Public Enemy Number One.

By now probably nearly everyone in the UK has seen him in some form. Arms held aloft in Trafalgar Square, surrounded by like minded chums, and screeching Bonnie Tyler's Total Eclipse Of The Heart down the phone to someone.

And for some strange reason, this rather unfortunate person has suddenly had the collective hate of an entire nation dumped on him like two tons of steaming elephant diarrhea, Everyone seems to have some form of comment to make about him and this advert. And none of it is very pleasant. In fact most of it revolves around the best form of physical harm you could do to him with a set of pliers, some skipping rope, and about 15 minutes of spare time.

Search Facebook and you will find numerous groups set up for the UK's new hero. Groups like: I hate the kid off the T-mobile Advert. I hate that cock off the T-mobile advert. I really want to punch that twat off the T-mobile advert. I would love to push out the eyes of the T-mobile kid and piss in his eye cavities (I may have made that last one up)

So what is it about this bloke that gets our collective backs up? What is it about his floppy fringed, gurning face, that sets the blood pressure rising, and the left leg twitching with an urge to put it through your plasma?

Perhaps its his age? For people of a certain age group, no one likes to see anybody young enjoying themselves. It reminds them to much of their own mortality, of their mortgage, their wife/husband, their mewling children, the bills, being skint, death looming over your shoulder, so having this all pressing down on you and to then be suddenly confronted by this care free youth, free to sing badly at the top of his voice and wear stupid clothes, possessing hair that you could only dream about, well, it would kind of make you a bit tetchy.

But for the rest of us? Well, that's quite simple. Just look at him. LOOK AT HIM! The guy is a simpering shell of a human being! He doesn't care. He's in Trafalgar Square, he's singing his heart out to a camp classic, he's got his posse of bitches around him. He be freestyling motherfunker.

Just pity the poor sod that he is on the phone to. Imagine that? After a hard days work, you sit yourself down on your sofa, your mobile rings and you have him wailing away on the other end. Its enough to make you contemplate that bottle of whiskey and the jar of sleeping pills you have in your medicine cabinet.

Bottom line is, he looks like he is having fun while the rest of us are clearly not in on the action. And whether the guy is an actor, or was just clearly caught up in the "moment", the guy is now left to suffer an eternity of being "that twat off the advert"

Good.

No one should be allowed to look like they are enjoying themselves that much and get away with it.

But worse of all, off the back of this advert, Bonnie Tyler has now decided to re-release Total Eclipse for the umpteenth time. For that there is no excuse. People must die.

If you want to check out the best version of this song, have a look at this.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lj-x9ygQEGA

And Now, The End Is Near......

And so, with all the finesse of a pissed up new divorcee at a house party, it seems that Big Brother will stay just that little bit longer on our screens until summer of next year.

This once colossal show has now become ridiculed and maligned to such an extent, that not even the Sun newspaper deems it worthy to report on it anymore.

I have often had a bit of a split personality relationship with reality TV. The programmes themselves I have never had a problem with, for I can see them for what they exactly are, expertly created hour long dramas in which the audience is manipulated into feeling exactly what the producers want them to. All the highs and lows, laughs, fights, and tears, are normally perfect entertainment to loose yourself in for an hour after work, and then forget about as soon as your head hits the pillow. Its the aftermath that really used to piss me off. Those fame hungry contestants are suddenly spewed out into the public eye, and the harsh glare of the photographers flashbulbs, and suddenly believe they are the second coming of Christ and you cant move for the fuckers. Magazines and newspapers would be filled with them, their lives, romances, and their slow decline as they slithered down the ladder of public conscious and they became figures of fun, ending up on tawdry game shows to be mocked and abused.

The four main reality TV shows here in the UK are Big Brother, I'm A Celebrity, Strictly Come Dancing, and The X Factor. Out of those four, two are populated entirely with minor league celebrities all hungry to promote their fading careers by either eating alligator cocks, or dragging some petrified dancer across the floor in what is supposed to be a passable rendition of a Viennese Waltz. So in many ways, as repulsive as some of these individuals were, you can understand their motives. They had been somewhere near the top before, and now ached to get back up there by whatever means possible. It kind of became somewhat of a paradox though when you had contestants of previous reality shows, going on celebrity reality shows to regain their own celebrity from being on reality TV shows. If you thought the Hadron Collider was going to end the world, try thinking about that for to long......

