Hamish McShanks

Ham Shanks Secret Diary w/e 4^th Feb 2007

You know the worst thing about being stuck at home with the flu? Other than the thumping headaches, nausea, cold sweats, wobbly legs and raging fever, which lets be honest aren’t much fun. But no, the worst thing is the television! Well not the television itself that would be harsh. The television is simply an innocent bystander, it’s just an electrical device that receives the incoming broadcast and dumbly converts it into the appropriate sound and picture for our enjoyment. Having a pop at the telly would be like shooting the messenger. It’s what’s contained in that incoming signal that does my napper in. The most banal drivel attempting to masquerade as quality programming that’s what dismays me.

Is it not bad enough that I feel like I’ve been locked in a sauna and beaten about the head and body with a large salmon, or another heavy fish of your choosing, pike would do for instance, or tuna if you’re feeling exotic. Anyway that’s not important, what matters is I’m clearly not well and don’t need to be further tortured when I finally manage to muster the strength to watch television. Those matchsticks don’t prop themselves under your eyelids you know! It takes a big effort to push them in, and then reach for that remote control, then press the button. And for what? Celebrity Tudor fecking Wedding…..

Honest to god I thought I was hallucinating. I feared I’d overdosed on night nurse and benylin. Just when I thought the depths of televisual ‘entertainment’ could plunge no further I fell into the abyss that is ‘Celebrity Tudor Wedding’ .. Why? Why? WHY?

Quick synopsis for you lucky ignorant people out there: Three celebrities are given the task of arranging a wedding for some gullible couple that have obviously been totally suckered by the prospect of a TV company splashing the cash for their wedding day. The celebs have to host a ‘Tudor style’ wedding using only 16^th century resources. Am I missing something? What does this prove? Other than the fact that television producers have clearly lost the plot or are all having a bet on who can get the biggest pile of excrement aired on national television. Whoever thought up this nuggety log is definitely in pole position.

‘Tudor’ wedding? Ok as far as I recall the Tudor period is best remembered for the return of the black death, always a popular guest at a wedding, a sequence of tyrannical Kings and Queens who changed their religions more often than their underwear. So you start the wedding with a priest and by the end of the service a ‘minister’ is pronouncing you man and wife as the remains of the now obsolete padre swing gently on a gibbet behind the pulpit. Open sewers provided a fragrant backdrop to proceedings, not that you’ll notice because having baths were frowned upon in Tudor times and you now use rat turds as deodorant. Your honeymoon would consist of not being flogged by your master for the day ‘gawrd bless ya kind sir, your too good to me sah’

But assuming for a minute I was deranged enough to want a Tudor wedding; why the feck would I need a celebrity to organise it for me? Hmmm? Would I not be better contacting a professional wedding planner rather than some washed up publicity junky?

Here’s a tip to all aspiring TV producers; Try engaging your cerebrum and having an original idea rather than flogging an existing one to death. Or at least have the balls to deal with these vapid celebrities whose egos require massaging every five minutes. When a z-list celeb next throws their rattles out of their pram and exclaims ‘Do you know who I am’ just reply ‘No? Have you checked your wallet for ID?’ or direct them to the local A&E department with a written note explaining their amnesia.

And don’t change the titles of programs to further shield these sad gits from reality. Celebrity fit club? I think you mean Celebrity fat bastard don’t you? I’m pretty sure few, if any, of the punters down the local weight watchers club can afford a private operation to fit a gastric band round their stomach in lieu of easing up on the pies. So why should Miss Diamond be excused having one? Now if they had fitted the band round her neck I might have watched. Seeing her face go purple and watching her slip slowly into unconsciousness would have been far more entertaining, and as a desiccating corpse she might have actually lost some weight.

I propose we have one final ‘Celebrity’ series. Not only will it hammer the death nail in to these god awful shows but if my idea is a winner it will help out our cash strapped aristocracy as well. These destitute knobs have been crying their eyes out since they were stopped from slaughtering small furry mammals in the name of sport. Some of the poor sods are down to their last five Bentley’s you know and that’s why I think we should have ‘Celebrity Hunting’

All the celebs will be held underground in a network of dark tunnels. Each week a celebrity will be voted out of the ‘Den’ by the public. Once evicted several men in brown coats and bowler hats will forcibly strip them of their current attire before dressing them in a fluffy red fox outfit. As they scream and plead for mercy Davina will throw their skid marked undies into a pen of foaming mouthed hounds to give them the scent.

The quavering celeb will then have to answer three questions which will determine the length of head start they get, five, ten or fifteen minutes. Once this has been determined Davina will start the hunt by blowing a horn and then slapping the unfortunate celebrity on the rump as they scamper off into the distance. If they make it to civilisation before the hounds rip them to shreds they get to live.

Queue Peter O’Sullevan with the commentary ‘And it’s Jade Goody on the outside, she’s galloping down the hill and approaching the first fence, oh my word she’s leapt it in one bound, she’s got quite a jump for a fat burd’ Pan across to the dogs as the heavy metal gate is opened and they all come streaming out ‘and there go the hounds’, ‘thirty five majestic animals, no sorry make that thirty four’ Camera focuses on the days first casualty, the poor mutt who caught Jades smalls square on the muzzle and is now convulsing helplessly on the floor. But there is no time to linger; the red jackets are now off in hot pursuit as Miss Goodies silhouette disappears over the horizon…..

Ok so perhaps I am mixing too many metaphors/medications, or not enough, who knows. But I predicted celebrity show jumping and it happened! You heard it here first just remember that!

Doei