LCD TV: a guilty pleasure....

No we haven't bought a new LCD TV! It stands for 'lowest common denominator television'. This is the label I attach to programmes such as 'The Jeremy Kyle Show' and 'Trisha'. Now that I am at home more of the time I find myself sometimes watching these shows and thoroughly enjoying them. The presenters are actually quite skillful; Mr Kyle is a one-man 'good cop - bad cop' routine! But it is the guests who make this so highly watchable. They are just awful! Many can barely string sentences together, most find it impossible to actually listen or empathise with anyone else. My favourite aspect is when guests cannot even manage to coherently explain the issues that have led to them discussing their deepest, darkest problems with a national TV audience.....I actually laugh out loud at these incidents! (I know I shouldn't but no one can see me).

My favourite guests were two old brothers who claimed to hate each other and had not spoken for decades. It took Trisha half an hour to work out what the hell had caused this rift...neither of them seemed to know. A third brother then appeared and explained that they were not talking because one of them had been told that the other one had said something about him 35 years ago. However, it had not been said at all. They kissed and made up. It was really funny.....Trisha and most of the audience looked utterly confused and the brothers both looked like prize twits. I couldn't stop laughing at the sheer idiocy of their situation; if they had talked about it sooner then they needn't have spent most of their lives simmering away at each other.

Yes, watching these shows is a guilty pleasure. They are voyeuristic and they intrude, albeit with consent, into delicate areas of people's lives. But, well, it's just so damn funny.... I don't enjoy other people's pain but why, oh why, do they do it on TV?