for a quick temper (yawn-yawn, how very predictable) had to deal with the young complainant and allowed him to remain in the restaurant.

Marco spoke to the guy in such a cold and arrogant way – playing up for the cameras, no doubt (more yawns, please chef!).

If I’d been the young guy I’d have lamped this imperious cook – who has a penchant for wearing preposterous tea-towels on his head.

This programme is, like all the other telly shows involving chefs, offers the most bland and unappetising of fare.

However, it wasn’t quite as congealed and rancid as a so-called comedy offering on BBC3, Horne & Corden. I think it was a repeat but it is so hard to tell these days – when everything has become contemptibly familiar through damnable reiteration.

One sketch, towards the end of the show, was bizarre, but not in a funny way. Horne & Corden – both over-exposed and overrated – played at being psychic magicians trying to summon horses onto their stage show. Err, that was it.

They got down on all fours and started whinnying like horses. Pathetic. Doesn’t the Beeb have anyone vaguely normal to check these shows for basic quality and comprehension before they are transmitted?

And I see that ITV1 has brought back the moron-fodder known as Beat The Star. This is another example of telly for adults being so stupid and banal in its content that you would think it was aimed at children.

I saw about five minutes of some sub-Gladiators nonsense about an ordinary punter from a sugar beet factory shimmying up a long plastic tube in competition with the rugby player turned telly dancing tart, Austin Healey.

Then I turned off because “after the break” they were clearly going to mess about in mud in funny little karts… like big kids.

The show was puerile nonsense that treated its studio audience like idiots, which to be fair, they probably were … judging by all the silly shrieking they were doing.

I would honestly say to anyone, if you want to improve your life 100 per cent instantly then simply turn your telly off and go out … for a walk … to visit your auntie … to go to the pub – anything but watch the shameful bilge that is modern television.

And if the weather is too inclement for going out, then go to your bathroom and clean the grouting and / or the lavatory bowl – because that will be more entertaining and better for your mind, heart and soul that watching TV.

I am thinking of devoting fewer of these postings to TV-related matter, which I regard as beneath contempt and hardly worthy of the attention of someone with a brain as big as mine.

Besides which, the vapid "personalities" on TV are simply not cool enough to be in my gang.

A twisted anthem to the topsy-turvy values of the BBC

EVEN as a one-off, sugar-coated musical morality play All the Small Things (BBC1 Tue) would have been a waste of time and money.

But it's been stretched into a six-parter. Incredible!

Saucy woman singer with cone-to-bed eyes and the badly dubbed voice of an angel (Sarah Alexander) walks into a happy-clappy local church choir and immediately the weak-willed choirmaster (Neil Pearson) falls in lust with her.

You can tell this is a BBC drama because the main male character (Pearson) is a vain, home-wrecking bastard, while his missus (Sarah Lancashire) is a saintly, loveable mumsy.

In the Nasty Liberal Thought Control Section of BBC Drama: Man = Bad, and Woman = Good. There can be no deviation from that formula. Off-message writers who try to portray social reality will be exterminated. Repeat. Exterminated!

And if that wasn’t enough to have you weeping into your Guardian, this crock of politically correct cack from Debbie Horsfield also had … a black guy with learning difficulties, a dwarf (female), a son with some form of autism, and two Comedy Fatties from Central Casting.

Now look… there is nothing wrong with having people in the cast of all shapes and sizes and social and cultural backgrounds, skin colour etc. But why does the BBC have to be so bloody formulaic about it? Everyone’s intelligence is being insulted.

As for storyline… er, let me see... The saintly Sarah Lancashire encourages her autistic son (Richard Fleeshman, formerly of Corrie) to be lead singer in a rock band – but only after he’s been rescued from nasty male bullies (who, obviously, in the twisted context of the BBC's La La Land, are too thick and insensitive to recognise autism).

Then, of course, in a scene of cheesy optimism, Sarah’s lad and his rock band enter a choral music competition (huh?!) – which they win.

Yes, that’s right. They beat Pearson’s choir to the top prize, after inexplicably getting the middle aged audience and judges literally dancing in the aisles! As if… Must be drugs.

Then there is the sex thang… all done Richard Curtis rom-com style. Flashing eyes, knowing smirks, the meeting in a trendy wine bar, tut-tutting by assorted old biddies on the periphery … you know the drill. BORING!