No telly before tea-time

Nick Green,
Monday 4th September, 2006

“No telly until you’ve had your tea” – a stern command which echoes through many a household as soon as the kids return from school and turn the television on.

The reasoning behind this rule is obviously to make sure they do their homework instead of gazing aimlessly at the idiot box like semi-conscious junkies.

Pretty much all of us have experienced this domestic regulation at some point in our youthful, halcyon days.

For the past few months, however, children (and indeed anyone else lucky enough to be on their holidays) were able to watch TV before tea-time without any cause for concern.

Well… that’s not entirely accurate.

You see, I’ve just finished my degree and am currently “between jobs” – by that I mean I sit on my arse all day, doing sod all.

So, to pass the time I switch on my telly and watch some daytime programming.

And oh my God, it’s awful. It shouldn’t be, but it is.

You see, once I’ve awoken from my deep slumber, I like to peruse the channels I receive on my digital TV whilst munching happily on my Coco Pops. However, I think you’ll understand when I tell you that I soon lose my appetite for my cocoa puffed rice when I have to choose between watching a fifteen year old girl who’s had five kids and doesn’t know where three of them are, and having to endure what I can at best describe as a human walrus asking me if I’ve been injured at work.

There is a plethora of truly dreadful programmes that run throughout the day, and I can honestly say I’d rather be gang-probed by Noel Edmonds and that big-nosed idiot from The Mint who thinks he’s God than watch any of them. It’s that bad.

The Jeremy Kyle Show is just one of these dreadful programmes. Every show, we are mercilessly exposed to guests that are about as sharp as a sack of wet sewage and behave like monkeys on crack.

The thing is I can’t decide who’s worse on The Jeremy Kyle Show – the attention-seeking thickheads that guest on the programme or the eponymous host.

At least the guests are blatantly horrible; people who are so unequivocally shameless they don’t care that a whole nation is laughing at the fact that they can’t go four seconds without screaming at each other or calling one another “slag” or “bitch” or “bleeping bleep”.

Mr. Kyle is a beast of an entirely different order. Well, I say beast, I mean bastard. He is arrogant, over-bearing and rarely refrains from contorting his face in utter disgust whilst “listening” to the multitude of guests he has on. His sole objective on the show actually seems to be to rile up his guests until they snap, much in the same way a spoiled brat tugs on the family dog’s tail until it turns round and bites his spotty, little bastard face off.

Kyle’s constant aggressiveness is just too pantomimic to be taken sincerely. “You better change your ways, sonny, or you’ll regret it,” I’ve heard him say to some tearaway brat. Regret it? Seriously, what’s he going to do – kill him?

When the show eventually goes for a break, it’s no surprise that the advertisements don’t offer any solace.

Once Jeremy assures us that “he’ll be back soon”, we are then usually greeted by Phil Tufnell telling us that he “knows nuffink about loans”. Well, if that’s the case, why is he presenting an advert for a loan company? Once he sits down and takes a fake sip of his cup of water (well, it is non-alcoholic after all), we are told by a deliberately attractive woman how brilliant and amazing loans are. Nearly every advert that follows runs along the same lines, sadly.

This doesn’t bother me as much anymore because I’ve developed an immunity to these shameless attempts to con people into thinking they’re getting a good deal.

What good, old Phil really should be telling us is what he DOES know - that a large, unpleasant man in a black bomber jacket will visit your house when you can’t afford the repayments at a “competitive” rate.

Sadly, the dross doesn’t end there.

The endless barrage of antiques programming is bringing me closer to the metaphorical edge.

You have to admit, Bargain Hunt is now so dull and wooden it may as well be a library, and Cash in the Attic’s unbearable overuse of puns makes it sound like a fifty-two year old DJ.

I never used to feel nauseous when watching daytime programmes (except when I was off sick from school), but nowadays I’d rather cover my genitals in honey and dance naked round a beehive than turn my TV on before tea-time.

You see, even though we’ve all grown up and shaken off the shackles of parental regulations, the “no telly before tea-time” rule has never been more necessary.