The other two were filled with the general public, and all the horrors that came with it. And believe me, there were many. And that is why I slowly gave up on Big Brother. If you have seen one cross dressing lesbian dwarf goat herder, well, you've seen them all. So I stopped watching a few years ago and never thought much about it.

But as this series started, and having way to much spare time on my hands due to circumstances out of my control, I decided to start watching once more. And through all the previous aggravations I had with the show, I forgot how much fun it could be if casted correctly. And they seemed to get a pretty good mix this year. True there were your stand out oddballs from the start, but on a whole they seemed like a pretty diverse bunch.

One thing in which I do think the show got right this year was to keep it fairly simple. Previous series had overcomplicated things too much by introducing far too many contestants, changing the whole format of the show round until it didn't resemble the programme we all knew. And don't get me started on the secret rooms. Each progressive series would have so many secret rooms, and chambers, the contestants would start scouring each room in the house looking for them, like some alcohol fueled version of Colditz. You almost expected one of them to turn the tap on in the bathroom, and a whole wall to suddenly spin round revealing an evil lair, Scooby Doo style.

So a fairly simplified show was now running, but what about the house mates?

My favourite all up to his eviction was Marcus, a creepy sex pest with all the social graces of a bear after receiving a baseball bat to the testicles. He swore and slimed his way into my affections like Brentford version of Billy Ray Cyrus. The show has died a bit since his departure.

My long standing nemesis on the show has to be Lisa. The leathery lesbian who is more intimidating than a chainsaw buzzing merrily inches from your eyeballs. Almost reptilian in appearance after nearly three months in the sun, her skin has almost become armour plated. If you watch her closely, you almost expect a foot long forked tongue to flick out of her mouth and snatch a fly out of the air as it buzzes past her head. Hateful woman.

Her partner in crime is David, who quite possibly is the ugliest man in the world. It is almost as though someone has stuck a candle under his chin, and the lower half of his face is slowly melting. Camp to almost being unlikable, all he does is agree with Lisa, and do what in his head appear to be amusing things, all the while checking out the cameras to make sure they are on him.

The house mate who has generated the most news from this series has to have been Noirin. Apparently old sailrs havve spoke tails of her for years, how she sits on rocks out on the ocean and lures unwary sailors to the doom with her beauty. Apparently to even look in her eyes makes you want to drop anything and be with her. After seemingly making every straight man in the house fall for her, she left in a cloud of broken hearts, followed by an American chap who resembled a retarded gorilla.

Amongst all the others who never really stood out for me, Siavash, Sophie, Rodrigo, etc You fiinally have Charlie, a man out of all this years contestants desperately wants to win the show more than anybody. He seems to have taken on the role of house joker, fun time Charlie, always liked by everyone with his crazy japes, when all you have to do is look in his eyes to see they are dead, like a dolls eyes. All he is concerned about is being crowned champion of a show that died a death a long, long time ago. Sometimes his persona does crack, and you get to see the rather nasty side of the man underneath. But knowing the general public, he will probably win the thing.

So this year has been pretty enjoyable. It is a shame that it has come to an end like this. A once regaled event TV show, reduced to a few obituaries and snide bylines in more reputable newspapers. But in its own way, the show was its own downfall. Rammed down our throats every year, its constant stream of not very nice people that were inescapable for six months were simply to much to take. To prolong the show it should have been transmitted every two years to keep it fresh.

Hows this for a new reality show? One house. Ten faded celebrities. Locks on every door. And one starving Bengal Tiger.

TV gold right there. But no one ever listens to me.

The Dark Prince Returns......

So, its finally back on our screens after what only seems like a few hours off it. Yes, the X Factor is back in my living room, along with more weeping and dead relatives than an afternoon with Dereck Acorah (and lets face it, if anyone can return Danni Minogue back to the grave she has obviously just risen from, then its our favourite camp medium/spiritualist/con merchant)

I do have a small confession to make though. For all the bile that I spew at the TV when this show starts, for all the splutters of indignation that I utter when its slickly edited, emotion tweaking, mind control begins to work its magic, I am safe in the knowledge that come 7pm the following Saturday, I, like millions of others, will happily plonk myself down on the sofa, awaiting the "Emotional roller coaster" to start once more.

