How many roads must a man walk down before he inevitably ends up on Come Dine With Me? Only one apparently, the one that leads to the doors of Channel 4's commissioning house where you sign away your dignity for the chance of winning a grand while four strangers judge your lasagna.
But don't forget the prize money, a thousand pounds tax free sterling. Well, a three course dinner for five will set you back about £200 on ingredients and wine if you're playing to win. Then what? You're £200 in the red just to enter the raffle. It's not a competition, it's an obligation.
Then what if you don't win? You've essentially paid to let four utterly pointless oxygen thieves talk about you behind your back then rifle through your sock drawer. Not for me, I'd rather eat a bag of chips in the park and enjoy the silence.
Switching over to BBC 1 at 7.15pm transported you to an alternate reality where the X Factor thought it might have a global conscience and so put KylieMinogue in charge instead of Simon 'sideways colon' Cowell. The Voice is a blindly judged singing contest where the contestants cover hit records so they sound like they should be playing in lifts or downmarket supermarkets.
Apart from Kylie 'sex appeal' Minogue, we've got Sam.I.Am from the Black Eyed Peas and Green Eggs and Ham, Ricky 'one egg or two' Wilson from the Kaiser Chefs and Tom Jones. No there won't be a joke for Tom, I hear his lawyers are by far the best of the four. Each week they sit facing the audience while a hopeful warbles away before slamming down a button and spinning the chair around in a "I've been expecting you Mr Bond" kind of way if they like what they hear.
I'm hoping the BBC will pick up my Write to Reply letter and install another button that triggers a shark tank trap door for the more tone deaf contestants. The footage of which could be accessed by pressing your red button.
This of course was just window dressing compared to the utter car crash that is ITV's Take Me Out airing at 8.40 tonight headed by Paddy McGuinness, Svengali of let the thing meet the other thing humour. Let the rampant misogyny meet the studio willing to exploit the social constructs of gender roles.
There's not much to say about this, a random man is shot out of a tube to be judged by thirty 2D interchangeable "popular" women. He will, in turn, judge them back by choosing to take one of them somewhere. Bahamas or Matalan car park, it's their choice. A set up that leaves me wondering if the cold barrel of my 9mm should meet my temple or the roof of my mouth for a cleaner kill.
