Malnourished Goat-Faced Dikes #1

I'm not proud of this. In fact, frankly, there's a good deal of shame attached to it all. In hope of mitigation I have to put it to you that I was in Cornwall on holiday and it was raining quite a lot, but I did it. I watched a makeover programme on TV. I take a small degree of solace from the fact that I've never seen this particular programme before and would rather have my worst enemy take charge of tightening a razor-wire tourniquet round my scrotum than ever watch it again.

In this case it was hosted by a pair of visually interchangeable malnourished goat-faced dikes (hereinafter referred to as "GFD1" and "GFD2" because my lawyer advised me not to use their real names.) Believe me, no matter how civilised and even-tempered you believe yourself to be, if you had to spend more than half an hour in their company there would be no option but to pour a pint of beer over their expensively coiffured but noisily vacant heads.

The concept is that the GFDs, apparently famous for being Real Stylin' Bitches or something, take two Real Girls and do fashion stuff to them, which gives them greater confidence, total fulfilment, etc, etc. To start with of course there are more than two Real Girls, because on this kind of show the humilation can't start early enough and so to begin with the cannon fodder count is around ten. There are little cameos of all the RGs, giving them an opportunity to tell the camera why they should be chosen, and we pan back to the GFDs while they invent spurious reasons for their final selection (spurious becuse the only purpose of the selection process is to arrive at the RGs who are most likely to allow themselves to be humilated on national television without either slashing their wrists or punching one or other of the GFDs in the mouth.)

The entire group then stands in a room while the GFDs toy with them clumsily for a few minutes until the tension builds. The decision is announced, the Rejected Real Girls skulk off into the night to abuse their stunted children and get fat while the Chosen Real Girls do that winning thing which involves temporarily adopting the motor functions of a cerebral palsy victim at a Stevie Wonder gig while squealing "OhmyGod. OhmyGod. Oh. My. God. OhmyGod." The Almighty is unmoved by their supplication - after thirty seconds or so they're both still ugly. Hey ho.

The next phase is to visit the homes of the Chosen Real Girls, whose names escape me, thankfully, but Karen and Sharon will do. The GFDs examine the contents of the Girls' wardrobes, retching quietly as they use laundry tongs to drop the offending garments onto a blazing bonfire. Karen's stuff is boring but inoffensive, while Sharon's looks like it was chosen by her guide dog.

Then we meet the husbands. Karen's spouse is a colourless corporate git who is disappointed at what he perceives to be her lack of confidence at company picnics, or something like that. Now I don't even know the woman, but it's blindingly obvious to me that the poor hapless bitch's real problem at these events is the palpable wave of pity she feels coming off all the other wives when they realise that her husband is indeed the plum-faced robotic little twat standing beside her.

At first I think Sharon's husband is doing an impression of Norman Wisdom in one of those inexplicably revered but entirely fucking awful 1950s Ealing comedies where he has a speech problem, wears his cap sideways and gets hit on the head with a large shovel every five minutes. (For the benefit of young people or American visitors who don't know who Norman Wisdom is, think Jim Carrey at his most annoying and double it. Now stick a needle in your eye. There, you've got it.) Sharon's old man is for real, though - there's no mention of what he does for a living. I give it some thought, but apart from organ donor I just can't visualise a role for him.

It's quite apparent that a fashion makeover is completely futile. Call me sentimental if you like, but I begin to think that what would improve these girls' lives beyond recognition would be to take their husbands outside and put a bullet in the back of each pointed little head.

And we're still only halfway through the show! Boy am I having fun!