It truly is TV manna from heaven. A fail safe concoction of just the right amount of tears and joy that will prompt the most jaded of housewives and hormonal teenagers to pick up their remotes and phones, spittle dribbling down their chins and with glazed eyes, press that red button, or text that all saving vote, and cause the Dark Lord Cowell's eyes to glow red as he views his latest bank statement.

For those who do not live in the UK, The X Factor is basically American Idol minus the glitz and glamour that the Americans do so well. To give ITV their dues, they do try to reproduce it, but sadly it is all so loud and quickly edited that it normally ends up resembling a form of all sensory torture that would make the CIA proud, but instead of revealing where the nearest insurgent camp is, it just makes you blindly pick up the phone and vote to save that nice bin man from Kent.

Bolstered by the success of his other care into the community show, Britain's Got A Bunch Of Mentalists, Cowell has decided to drop the closed auditions and have everything done in front of a live audience. This has obviously been a result of the two massive YouTube hits that have come about from the likes of Paul Potts and Susan Boyle, and he is now looking for the same from The X Factor.

Needless to say it doesn't work. The whole idea of the X Factor is stages. Small to motherfunking huge, neon lit, pyrotechnical wonders. So whats the point of this progression, if all you are doing is plonking these new wannabes in front of a few thousand from the word go? All you are basically doing is recreating the final stages, arse about face. The British public fear change. We like safe, warm, and cosy. Though judging by the viewing figures, this has in no way put anybody off watching the show, it just means like all successful formats, it has been tinkered with for no reason. Boo!

If the auditions have changed, then thankfully the contestants have not. Still the same mixture of pub singers, diva pretenders, and quite frankly, arse tightening scary folk who have obviously wandered in off the street because its warm, and suddenly find themselves on stage, microphone in hand, blinking in the harsh lights, and being ordered to sing in front of a few thousand baying people.

And the sob stories. Oh God, the sob stories. "I'm doing this for my dead goldfish Barry. I always knew he liked Christina Aguilera's Beautiful. He always used to swim that little bit faster in his bowl when I sang it to him."

The situation is always the same. Cue some sad looking person, sitting alone in the waiting room, staring wistfully into space whilst Coldplay's The Scientist plays mournfully in the background. Dermot O'Leary then sits down beside them, gets them to spill their guts about what ever horrible event has brought them here, then as the music reaches crescendo, he puts his arm round them for maximum blub shot material. Call me cynical.....Actually sod it, just call me cynical. I hate it.

And last but certainly not least........The judges.

Thank Christ on a bendy bus they have finally gotten rid of the old harridan, Sharon Osbourne. A blight on human society that will take eons to remove from our collective memories, much like Cilla Black. Louie Walsh is still there, like the evil Irish imp that he is, eyes lighting up like a Christmas tree when he spots some naive young blond talent to exploit. Danni Minogue is not too bad, though you do expect her to rip her dress off Hulk style the minute she is annoyed, and start throwing studio members around like Frisbee's. Cheryl Cole, ahhh lovely Cheryl Cole. The nations sweetheart. How this has happened, I don't know? It is quite some feat to go from a court room for allegedly assaulted black toilet attendant, to suddenly causing the collective granny population of Great Britain to spontaneously combust with unbridled joy. Eye candy she may be (and I actually have a friend who physically tries to insert himself in his TV whenever she is on it) all she is really there to do is look pretty and cry on cue. Something she manages to do quite admirably on both.

And then you have Mr Simon Cowell. Satan's mentor. Try as you might to hate the bloke though, it doesn't matter who you are, you cant help but have a small, sneaking respect for the fella. His is the life you want to live above all others. To be fettered on all continents like he is? Well, surely that takes some doing. But always watch his face. The moment he smiles upon seeing someone who at least sounds half decent on that stage, you can almost hear the massive KER-CHING! of the cash register going of in his mind like a mini atom bomb. He is the show, and God bless him for that.

So for now until Christmas, this is all the nation will be talking about and watching. For better or for worse, its a testament to how slickly it is made that it draws us all in, and wont spit us out till the final note has been warbled and that iTunes download has begun.