Talentless telly luvvies, I'm on your case ...

Let me get this right. To be regarded as 'talent' on British TV, and get paid a fortune for it, you need to: wave your hands about and say 'amazing!' a lot; be thick (or pretend to like thick people); and have your teeth whitened. Err ... that's it!

Forgive me. I’ve been watching rather too much of the stuff in recent times, because I’ve been ill. Thinking about it, I’m surprised that staring at the telly for so long, with all its energy-sapping effects, didn’t finish me off.

An author I greatly admire, John Irving, rightly satirised the medium in his superb novel A Prayer for Owen Meany. One of its characters dies in front of the TV; she’s found in the morning with her cold thumb stuck on the remote-control button that’s relentlessly roaming the channels. She’s died in a hopeless search for something good to watch.

Irving comments: “At the time, in 1989, it seemed a fairly unusual way to die. Nowadays, I suspect, more and more people are dropping off that way. And we’re still looking for something good on television. We won’t find it. There is precious little on TV that can keep us awake or alive.”

In my former life as a TV critic (as Sam Brady on ITV’s ORACLE and Teletext services), I struggled to take seriously anything I watched. And I found myself despising all the luvvies and jackass presenters I met at launches.

The one question I longed to put to the TV actors I met was this: So, you dress up and pretend to be other people for a living; now where is the dignity in that? But, of course, that’s not how the industry works. I guess I wasn’t cut out to be a TV critic – but my attitude didn’t half give my reviews an edge, and the readers seemed to love them.

Back then, in the ‘90s, I regarded television as a huge and sinful waste of creative energy. I still do. I’m mystified by the success of things like Strictly – camp tosh which encourages physical narcissism. Likewise, X Factor, with all its gormless caterwauling karaoke monkeys. As for Ninja Warrior UK, oh pur-lease!

The undoubted ratings success of the Great British Bake-Off was something I couldn’t really fathom. The show was harmless enough, I guess, but hardly exciting or about anything important. It’s main problem for me was Sue Perkins and her incredible innate smugness. I find her, and lots of other successful presenters, to be vexatious to my spirit, frankly.

There are new versions of trash formats coming up, apparently. Gary Barlow looking for boys to be in a musical, for instance. Arrgghh! And The Voice is back – this time on ITV. My reaction to the new series is SWF (so f***ing what!) – I won’t watch, whichever channel ‘poaches’ it.

Then there are programmes where adults simply behave like kids; whooping and cheering and having tantrums, such as on Celebrity Big Brother. The only celebrity I recognised on the current show is Angie Best, and only because I once took her for lunch to interview her, and found her to be quite charmless.

Of course, television is greatly expanded now, with masses of digital choice; catch-up stuff and all. But very little of that appeals to me. Certainly, Game of Thrones is a turn-off.

Sci-fi and the supernatural are genres particularly poorly served by contemporary TV. Doctor Who has lost the plot. Seriously, it’s plots are now incoherent. As for The OA on Netflix, it’s bonkers.

So, is there anything I will watch? Yes, I quite like Sky News, though not when Kay Burley is presenting or reporting.

I love Family Guy. Its creator, the American Seth MacFarlane, is a genius. I’m a big fan of the Gimme, Gimme, Gimme repeats. And I’m very much looking forward to watching the new series of Not Going Out. Otherwise, I’m very much in favour of going out.

'One of these nights ...'

Long drive home after arduous day at work. Arrival at my unspeakably messy flat in New Brighton. I needed a drink. Badly.

So I went across the road to Tallulah's bar, nice and quiet. Good. Large red wine, please. I was in a reflective mood.

But my meditations were drifting into sadness so I decided to do the crossword in my newspaper as a distraction. Tallulah's has very subdued lighting which changes colour slowly so reading the clues was difficult.

One clue particularly I was stuck on ... 12 down, "tilted window". Whatever could that be? I thought of "skylight", "louvered", even "Velux" but none of them fitted. So I pressed on with the rest of the clues.

My next glass of wine was in Hell's Waiting Room, which has better lighting. Still I couldn't find a solution to the clue "tilted window".

I stared and stared at it. Then I realised, my eyesight not being as good as it was, I had misread the clue ... 12 down "titled widow" is what it actually said. Straightaway I got the right word - "Dowager" and then went on to complete the whole puzzle.

The pub was quiet, but I didn't really want company at that point, so it was OK.

I started to mull over my so-called life - bit of a mistake that was.

I am solvent, just about; I am employed and not by a branch of the State (quite rare for a Merseyside resident); and I have known the love of three good women in my life so far ... one of those women being exceptional, extraordinary.

That's more than many men can claim. To know love is one of the things that makes a person truly human; to have lost love also does that, but not in a happy way. Sometimes we lose love and then find it again, which gives cause for hope.

Such thoughts were playing in my head as I drank red wine by myself on an empty stomach in Hell's Waiting Room last night - instead of going home for my supper like a sensible northern Englishman.

I left the pub briefly and went for a walk around the streets of central New Brighton. That didn't improve my mood. These are classic boulevards of broken dreams - for me, and for countless others.

Back to the pub, a third glass of red wine. I chatted briefly to Geoff, the nice ex-Army southerner, who invited me and to join him and his chum on a visit to nearby Peggy Gadfly's pub. I politely declined. I was not in the right frame of mind for a proper drinking session.

So I stayed in Hell's Waiting Room, calm but subdued, and wondered if I should join my pal Harry O'Potter at a pub up the road, just for a swift nightcap after the match. He'd gone there to watch the Gunners beat Barca. But I didn't really fancy the walk up the hill to where he was.

Then I started to text various friends in New Brighton to get them to come and join me at Hell's Waiting Room. The trouble is the pub is in a cool spot for mobile reception, so despite several attempts I just couldn't get the text messages sent.

No matter, I went home about 10.30pm, I think. It was too late for a proper supper so I just had tea and toast and watched an old episode of the sitcom "Not Going Out" on Dave. That cheered me up a bit. I stayed up for "Family Guy" but BBC3 were showing episodes they had shown only a few nights previously. I wish they wouldn't do that; it is unforgivably lazy scheduling.

Feeling not too bad, I went to bed at 11.50pm, said three Hail Mary's for causes dear to my heart, asked God and my Guardian Angel to look after me in any difficult times ahead, then I slept the sleep of the just...

... because I know, to use the words of Tupac Shakur, "God ain't finished with me yet."