There’s a new programme on tv. Another competition. Songs ain’t enough. Voices ain’t enough. X-factor karaoke shit-heads is insufficient. Bakers. Chefs. Dancers. Britain’s got (very little) Talent. Maggot-eaters in Australia. Apprentices. Never enough.

So they’re doing one on artists. Painters. The next Chagall. A future Constable. Rembrandt for the Facebook generation.

I know this to be so because it came on after the news yesterday and I caught the title as I made a mad dash for the remote in case I happened to see even 4 seconds of such shite. Because that’s all it takes to get addicted. And I don’t need no more addictions. Having finally kicked the crack habit, ditched the crystal meth and watched the finale of last season’s Bake Off, I’ve been clean for 5 months, 2 weeks, 4 days.

What is so obsessive about competitions? Who really gives a shit that Ben’s pastry is a bit flat at the edges whereas J’Mal’s cover of Ain’t no mountain high enough was right out there and he gave it everything? Made it his own? I don’t care.

I’d rather they did away with all these talent competitions and just better spent the tv space by showing re-runs of Top Gun, Terminator I and II, The Graduate, Transformers (or absolutely anything else with Megan Fox), Kill Bill and the 1981 Cup Final Replay. Proper tv.

But competitions are the formula that tv companies see as easy and cheap ways to get viewers. Give them a cheap hit, an easy ‘high’ and they’ll come back begging for more, again and again. Like smoking skunk. And just like that, tv competitions can make you psychotic. Can lead to serious mental health issues.

Such as total fucking stupidity. Or perhaps you need that to watch them the first time. Which came first: the idiot or Celebrity Come Dancing on Ice?

Happy Monday

A xxxx